Thank you for all your suggestions of what to include in the Daily Sceptic’s 2024 Almanac of Bad Futurology. (Mike Wells kicked this off with 10 suggestions a couple of days ago.) Here are the best of the bunch. They bear out the wisdom of Niels Bohr’s famous quote – or was it Yogi Berra? – that predictions are very difficult, especially about the future.
There shall, in that time, be rumours of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi– with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. At this time, a friend shall lose his friend’s hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o’clock. Yea, it is written in the book of Cyril that, in that time, shall the third one… (Bad Prophet, Monty Python’s Life of Brian)
Heavier-than-air-flying machines are impossible. (Lord Kelvin, 1895)
Everything that can be invented has been invented. (Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the US Patent Office 1899)
In 15 years, more electricity will be sold for electric vehicles than for light. (Thomas Edison 1910)
Chancellor Adolf Hitler today proclaimed the arrival of the Nazi millennium, predicting that the next 1,000 years would not witness another revolution in Germany. He was equally positive that the National Socialist movement had now become absolute master of the Reich and that its leadership rested in the hands of its best men. (New York Times, 1934)
Peace for our time. (Neville Chamberlain 1938)
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. (Thomas Watson, Chairman and CEO of IBM, 1943)
Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years time. (Alex Lewyt, 1955)
New York and Washington DC will be under water by the year 2000. (Daniel Patrick Moynihan in memo to Richard Nixon, 1969.)
For a compendium of bad predictions made on the first Earth Day in 1970, see this article in AEI and for a list of 50 bad predictions about the climate see this article in the New York Post.
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. (Ken Olsen, the founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977)
640K ought to be enough for anybody. (Bill Gates in defense of the just-introduced IBM PC’s 640KB usable RAM limit in 1981)
Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well, if you’re watching, don’t worry, there isn’t! (Michael Fish, a few hours before the Great Storm of 1987 broke)
“Around 40 million people died in 1918 Spanish flu outbreak,” said Prof Ferguson. “There are six times more people on the planet now so you could scale it up to around 200 million people probably.” (Guardian, 2005)
We will never return to the old boom and bust. (Gordon Brown, 2007)
It is already upon us and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now. Scientists project that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013. Not in 2050, but four years from now. (Senator John Kerry, 2009)
We’ve just 96 months to save the world. (King Charles, 2009)
People will have to carry on wearing masks in public basically forever. (Susan Michie, 2021)
Happy New Year everyone.
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I forgot this one:
‘Some enthusiasts today talk about the probability of the horse becoming extinct and prophesy that the aeroplane, the tank, and the motor-car will supersede the horse in future wars … I am sure that as time goes on you will find just as much use for the horse—the well bred horse—as you have done in the past.’
Sir Douglas Haig: Interview, 1925
But, given the British Army’s enthusiasm for ‘nut zero’, the Field Marshal may well have been outstandingly prescient.
He was, after all, the first Field Army Commander to achieve victory through the use of combined arms tactics, combining armour, artillery, close air support in unison to achieve dislocating operational tempo which, at the Battle of Amiens, pretty much ended the First World War.
He was, after all, the first General to achieve victory through the use of combined arms tactics, combining armour, artillery, close air support in unison to achieve dislocating operational tempo which, at the Battle of Amiens, pretty much ended the First World War.
It’s too bad that this is about the past. Otherwise, it could be well-placed on the Almanach above, for all the usual mistakes, eg, first use of these tactics by the English at Cambrai in 1917, French attack at Soissons 18th of June 1918 using them, 8th of August 1918 defeat¹ of the German army causing the third OHL to seek a negotiated peace instead of a military victory. Actual negotiations about getting to negotations for an armistice starting after two further month of fighting in October, 3rd OHL being dimissed end of October due to a desire to break off these apparenlty futile negotiations around 20th October, armistice finally coming on November 11th because of communist revolution in Germany. All of this while figthing merrily continued as the Entente was pressing for a victory on the battlefield it couldn’t achieve.
And then, there’s also still the minor detail that Haig was planning to retreat towards the channel ports at the end of the Michael offensive of the German army which caused the Englisch and French governments to finally get their act together and appoint Foch to the position of supreme commander of the allied forces in France. This didn’t outright enable them to win the war. But it at least enabled them to continue fighting until the war had ended due to toppling of the monarchy in Germany.
¹ What’s considered a defeat for the standards of the time: The British troops had achieved their tactical objectives and gained up to 11km of territory the Germans had been holding before the attack started. But they were again standing in front of a hastily patched together German front line and attempts to continue the attack in the next days, after the dense fog which had enabled the surprise had lifted, went nowhere.
Haig was the British Field Army Commander in Chief for Cambrai and, of course, later, at Amiens.
‘At the beginning of August General Erich Ludendorff still thought it was possible to stabilise their front but he was disabused of that on August 8 when the Germans were completely surprised at Amiens.
Nine divisions of the British Fourth Army and 10 divisions of the French army attacked the great Picardy salient created by the huge German offensive of March 1918.
