The most hilarious screw ups in history

[Erttheking]

Let's face it, people in history are not immune from screwing up and they have made some rather serious mistakes. So, in honor of those people, let's point them all out and laugh loudly. I Would like to point out King Louis XVI, the King most well known for being beheaded during the French revolution. What I'm not sure that many people know is that he almost escaped captivity from his family but he couldn't. Because his carriage stopped so that he could eat. Twice. And he had turkeys...this is why he is commonly remembered as a fat ass. He was. So, what other hilarious screw ups do you have to share?

EDIT: Someone else made a good point here. Please refrain from bashing or flaming specific countries or religions.

 

[Quaxar]

Hitler once tripped, scraped his knee and everybody laughed at him.
What? You can't disprove that!

And also, anyone still remember Iraq's Foreign Minister and standup-comedian <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagdad_Bob>Bagdad Bob? That guy was <url=http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljoke-iraqinfominister.htm>a blast.

 

[Zeema]

heres a good screw up

The Carbon Tax

well i guess you could just point to the Darwin Awards and be like "Pretty much that"

 

[Eleuthera]

I have a nice Dutch one.

During WWII, after already having been invaded (but not yet defeated) by the Germans, the government still refused to allow the armed forced to go over budget. No extra people, no extra ammo, nothing.

I'm not saying we would've beaten the german with some extra cash, but still refusing to send your own army extra cash during an invasion that's gotta be up there somewhere...

 

[SonicWaffle]

So, what other hilarious screw ups do you have to share?

I'd really like this thread to stay clear of religion bashing, but I'm a cynic; before too long there will be some numpty who thinks "hurr, one time these guys made up a story about a magic Jewish zombie and everyone thought it was real durr" is the most original joke in the world.

OT: Well, there was that British sniper in WWI who spent a whole day killing Germans before getting bored of it. When he ran across another guy, he decided to spare him, and sent the little fella running back to German lines. The dude he spared?

Hitler.

 

[GentleMad]

The Schlieffen plan

German 1: Russia has declared war on us. What do we do?

German 2: Attack France!!!

German 1: Ermmmm...ok?

 

[IamQ]

Regalskeppet Vasa. If you are Swedish then this is the first thing you will think of. It was in the 1600s, Sweden was becoming a major power in Europe and to survive a 30-year long war with Russia amongst other countries, we needed a good fleet. So a ship was built was build to lead the fleet, named after the first Swedish King (Gustav Vasa). It had two decks of canons, gold and jewels everywhere... and it was also too heavy on one side.

Long story short: It leaves the dock and sinks after 200 meters from the wind.

 

[Erttheking]

So, what other hilarious screw ups do you have to share?

I'd really like this thread to stay clear of religion bashing, but I'm a cynic; before too long there will be some numpty who thinks "hurr, one time these guys made up a story about a magic Jewish zombie and everyone thought it was real durr" is the most original joke in the world.

OT: Well, there was that British sniper in WWI who spent a whole day killing Germans before getting bored of it. When he ran across another guy, he decided to spare him, and sent the little fella running back to German lines. The dude he spared?

Hitler.

To be fair if he had killed him things would've gotten worse in...oh wait this was in the first world war?...yeah, that guy was an idiot. Kinda like that British officer that had a shot at Washington.

 

[SckizoBoy]

The Schlieffen plan

German 1: Russia has declared war on us. What do we do?

German 2: Attack France!!!

German 1: Ermmmm...ok?

Eh... the Schlieffen plan wasn't that bad... s'just that von Moltke the Younger rather messed it up. The Russians were as much as fucked after Tannenberg, and the French very slowly (but still did, mind you) realise that if you can the German's first flurry of punches and still manage to stand up and you'll be alright.

On that note... Operation Barbarossa - staging in June?!

OT: Battle of Arausio... one Roman jackass can't be arsed to cooperate, walks his six legions into hell. His jackass consul is too much of a stubborn twat, follows on with his six legions, too...

 

[Mangod]

These guys have quite a few of them written down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-c4XnlVlqU

 

[SckizoBoy]

To be fair if he had killed him things would've gotten worse in...oh wait this was in the first world war?...yeah, that guy was an idiot. Kinda like that British officer that had a shot at Washington.

Random thought of the day:

Cavalier Mercer: Napoleon has ridden to within range, sir. Do I have permission to try a shot?
Duke of Wellington: Certainly not! Generals of armies have better things to do than to shoot at each other!

Uh-huh...(!!) -_-

 

[SonicWaffle]

So, what other hilarious screw ups do you have to share?

I'd really like this thread to stay clear of religion bashing, but I'm a cynic; before too long there will be some numpty who thinks "hurr, one time these guys made up a story about a magic Jewish zombie and everyone thought it was real durr" is the most original joke in the world.

OT: Well, there was that British sniper in WWI who spent a whole day killing Germans before getting bored of it. When he ran across another guy, he decided to spare him, and sent the little fella running back to German lines. The dude he spared?

