100 Mistakes That Changed History: Backfires and Blunders That Collapsed Empires, Crashed Economies, and Altered the Course of Our World

by Bill Fawcett

  Napoleon was said to be furious when informed of the charge. With the Prussians approaching, he knew he had no infantry to support it. However, he and his guard were not ready to commit his last reserve. But there was no way to call back the attack and no way to stop Ney from charging time after time until the French horses were too blown to fight further.

  Grouchy had pushed the Prussians from their rear, but was now tied up fighting a quarter of von Blucher’s Prussians with his third of the French army at Wavre. This left the rest of the Prussians to march toward Waterloo. When they appeared, Napoleon responded by sending his Young Guard to slow them. As the cavalry charges were ended due to the complete exhaustion of the horses, there still seemed a chance to at least drive off Wellington before enough Prussians arrived to guarantee defeat. So Napoleon Bonaparte turned to his last reserve. The Old Guard formed into massive columns and charged up the hill and toward the battered British and their Dutch allies.

  At this point the Anglo-Dutch army was in bad shape. Some units were at less than half strength. Few British cavalry were capable of attacking, and the heart was gone from the Dutch units. It has to be remembered that less than two years before, these Dutch soldiers had been part of the Grande Armée, idolizing the French emperor they now fought. Wellington was quoted as saying all was lost unless they soon had the Prussians or sunset. Sunset was still a few hours away. He had no reserves left at all.

  The Old Guard marched forward, hoping to smash through the punished British infantry. If they did, it was likely Wellington’s entire army would fall apart. Instead of breaking through, the guard’s massive columns were shot apart, and they were finally forced to retreat. When word spread that the Prussians had arrived and that the guard was retreating, it was Napoleon’s army of the north that dissolved. Victory or defeat had come down to the last fight between the French reserve and desperate British regiments.

  An ill Napoleon had not been able to keep his impetuous second-in-command under control. Marshal Ney had ordered a charge with the last of the French uncommitted formation, its cavalry. Ignoring the fact that he was supposed to be commanding the entire French army, Ney charged over a hill and into the unknown. He expected to seal a victory and instead rode to defeat. If Napoleon had chosen the more competent and less impulsive Davout to lead his army, the Battle of Waterloo might well have ended as “a near run thing” that was a French victory. Had Napoleon Bonaparte won at Waterloo, he might well have been able to dictate a peace that could have kept him on the throne of France.

  49

  INVITING IN THE ANGLOS

  Welcome to Texas

  1821

  When Mexican authorities allowed Anglo settlers into Texas in 1821, they believed it would be in their best interest. By letting outsiders develop land that the Spanish settlers did not want, the state would benefit from the cotton and cattle industries that were so prevalent in the southern areas of the United States. It seemed like an amicable arrangement, but Mexico got more than it bargained for.

  For the most part, Mexico had a “no foreigners” policy, but they saw nothing wrong in allowing foreigners to populate remote areas. They adopted an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude toward the new settlers. This attitude was nothing new. In 1790, Anglo settlers moved to Spanish-owned Upper Louisiana. They were looking for a new life, and the Spanish were looking for people who could keep the Comanche and Kiowa at bay. There were three requirements for newcomers: They had to be Catholic, hardworking, and willing to become Spanish citizens. In 1821, when Mexico won its independence from Spain, the new government adopted the same policy.

  Anglo settlers came from all over the United States, enticed by cheap land and the promise of a better future. Back home, they had to pay dearly for land. The going rate in the United States was $1.25 per acre for a minimum of eighty acres. In Hispanic-owned Texas, settlers could purchase land for $0.04 per acre. In addition, the head of the family, whether man or woman, could claim 4,605 acres. The $184 needed to purchase the land could be paid over a six-year period.

  As if this alone weren’t reason enough to lure settlers into Texas, there were others. Back in the United States, many settlers suffered foreclosures due to crop failures, or they were seriously in debt. Since there were no extradition laws between Mexico and the United States, people could escape their creditors by moving and settling in Mexican territory. Like the settlers on previously owned Spanish lands, new settlers in Texas had to become Catholic, and they had to take an oath of allegiance to Mexico. To most this seemed a small price to pay for a new life with a clean slate.

  One man in particular, Moses Austin, saw great potential to make money by applying for an empresario grant, which involved bringing in new settlers. He planned on charging each settler $0.125 per acre and using the profit to restore his family’s finances. He received permission from the Spanish government to settle 300 families in Texas. Unfortunately, Austin died before he could even get the ball rolling on the venture. So, his son, Stephen F. Austin, inherited the contract.

  After going through a great deal of bureaucratic red tape, the younger Austin finally received the go-ahead to bring families across the border. He encountered problems shortly after the colony settled. Texas had a shift in government. The Mexicans won independence from Spain in 1821. The former Spanish territory became Mexican owned. The settlers had a whole new government to deal with. The new government did not carry forward every policy.