Six or seven German divisions, which Ludendorff believed to be battle-worthy, were broken. Of 27,000 German casualties, 12,000 had surrendered.’
‘Heinrich Beutow was a trooper with a cavalry unit in the Frankfurt area during the last months of the war.
I think discipline was getting rather slack. You could see it on the streets of the garrison town when soldiers coming from the front didn’t take the pains of saluting officers any more. They thought the officers running around in the garrison had a very good time so why should they, the front people, salute them? That was, considering the discipline in the Prussian Army, a very great change, and it showed that something was breaking, something was crumbling, in this land. You could see from little signs like that. For instance, my commanding officer was so afraid of the coming revolution – which was not imminent, then, but somewhere to be seen, behind the scenes – was so afraid of it that he made me sleep with a gun in his arm or in front of his rooms in the night. I had to do that; it was rather uncomfortable, what could I do?’
For Ludendorff this was the ‘black day in the history of the German Army’.
It was the psychological turning point in the war. Ludendorff started cracking up. On a very short fuse, his relations with subordinates and Hindenburg, his nominal superior, were strained, he could not sleep, and he started drinking too much.
He sought the advice of an old friend who was a psychiatrist. He advised going for walks and taking more rest and for a brief period these steps worked.
The Habsburg Empire was visibly disintegrating. On September 14 the Emperor Karl of Austria-Hungary was openly exploring terms for peace. The Austrians were on the cusp of being routed by the Italians at Vitorio Veneto.
On September 28 Ludendorff broke down in response to Allied military successes on the western front and news that Bulgaria was suing for peace.
According to some accounts, and a level of scepticism may be appropriate here, he fell to the floor foaming at the mouth.
The next day, Ludendorff personally informed the Kaiser that Germany could no longer win the war.’
‘On October 29th, sailors aboard two major ships at Kiel failed to return from shore leave. Within a few hours, the revolt had spread to several battleships and cruisers.
The growing mutiny forced the admiralty to abandon Operation Plan 19. Instead, they attempted to divide and disperse the mutineers by relocating the troubled ships to other German ports. Within 48 hours, the mutiny had spread to other ports and naval stations. On November 3rd the sailors at Kiel, joined by workers from the nearby city, detained their officers and took control of their ships. They also formed elected councils, not dissimilar to the ‘workers’ soviets’ that had precipitated the Russian Revolution the previous year.
As the days passed, the Kiel mutiny spread across Germany and adopted a distinctly political tone. What had begun as a revolt against orders had transformed into a fully fledged political revolution. Workers’ councils in Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, Munich and other cities demanded political reforms: the abdication of the Kaiser and of local princes, the end of aristocratic privilege, the empowerment of the Reichstag and the implementation of socialist policies. On November 7th the Bavarian king, Ludwig III, fled to Austria in fear of his life; he later surrendered his power to a republican government. But Ludwig would not be the last nor the most significant German royal to be dethroned.’
‘On 9 November 1918, having lost the support of the military, and with a revolution underway at home, Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate his throne and flee Germany for Holland.
Power was handed to a government led by the leader of the left-wing Social Democratic Party, Friedrich Ebert.’
German History Blog
There’s too much bullshit in this to address all of it. So, let’s pick a two points:
On 18th of July 1918, there was a French surprise attack at Soissons with a large amount of tanks. This led to a crisis of a few days until the front had again stabilized. By that time, the 3rd OHL still considered winning the war a possibilty although this was – realistically – a rather remote one as them Germans had burnt through their manpower reserves in the course of their tactically very successful but strategically futile offensives in the first half of 1918 and could no longer replace their losses like-for-like.
On the 8th of August, the German leaders where again caught by surprise by a copycat attack of British troops at Amiens which gained huge successes on the first day but then ground to a halt. This caused Ludendorff – according to his own words – to abandon plans to win the war by force due to the degraded abilities of the German ‘militia army’ (as he called it) which was also badly outnumbered as more and more US troops arrived in France.
Ie, after the Soissons crisis had passed, the German leader ship didn’t still thought it was possible to stabilise their front, they had successfully done so and (wrongly) believed the 18th of July events were a one-off accident.
—
On 9th of November 1918, the German chancellor, Prinz Max v. Baden, unilaterally proclaimed the abdication of the emperor despite the emperor was absolutely not planning to abdicate (he personally called this a coup – which it was – during a phone call on that day).
—
Apart from irrelevant details about other war theatres and the even more irrelevant character assassination attempts, the text you’re quoting agrees with the version of events I sketched and not with your original one. Hence, what’s your point in quoting it? A desire to prove yourself wrong?
You say: ‘first use of these tactics at Cambrai 1917’
Haig commanded the British Army during the Battle of Cambrai.
You say ‘figthing merrily continued’
‘The old fortress town of Le Quesnoy had been in German hands since 1914, and several thousand German troops were still inside it…..On 4 November……..the New Zealand Division captured 2000 prisoners and 60 field guns……After exchanging shots with fleeing Germans, the New Zealanders entered the town. The garrison quickly surrendered.’