Hitler.

To be fair if he had killed him things would've gotten worse in...oh wait this was in the first world war?...yeah, that guy was an idiot. Kinda like that British officer that had a shot at Washington.

Yup, first World War. Guy's name was Henry Tandey [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tandey]

Poor bastard. Imagine how he must have felt about it afterwards.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Yup, first World War. Guy's name was Henry Tandey [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tandey]

Poor bastard. Imagine how he must have felt about it afterwards.

It's only a screw up with the "benefit" of hindsight; at the time, Tandey was just being a massive gentleman.

Well, yeah, but that's what I meant - with the benefit of hindsight, how do you think he'd have felt about it?

 

[repeating integers]

The Schlieffen plan

German 1: Russia has declared war on us. What do we do?

German 2: Attack France!!!

German 1: Ermmmm...ok?

It's not actually as stupid as it sounds. Russia was expected to mobilise very slowly - Germany's plan was to take out France and block Britain via controlling the French ports, then swiftly turn back and fuck up Russia. It didn't work, because Belgium turned out to not actually like the idea of being invaded and provided actual resistance, and Russia mobilised faster than expected. The end result was exactly what Germany had been hoping to avoid - a war on two fronts.

It's worth noting that they then proceeded to completely fuck up Russia anyway.

 

[Erttheking]

Yup, first World War. Guy's name was Henry Tandey [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tandey]

Poor bastard. Imagine how he must have felt about it afterwards.

It's only a screw up with the "benefit" of hindsight; at the time, Tandey was just being a massive gentleman.

Well, yeah, but that's what I meant - with the benefit of hindsight, how do you think he'd have felt about it?

There's an idea for time traveling to stop WWII. No killing Hitler while he was in power and letting one of his more competent generals take over. Go back to this guy as he spots Hitler and scream into his ear "TAKE THE FUCKING SHOT!"

 

[Lionsfan]

Yup, first World War. Guy's name was Henry Tandey [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tandey]

Poor bastard. Imagine how he must have felt about it afterwards.

It's only a screw up with the "benefit" of hindsight; at the time, Tandey was just being a massive gentleman.

Well, yeah, but that's what I meant - with the benefit of hindsight, how do you think he'd have felt about it?

There's an idea for time traveling to stop WWII. No killing Hitler while he was in power and letting one of his more competent generals take over. Go back to this guy as he spots Hitler and scream into his ear "TAKE THE FUCKING SHOT!"

That would be a good alternate history story. Tandey shooting Hitler wouldn't affect the outcome of WWI, and it would be very interesting to play around with that.

Germany is still pissed off about being given full blame over the war, but without a pro-war dictator, do they do anything? What about the USSR? Would Stalin do what Hitler did and just slowly take smaller countries? Does the Cold War start in 1930 except the USSR against France and Britain? After all, those countries wouldn't have been destroyed, and the US would still be pro-isolationist and not a superpower. Is there even a Cold War, or would there be a real war because there's no threat of Atomic weapons? Does Fascism still rise in Italy and Spain?

Do atomic weapons even get developed? After all, if there's no Germanic persecution of Jews, then people like Einstein don't flee for the US, and since Germany hasn't mobilized itself for taking over Europe, it's doubtful the German scientists would be working on the V-Rockets. Say they do get developed though, if there's no dick-swinging by the US to scare the world, are they used more?

And then there's Japan. Do they still attack Pearl Harbor? Would that war only half fix the economy since we wouldn't need such a large scale of mobilization?

There's probably so many more things I'm missing too....

 

[Azahul]

More fun from World War I. The start of it, specifically the Austrian front. So, we have this terrorist organisation known as the Black Hand, which wants to maintain Serbian independence. So they decide to go and kill Franz Ferdinand, you know, the heir to the throne of Austro-Hungary and also a supporter of Serbian independence (in that he thought the empire was already too large and bloated and on the verge of collapse, a fairly accurate assessment, and so wanted no expansion towards Serbia). Killing someone that wants to help you, great start there. Not to mention the ridiculous series of flukes that was the actual assassination.

Skip forward a little bit and we have the war breaking out. So Austria, with their ally Germany busy attacking France and Russia at once, decides that instead of helping they'll mobilise their entire army and attack Serbia. Which they do. Right across the Serbian artillery training range. Because the only thing funnier than charging an entrenched artillery position is charging an entrenched artillery position across an open field with little red flags marking how far away you are for the artillery to use.

I swear, World War I is like watching Forrest Gump wage war on himself. It's hilarious.

 

[madster11]

The Schlieffen plan

German 1: Russia has declared war on us. What do we do?

German 2: Attack France!!!

German 1: Ermmmm...ok?

To be fair, 'Attack France' is the instinctive response to a lot of things. Every time my maccas order is messed up i'm all like 'fuck it, let's take Marseille.'