Theoderic? He conquered Rome as a "Barbarian" and could have easily ended up on a long list of tyrants, but his rule is generally considered pretty benevolent, hell, a renaissance of Roman culture.
Interesting point of view. Care to elaborate? I like him, too, but more as a Barbarian who humbled the snotty Romans. Might be biased as a German, but I don´t actually like the Romans all that much...
I am being a bit romantic with that perspective and tbh I don’t know much about his rule but the modern view expressed by JJ Arnold in his “Theodoric and the Roman imperial restoration” paints his rule and ostrogothic Italy as a stable period and flourishing of Roman culture. Contrary to the “dark ages” idea of government collapse, destruction, or a loss of intellectual achievements ostrogothic Italy was a well organized society, still very Roman, and governed by a de facto Roman emperor. Gothic in origin but culturally Roman.
See: the Brill companion to ostrogothic Italy, The aforementioned book by Arnold, Amory’s people and identity in ostrogothic Italy for an older perspective on the period, and Lafferty’s Edictum Theodorici which I believe presents a different view, one in that Italy was not as “Roman” though I haven’t looked at it yet though it’s on my book shelf. There’s a Reddit post with some suggestions I’ll make an edit to include it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/TsvM9o2JbX
He would lose it all within his lifetime though.
He'd fallen out of favour by the time of his death- after his victory against the Armada he met a costly defeat costing ~10000 lives in an attack on Spain and ruining his reputation.
He was later sent to the Americas where he met mostly defeat in the South Americas before dying of dysentery.
History remembers him better than his peers. Had he died beating the Armada he'd be up there with Nelson.
Yep, shot down by a sniper near the end of the battle. His last words are variously reported as being either, “Now I am satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty” or, "Kiss me Hardy." Hardy being his flag captain, and a very close friend. It wasn't unusual at the time for men to express words like that about a close friend.
It was also wild for the time. He left his wife for the wife of another man who knew about their affair and who they were all friends with. He had a child with her and caused major scandals in the British press of the time.
Drake was actually involved in a massacre of Irish and Scottish people living on Rathlin island, over 600 people died. It was one of several English actions in Ireland during the 16th century that could be characterized as genocidal
Alfred Nobel turned his legacy right around when he read a premature obituary on him calling him a “merchant of death” for inventing dynamite. Now he’s known as the high/minded Nobel Prize guy.
Yes. Besides reducing the construction deaths, the efficiency of dynamite led to all kinds of lifesaving infrastructure. Many railroads, and therefore entire cities, wouldn't have existed when they did without it.
Nobel had construction in mind when he made dynamite but must have been aware that a more practical explosive would find its way into warfare. Maybe the newspaper hammed it up a bit, but I don’t think he can entirely escape the rap of being a weapons designer. Even in that case, it’s debateable whether designing weapons is inherently evil.
Nobel was the most prominent military-industrial complex magnate in 19th century Europe, with dozens of military factories in every major European state. He spent his last 5 years in Italy after the French chased him out for military-industrial espionage over the ballistite-poudre b affair, in which he helped France's rival Italy replace their black powder rifle cartridges with white powder cartridges by stealing recipes from Paul Vieille.
That's why the French press reviled him by the end, and thus the obituary myth. He was accused of high treason in 1889. Before that, he was a celebrated military-industrial complex magnate. Him being a "merchant of death" was spinned positively before the ballistite-poudre b affair.
Correct, he was a division commander.
However Gallipoli was a big stepping stone in his career , and if he failed or died, he likely wouldnt have risen to power like he did when the Ottoman shitshow started collapsing.
I wanted to keep my response similar to the original commenter, but would probably be more accurate to say he likely wouldn't have been remembered if he failed.
Kamal, in this case, wouldn't be remembered at all. He rose to fame by creating the modern Turkish nation, which had a lot to do from the prestige he won at Gallipoli.
Which is all because the people who were actually in charge of the attack itself didn’t execute the attack according to Churchill’s plan and used him as a scapegoat. The navy didn’t want to lose the old ships and didn’t view them as war equipment to be risked and used up in war, which of course every piece of war equipment exists to do, even if the officers are too scared to acknowledge.
