1) 156 nails are the reason Europe isn’t speaking French
(napoleon bonaparte)
Everyone knows the name Napoleon, the most successful leader in French history and a genius on the battlefield. His strategies helped the nation of France become almost unstoppable during his day, defeating any of the other super powers that dared to face him.
The most important battle during his campaign was Waterloo, in which he had the chance to crush the armies of both Britain and Prussia and establish his dominance across the whole continent, with no one powerful enough to stop him.
At the time Napoleon had the best army by far, well funded and well trained troops fought exactly how the best commander in French history told them to, leading to many successes. Britain couldn’t match the might of France alone, and before the battle of Waterloo were pulling back away from the French army. The only reason the British stopped to face the French was on the promise the Prussian army would soon join them and level the odds.
During the deployment on the field the British set up 156 cannons, something that would be a deciding factor in the battle. A massive unit of French cavalry charged during the early stages of the fight and took the position of the cannons, but these massive iron guns aren’t exactly something you can destroy with a puny cavalry sword.
The method for taking out cannons was to hammer a nail down the fuse hole so they couldn’t be lit, something that the owner of the guns wouldn’t be able to remove on the battlefield.
Out of pure luck (for the British) every single one of the French nail carrying infantry following the cavalry charge had been killed during the advance, and after the cannon line was taken calls for the nail bearers was met with no reply, and eventually the cavalry were pushed back allowing the British to retake all 156 cannons in working order.
These guns played a huge part in defeating the French, and without them the British would most likely have lost. If France won the battle of Waterloo then Napoleon would have pushed everyone else out the continent and solidified his position, most likely creating a dominant superpower of France consisting of many countries that would exist to this day.
2) 3 Cigars in an envelope is the reason America freed all their slaves.
(Special Order 191 found in the Cigar envelope)
During the American civil war the confederate south had the advantage for the most part and looked like they may conquer the north. One of the reasons they were so successful is due to a man named Robert E. Lee, a confederate general who was an incredible strategist and motivator of his troops.
His counterpart was a man named McClellan, who although seemed competent was no match for Lee. He was outwitted by Lee at every turn and the Union forces were now on the retreat from the confederates. However on September 13th of 1862, a union corporal found an envelope containing 3 cigars wrapped in a piece of paper. The paper was actually a detailed battle plan written by Lee himself that gave details of his advance.
Knowing exactly what Lee was going to do, McClellan set up an ambush for the confederate forces and finally stopped their advance at the battle of Antietam.
No one knows exactly how the cigar envelope came to be were it was, but without that find Lee would have slipped across the river and met McClellan in the field and mostly likely defeated him. This would have allowed the south to get a firm grip on the north to funnel its armies through and give them a good chance of winning the whole war.
3) The first world war was started by a sandwich
(Archduke Franz Ferdinand)
WW1 was one of the worst wars the earth has ever seen, with the weapons involved being close to something out of a nightmare and many millions of people losing their lives as a result.
At the time the relationships between the nations of Europe were shaky at best, and many countries were looking for an excuse to start a fight. This excuse came with the assassination of arch duke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife.
One day in Sarajevo the Archduke and his wife were touring the street in an organised parade, and waiting in the crowd was a 19 year old named Gavrilo Princip. He had planned to kill the Archduke at a certain point in the parade, but was unable to make the location he had planned in time.
He decided to go to one of the streets away from the parade to get a sandwich, but while he was tucking into his meal he noticed the parade route had made an unplanned turn and was coming right down the street he was on. When the car passed by Gavrilo jumped out the crowd and shot the Archduke and his wife, while his half eaten sandwich lay on the floor.
In the event that Gavrilo didn’t go for a sandwich he wouldn’t have had the chance to make the kill, which would mean the whole course of events that led to the war could have been avoided, or at least different.
When Gavrilo was caught, because he was Slavic Hungary blamed Serbia for the assassination and declared war, which caused Russia to declare war on Hungary, which in turn caused Germany to declare war on both Russia and France, and after a few other countries got involved you have yourself a global conflict, with the possible cause being a sandwich.
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