Theory of Incremental Advantage

A Lit Cigarette Could Have Averted World War I

In 1890 Annie Oakley was in Berlin performing her trick-shooting act. Kaiser Wilhelm challenged Annie Oakley to shoot the ashes off of his cigarette as he was smoking it. She complied and took a successful shot. Had she missed, the history of the world would have been drastically different.

The Power Keg of World War I Was Almost Not Lit

As Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were being driven through the narrow streets of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, a band of young terrorists prepared their bombs. One was so jammed in the crowd that he could not pull the bomb out of his pocket. A second saw a policeman standing near him and decided that any movement was too risky. A third felt sorry for the Archduke’s wife and did nothing. A fourth lost his nerve and slipped off home. But twenty-year-old Gavrilo Princip did not flinch. When a first bomb exploded but failed to injure the imperial couple, Princip thought the plot had failed. Minutes later, he was astounded to see the archduke and the archdukess in their official car, just five feet from him. (The car had taken a wrong turn down a narrow side street.) Princip knew he could not throw his bomb; there was no room. So he pulled out his Browning pistol and fired two shots, point blank. He hit Franz Ferdinand in the throat, severing his carotid artery. The two deaths that this chain of mishaps caused set off a power keg that claimed 11 million lives.

Austria-Hungary decided to use the outrage as a pretext to destroy Serbia. The Austrians needed the backing of Germany. Russia would come to the aid of Serbia. Germany would declare war against Russia. If Germany attacked Russia, France was bound by treaty to race to Russia’s defense. And if France was attacked, Great Britain would feel honor bound to stand by her. If Britain joined the war, so too, would Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. The U.S. was to join the war as well.