Isn’t anyone going to mention Darth Vader?
One could argue the other way: The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand precipitated World War I, which lead to World War II, which lead to the Cold War, which lead to Gulf War I, which lead to Gulf War II…
Naw, Kjetil, by the time of Darth’s death, the tide of battle was already pretty well turned. The Millenium Falcon was already en route to destroy the second Death Star, the Emperor was dead, and the rebel fleet was doing pretty well at mopping up the ISDs.
chickendoc, it’s not our talking which will make Osama and Saddam martyrs. What matters for that is whatever their surviving followers are saying.
Yes ,lol my bad
And pretty cool wave motion gun on the sucker.
Declan
And we will never know , will we.
I have no idea what ikes plans for him were , once ww2 was finished. The only thing tangible about him , was that he said that he could start a shooting incident with the russians ,and have it look like they started it.
If it had , chances are the allied forces ,would have driven all the way to vladivostok , by 1947-48.
Declan
This was the example that sprung to my mind on reading the OP. Hitler, for one, certainly believed this and used it as his precedent for why the death of Roosevelt would save the Third Reich.
[Peter Cook]
Which, of course, it did.
[/Peter Cook]
There’s the sort-of example provided by the accidental drowning of Frederick Barbarossa, en route to the Third Crusade. The German army basically just disintegrated and only a tiny proportion of them made it all the way to the Holy Land. In the event, the English and the French armies made a fair fist of it, but failed to recapture Jerusalem. It was, however, still seen as a partial success.
While the manner of his death is slightly controversial, Harold certainly died at Hastings (in fact, a certain amount is known about the identification and fate of his body in the aftermath of the battle) and if any death was going to be important it was his. The bigger question is whether his death was actually decisive in the battle. For example, William of Poitiers has this to say:
in the Gesta Willelmi (from The Battle of Hastings, ed. by Stephen Morillo, Boydell, 1996, p15). As a Norman, William has a bias, but this is an example of how a contemporary (he was writing in 1071) thought that Harold’s death was only one factor in the collapse of the English on the battlefield.
The death of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh in 1812 was the effective end of a war between (portions of) the Shawnee with the U.S. that had lasted sporadically from circa 1793 on, but especially from 1810-1812. His death ended Shawnee war plans.
Brian Boru getting killed at the battle of Clontarf on Good Friday, 1014 saw Viking military power smashed in Ireland – and so he won that “war” even in death. But his death, & the death of his heirs in the same battle, also smashed a united Ireland and no one Native Irish King ruled Ireland ever again.
Joan of Arc?
That’s GOTTA hurt, being kicked in the middle of your conquests.!
Seriously though, I doubt that one mans death could turn a war nowadays.
Our leader no longer ride into battle with the troops and fight shoulder to shoulder with them. We fight for ideals now, not for a man.
If Hinckley had been successful, would Veep Bush have prosecuted the end of the Cold War? If Bush Sr. had not been rescued when his plane went down in the Pacific in WWII, would there have been a coalition to run Iraq out of Kuwait? If Dub had crashed his National Guard jet fighter, would we be in Iraq now? If JFK had perished when his PT boat was sunk in WWII, would we have had the Bay of Pigs? Had Hitler been offed before becoming Chancellor, would another Nazi have been able to consolidate power?
Personally, I think things might well have had similar outcomes had all of the above perished early. Did Saddam have any close scrapes early on?
My most recent post apparently died in the field of battle, surely changing the course of this thread, perhaps even the entire course of this message board. Oh well. Easy come, easy go. I had thrown in two more names: Alexander of Macedon and Odo Nobunaga.
Hey, as long as we’re playing alternate history, what if Joseph Kennedy, jr, the oldest son, had not died in WW2? Joe senior still would have pushed for the presidency, only for Joe and not Jack.
If Joe, jr, had been okay, and Jack elected in 1976, with Bobby up in 1988 and Ted in 2000, and John, jr, in 2012… why, America would be downright obsessed and fixated on the Kennedy clan.
On second thought, how is that different?
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Did Saddam have any close scrapes early on?
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Plenty. He was implicated in an assassination attempt, and managed to escape what would have been certain execution after being shot in the leg. His compatriots were killed in the attempt.
His disastrous war with Iraq almost led to his destruction. Same with Gulf War I. And God knows how many assassination attempts he has survived that we don’t know about.
I don’t know Northpark University from Shinola, but whoever they are, their history is not particularly accurate. Some elucidation below…
Correct.
Incorrect. Kuyuk was a seasoned adult who had served as an officer in the European campaigns, where he had quarrelled bitterly with his cousin Batu and had eventually returned back east to prevent further friction ( rival cliques that were to become potent future political camps formed up during this campaign, as being a prestige mission quite a few prominent Mongol princes were present as feld commanders ). The reason Kuyuk was not formally elected until 1246 was due to political maneouvering by Batu ( most prominently ) and other princes seeking to elevate one faction or another. Toregene ( a powerful, intelligent and forceful woman ) held the regency as widow of Ogedei ( who had wanted his grandson Shimbariman to succeed him, but he, in fact, was considered too young and inexperienced by most and was never a serious candidate ) and mother of the dominant candidate. As it turns out the election didn’t ease the friction any - Batu and Kuyuk loathed one another and their formal relations steadily deteriorated. The entire Mongol empire was priming for a massive civil war between them when Kuyuk solved the problem by conveniently drinking himself to death.
He died in late 1259, actually. Mangku does have bearing on the OP, which I’ll get to presently.