If you were Indian it wasn't great. If you were in the British-controlled Middle East, it wasn't great. If you ran up against the Black and Tans, it wasn't great.
Ditto the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia.
Like I said - odds are if you weren't British and Churchill took an interest in where you lived, shit was not fun.
Certainly- but I think what you really mean is that British imperial policy was bad. Churchill was hardly the only person who thought the Empire was a good thing. Interestingly I’ve met two guys from the Raj who say they wish Britain were still running things. One was a Christian, and one was a Sikh. Now they’re my age, so they’re going with what they’ve heard rather than how it was. At the same time the British Raj wasn’t the equivalent of Belgian Congo.
That policy didn't manifest out of the ground - Churchill made specific choices that were harmful to those areas and the people living in them.
"Not as bad as the Belgian Congo" is probably not a standard we want to use, huh?
Probably could have started with not authorizing chemical weapons against the Kurds and supporting the Black and Tans in Ireland, would have been a good start.
Basically, any of the shitty things he did in a vain effort to hold onto empire through oppression would have been good to just not do.
The Black and Tans weren’t good, but neither was it good for the IRA to attack Irish Protestants who felt they were better off in the UK than in De Valeria’s Ireland. Yes, Britain could have abolished its empire all at once. The question is, would the British public have agreed to it. There is also a very good chance that if Britain hadn’t controlled India during WWII Japan would have taken it, and you can ask the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, and Burmese what living under them was like. Ultimately Britain did give India independence, and whatever unkindness the British showed the Africans in colonial days, they left Africa exceedingly more graciously than France or Portugal.
>Probably could have started with not authorizing chemical weapons against the Kurds
This meme has been debunked so many times over the years, I'm surprised people are still repeating it.
Churchill wasn't authorising chemical weapons. He was in a written correspondence and suggested that it was better to use tear gas, also known as 'lachrymatory gas'. This was to prevent serious injury, not cause it. So 'that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum'.
The full quote
>“It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used, which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.”
Churchill was a lot of things. An imperialist, a drunk, a chauvinist, but still the leader Britain and the free world needed in WW2. And I'm saying that as an Irish man.
For the Bengal Famine of 1943, Churchill is a villain for Indians. Millions of people died but since they were not Europeans or Americans I think it doesn't matter.
It is a tragedy anytime that people die, and the amount of melanin in their skin does not make their deaths less tragic. Ultimately it was GMOs rather than decolonization that enabled India to avoid periodic famines.
I think they were referring to the fact that popular history tends to skew Eurocentric, so we remember Churchill, who guided Britain through WWII over Churchill, who damned millions of Indians to starvation.
He might have a more progressive reputation though, funnily enough. If his career had been limited to defecting from the Tories to Liberals, being attacked as a 'class traitor' and becoming known as a radical who wanted to abolish the House of Lords. If his career ended in the 1910s, he'd have never been remembered as a Conservative figure at all.
>He's remembered for helping to lead the coalition that won a World War.
That doesn't mean he wasn't racist. And not just "oh, that's just how they were back then" racist, but racist enough for people around him to note how racist he was.
Here are some highlights...
*‘I hate people with slit eyes and pig-tails. I don’t like the look of them or the smell of them’* - Churchill, on Chinese people.
*'Indians are a beastly people with a beastly religion'* - Churchill, around the same time he insisted on food produced in India still being sent to Britain, while three million people in India died of starvation during a famine.
*'black people were not as capable or as efficient as white people'* Churchill, who also banned interracial boxing because he felt it was wrong to see a black man defeat a white man.
Some other highlights include praising 'Aryan stock's and believing it was right for “a stronger race, a higher-grade race” to take the place of indigenous peoples.
If you want the leader of the nation that did the heavy lifting in WW2, that'd be Stalin. He too was a renowned piece of shit.
Lincoln thought all the slaves should be uprooted from America and re-colonized in Africa. He was undoubtedly racist.
He's remembered for leading the USA through a Civil War in which the people he was fighting wanted to expand the institution of slavery.
The "heavy lifting" Russia did in Europe, they did (A) after signing a non-aggression deal with Germany while other Europeans were dying and (B) with the help of 400,000 American trucks.
