The Greatest Person of the Twentieth Century

[silentstriker]

Yeah, but I’m allergic to it

Fake news?

 

[Burgey]

Certainly not.

 

[silentstriker]

Certainly not.

The majority of the time, penicillin allergy is fake news. At least in the US where we will charge you tens of thousands for allergy testing. Can't speak to your crazy country with free healthcare.

 

[Burgey]

Was diagnosed with it as an infant so I can’t really comment. I took it once by error and broke out in a crazy sort of heated up skin condition for a bit.

If I’m going to have an allergy would prefer it to be that than nuts or some other food tbh.

Fmd I can’t recall those being around when I was a kid, but now you can’t send your own kid to school with a peanut butter sandwich in case Jayyden deckdes to nick it and suffocates after the merest whiff.

 

[Spark]

Alfred von Schlieffen deserves a shout-out for being hugely influential on the course of the 20th century and usually not talked about in those terms

 

[Burgey]

Yeah that's a good shout as well.

 

[harsh.ag]

 

[Gnske]

Alfred von Schlieffen deserves a shout-out for being hugely influential on the course of the 20th century and usually not talked about in those terms

Come on, pick the Kraut with the most influential plan.

He's like the Jono Boult to Hitler's Trent Boult.

 

[Teja.]

Bismarck?

 

[marc71178]

Look, if you want someone who's universally loved, then you'll be looking forever.

Darren Sammy?

 

[smalishah84]

Alfred von Schlieffen deserves a shout-out for being hugely influential on the course of the 20th century and usually not talked about in those terms

you mean failure in terms of failed plans? That's all I know of the man tbf.

 

[Spark]

you mean failure in terms of failed plans? That's all I know of the man tbf.

It was more than that.

This is a particular argument that I have that I'm not sure is necessary the mainstream view amongst historians but: I think it's fairly self-evident that WW1 was the the defining event of the 20th century in terms of breaking apart the "old" world at setting the stage for the truly "modern" one. So you'll often hear people say that the most randomly influential bloke in the 20th century was Gavrilo Princip and the serendipitous wrong turn that took poor ol' Franz's car in front of him and then stalled. But I disagree; I think A-H's behaviour before, during, and after the August Crisis demonstrates that they were absolutely desperate for any sort of pretext to crush Serbia and would have found one eventually (maybe even if the assassination had failed it would have gone ahead), such was the mood for war in the General Staff. So the real lynchpin is what gave A-H the confidence that they could waltz in and smash Serbia despite the fact that it would inevitably provoke a response from Russia. So they could only do so with Germany's backing, but Germany's backing was contingent on the German General Staff's belief that they could not just win a war against both France and Russia but they had to commit absolutely to such a war. The Schlieffen Plan was what gave them such confidence, and also primed the pumps for the sense of imminent crisis and "we must commit" that drove decision-making throughout August 1914 due to its extremely detailed scheduling and timetables with all sorts of deadlines that had to be hit to achieve its goal of crushing France before Russia mobilised. Ofc that had all gone out the window before the end of the month.

 

[smalishah84]

It was more than that.

This is a particular argument that I have that I'm not sure is necessary the mainstream view amongst historians but: I think it's fairly self-evident that WW1 was the the defining event of the 20th century in terms of breaking apart the "old" world at setting the stage for the truly "modern" one. So you'll often hear people say that the most randomly influential bloke in the 20th century was Gavrilo Princip and the serendipitous wrong turn that took poor ol' Franz's car in front of him and then stalled. But I disagree; I think A-H's behaviour before, during, and after the August Crisis demonstrates that they were absolutely desperate for any sort of pretext to crush Serbia and would have found one eventually (maybe even if the assassination had failed it would have gone ahead), such was the mood for war in the General Staff. So the real lynchpin is what gave A-H the confidence that they could waltz in and smash Serbia despite the fact that it would inevitably provoke a response from Russia. So they could only do so with Germany's backing, but Germany's backing was contingent on the German General Staff's belief that they could not just win a war against both France and Russia but they had to commit absolutely to such a war. The Schlieffen Plan was what gave them such confidence, and also primed the pumps for the sense of imminent crisis and "we must commit" that drove decision-making throughout August 1914 due to its extremely detailed scheduling and timetables with all sorts of deadlines that had to be hit to achieve its goal of crushing France before Russia mobilised. Ofc that had all gone out the window before the end of the month.

yes, one of the things that I wanted to point out was that the schlieffen plan only looked good in theory and obviously it required the kind of meticulous execution that probably wouldn't come to the germans until the early 1940s.

But maybe the plan looks unrealistic in hindsight (which is 20/20) and seemed realistic to the warring parties at the time.

 

[Spark]

I mean yeah it would have been very difficult, although not impossible, to foresee the revolutionary effects that machine guns, rapid-fire artillery and barbed wire would have on the nature of warfare, it's hard to blame the German General Staff for missing that. In any case it almost ironically became moot when the Russians mobilised way faster than expected and were smashed anyway.