  For example, the African slave trade had been banned in Mexican-held lands. This posed problems for the white settlers in Texas who were used to making their profits off the backs of the African slaves. The settlers found a loophole. They were allowed to bring their family slaves into Texas, where they bought and sold them. This practice continued for years until it was finally banned. When the settlers heard rumors that the slaves might be emancipated altogether, they took the precaution of having their illiterate slaves sign ninety-year indenture contracts. They need not have worried. In 1829, when President Vicente Ramón Guerrero finally emancipated the slaves, Austin spoke to his politically savvy Mexican friends and got a government exemption for his settlers.

  Austin’s payback for his attitude toward the slaves came in the form of a financial letdown. It turned out that empresarios did not own the land within their land grants and therefore were not allowed to make a profit from the land. So, the plan of charging settlers $0.125 per acre was foiled. He did find another way to make money. The perk of being an empresario came with the bonus of 23,000 acres per each 100 families that settled. By 1834, near the end of the empresario era, Austin settled 966 families and received 197,000 acres in bonus land. Since the bonus land legally belonged to him, he could sell it to the highest bidder.

  Austin was not the only empresario in Texas. Many others came but were not willing to follow the restrictions laid down by Mexican authorities. You know the saying “Give them an inch and they take a mile”? Well, the white settlers took more than a mile. They treated the Mexican inhabitants as foreigners in their own land. They used any excuse they could to incite the Mexican government and cause trouble. However, credit must be given where due. Austin did send a militia group to help the Mexicans put down one rebellious empresario.

  The Mexicans grew more and more nervous about the growing number of settlers coming into Texas. So, in 1830, the Mexican government passed a law prohibiting any further Anglo immigration. They also taxed the settlers heavily. This was likely to encourage as many as possible to leave again. All over Texas, settlers protested. Although Austin had usually sided with Mexico during these hostilities, he was arrested outside Mexico City. He had been petitioning the newly appointed general, Antonio López de Santa Anna, to reopen the borders to immigrants and lower the taxes. Austin spent almost a year in a Mexican prison for trying to incite insurrection.

  Santa Anna proved to be a vindictive despot who antagonized just about everyone in Texas, regardless of race. When he arrived back in Texas in 1835, St
ephen Austin found the state in near rebellion. Even though he had occasionally sided with the Mexican authorities, spending a year in prison established his credentials. Leading landholders held a convention and appointed Austin as their leader. After many battles against their Mexican overlords, the Anglo settlers finally won their independence at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836.

  Mexico lost a lucrative province when it lost Texas. They lost it because the majority of its residents had no loyalty to that country. Even in protest to Santa Anna’s restrictions on their liberties and high taxes, without the American settlers there would have been little chance the province would have separated. Perhaps instead of paying Anglos to settle Texas, they should have offered better incentives to their own people. It was a mistake that cost Mexico the territory of Texas and turned the United States’ gaze on that nation’s other northern territories. The world would be very different if everywhere from Texas to California were still part of Mexico.

  50

  DO NOTHING

  Executive Inaction Dooms

  the United States

  1850

  Almost all of the mistakes in this book are actions. They tell about someone doing something wrong or having an accident that changed history. Along with commission there is also omission. Not doing something can be just as great a mistake as doing something very wrong.

  In the decade before the American Civil War, the United States endured three presidents in a row who were simply not up to the job. The question of slavery, which was wrapped in the problem of states’ rights and federal jurisdiction, was the major issue of the 1850s. Yet despite the obvious importance of the problem, amazingly little was done to address it. Slavery was just not a topic that could be ignored or about which any agreement could easily be found. The United States was just about the last place in the modern world where slavery was still legal. Britain, France, and most of Europe had banned it. A look at the record of the three presidents who served from 1850 until Lincoln was elected demonstrates what a mistake it can be when you do nothing.

  Millard Fillmore took office because Zachary Taylor made some stupid choices. On the Fourth of July 1850, President Taylor spent hours in the hot sun at the dedication of the Washington Memorial. He then went back to the White House and helped himself to a lot of cold water, a large bowl of cherries, and finally some iced milk. The problem with this was that Washington, D.C., was in the midst of a particularly virulent cholera epidemic. Cholera is transmitted through tainted water. Everyone had been warned not to drink the water, eat fruit washed in the city’s water, or have anything containing ice made from the city’s water. Taylor did all three and was dead four days later. This made his vice president head of the nation in one of its most troubling times. Fillmore was not as strong a leader or as decisive as his predecessor. Where Taylor had stopped the Clay Compromise, Fillmore saw it as a needed solution. This admitted California as a free state and tightened the laws in the north regarding the return of fugitive slaves. Since the Fugitive Slave Act was unenforceable in the abolitionist north, the south felt betrayed. The Clay Compromise ended up doing more harm than good. That was it. Fillmore did nothing else and was dropped by his party in 1852. More than two years were lost through inaction.

  Franklin Pierce was a last-minute candidate who first appeared on the thirty-fifth nomination vote at the Democratic Convention. That party was split between proslavery southern representatives and those who were just as vehemently abolitionists. Pierce was a doughface, a northerner who favored slavery. Pierce won the nomination and the presidency. But once in office, he proved totally ineffective in dealing with the slavery problem on any level.

