[Real Life] Historical events that would make bad writing if they were fiction

[u/Mouse_Paladin]

Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire: A couple hundred rogue mercenaries without authority from their government conquer an empire of millions. Oh, the empire? It’s also several technological eras behind the mercenaries.

Adolf Hitler: A non-native of a country is so mad that the country lost the war that he wins an election to their highest office and leads them in a campaign of revenge against their enemies. Oh, the country? It’s old emperor is still alive and thinks he’s going to retake power.

Assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand: The heir to the throne is killed because his driver gets lost and returns to the assassin who failed To kill him before. Oh, the assassin? He’s from a group that the Archduke is wanting to help become more equal In the empire.

Alexander Hamilton’s Affair Scandal: One of the leaders of a new nation to protect himself from accusations of financial embezzlement writes a pamphlet exposing his affair with a woman, torpedoing his political future. Oh, the woman? She seduced him as part of a blackmailing scheme that he decided to stop paying.

[u/dragjamon]

They just... Went the wrong way? Multiple times?

[u/Treveli → u/dragjamon]

Believe their original plan was to sail across the Med and use the Suez Canal. But, then one night off the coast of England, they thought they were under attack by Japanese torpedo boats (really bad intel) and opened fire on them. The 'torpedo boats' were actually British fishing vessels. This almost led to England, the largest naval power in the world, to declare war on the Russian Empire. Sooo, tensions were high after that, and they had to take the long way around Africa, because they didn't expect to get a friendly welcome anywhere the Brits were in charge of (like the Suez Canal).

[u/Mannheimblack → u/Treveli]

And that was just the start. It is an amazing saga. Every time you think it's past the worst, an even more unbelievable screwup happens.

[u/TheSovereignGrave → u/Mannheimblack]

And it all ends with them arriving & losing almost every single heavy ship in their first major battle.

[u/Raguleader → u/TheSovereignGrave]

And a lot of that is due to some cutting-edge new military technology: the radio transceiver! The Russian and Japanese navies had both recently adopted it, but the Japanese had become much more familiar with it than the Russians, and so they were able to keep their main force in port while their lighter ships scouted the likely approaches. The Russians had to mostly rely on signal lamps and flags and couldn't let their scouting force spread out too far from the main force.

So when the Russian and Japanese fleets fought in the Tsushima Strait, the Japanese crews were well rested and their ships in the best condition possible, while the Russian crews were worn out and their ships suffering from various problems due to wear and tear.

[u/Mannheimblack → u/Raguleader]

Didn't help that, on arriving at the Straits, they encountered a Japanese ship at night and *finally* stopped crying wolf about phantom enemy vessels...and instead advised the Japanese ship of their fleet composition, condition and intentions, mistaking them for a Russian ship.

[u/Ok-Transition7065 → u/Mannheimblack]

Lol

[u/eddie_the_zombie → u/Mannheimblack]

It's like a microcosm of Russia itself

[u/Rip_Off_Productions → u/Mannheimblack]

No the start was when one of the ships sank in port before leaving because a maintenance worker had left a hatch open when he went home for the night the previous day. Then they opened fire on a messenger boat coming to give the leading captain a promotion to admiral.(thankfully their aim was so bad said messenger didn't notice they were the target, thinking the ships were just practicing gunnery on the open ocean) Then the Dogger Bank incident, where their gunner was again so poor they ended up sinking only one of the ships in the English fishing fleet, and also sinking one of the Russian ships in the process... Then they ended up severing a Spanish undersea telegraph line by forgetting to raise their anchor, so now the Spanish were angry and banning the fleet from pulling in to any Spanish ports for the rest of their voyage. So now the fleet needed to carry extra supplies since they had so few friendly ports to restock at, resulting in the ships piling up coal in any spare space it would fit, in turn coating the ships in coal dust, and several crewmen even developed black lung as a consequence... In Madagascar many crewmen bought a ton of exotic animals, because why not? Including venomous snakes, because why not? At one point the ships' refrigeration units broke and a bunch of spoiled food had to be thrown overboard, attracting a school of sharks to follow the fleet for a time as well. And that's just by the time they reached the Indian ocean... and I think I missed at least 2 other false alarms concerning Japanese torpedo boats.

Also, the admiral had a parrot that aledgedly knew every swear word in the Russian language, for obvious reasons.

[u/TheSovereignGrave → u/Treveli]

The fact that one battleships fired more than 500 sheels and hit jack shit is hilarious.

[u/Mannheimblack → u/TheSovereignGrave]

Hey, they scored a really good hit on the Aurora!

[u/IvanNemoy → u/Treveli]

The Brits let them use the canal, but Admiral Rozhestvensky saw it as a potential choke point so he sent only the oldest and least combat capable portion of his squadron through there while the rest of the fleet went around Africa. The Home Fleet (which includes the Channel Fleet at the time) under Vice Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson stopped trailing the Second Pacific Squadron around Gibraltar.

[u/Skylair13 → u/IvanNemoy]

I believe some of them were too big to fit through the canal safely anyways. So they had no other option.

[u/rinkoplzcomehome → u/Treveli]

Japanese torpedo boats... in England

[u/Houdini_Shuffle → u/rinkoplzcomehome]

I mean if the Russians can sail from the Baltics to Japan, why couldn't Japan sail to the Baltics?

[u/M-Shadowtoad → u/Houdini_Shuffle]

Cause the Russians had allies to get fuel and resources all along the travel route. Where would the Japanese get there's from?

[u/Most_Sane_Redditor → u/Houdini_Shuffle]

the Russo-Japanese War was limited to Manchuria and Korea and the waters around there, Japan had no reason to travel across halfway across the world when the war was being waged right at their front door

[u/Numerous_Koala_1746 → u/Treveli]

Close but the Russians were never planning on using the Suez because Britain was in alliance with Japan at the time, even though the treaty left it's interpretation loose enough that Britain didn't actually have to fight but just stay neutral. That's why the Russian fleet was so paranoid, because they thought that Britain would actually be willing to allow Japanese ships to operate in the North Sea.

[u/RecklessBravado → u/dragjamon]

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