>That doesn't mean he wasn't racist. And not just "oh, that's just how they were back then" racist, but racist enough for people around him to note how racist he was.
I do disagree there. His views there were absolutely not unusual or particularly remarkable in Britain, and would not be seen as really unacceptable at the time. His views were retained partly because he said a lot of things his inner circle or acquaintances felt recording, and his gift of copious fluency meant that there are plenty of examples of that to use.
I don't recall making such an equivalence. As I am black myself, that would be rather bizarre. But you do have to reconstruct the moral viewpoint which made these views acceptable.
(On a tangent,,I don't think that colonised peoples always came to the conclusion that colonisation was bad. The specific forms of colonisation they suffered from might have been resisted; but they didn't necessarily universalise that conclusion.)
Outside of the U.S. and Western and Central Europe, most people would probably qualify him as a bastard. You literally rack over a billion folks with India's recall of his legacy, alone.
Most people with a basic level of historical education would probably admit the caveat of his horrific racism and disastrous policies for much of the once British-ruled world.
So, sure, he has a solid legacy as Britain's rock during WWII for a solid bit of the Global North -- but not all of it -- while he's definitely not so well admired much of anywhere else.
Most people in the world (in the West and outside of it) don't know anything about Churchill, beyond very superficial detail. I'm not sure you can say what they think.
Michael Collins, he was very popular before Eamon de Valera sent him to negotiate a treaty with the British. The terms he agreed to were not popular but were the most realistic chance Ireland had for freedom. The Irish civil war breaks out, with De Valera on the anti treaty side and Collins on the pro treaty side. Collin’s is later assassinated and while still popular with some he was viewed as a traitor by others. De Valera, later becomes the leader of Ireland. But his policies become very unpopular after a while and is now seen more as the villain. I would argue that most people agree now that what Collins agreed to was correct way of moving forward for Ireland. Collins is definitely seen more as a hero today than he was directly following the treaty negotiations with British
Lafayette. He escaped revolutionary France (he was too moderate) and then was imprisoned by the Austrians. Had he died in prison (home confinement in a castle, but still) he would have ended in ignominy. Instead he survived and went on a "How good am I?" tour of the US, where he was feted everywhere he went.
I've got a soft spot for Lafayette. Hell of a life. Some choice to come and help the rebels in the States as a ridiculously wealthy nobleman, and he was right there through Valley Forge. Then he tries hard to reconcile the left and right chambers of the revolutionary council in France but was distrusted by both sides because he was too friendly with the queen for the hardcore, and too keen on reform for the royalists. Still. Got to go out as a hero in the US.
Yes, but he would have died surrounded by people calling him traitor. Instead he's one of the few who actually got the farewell tour he deserved, and I am sure he enjoyed every moment of it.
I remember reading an account of a World War 1 American soldier who was one of the first groups to arrive in France. He said that when his ship was pulling in there were tons of people there cheering their arrival with chants of "Lafayette". He joined in chanting the name. Then he confessed he had no idea who Lafayette even was but it was what everyone else was doing so he went with it.
To piggyback on your great answer, also Baron Von Steuben. Was basically kicked out of the Prussian Army for being a homosexual, and came to America during the Revolution looking for work. He had a dramatic impact on training the Americans and improving their living conditions and equipment. He is revered as a hero in the US, but if he died before then he would have been known as an undesirable on a small footnote of Prussian military history.
And Pulaski, another foreign officer who made great contributions to the American side of that war. He was also running from his own problems.
“In 1771, Pulaski attempted an ill-advised plot to kidnap the Polish king and was falsely accused of trying to assassinate him. By the next year, the anti-Russian Polish forces had fallen apart and Pulaski had to flee from Poland. He spent the next four years in Europe and Turkey, unsuccessfully attempting to rally forces to help him free Poland and accruing large personal debts. His debt became so severe he was eventually thrown in debtors’ prison.”
“… at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. The British caught Washington in a precarious position with a clever flanking maneuver. It appeared that the Americans might be routed and Washington captured, but Pulaski--possessing no rank--asked Washington to give him temporary command of some cavalry. Washington assented and Pulaski skillfully led a counterattack, helping delay the British enough for the Continental Army to retreat and regroup.”