You say the Kaiser was not planning to abdicate.
‘Letter from Kaiser Wilhelm II to Crown Prince Wilhelm 9 November 1918
My Dear Boy:
After the Court Chamberlain had informed me that he could no longer guarantee my safety at Main Headquarters, and that the troops also were no longer trustworthy, I resolved after a severe mental struggle to leave the army, which has collapsed, and go to Holland.
I advise you to stick to your post until the conclusion of the armistice.
In Berlin two Governments, under the leadership of Ebert and Liebknecht, are fighting against each other.
I hope to see you again in happier times.
Your faithful and deeply affected father,
WILHELM’
A splendid portrait of the Kaiser, as a young man, still hangs on the wall of one of London’s finest clubs.
“Frohes Neues Jahr!”
You say: ‘first use of these tactics at Cambrai 1917’
Haig commanded the British Army during the Battle of Cambrai.
Yes. And you wrote
He was, after all, the first Field Army Commander to achieve victory through the use of combined arms tactics, combining armour, artillery, close air support in unison to achieve dislocating operational tempo which, at the Battle of Amiens,
Someone experienced in the art of bullshit merchant weasel wording will note that the text I quoted doesn’t really claim that this achievement had happened on the 08th of August 1918, ie, the day of the Amiens attack, but that the first half of the sentence could refer to the battle of Cambrai and hence, be historically accurate despite strongly suggesting that both parts of the statement do indeed refer to Amiens.
Unfortunately, there’s another trap for the unwary here: Cambrai wasn’t a British victory. It started with a successful British surprise attack and ended with a German counterattack which essentially restored the status quo ante: The British kept a small amount of the territory they had gained. But in exchange for this, the German conquered some territory they had never held before.
I’m going to leave it at that because dealing with all of the evasive BS is a waste of time. You’ve picked strange bedfellows with the German communists here, BTW.
You are, at least, the master of the field with regard to ‘Aunt Sallys’.
I told you not to mention the war!
Landlady: Oh, lucky Mr Johnson pointed that out. You wouldn’t have had much fun in Stalingrad, would you? Ha ha. I said, you wouldn’t have had much fun in Stalingrad, would you?
Hilter: Not much fun in Stalingrad, no.
Landlady: Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce you. This is Ron. Ron Vibbentrop.
Johnson: Oh, not Von Ribbentrop, eh?
Vibbentrop: Nein! Nein! Oh. Ha ha. Different other chap. I in Somerset am being born. Von Ribbentrop is born Gotterdammerstrasse 46, Dusseldorf Vest 8…..so they say!
Landlady: And this is the quiet one, Mr Bimmler, Heinrich Bimmler.
Bimmler: How do you do there squire? I also am not of Minehead being born but I in your Peterborough Lincolnshire was given birth to. But am staying in Peterborough Lincolnshire house all time during vor, due to jolly old running sores, and vos unable to go in the streets or to go visit football matches or go to Nuremburg. Ha ha. Am retired vindow cleaner and pacifist, without doing war crimes. Oh…and am glad England vin Vorld Cup. Bobby Charlton. Martin Peters. And eating I am lots of chips and fish and hole in the toads and Dundee cakes on Piccadilly Line, don’t you know old chap, vot! And I vos head of Gestapo for ten years. Ah! Five years! Nein! No! Wad not head of Gestapo at all. I was not, I make joke!
Landlady: Oh, Mr Bimmler. You do have us on! Oh excuse me. I must just go and answer that.
Johnson: How long are you down here for, Mr Hilter, just the fortnight?
Hilter: Vot you ask that for, are you a spy or something? Get on against the wall, Britischer Pig, you are going to die!’
Monty Python Minehead Byelection sketch.
Old Moores almanac! The go to read of my mum and dad, told them everything they needed to know for the coming year!
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Happy New year everyone
(Whisper) “don’t mention the war”
Scott Adams
“collectively known as “nutty methods;” 2) put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer . . . commonly referred to as
” nutty methods”
After an audition, Decca turned down The Beatles in 1963 because they said that guitar based ‘beat groups’ were on the way out. They signed up Brian Poole and The Tremeloes instead.
Happy New Year everyone!
No big Ben? Millennium wheel instead!?
Last one out switch off the lights!
Even big Ben is a colonialist racist embarrassment now!
Honoured, m’lud.
Obviously Toby, we’ll now be watching you like a hawk to see hkw your predictions pan out …
Yes, I still shudder when I think of my own response back in the early 1990s when taking over an IT/Business Liaison department in a major bank. I was presented with a new laptop which had 200Mb HDD. “I’ll never fill that up”, I stated sagely.
28/12/2023
“After lithium-ion batteries burned in a large cargo ship’s hold for a number of days, the U.S. Coast Guard said late Saturday that the fire was out and directed the ship to anchor near Dutch Harbor”
“Near” Dutch Harbor?
The US coastguard Oozing confidence!