Looking back over the last century or so, I was more than a little amazed to find myself forming the opinion that there is in fact one man responsible for the train wreck that lasted from 1914 til the present.
That man was Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian who - with the help of his scabby little co-conspirators - killed Archduke Ferdinand over some stupid nationalist nonsense, and started the non-stop arms races and bloodbaths that have characterized the years since.
I realize, of course, that the political situation was a powder keg just waiting for a spark...But so was the cold war, and as I look around, there don't seem to be many radioactive craters. Therefore, it is possible to squeak through these "powder keg" eras without the "inevitable" spark. In a thousand alternate realities, World War I probably would have happened anyway, had Princip's mother thrown him down the well as an infant, but this wasn't by any means certain.
Therefore, I'm putting the blame on him and his pals.
Can you even imagine what the world would have been like with no WWI? Without WWI, there wouldn't have been a WWII, and Hitler would have starved to death in an obscure artist's garret. The Russian revolution probably would have failed, almost certainly the Chinese revolution as well. The Ottoman Empire would still exist, so the Middle East wouldn't be so nutty. Nukes would have taken decades more to develop, as would space travel...though the motives for the space race would have been different, and maybe we'd have actually accomplished something. The entire national psychology of the USA and the UK would be vastly different, in a positive way.
So, here's to you, Gavrilo, you psychotic little fucking runt. You ruined the future. Way to go.
Or Kill Me.
Excellent Observation.
I wonder what would have happened with American isolationism without the two big wars that forced us to go play with others?
Also, without WWII there would have been no nation of Israel, which in and of itself may have completely rewritten huge chunks of history and the military industrial complex in the US would have had no opportunity to grow as it did. However, the impact of the Great Depression might have been worse and the New Deal may never have happened as FDR might have been voted out after his first term which might have some very interesting repercussions in US social services.
Damn Rev. I think you nailed this guy. :)
I really liked this one.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on December 08, 2010, 06:20:52 PM
I really liked this one.
Thanks. This is what Horrorology is supposed to be all about...Not new horrors to toss in peoples' faces (we have Aneristic Delusions and Science and Techmology boards for that), but rather the study of
how and why things are so horrible.
Love this and I think you're mostly right (I think the Ottomans would have given up the ghost anyway). I actually have a story on the back boiler with some of this as part of it, but I hadn't thought about Gavrilo. Something to think about.
Quote from: Hover Cat on December 08, 2010, 06:42:39 PM
Love this and I think you're mostly right (I think the Ottomans would have given up the ghost anyway). I actually have a story on the back boiler with some of this as part of it, but I hadn't thought about Gavrilo. Something to think about.
I'm working the little shit into a graphic novel I'm going to be doing with Liam.
Very nice. Will we get to see some of it?
Quote from: Hover Cat on December 08, 2010, 06:46:02 PM
Very nice. Will we get to see some of it?
We'll probably post an "ashcan" here, but if you want to see it, it will be going cheap in electronic format.
Fuck printers. Fuck their thieving, imcompetence in their ear.
If I only knew one century of history extremely well, it should be the 20th century. Jesus wept Roger, good post. It makes me very heavy hearted to have glimpsed a world that had nice things.
As an aside, having spent the last few days rewatching the lotr movies I can't help but hear Theoden saying, 'So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?'
American isolationism was...a good thing. Wasn't it? We might have been as fortunate as Sweden.
The world would probably still be convinced we were rowdy frat boys, but possibly.
I didn't have much hope for that. I'd settle for not having a clinically antisocial government.
Fucking Serbians! :argh!:
I liked this very much.
Do you suppose walmart would have existed if things had gone another way? What about rascal scooters?
This is awesome!!! I really like it.
Quote from: Sigmatic on December 08, 2010, 06:58:40 PM
If I only knew one century of history extremely well, it should be the 20th century. Jesus wept Roger, good post. It makes me very heavy hearted to have glimpsed a world that had nice things.
As an aside, having spent the last few days rewatching the lotr movies I can't help but hear Theoden saying, 'So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?'
American isolationism was...a good thing. Wasn't it? We might have been as fortunate as Sweden.
American isolationism was a
mood, not a policy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War
QuoteSmith instructed Major Littleton Waller, commanding officer of a battalion of 315 US Marines assigned to bolster his forces in Samar, regarding the conduct of pacification:
"I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States." General Jacob H. Smith said.
Since it was a popular belief among the Americans serving in the Philippines that native males were born with bolos in their hands, Major Littleton "Tony" Waller asked "I would like to know the limit of age to respect, sir?."
"Ten years," Smith said.
"Persons of ten years and older are those designated as being capable of bearing arms?"
"Yes." Smith confirmed his instructions a second time.
Nice piece, but what I wonder is who would have filled his shoes if he had been tossed down that well.
Quote from: Charley Brown on December 08, 2010, 07:30:16 PM
Nice piece, but what I wonder is who would have filled his shoes if he had been tossed down that well.
That's my point. Maybe someone would have, maybe someone wouldn't. We made it through the cold war without what seemed to be - at the time - the inevitable spark.
But Princip DID provide that spark...An alternate spark is an assumption, the fact that he DID is a fact.
I'll give you the fact about the cold war with a caveat. No one would have won that one if it had gotten real. A very potential spark was the Cuban missle crisis.
Great piece, Rev. :D
Quote from: Charley Brown on December 08, 2010, 08:08:17 PM
I'll give you the fact about the cold war with a caveat. No one would have won that one if it had gotten real. A very potential spark was the Cuban missle crisis.