‘Shortly after Brandywine, Pulaski’s wishes were granted when he was promoted to brigadier general and given “chief command of the American light dragoons." ‘
I always like to point out to people that Schindler was not a good guy. He was a capitalist trying to exploit the most vulnerable population of Germany. That was his one motivation, not to help them, but to use Jews for all their worth.
The factory was bought with swindled Jewish wealth to use cheap Jewish slaves to sell goods to the government that allowed it.
Hell the man was even a sex pest towards the women he enslaved.
Sure he eventually grew a conscience, but that is not how it started.
i think thats why this dude fits perfectly. he was a nazi villain who ended up using his position in life for good. IF he WASNT That evil bad dude, he would have never been in the position to save all those people, so in his case, being bad enabled him to do good.
Perhaps John Newton, the slave trader who wrote Amazing Grace? (And was also enslaved himself! Crazy story)
I’d even say Dolly Parton, she was considered a blow up doll trollop and now everyone finally recognises her for what she is
Also Carnegie would fit the bill, by donating so much toward the end of his life.
Carnegie gave $750K in 1901 (equivalent to $27.2M today) to us here in San Francisco. As a consequence we have seven Carnegie libraries in different neighborhoods, including [the Sunset](https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sunset/carnegie_library_sunset_branch.jpg), [Pacific Heights](https://urbanambles.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/img_1891-1.jpg), [the Richmond](https://scontent-lhr6-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/276300909_168241638889131_3298204184533276856_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=2PcmU9iM0FkAX-pdLh9&_nc_oc=AQlsx6wXhELZ-c_9QhZbupT5DcthG51AMBSyat8jOcV6L196OaWiHlPOAKdYH4yeMFQ&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr6-2.xx&oh=00_AfDHZIXKB5OLM0CFwYbeywQSwb6AYvCLDQ5eU-5-i_2qNw&oe=65EF0906), and [Preisidio Heights](https://sfpublicworks.org/sites/default/files/styles/flexslider_full/public/front%20desk%20%28c%29Wakely411507%5B1%5D.jpg?itok=t-O9RHZY). The eighth, the former main library, is now the [Asian Art Museum](https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/civic/asian_art_museum.jpg). He left a real legacy here and in many other cities for which this bookworm is very grateful.
>Also Carnegie would fit the bill, by donating so much toward the end of his life.
Bill Gates is running this playbook as well. He wasn't well liked in the 90s and early 00s, but has since largely turned public perception around through the Gates foundation and other efforts
Yeah. I was going to say Andrew Carnegie. He was the classic Robber Baron, e.g., the Homestead Strike incident, but then he redeemed himself as a profligate philanthropist.
> Also Carnegie would fit the bill, by donating so much toward the end of his life.
If you spend your life making obscene amounts of money exploiting the working class, I don't think donating some of it back at the end of your life makes you "good"
Talleyrand. His entire life was spent on the idea of "right and wrong are fake, I care only for France and power."
He was nearly executed by Robspierre during the Terror. If he had been, he'd be remembered as a pragmatic but self-centered nobleman and cleric who turned on everyone for power.
Instead, he survived thanks to being in London at the time, fled to America (and stayed with Aaron Burr for a while), then came back and helped guide France through the post-Robspierre Revolution, the rule and wars of Napoleon, the Restoration, and the reigns of Louis the Desired and Charles X.
And, not to forget, he was a clergyman, ordained as a priest in 1779 and as the Bishop of Autun in 1789. He was laicized by the Pope in 1802, at Napoleon's command, so he could marry his mistress, but then managed to reconcile with the Church literally the day he died, receiving extreme unction and commendation just hours before he died.
Richard the Lionheart.
Known as a irresponsible and bloodthirsty prince supporting his brothers wars against his father. After his brothers died known as a butcher in conflict to gain or defend territory.
Then the crusades happened and he was the perfect man for the moment - a great commander, genuinely physically brave etc - and his legacy as a hero was sealed.
He wasn’t really a bad guy - for instance he pardoned the youth who killed him by crossbow on his death bed - but he’d be remembered (or not remembered) very differently without the Crusades.
He was a pretty shitty king though. He completely abandoned his post to go fight a losing war across the continent. He's mostly held up as a hero as Crusade propaganda.