  Actually Pierce did more damage to what had been already worked out when he did try to act. When the issue of expansion of the United States into its western territories blew up over which would be free and which slave states, he helped Frederick Douglass destroy the Missouri Compromise. The citizens of Kansas and Nebraska were allowed to vote, slave or free. The resulting violence gave rise to the term “Bleeding Kansas,” and the split between north and south became greater. President Pierce was never again able to deal with the issue of slavery or much else. Mostly he went drinking and argued with his critics. By the end of his term, Pierce had proved himself abysmal at diplomacy and had a habit of substituting bluster for action. He alienated even his own party. In 1856 the motto of the Democratic Convention was “Anybody but Pierce.” When James Buchanan took office everyone forgot to get President Pierce to ride in the inaugural parade. He never did get to it. Because of Pierce, four more crucial years were lost, and the nation became more divided.

  James Buchanan had been a really good trial lawyer and made a fortune at it. This was good as it gave him something to live on after being one of the worst U.S. presidents ever. He could not have come along at a worse time. When the problem of slavery had begun to overwhelm all other issues and split the nation, he proved to be a weak hand on the rudder of the ship of state. The former lawyer really got elected more for where he was during the election of 1856 than for who he was or what he stood for. While everyone else had gotten soiled over the violence resulting from the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Buchanan was ambassador to England. This made him just about the only generally popular and untarnished candidate the Democrats could field. The new Republican Party did well, but the Democratic machine managed to win just one more time. The problem then was that Buchanan had no idea what was going on. Once president, he was indecisive, and he fluctuated between proslavery and antislavery positions until he had alienated both sides. One is hard put to find any substantial accomplishments in any area by Buchanan, even at a time when the United States was tearing itself apart.

  In a list of the worst presidents in history, all three from the 1850s make the top ten. Some argue James Buchanan was the worst while other historians hold out for Franklin Pierce. All three were totally ineffective at dealing with the most pressing problem of their day. By the time Abraham Lincoln replaced Buchanan as president, the nation was divided and was soon at war with itself. Three men who led the nation did nothing, and by doing nothing, they doomed the United States to a civil war and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

  51

  STUBBORN

  The Man Who Prolonged

  the Civil War

  1861

  More than 600,000 men on both sides died in the American Civil War. The war lasted nearly five years and devastated much of the southern United States. Had the Union won the first battle of the war, there is a good chance that the war might have ended within weeks when compromises were still possible. In the first battles of the Civil War, both sides struggled to understand command and maneuver. But one side was better armed than the other, and that helped make a difference.

  Because of the Union’s greater industrial capabilities, most people today are under the impression that the Union Army was always better equipped. This was certainly the case by 1862, but due to a mistake made by James Wolfe Ripley, as the chief of ordnance, this was not true at the start of the war.

  In July 1861, Ripley took over the office that purchased all of the weapons and equipment used by the Union Army and Navy. He was sixty-seven years old at the time he was appointed chief. He had fought in the War of 1812, against the Creek and Seminole tribes under Andrew Jackson, and more recently in the Mexican War. He also had been working with ordnance and supply for more than thirty years before he became the top decision maker in that office. He was brought in because his predecessor was inefficient and unable to change with the times. Unfortunately for the Union armies, Ripley proved worse.

  Just as the war started and before the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas Creek), the British had completed changing over most of their army to using a new Enfield rifle. This left them with warehouses full of almost 100,000 perfectly usable rifled muskets. The British immediately contacted Ripley, as it was apparent that the U.S. government was going to need a lot of weapons quickly, and offered them to him. T
he mistake was that Ripley immediately and adamantly turned down the offer.

  There were probably a number of reasons that the chief of ordnance did not take the British muskets. It cannot be forgotten that he had actually fought against the British in the War of 1812. Also, there was national pride. The stated reason that he turned down the weapons was “Buy American.” There is also the suspicion that Ripley stood to personally gain by limiting all purchases to American-made weapons. He held some ownership in a U.S.based weapons company. But the real reason, his later actions showed, was that the man who determined for two years what the Union Army fought with was simply hidebound and opposed to any change.

  When Ripley turned down the British weapons, they were quickly snatched up by the Confederacy. This meant that for the first months of the war, while Union units struggled with getting the right ammunition for a range of mismatched muskets, the Confederate troops were almost all armed with fairly modern muskets of the same caliber. They were, for those first months, better armed and more easily supplied than the Union soldiers they fought.

  James Wolfe Ripley continued in his stubborn resistance to new ideas and weapons until removed from the top position in September 1863. In those two years, he resisted breech-loading weapons, refused to buy the Spencer or other repeating rifles, and kept the army from purchasing any substantial number of Gatling guns. Ripley did not cost the North a victory, but he made it harder to achieve by denying his side the most modern weapons and equipment. And it seemed he did this for no reason other than his own aversion to anything new or different. In a war that marked the beginning of modern technological warfare, Chief of Ordnance Ripley’s decisions slowed a Union victory more than the mistakes of any one general.