Given the effects of WW I and WW II... did anyone really win either of those?
Quote from: Ratatosk on December 08, 2010, 08:39:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on December 08, 2010, 08:08:17 PM
I'll give you the fact about the cold war with a caveat. No one would have won that one if it had gotten real. A very potential spark was the Cuban missle crisis.
Given the effects of WW I and WW II... did anyone really win either of those?
Are you being forced to speak German or Japanese today?
Are they being forced to speak English?
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on December 08, 2010, 08:45:59 PM
Are they being forced to speak English?
Actually.......
Riding the crest of globalization and technology, English dominates the world as no language ever has, and some linguists are now saying it may never be dethroned as the king of languages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/world/asia/09iht-englede.1.5198685.html
I'm pretty sure neither of us meant it like that...
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on December 08, 2010, 08:49:06 PM
I'm pretty sure neither of us meant it like that...
You are correct. :)
The difference is that we weren't out to conquer the world, we were out to prevent it from being conquered.
Quote from: Charley Brown on December 08, 2010, 08:40:55 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on December 08, 2010, 08:39:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on December 08, 2010, 08:08:17 PM
I'll give you the fact about the cold war with a caveat. No one would have won that one if it had gotten real. A very potential spark was the Cuban missle crisis.
Given the effects of WW I and WW II... did anyone really win either of those?
Are you being forced to speak German or Japanese today?
Had either of those nations planned on taking over our country and changing our language? I wasn't aware that it was the goal of either Hitler or Hirohito...
However, as Roger points out so well, quite a bit of the problems we face now are due to those wars... affecting the "winners" as much as the "losers". We could argue pretty easily that 'WINNING' WWI directly led to WWII and between the two wars set up the Russian and Chinese revolutions, which of course directly contributed to Korea and Vietnam...
Causes and Effects.
We may have been victorious from a military perspective... we may have won battles and forced the enemy to stop shooting at us... but the effects half a century later don't seem to say "Win" to me.
Quote from: Ratatosk on December 08, 2010, 08:39:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on December 08, 2010, 08:08:17 PM
I'll give you the fact about the cold war with a caveat. No one would have won that one if it had gotten real. A very potential spark was the Cuban missle crisis.
Given the effects of WW I and WW II... did anyone really win either of those?
Yes.
Corpse-eating rats won both wars.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on December 08, 2010, 10:02:45 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on December 08, 2010, 08:39:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on December 08, 2010, 08:08:17 PM
I'll give you the fact about the cold war with a caveat. No one would have won that one if it had gotten real. A very potential spark was the Cuban missle crisis.
Given the effects of WW I and WW II... did anyone really win either of those?
Yes.
Corpse-eating rats won both wars.
I'll damn sure agree with this.
When you think of the bizarre and frankly, twisted set of events that led to the assassination, It beggars belief how such a fucked up day ever got past the reality censors at all. First, this pissant little group of Slavic independence "fighters" no-one had ever heard of, decide to kill the Duke. Because, with FF out of the way, it stood to reason they would be given their autonomy, and their lands back. (Duh!) So they decide to take him out, with a hand grenade. But the fuckwitted grenade tossing Serb, Cabrinovic, didn't know the grenade had a ten second fuse on it. (Either that or he couldn't count up to ten) So it took out the car behind FF instead. And a fair few bystanders as well. The would be assassins melted away in the ensuing chaos. Except for Cabrinovic. In a fit of failure, he then tries to kill himself. With Cyanide. And failed that too. So he drowned himself. In a ditch.
Meanwhile FF, (never one to take a hint) tells his driver he wants to visit the poor unfortunates injured in the grenade blast at the hospital they had been taken to, but unfortunately the driver didn't have a fucking clue where he was going, so they drove around Sarajevo for a bit, looking for the Hospital. As luck would have it, he drove right past the Cafe where one of the foiled fuckwits of the Black Hand Gang, Gavrilo Princip, was commiserating with a traditional Serbian Ploughman's lunch. (A bottle of rancid Riesling, and half a grilled turnip) Princip looks up, thinks "Fuck me, there's the Duke again" leaps to his feet, and shot him dead with his pistol.
That's a bit like if Lee Harvey Oswald really did kill Kennedy, but by taking a shot from the school book repository, missing, then running down all those stairs, and in the panic, finding a nice quiet spot on the grassy knoll, lighting a cigarette (A Lucky Strike, of course) to steady his hand, and then plugging him with a well executed headshot. Then running off to hide. In the school book repository.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on December 08, 2010, 07:33:46 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on December 08, 2010, 07:30:16 PM
Nice piece, but what I wonder is who would have filled his shoes if he had been tossed down that well.
That's my point. Maybe someone would have, maybe someone wouldn't. We made it through the cold war without what seemed to be - at the time - the inevitable spark.
But Princip DID provide that spark...An alternate spark is an assumption, the fact that he DID is a fact.
When I was in my senior year at high school (2000, got kept back for lack of work rather than lack of understanding) I went to a new school (see previous parenthesis), and one of the questions we got, since we were wrapping up the century, was, who was the most influential person of the 20th century. Hitler was overwhelmingly voted as most influential. I was the only person to suggest Francis Ferdinand (One of the faculty responded, "I could see that"). All of them overlooked the fact that if there was no WWI there is no Hitler. None. Fucking shortsightedness, even in retrospect.
Probably will have to start up a new thread in Horrorology but you're right. That assassination was the defining moment of the 20th Century (and by proxy the 21st and 22nd...) And he wasn't even anything to write home about. It was all about the alliances. The bad shit that lasts comes out of nowhere.