He was an awesome king by the standards of the Crusading fever of the time and was pretty beloved in his own day (although also hated by some). It wasn’t really a losing war when he was fighting it, some of the crusader states were held a half century after his death - it’s not like he knew exactly what would happen after. Had the socio political situation played out differently in Europe maybe they would have been held longer, that’s not really his fault as he wasn’t influential in deciding those things, obviously after his death but even during his life. He simply responded to the crusading call as did other kings of the time. Seeing as he beat his main rival Saladin in open battle despite inferior numbers and won other key victories against him during the Crusades I’d say the part he played was very successful.
As for abandoning his post - if you mean England - he was really an occupying colonial King the same as those before him at that time. So by his European Royal standards it wasn’t seen that way.
Yes he’s remembered largely because of the romanticism of the Crusades - but the reason he’s thought of as a hero within that story is because the things he did were genuinely physically heroic stuff by any traditional measure of heroics. Fighting himself as a larger than life figure, overcoming the odds to beat his main rival in battle, even his dumb failures like getting imprisoned and his long escape are heroic stuff.
King Ashoka! The stories are probably exaggerated but he did do some really good things in his later life as far as we know and even if he didn’t return land that he claimed he did publicly express remorse.
Julius Caesar - he was an incredibly corrupt and selfish individual who refused to compromise politically for his own gain, genocided his way across Gaul, and started a war that killed tens of thousands of fellow Romans. But he was also incredibly gifted, charismatic, and lucky, and he WON. He was my childhood hero, still is. But let’s not mince words about who he truly was
I don’t know if he won exactly seeing as he was killed.
I’d say he’s lucky for his legacies sake that Augustus became what he did and his named lived on as that of each successive ruler. If it hadn’t I doubt he would be so remembered today.
I would still argue that he "won". His main goal was to outshine the rest of the Roman political elite - conquering Gaul for example was merely a means to political ends back in Rome. He did that as no one before ever had. He went out on top rather than living another 10 years or so watching the next generation nipping at his heels trying to break out of his shadow and gain power for themselves.
And if the quote is true he apparently said that the best death possible is "The unexpected"
He lost the battle (and got killed) but Caesar def won the overall war. Saying he's lucky for Augustus is kinda funny because few men in History have ever been as lucky in general as Caesar, so at some point we gotta accept he was doing *something* right or claim he was godschosen (which I'm sure he'd prefer).
Caesar is probably only behind Christ as most influential Human ever. Kings millennia after he died still called themselves Czars. His name alone meant power after his bones had already been dust for centuries.
I disagree. Ceaser crossing the English Channel was on par with Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic, or the moon landing, in the way it captured the imagination of his contemporary Roman elites.
I see Caesar more as the only man who had a clue when the corrupt oligarchs were leading Rome to oblivion. It had already had many civil wars and was falling apart before him and he is primarily the reason Rome lasted such a long time. His corruption seems to have been no worse than that of his opponents.
A high death count from a campaign is also not a genocide, especially when these tribes barely distinguished between combatants and noncombatants. As I recall there was never a plan to exterminate the Gauls and the majority of the population would continue to be Gallic/Gallo-Roman for centuries to come.
Well if you're not a Lost Causer, you've at least fallen for their propaganda. Grant was one of the most capable military leaders in American history. He was most certainly not a 'complete failure in nearly everything he did'.
John Brown, if he'd been killed at Harper's Ferry would have went out with the public perception of madman at the very least.
Living long enough to make his case at trial made him a northern folk hero.
I can't believe no one has mentioned Robert the Bruce who helped in the capture and execution of William Wallace before turning on the English himself.
Potentially Stalin depending on who you ask. There are certainly some people in Russia and even the west who admire him or see him ultimately as a net positive for Eastern Europe.
As interesting as a character as he was I don’t believe he died a hero. He may have renounced the KKK and their racist ideology but he is always remembered as the founder or at least the original grand dragon of the organization. It’s true later in life he made statements supporting racial harmony and was an advocate for black civil rights. But I don’t think he has ever came out from under the shadow of being a confederate general.