Batu was Ogedei’s nephew. It goes like this…
Chingiz ( Genghis ) Khan - Had four sons:
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Jochi - Eldest, pre-deceased Chingiz by a few months. As eldest son he traditionally inherited the conquest lands farthest from the center of the empire. Batu was Jochi’s second, but senior son ( the eldest, Orda, was not unimportant - he founded what became known as the ‘White Horde’ - but for whatever reason, whether lack of ability or ambition, he ceded ultimate political control of the clan to his younger brother ). This line became known as the Jochids and ruled the later Golden Horde and its affiliates ( like the White Horde ) and offshoots ( the Shaybanid line, from the youngest son of Jochi, whose desendants founded the Khanate of Sibir, as well as the Uzbek state, from which also split the Kazakh state and Khanate of Khiva ).
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Chagatai - Second son. Not too bright, but tremendously loyal and dedicated to his father and the traditions he established. Inherited Central Asia, exclusive of Mongolia proper. His descendants ruled those territories ( which eventually split into two geographically mandated constituent halves ) for some time. My namesake arose to power in the western half ( the Ulus Chagatai ), ruled through a puppet khan of that line, and married one of its princesses. Their descendants ( I think, might have to double-check the exact the genealogy of which Timurid prince is descended from which mother ) included the Mughals of India.
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Ogedei - Third son. Most diplomatic if not most capable, which is why he was tapped to succeed his father. His line became overshadowed after a) the Toluid coup and b) after the death of Qaidu ( Khaidu ) a grandson who was the archnemesis of Kublai Khan.
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Tolui - Youngest son and probably the most capable. Considered best general, anyway. As youngest son he inherited the traditional homeland, in this case Mongolia proper. His sons included Mangku ( future great Khan, close ally of Batu, overthrowing the Ogedeid line with his aid after Kuyuk’s death ), Kublai ( his successor, from which the Yuan dynasty and its descendants in later Mongolia spring ), Hulegu ( founder of the Il-Khanate in Persia, Iraq, and most of Anatolia ), and Ariq-Boke ( a traditionalist rival to Kublai, ultimately defeated ).
Technically, yes. But not actually. The real commander was one of the greatest military geniuses in history - The Imperial General and right-hand man of Chingiz Khan, Subotai Bahadur. Batu was a senior field commander and the nominal leader as senior prince, but in practice Subotai ran the show.
Not without trying, hence the long interregnum after Ogedei’s death ;). He could in fact have easily secured election after Kuyuk’s death, but instead chose to play kingmaker and elevate his buddy Mangku in the Toluid coup. The reward was a virtual free hand in his territory. Mangku was an aggressive centralizer, everywhere but in the Golden Horde.
Nope - Common mistranslation, apparently. The fellow mistakenly referred to as Khaidu in Alear’s link above, who is also often confused with the Khaidu that struggled for so many decades with Kublai Khan, was actually Ogedei’s son Kadan. Khaidu, Kublai’s nemesis, was twelve at the time. Kadan himself, by the way, backed the Toluids. He was part of the pro-Batu camp during the European campaign.
As to the OP - Both Ogedei’s death, which caused the recall of the Imperial army under Subotai and led to the political turmoil that followed, and Mangku’s death, which led to a major civil war and caused Hulegu to withdraw the bulk of his forces from Syria, setting up the Mameluke victory at Ayn Jalut, are good examples of a single person affecting a whole campaign.
There are actually a number of others, included the examples already mentioned. In general rulers and key generals were far more important in days past than they are now.
- Tamerlane
August, 1259, actually. I’m not sure if you’d want to call that late or not. Died on campaign in China of dysentery.
- Tamerlane
Oopsy, missed another mistake…
Correct, except that Ogedei didn’t take office until 1229. Though the issue wasn’t very seriously in doubt in this case ( Tolui was disgruntled, but Chagatai, senior prince since Jochi’s death, backed his younger brother as being his father’s choice ), slow-moving political wrangling and attendant interregnums after the death of a Great Khan was the rule, not the exception.
- Tamerlane
I asked someone if she could think of any, and discovered that she had never heard of Darth Vader. Cultural differences, gotta love 'em. Anyway, though I have close to no knowledge of Chinese history and have not checked this story out:
A mistranslation, she said - it was supposed to mean that he was “uncommon”.
Funny you should mention a ‘what if’. Turns out there is a really good book called What If?. One of the stories in there mentions how the Mongol Horde was on the verge of sacking all of Europe. Back in their day the Mongols were the toughest army there was. No one had a real chance against them and they smashed (almost literally) all who opposed them.
Turns out that on Europe’s doorstep (coming through what is today Poland) their Kahn (king) died…not sure which one…Genghis, Kubla, someone else. Anyway their societal structure needed the return of the armies so they could elect a new king (I know that sounds wrong as kings generally aren’t elected but that’s the upshot of it). The army never got back around to sacking Europe…lucky for western society as we know it today.
Make no mistake…this is no obscure or insignificant portion of history even if it isn’t common knowledge. Had the Mongols continued the destruction in Europe the damage they likely would have inflicted would have been on par with WWII for its day…maybe even worse (more ‘total’).
So, sort of a backwards way into what the OP asked but there it is FWIW.
Man…I need to read the thread more carefully before I post. In my defense I was up all night (literally) but still…sorry for the repeat (and not even a good one compared to other answers).
Annie Oakley could have prevented both world war 1 and world war 2, if she had missed, or intentionally shot the kaiser:
http://www.codyexpress.com/about_annie.htm
During her performances with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Annie often shot the ashes off a cigarette held in Frank Butler’s mouth. In March 1884, Kaiser Wilhelm was attending a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota. He requested that Annie perform the same stunt while he held a cigarette in his mouth. Annie, however, placed a cigarette in his hand and shot the ashes off. Later, some would speculate that had she missed she may have prevented the first World War.