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How Far Back Can I Throw You?
Time Tunnel was a cheesy Irwin Allen science fiction show about a government project to facilitate time travel that ran for one season on ABC in the late 1960’s,* starring James Darren, Robert Colbert, and former Miss America Lee Meriwether. There was a lot of historical inaccuracies in episodes set in the past and a lot of people wrapped up in aluminum foil for shows set in the future. Of course, our protagonists seemed to be able to function highly anywhere and in any time.
If, by mechanical means or the power of angels, how far back into the past do you think you could be thrown back and still survive? Could you hunt for food and build shelter in the 1850’s? Would your children even know how to operate a phone in the 1940’s? Could you find work or would you create it? Good Lord, what would you do without the Internet!?
Send me back far enough and I could pass as a doctor, my 21st Century layman’s knowledge would surpass that of many professionals in the 19th. Put me at the dawn of network radio and I could become the stuff legends are made of.
*Many things ran for only one season on ABC in those days. The standard joke was that the best way to end the war in Vietnam was to put it on ABC – it would get cancelled in 13 weeks.
Published in Entertainment
So, again, to stop WWI, you would need to do something like ensuring the German Empire never formed, which would mean going back to the 1860’s or earlier and finding a way to derail it.
Perhaps one of the best ways would have been to go back to 1765 and treat George III for his porphyria. That would have had some interesting effects on Germany and the old Holy Roman Empire.
Under which tab are the candy recipes?
If no one else has mentioned it you might like “Making History,” by Stephen Fry. He is the actor who played Jeeves in the Jeeves and Wooster show, and is a very good writer.
The book describes a time traveller who goes back to World War I to kill the young Hitler, with surprising consequences.
Thank you. I hope you enjoy both that are already out. I’m of a mind that the second is more fun, since the first volume was in many ways a set-up for what comes later. And, I hope to have the next three out soon.
The tab just beyond Information.
For the last time, nobody kills Hitler. He is too integral to the invention of the Time Machine. If you kill Hitler, it will just wipe our timeline out.
Just Beyond Information would be a great name for a book.
Thanks. I may steal that.
I don’t think assassinating Wilhelm II would have averted WWI, as Russia was as guilty of provoking it as was Austria-Hungary. As others have observed, the powder keg was there.
Three other possibilities suggest themselves:
Any one of these would have led Germany on a different path, and likely allowed the Anglo-German alliance of the 19th century to continue into the 20th. In turn, it would have forced France into a less belligerent policy against Germany, which would have restrained Russian ambitions and aggressiveness. (Without France as a strong ally they would have pulled in their horns.)
My favored option is (2) which would be the hardest to achieve. (3) would have been the least predictable, but potentially the most rewarding. (1) would be the easiest, but least attractive from a moral standpoint.
Seawriter
*Many things ran for only one season on ABC in those days. The standard joke was that the best way to end the war in Vietnam was to put it on ABC – it would get cancelled in 13 weeks.
Garrison’s Gorillas.
I’d go back in time to the 11th grade, and try to score with that one gal that made my jaw drop when she walked into my 11th grade English class the first day of school . . .
Sorry, but I was a hormone-infused teenager at the time.
“But Stad, you’re a mature, married adult with three grown daughters.”
Yeah, I know, but time travel is a fantasy, so I might as well fantasize about what I’d do with it.
Oh yeah, and buy stock in Xerox . . . Apple . . . Microsoft . . . you know what I mean.
You’ll stay the same age when you time travel, so you’ll probably get arrested.
Killing Willie would have removed a handicap. One of his own generals allegedly said “Wilhelm couldn’t lead two soldiers over a ditch.”
(Killing Willie would make a pretty good title for the time-travel comedy.)
For that you go back to the Battle of Teutoburger Wald and stop Arminius from wiping out Publius Quinctilius Varus and his legions.
Rome goes on to conquer Germany east of the Rhine, giving them a thicker veneer of civilization than they ended up getting. Maybe the Western Empire comes in for a softer landing than it did historically, and the Dark Ages never get any worse than a little murky.