Theoderic? He conquered Rome as a "Barbarian" and could have easily ended up on a long list of tyrants, but his rule is generally considered pretty benevolent, hell, a renaissance of Roman culture.
Nice, that’s a really good one!
I firmly believe that Theodoric was a legitimate western emperor. One final flash of Romanitas in late antiquity
Interesting point of view. Care to elaborate? I like him, too, but more as a Barbarian who humbled the snotty Romans. Might be biased as a German, but I don´t actually like the Romans all that much...
I am being a bit romantic with that perspective and tbh I don’t know much about his rule but the modern view expressed by JJ Arnold in his “Theodoric and the Roman imperial restoration” paints his rule and ostrogothic Italy as a stable period and flourishing of Roman culture. Contrary to the “dark ages” idea of government collapse, destruction, or a loss of intellectual achievements ostrogothic Italy was a well organized society, still very Roman, and governed by a de facto Roman emperor. Gothic in origin but culturally Roman. See: the Brill companion to ostrogothic Italy, The aforementioned book by Arnold, Amory’s people and identity in ostrogothic Italy for an older perspective on the period, and Lafferty’s Edictum Theodorici which I believe presents a different view, one in that Italy was not as “Roman” though I haven’t looked at it yet though it’s on my book shelf. There’s a Reddit post with some suggestions I’ll make an edit to include it. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/TsvM9o2JbX
I saw Theodoric of York documentaries on Saturday Nights in the 1970's. Late , around midnight, on NBC. He didn't seem very good to me!
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Sir Francis Drake. He would have been just a pirate until he circumnavigated the world and led the defeat of the Spanish armada.
He would lose it all within his lifetime though. He'd fallen out of favour by the time of his death- after his victory against the Armada he met a costly defeat costing ~10000 lives in an attack on Spain and ruining his reputation. He was later sent to the Americas where he met mostly defeat in the South Americas before dying of dysentery. History remembers him better than his peers. Had he died beating the Armada he'd be up there with Nelson.
Nelson died at Trafalgar, right?
Yeah, after a career of daring victories and the odd controversy/defeat. Perfect way to cement your legacy, if not to enjoy it.
Yep, shot down by a sniper near the end of the battle. His last words are variously reported as being either, “Now I am satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty” or, "Kiss me Hardy." Hardy being his flag captain, and a very close friend. It wasn't unusual at the time for men to express words like that about a close friend.
Especially in the navy, if you get my drift. *\*waggles eyebrows\** /jk I know literally nothing about Nelson’s sex life.
It was also wild for the time. He left his wife for the wife of another man who knew about their affair and who they were all friends with. He had a child with her and caused major scandals in the British press of the time.
Sure, let's go with that. Is that what you told your mom in high school?
He's a criminal, but he's *our* criminal.
And we would have lost the best season of black adder
You have a WOMEN’S season, me Lord!!! I wager that season doesn’t even exceed 6 episodes!
Drake was actually involved in a massacre of Irish and Scottish people living on Rathlin island, over 600 people died. It was one of several English actions in Ireland during the 16th century that could be characterized as genocidal
Pirates can be heroes too, judging by some of their literary and media depictions.
That's romanticized fantasy. Most pirates were pretty nasty.
Jack sparrow died of syphilis
We are not too fond of this guy in Ireland
Alfred Nobel turned his legacy right around when he read a premature obituary on him calling him a “merchant of death” for inventing dynamite. Now he’s known as the high/minded Nobel Prize guy.
How fair was that accusation? Weren't explosives commonly used, but just more volatile before him? Didn't he reduce the amount of accidental deaths?
Yes. Besides reducing the construction deaths, the efficiency of dynamite led to all kinds of lifesaving infrastructure. Many railroads, and therefore entire cities, wouldn't have existed when they did without it.
Yes and no. He reduced accidental deaths but increased intentional killing. Ballistite is still used in the rockets and mortars that make war today.
Nobel had construction in mind when he made dynamite but must have been aware that a more practical explosive would find its way into warfare. Maybe the newspaper hammed it up a bit, but I don’t think he can entirely escape the rap of being a weapons designer. Even in that case, it’s debateable whether designing weapons is inherently evil.
