Bill Fawcett - You Did What?: Mad Plans and Incredible Mistakes

TROY, THE BRONZE AGE

BRITAIN, A.D. 43

ROME, A.D. 300

ENGLAND, TWELFTH CENTURY

ROME, A.D. 1244

HUNGARY, 1514

ENGLAND, 1535

NETHERLANDS, 1636

AMERICA, 17531754

PARIS, 1794

EUROPE, 1796

GERMANY, 1858

WEEHAWKEN, NEW JERSEY, 1804

RUSSIA, 1812

WATERLOO, 1815

WASHINGTON, D.C., 1840

AUSTRALIA, 1859

ANTIETAM, 1862

KANSAS AND MISSOURI, 1863

OFF THE CONFEDERATE COASTLINE, 1864

PANAMA, 1881

WASHINGTON, 1896

THE MID-ATLANTIC, 1912

AUTHORS, EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME

GALVESTON, TEXAS, 1900

CHINA, 1900

AUSTRALIA, 1950

AFRICA

ENGLAND, 1914

BOSTON, 1920

GERMANY, 1897

NEW YORK CITY, 1937

UNITED STATES, 1950 ON (AND ON, AND ON)

RUSSIA, 19371942

NEW YORK, 1953

THE VATICAN, 1958

CALIFORNIA, 1966

TV LAND: FROM 1970 TO NEXT SEASON

HOLLYWOOD, 1976

NEW YORK /OAKLAND NFL GAME, 1968

WASHINGTON, D.C., 1971

WASHINGTON, D.C., 1974

UNITED STATES, 1976

IRAN, 1979

DONEGAL BAY, IRELAND, 1979

HOLLYWOOD, 1980S90S

UNITED STATES, 1985

So many mistakes, so few pages. This book should make you feel good, assuming you are not one of the powerful and famous. If you are rich and famous, get back to being important. This book is for the rest of us. It is for us to enjoy just how incredibly, amazingly, and spectacularly wrong those with great power can be. We have of course the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, though in many cases they really should have known better. One of the less publicized business-school rules of thumb is that a successful top executive is right about 45 percent of the time. The good ones pick the right 45 percent of the decisions to be right about. Makes you shudder to think what a failures percentage is. Hmmm, that explains a lot about the government. But in some cases one or more decisions made by those who control the fate of others, often nations, has a totally unexpected (to Mr. Important at least) and often negative result.

So here is a collection of massive gaffes, really serious stupidities, and other similar bad mistakes made by those who were supposed to know better. It is perfectly acceptable to feel a bit superior to them as you read these pages. Being typical (read marginally impoverished and definitely not important) authors, those of us writing for this book share that feeling of second-guessed superiority, or at least share the amusement we all enjoy when someone important does a pratfall.

There were just as many really horrible decisions not covered in this book. For example, Louis XVIs decision to support the revolt of the British Colonies in America. This worked out well for what soon became the United States of America but not so well for him. The ideas fostered in the newly formed United States of America, or inspired by European philosophers, led directly to the French Revolution and cost Louis XVI his head, literally. Then there was the U.S. Armys decision to line up six divisions and have them watch from a few miles away an atomic bomb going off. Lets not forget the engineer who decided to use that nice, shiny, and flammable aluminum paint on the zeppelin Hindenburg. It also hurt to not include a few great ideas that were the cutting edge of past medical science: bleeding, phrenology, and skeletal diagnosis. But alas those must wait (are you listening, editor?) for yet another sequel. Perhaps the best and worst thing about doing books about other peoples blunders is that it appears we will never run out of material. So here they are to entertain you with their most massive mistakes: the rich, the important, the famous, and the occasionally pompous. Enjoy.

It takes a lot of effort to make a series of mistakes so great that not only do they destroy your entire civilization but also become the stuff that makes one of the great epics of all times.

THE TERRIBLE CHOICES OF THE TROJAN WAR
TROY, THE BRONZE AGE

Brian M. Thomsen

Some of the greatest stories in history have their basis in a combination of actual events and legends, where the blurring of the line between the two creates a sense of truly epic storytelling and of heroes larger than life who are nonetheless men (centaurs and gods excluded, of course).

The factual history is unclear. Still, it took some pigheaded stupidity and shortsighted self-indulgence to effectively destroy the leading city of its day.

We know that indeed there was a city named Troy (also known as Ilium), believed to be located on a hill now called Hisarlik in the northwest reaches of Anatolia. However, this might not have been the location of the Troy as depicted in the chronicles of the Trojan War. Archaeological research has chosen a better candidate namely, Troy VI, which was destroyed in 1270 given the following facts: there are records that show it was in contact with Greece during the hypothetical period of the conflict, Greece was a flourishing yet warlike civilization at the time, and it included as part of its realm Mycenae and other locales actually mentioned in the Homeric records (which is also mentioned in various contemporary corroborating Hittite records).

Thus, when it comes to the facts, we know that there was a city of Troy (which may or may not have been located where we thought it was) and that sometime during the classical age a war took place there, possibly over a dispute concerning control of trade through the Dardanelles.

But of course there is much more to the story. A lyrical chronicle of this great war based in mythology and reportage has been passed down by the great blind bard Homer in his epic ballads The Iliad and The Odyssey.

According to Homer, the Trojan War broke out when the Prince of Troy, Paris, abducted the wife of Menelaus of Sparta, the so-called Helen of Troy, whose face could launch a thousand ships.

Bad Idea #1: Never make off with the wife of a guy who has the pull to call on an entire army to get her back.

Menelaus persuaded his brother Agamemnon to amass an army against Troy to bring his wife back. This army included such great heroes as wily Odysseus, Nestor, and Achilles, whose inclusion as part of the martial force leads us to

Bad Idea #2: Be careful what you choose; you will have to live (even after death) with the consequences.

According to legend and myth, the gods had offered Achilles (he of the legendary heel) a choice he could live a long but ordinary life or he could live a short but heroic - unto - legend - worthy life. He chose the latter, and indeed acquitted himself exceptionally during the siege of Troy, and as a result died quite heroically in battle. It is accurate to note that he eventually had second thoughts on this choice as revealed in a passage of The Odyssey, where he is encountered in the Land of the Dead and pretty much admits his regrets.

Meanwhile, back at the war

The battle rages for nine years as the Trojans had more than a few heroes of their own (such as Hector and his sons). Moreover, the city itself was well fortified with an enclosing wall that proved to be impenetrable from forces on the outside. As a result, after much hooting and hollering and laying to waste of the surrounding area, when all was said and done the Trojans and Helen were still safe and snug behind their city wall.