Not really. Despite Frederick the Great and his military reputation, Prussia was not known for its military prowess in the middle of the 19th century. They were then viewed by most of Europe with sort of the same attitude the French Army is viewed by Americans today. One of the reasons Napoleon III got baited into attacking Prussia in 1870 was he thought the battle-hardened French Army would steamroll Prussia the same way Napoleon did back in 1806, 1807, and 1809. By mid-century the stereotypical Prussian wasn’t the goose-stepping officer, it was the pipe-smoking professor.
Bismarck changed that, but if Frederick IV ruled for a decade or two, Prussia would likely become a liberal (in the classical sense of liberal, not the 20th-century Progressive liberal) republic.
Besides, the key to WWI was not German militarism so much as it was the dissolution of the Anglo-German alliance in the 1890s, and its replacement with a Anglo-French alliance. That is what allowed Russia to pick fights with Austria in the first decades of the 20th century. Russia had been a French ally after the Franco-Prussian War, but France required elimination of the English threat.
Seawriter
I love listening in on historical discussions between people who are obviously a lot more knowledgeable on the subject that I. Seriously, I do.
I just felt proud of myself for recognizing the Publius Quinctilius Varus reference. Watching I, Claudius pays off again!!
For example, what if Hitler had an evil twin?
I loved that show! Painless way to learn history.
Meh. Napoleon III put too much faith in the superiority of the Chasssepot rifle over the Dreyse needle gun. It was superior in terms of range, but Prussian artillery had a significant edge on French artillery and German tactics kept the French off balance from the opening shot. The Prussians had had more recent experience than the French too. First they beat the Danes, then the Austrians.
Varo, Varo, where are my legions!
Napoleon III had no reason to think of his armies as superior to the German. As to battle-hardened, what could that possibly mean? What wars did they fight after 1815? That was their grandads! Is this supposed to mean minor fights in Italy? The fighting in the Crimea in 1853? I guess that’s not nothing, but how is it any more impressive thant the Prussian army in 1864 in Denmark & 1866 in Austria?
Exactly!
One word: anesthesia
You discount the ability of a long-time leader for self-delusion. Yes, Napoleon III thought his army was superior to Prussia’s. As far as he was concerned those “minor wars” in Italy were significant, as was were the French conquests in North Africa. As for Germany’s victories? Pah! One was over Denmark and the other against Austria – the same Austria France kept beating like a drum. “Other nations fight, happy Austria marries.”
All of this looks silly in retrospect, but hindsight is always 20-20. It was based on mid-nineteenth century perceptions of Prussia, not mid-twentieth. It was not until after the Prussian victory in 1871 the modern view of militarized Prussia emerged, and – had Wilhelm I died in his 70s rather than at 90 – could easily been changed by his classically-liberal heir Frederick IV.
Seawriter
Seawriter: I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but Kaiser Bill’s great-grandson, Philip Kyril von Preussen, is a Lutheran Pastor and politically active SoCon here in Germany.
But to the question E.J. poses: Assuming I can decide when I leave, I would go back to late 12th Century Germany for about a month- just long enough to get a good ear for Middle High German as it was spoken. I might even try to meet my pseudonymsake in person. If I could go twice for the same period, I would spend the second trip in late 12th Century Iceland for the purpose of getting a good ear for Old Norse from native speakers. That would put an end to any questions about the accuracy or lack thereof in our reconstructed pronunciations.
His brother Henry was arguably better. Old Fritz just had luck, like the timing when Pyotr III ascended the Russian throne.
Then everyone always had luck. Napoleon famously said, when he reached Sans Souci, that if the man had been alive he would not be there. But in the age of democracy, one merely dismisses great commanders as lucky. It’s a pity-
No, no. I agree that Old Fritz was good. But I think Henry was better. I also think that part of Fritz’ reputation rests on that luck. If Yelizaveta had not died at that time, Old Fritz, Prussia, and the Electorate of Brandenburg would have been in a world of hurt. What would his reputation have been had the Russians over-run his kingdom?
He cannot have been good if you assume the assumption of your hypothetical. The Russians would have been led by someone good in your fantasy.
As for ‘part of the reputation’, that’s a meaningless statement until you think through whether that applies of necessity to all reputations & start the work of figuring out which part it is. This might mean, the guy was a lucky bum. It might mean, he was god-like! That’s quite a spread…
As for the other guy being better: How can you compare except by fantasies? What is the ground of the judgment?