Today we are going to look at misunderstandings throughout history: famous, infamous, and
less known but stupid enough for us.
By now you’ve almost certainly made some catastrophic or embarrassing blunders of your own that you’d
rather not think of, and absolutely don’t want some jerk on the internet sharing with
the world. But have you ever accidentally started a war, or stubbornly caused thousands of innocent
people to die? These nitwits have.
As we have seen in previous episodes, war, famine, and death visit humanity frequently
and for any number of reasons. The most common cause for these horrible events is often the
very people who are victimized by it (or at least their leaders). Again and again throughout history, the ruling class
of troubled societies purposely make decisions that promote suffering.
Sometimes people manage to create conditions for their own doom through complete ignorance
rather than malice. And on very rare occasions, the unpleasant events that follow might even
have a desirable outcome. The unfortunate implication is that people, despite their
assertions otherwise, are seldom in control of their own fates. Why might this be? What
forces in the natural world conspire against the human concept of free will?
In this, our tenth and final episode of the Bad Things in History documentary series kicking off our channel, we will try
to find the answers to our questions by looking at examples from the historical record.
George Washington, although celebrated for his achievements in helping establish the
United States, is known for being involved in not just one, but at least two notable instances
where a simple misunderstanding resulted in violence and death.
In 1753, Washington was a Lieutenant Colonel in his early 20s. He was ordered by the Governor
of Virginia to assist and defend William Trent with the construction of his fort.
Orders given to Washington by Governor Dinwiddie stated:
"act on the [defensive], but in Case any Attempts are made to obstruct the Works or interrupt
our [settlements] by any Persons whatsoever, You are to restrain all such Offenders, & in
Case of resistance to make Prisoners of or kill and destroy them."
Some time after arriving, Washington was formally ordered to remove his troops from this territory
by the French. He interpreted his orders to mean that it was okay to attack the French instead.
Washington’s troops ambushed the camp of a French officer named Joseph Coulon de Villiers
de Jumonville. Without giving any warning or offering a chance to surrender, Washington
ordered his men to fire.
Ten of the French, including Jumonville, were killed in the exchange. One person escaped,
and was able to deliver a firsthand account to the French commander at Fort Duquesne.
Washington then proceeded to build his own fort, called Fort Necessity, and prepared
for a French counterattack. Unfortunately for Washington, the British were not terribly
interested in helping him hold this position. Under siege from the French and natives, Washington
was eventually forced to surrender.
As part of the surrender process, Washington signed a document that was written in French.
Washington could not speak or read French, but signed the document anyway. And the document
contained a statement that Jumonville had been assassinated. Furthermore, the French
asserted that Jumonville’s party was diplomatic and not military in nature. The diplomatic
fallout which resulted from this incident started what became known as the Seven Years’
War, also sometimes called the French And Indian War. To summarize in a more succinct
manner, Washington’s overwhelming ignorance started a war.
In 1776, George Washington was involved in the Revolutionary War and it was not going
well. He had lost 4,000 troops in recent conflicts with the British, and his remaining troops
were freezing and starving. Washington decided that he needed to take immediate action before
his army was unable to fight any longer. So he decided to cross the Delaware River and
attack the town of Trenton. A large force of Hessian mercenaries were occupying the
area. Their commander was Johann Rall.
Although Washington is revered in the United States today, he did not command universal
respect in 1776. A farmer, still loyal to the British, saw Washington’s troop movements.
He approached the Hessian camp to warn them. Most of the garrison was asleep and Rall had left
orders not to be disturbed. The farmer wrote a warning on a note and left it with a guard
who promised to deliver the message to Rall. The guard supposedly never looked at the note
again, and never delivered the message. Additionally the guards did not speak or read English and
probably could not have understood the warning had they cared to examine it.
The Battle of Trenton was the result, and Washington’s men easily captured the town
and defeated the Hessian troops. However, as evidence that Washington may have learned
from his previous misadventures, the failure of Hessians to heed the warning might have
been partially engineered by Washington himself.
George Washington had recruited a spy in Trenton named John Honeyman, who was known to the
British as a loyalist. Honeyman was a butcher and a bartender, and he traded with both British
and Hessians. Due to these frequent interactions, he was able to gather intelligence to provide
to Washington. Most importantly, he was also able to convince the British and Hessians
that the Contintental Army was in such a poor state that they could not possibly attack.
Although George Washington may have started a world war, in 1945 a potential misunderstanding
between Japan and the United States ended another world war in the most violent and
abrupt manner possible.
When World War II finally ended in Europe, Allied leaders met at the Potsdam conference
where they called for Japan’s unconditional surrender. The hope was that Japan would agree
as a land invasion would be costly in terms of capital and lives. The Japanese were having
significant internal strife concerning the possibility of surrender. But their response
communicated exactly the opposite to the Allies.
Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki of Japan, after being asked repeatedly for a response to the
Allies, responded with just one word: mokusatsu. The word has several meanings depending upon
context. According to the Japanese, what Suzuki meant was “no comment”. What the Allies
translated was actually “not worthy of comment; held in silent contempt”. The United States
in particular perceived this as a direct insult. President Harry S. Truman took the response
to mean that the Japanese outright rejected the surrender request. So he ordered the
atomic bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The implication being that the
Japanese brought this upon themselves. Some historians claim that the Allies translated
the response correctly, and that the claim of a misunderstanding is a fiction created
by the Japanese after the fact. Chalmers Johnson wrote in 1980:
'Since the characters for mokusatsu mean 'silent kill,' most informed commentators believe
that the Allies did not mistranslate Suzuki. If he really meant 'no comment,' that is not
what he said - and mokusatsu does not imply it, even obliquely. However, the fact that
the Japanese and Emmerson maintain that Suzuki's nuance was misunderstood illustrates the tendency
of the Japanese to take refuge in alleged mistranslations.'
