fpw Wrote:I've always wondered, if someone offed Gavrilo Princip in 1914 before he assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, would WWI have been prevented?hmm....sounds like a book.
I doubt it--Europe was seething at the time--but it has intreesting remifications.
Prevent WWI and you prevent WWII (which was a direct result of the staggering reparations saddled on Germany at Versailles).
And it's possible with Eurrope at peace in the late teens, the Bolshevik revolution might have been put down with the help of Russia's allies.
What a different world this would be...how many millions and millions of lives would have been saved.
fpw Wrote:I've always wondered, if someone offed Gavrilo Princip in 1914 before he assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, would WWI have been prevented?
I doubt it--Europe was seething at the time--but it has intreesting remifications.
Prevent WWI and you prevent WWII (which was a direct result of the staggering reparations saddled on Germany at Versailles).
And it's possible with Eurrope at peace in the late teens, the Bolshevik revolution might have been put down with the help of Russia's allies.
What a different world this would be...how many millions and millions of lives would have been saved.
Bluesman Mike Lindner Wrote:Oh. Gotcha. What I meant is, if we strive for the perfect, we can lose sight of what we were trying to achieve--something workable, something functional. Give you a music metaphor--in 1966, Brian Wilson vowed to make a =perfect= rock album. He wrote wonderful music for the album, but he wasn't satisfied. No sir, he was not. He tinkered and obsessed and tinkered some more. Until he lost the thread. And the album (SMILE) never came out. He lost track. The perfect became the enemy of the good.
Biggles Wrote:(Semi)-seriously: IF you had a time machine, whom would you go back in time to "bust a cap on"?
You guys first.
Ken Valentine Wrote:From a strictly American standpoint, it would have to be Abraham Lincoln.But someone DID pop a cap into Lincoln (probably not soon enough for you, huh? ).
(If I'm limited to just one.)
Ken V.
fpw Wrote:I've always wondered, if someone offed Gavrilo Princip in 1914 before he assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, would WWI have been prevented?
I doubt it--Europe was seething at the time--but it has intreesting remifications.
Quote:Prevent WWI and you prevent WWII (which was a direct result of the staggering reparations saddled on Germany at Versailles).
Quote:And it's possible with Eurrope at peace in the late teens, the Bolshevik revolution might have been put down with the help of Russia's allies.
What a different world this would be...how many millions and millions of lives would have been saved.
jimbow8 Wrote:But someone DID pop a cap into Lincoln (probably not soon enough for you, huh? ).
Does this make J.W. Booth a personal "hero" of yours?
Ken Valentine Wrote:I agree. If however you could have somehow prevented Austria-Hungary from "annexing" Serbia . . . .
It would also have kept England and France out of the Middle East which would have prevented the problems we have today.
On the other hand, Turkey would possibly have kept posession of the oil-rich middle-east, which certainly would have changed a lot of things.
Imagine no WWI, no WWII, and Turkey being a fabulously wealthy country.
England and France helping to squash Bolshevism . . . very interesting. That would have meant no Socialist take-over of England, France, and the U.S.. But it might also mean that Russia would still try to take over Darien and Port Arthur in order to get a warm water port . . . which would still be seen as a threat to/by Japan. (Unless they would have dried to buy access to one.)
Then again, it would also mean no Communist China, no Korean War, and no Vietnam.
(I would make an off-the-cuff estimate that somewhere near 80 million lives would have been saved.)
Also, what would the world be like, if all the money, effort, and resources, that were spent to kill people and blow things up -- and rebuild them afterwards -- had been used instead to build newhouses, cars, and agricultural equipment . . . all the necessities and luxuries of life.
(sigh) Governments! :mad:
Ken V.
Biggles Wrote:I think besides Alexander Hamilton, I'd bust a cap on Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin at a minimum. I've always believed that the only good commie is a dead commie, and I've never been convinced otherwise.
Biggles Wrote:Hey! Who told you about my time machine?