Sometimes history is sad...

[Farnan]

Not just because of events that happened like the Holocaust, but to think of events that could have happened but one of the parties chose the wrong path leaving millions dead.

Here is one:



Ho Chi Minh considers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as his heroes and based the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence off the US one. Some American OSS officers were even present at the ceremony. In the late 1940s Ho Chi Minh, a long time admirer of the US, offered to become a US ally and a Naval Base in exchange for US recognition. However, the US ignored this offer for fear it would cause the French to withdraw from NATO. In 1958 France withdraws from NATO anyway, and the US has already lost the chance for a useful ally in Asia, instead turning it into an enemy launching a war that leaves 60,000 Americans and 2 million Vietnamese dead.

[Wegen7 die Große]

Yes like both Great Wars and the Cold War.

[ivan_the_terrible]

Yes like both Great Wars and the Cold War.

The Cold War could've been a lot 'sadder'.

[Theseus1234]

The things that could've been avoided if we simply ignored politics...

[raistlinmajere8]

Not related to the OP's history sadness really, but I found something out I didn't know.

Leopold II of Belgium. Free State of Congo. Estimated deaths ranging from 2 million, to 15 million dead. Thousands of hands cut off from children and the like, all because they didn't make the daily quota of riches for His Royal Assness.

I think every Western power secretly aspires to have it's own private Genocide. Germans with the Holocaust, the US with our genocide of the aboriginal peoples here, and now the Belgians. What else lies in waiting for me to discover?

[NotYetRegistered]

I think every Western power secretly aspires to have it's own private Genocide. Germans with the Holocaust, the US with our genocide of the aboriginal peoples here, and now the Belgians. What else lies in waiting for me to discover?

Ehm.. a lot.

[cottontail]

I think every Western power secretly aspires to have it's own private Genocide. Germans with the Holocaust, the US with our genocide of the aboriginal peoples here, and now the Belgians. What else lies in waiting for me to discover?

Sorry to make you more sad, but it is hardly only Wester powers that have committed genocide

In fact, I can't think of any major power that hasn't committed some act of mass murder in its past.

Isn't the world a happy place?

[Prince of Darkness]

Sorry to make you more sad, but it is hardly only Wester powers that have committed genocide

In fact, I can't think of any major power that hasn't committed some act of mass murder in its past.

Isn't the world a happy place?

Yes, because we are not being massacred. The thought of it satisfied me.
I cannot imagine the horror of genocides. Seeing your family being tracked down, brutally assaulted, and killed.

[cottontail]

Yes, because we are not being massacred. The thought of it satisfied me.
I cannot imagine the horror of genocides. Seeing your family being tracked down, brutally assaulted, and killed.

True enough. Let's just be all glad that we live in this day and age where such mass slaughter is frowned upon rather than encouraged.

[athanaric]

History is sad most of the time. Think about the billions who have died pointless deaths, and billions whose suffering could have been avoided throughout human history.

I think every Western power secretly aspires to have it's own private Genocide.

This is in now way limited to "Western" powers. Rather it seems like a universal trait.

[Spartan90]

Wasn't Adolf Hitler apparently captured in WW1, but was let go?

[frank_garrett]

sometimes? you mean. all the time. as long as you have wars history is sad

[Jedi1]

Wasn't Adolf Hitler apparently captured in WW1, but was let go?

What would you have had them do, shoot him in cold blood for no apparent reason?

[Prince of Darkness]

Wasn't Adolf Hitler apparently captured in WW1, but was let go?

Nope. But a shell hits Hitler's trench and kill everyone inside except him.
And if there was no Hitler the Nazis still will took control of Germany and chose another (perhaps wiser) leader.

[Spartan90]

Nope. But a shell hits Hitler's trench and kill everyone inside except him.
And if there was no Hitler the Nazis still will took control of Germany and chose another (perhaps wiser) leader.

Learn something new every day

[Last Roman]

And if there was no Hitler the Nazis still will took control of Germany and chose another (perhaps wiser) leader.

there's no real way to know that.

[skh1]

Wasn't Adolf Hitler apparently captured in WW1, but was let go?

Hitler himself would recount to his cronies an incident during WWI when he found himself in the rifle sight of a British soldier who held his fire and let him go. Here, not in Hitler's words of course, is a desciption of that incident:

[Henry] Tandey was mentioned five times in dispatches and certainly earned his VC during the capture of the French village and crossing at Marcoing, his regiment held down by heavy machine gun fire Tandey crawled forward, located the machine gun nest and took it out.
Arriving at the crossing he braved heavy fire to place wooden planks over a gaping hole enabling troops to roll across and take the battle to the Germans, the day still not over he successfully led a bayonet charge against outnumbering enemy troops which helped bring hostilities to an end.
As the ferocious battle wound down and enemy troops surrendered or retreated a wounded German soldier limped out of the maelstrom and into Private Tandey's line of fire, the battle weary man never raised his rifle and just stared at Tandey resigned to the inevitable. "I took aim but couldn't shoot a wounded man," said Tandey, "so I let him go."
The young German soldier nodded in thanks and the two men took diverging paths, that day and in history. Hitler retreated with the remnants of German troops and ended up in Germany, where he languished in the humiliation of defeat at wars end.

Perhaps you are thinking of this?

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/tandey.htm

It served to bolster Hitler's belief that he was being preserved to fulfill his destiny.

[avion365]

Hitler himself would recount to his cronies an incident during WWI when he found himself in the rifle sight of a British soldier who held his fire and let him go. Here, not in Hitler's words of course, is a desciption of that incident:


Perhaps you are thinking of this?

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/tandey.htm

It served to bolster Hitler's belief that he was being preserved to fulfill his destiny.

i think the incident in real life was a different but on the same basic lines.

i heard Hitler was wounded and was lying in a shell hole and at the time was knocked out or asleep. thus a British soldier hears whimpering and tells his Sargent, the Sargent says kill the German, so the Brit goes out and finds Hitler about 20 yards away, he lines up his shot but he can't bring himself to shot the German. thus he goes back and tells the sarge he can't do it and the sarge just shrugs and walks away.

thus the biggest -head in the world survives

[Spartan90]

No, I heard he wasn't even captured and taking as a POW. Just told to go.

However, I only heard this. I'm probably wrong.

[Exarch]

as human beings it's only natural to think the grass is greener on the other side, doesnt necessarily make it so, but it is interesting to hypothesize about such things.

i've got another one;
sometimes history is sad, even sadder is after the Chinese revolution of 1911 and the subsequent warlordism when the new fledgling democracy requested assistance and modernisation from the West, none of the european post imperialist powers wanted to help; it fell to the soviet union to expand their influence in the asia-pacific and give rise to the chinese communist party which would alter go on to win the Chinese civil war.

think about it, if the greedy little imperialist powers (meaning early 20th century france, UK, Japan etc etc) had actually aided the young democracy, we'd have an Republic of China today, isntead of Taiwan (ROC).