Hebert Bix, an American Historian, also concluded that:
'“No need to rush” directly contravened Article 5 of the Potsdam Declaration (“We
shall brook no delay”) and as a position that further strengthened the contemporary
Western analysis that, as of 28 July, the Japanese, following the leadership of their
emperor, had neither reversed their decision, nor loosened their will to fight to the finish,
while making vague overtures for peace on a separate track. Suzuki’s intention was
not misunderstood.'
Despite the contradicting claims of historians’ and Japanese interpretations of Suzuki’s
response, it is probably safe to assume that at no point did the Japanese intend to say
“please drop nuclear weapons on our cities”. Unfortunately, it would seem that violent
acts speak with a clarity that language often cannot.
Thankfully, sometimes misunderstandings concerning important events can have comical results
where the only significant damage is to the victim’s pride.
President Jimmy Carter visited Poland in 1977. He was thoroughly humiliated by being provided
with bad translators not once, but twice during the same trip. Of course, Carter would become
quite used to humiliation by the end of his term.
During a speech Carter gave to the Polish, he expressed that he wanted to learn about
Polish people’s desires for the future. The translator then took this to mean that
Carter was relaying his sexual desire for the Communist country. Also, Carter’s statement
of “I left the United States this morning” was translated as “I left the United States
this morning never to return”. Even the seemingly innocuous statement of how Carter
was “happy to be in Poland” ended up being mistranslated as “he was happy to grasp
at Poland’s private parts”.
By the time Carter had to give another speech at a state banquet during the same trip, he
had the good sense to request a different interpreter. Unfortunately quality control
was not a high priority. The new translator could not understand Carter’s English, and
rather than risk a mistranslation he simply remained silent. Thus, Carter gave a speech
in English which almost nobody understood.
As far as we know, Carter never indicated which of the two translators he preferred.
But he did become the subject of many Polish jokes after this embarrassing trip.
The end of the Cold War, surprisingly, may have been at least partially the result of
an East German official completely failing to understand how to do his job properly.
Ignorance can apparently be beneficial under the right conditions.
Shortly after the end of World War II, the Berlin Wall was built. It separated East Germany
from West Germany, and was a clear dividing line between Democracy and Communism. By 1989,
though, conditions in the Communist countries were not great. Although people could not
pass through the Berlin Wall from East to West without being shot or arrested, they
were using legal loopholes to immigrate to Democratic countries in increasingly larger
numbers through other countries.
The East Germans, who incidentally called the Berlin Wall the Anti-Fascist Wall incidentally, decided
to appease would-be defectors by increasing the number of temporary visas. Specifically,
they were going to offer temporary visas for a future unspecified date. The official who
was tasked with delivering the news, however, was not very well educated on the true intent
of his government.
Gunter Schabowski was a low level member of the East German government, who was known
to have a drinking problem. On November 9, 1989 he was chosen to deliver the new policy
on a live news broadcast mainly because nobody knew who he was and therefore would not already
be angry with him. After all, the intent was to quell social unrest.
Schabowski during the news conference appeared to be possibly hungover and gave a very uninspiring
speech. When an Italian journalist asked when the new Visas would go into effect, Schabowski
replied “immediately”. After the room erupted into chaos, he further increased the
severity of his mistake by announcing that everyone who already had a passport qualified
for the visa without needing to apply for a new one. The end result was that crowds
rushed the Berlin wall, guards had no idea what to do, and the entire system of communism
in East Germany came crashing down. So did the entire Soviet Union shortly thereafter.
Schabowski missed several meetings prior to the press conference where this new policy
was discussed. He stated that all he needed to do to handle the press release
was speak German and know how to read a text without making mistakes. Apparently he failed
on both counts.
After the Communist government fell in East Germany, the new government eventually charged
Schabowski in the murder of East Germans who were killed when trying to flee. He was convicted,
served a year in jail, and was then pardoned. Schabowski lived until 2015, but he never
participated in another press conference as far as we know.
The tendency for people to not understand each other has undoubtedly created
a countless number of horrible situations. Quite often, expectations can greatly predict
how a misinterpretation might be perceived. In the instance of the Japanese in World War
Two, the United States was predisposed to continue with violence rather than demonstrate
patience. And in the case of Washington and his surrender to the French, the pressing
need to retreat appeared to override any concern for understanding the document he endorsed.
Are misunderstandings really a thing though? Is it possible that nearly all of the events
surrounding them are random, and it is simply our human desire to find order within chaos
that is able to frame them as being a simple series of unfortunate events?
As we finally conclude this documentary series, it is clear that whatever the cause, history
is full of unpleasant events happening to all groups of people. The poor often suffer
more frequently and more often. But under the worst conditions created by famine and
war, even the privileged elite in society can share the experience.
Although we would like to think that modern societies have evolved beyond the problems
our ancestors faced, the lessons of history suggest that belief is a fiction. Almost every
problem we have discussed is still in issue in the modern world. The impacts might be
more localized, but none have been eliminated completely.
If one values lessening human suffering as much as possible, then one conclusion is that
the discovery of agriculture was among the worst events in human history. Until the mid-20th
century, most people who lived in agricultural societies experienced a worse quality of life
than their hunter gatherer ancestors. Fewer humans living in smaller groups often eliminated
some of the issues with disease and famine. But, violence seems to always exist no matter
how humanity organizes itself.
Do you think that humanity will overcome its tendency to inflict suffering? Or is everyone
ultimately doomed? Please let us know in the comments. And as always...
Thank you for watching Bad Things In History.