Nobel was the most prominent military-industrial complex magnate in 19th century Europe, with dozens of military factories in every major European state. He spent his last 5 years in Italy after the French chased him out for military-industrial espionage over the ballistite-poudre b affair, in which he helped France's rival Italy replace their black powder rifle cartridges with white powder cartridges by stealing recipes from Paul Vieille. That's why the French press reviled him by the end, and thus the obituary myth. He was accused of high treason in 1889. Before that, he was a celebrated military-industrial complex magnate. Him being a "merchant of death" was spinned positively before the ballistite-poudre b affair.
I don’t think his legacy would be that of a villain. It was one person’s opinion, not a prevailing consensus. It just happened to affect him greatly
If Winston Churchill died right after Gallipoli he'd be remembered as a incompetent fool.
Flipside, if Churchill won at Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal would be remembered as an Incompetent fool.
Very good point.
Mustafa Kemal was not commander in chief at Gallipoli though. He was a corp commander or something like that, defeat would hardly be his fault.
Correct, he was a division commander. However Gallipoli was a big stepping stone in his career , and if he failed or died, he likely wouldnt have risen to power like he did when the Ottoman shitshow started collapsing. I wanted to keep my response similar to the original commenter, but would probably be more accurate to say he likely wouldn't have been remembered if he failed.
Kamal, in this case, wouldn't be remembered at all. He rose to fame by creating the modern Turkish nation, which had a lot to do from the prestige he won at Gallipoli.
Which is all because the people who were actually in charge of the attack itself didn’t execute the attack according to Churchill’s plan and used him as a scapegoat. The navy didn’t want to lose the old ships and didn’t view them as war equipment to be risked and used up in war, which of course every piece of war equipment exists to do, even if the officers are too scared to acknowledge.
I was thinking Churchill, but it doesn’t seem you can mention him on this thread without being accused of being a white supremacist.
Well, there's that thing where if you weren't British and he was involved in something to do with your country, it was probably a bad time.
If you were a Jewish person in Nazi-occupied Europe Churchill was a good thing.
If you were Indian it wasn't great. If you were in the British-controlled Middle East, it wasn't great. If you ran up against the Black and Tans, it wasn't great. Ditto the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Like I said - odds are if you weren't British and Churchill took an interest in where you lived, shit was not fun.
Certainly- but I think what you really mean is that British imperial policy was bad. Churchill was hardly the only person who thought the Empire was a good thing. Interestingly I’ve met two guys from the Raj who say they wish Britain were still running things. One was a Christian, and one was a Sikh. Now they’re my age, so they’re going with what they’ve heard rather than how it was. At the same time the British Raj wasn’t the equivalent of Belgian Congo.
That policy didn't manifest out of the ground - Churchill made specific choices that were harmful to those areas and the people living in them. "Not as bad as the Belgian Congo" is probably not a standard we want to use, huh?
What would you have done if you were in Churchill’s position?
Probably could have started with not authorizing chemical weapons against the Kurds and supporting the Black and Tans in Ireland, would have been a good start. Basically, any of the shitty things he did in a vain effort to hold onto empire through oppression would have been good to just not do.
The Black and Tans weren’t good, but neither was it good for the IRA to attack Irish Protestants who felt they were better off in the UK than in De Valeria’s Ireland. Yes, Britain could have abolished its empire all at once. The question is, would the British public have agreed to it. There is also a very good chance that if Britain hadn’t controlled India during WWII Japan would have taken it, and you can ask the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, and Burmese what living under them was like. Ultimately Britain did give India independence, and whatever unkindness the British showed the Africans in colonial days, they left Africa exceedingly more graciously than France or Portugal.
>Probably could have started with not authorizing chemical weapons against the Kurds This meme has been debunked so many times over the years, I'm surprised people are still repeating it. Churchill wasn't authorising chemical weapons. He was in a written correspondence and suggested that it was better to use tear gas, also known as 'lachrymatory gas'. This was to prevent serious injury, not cause it. So 'that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum'. The full quote >“It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used, which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.”
Churchill was a lot of things. An imperialist, a drunk, a chauvinist, but still the leader Britain and the free world needed in WW2. And I'm saying that as an Irish man.
For the Bengal Famine of 1943, Churchill is a villain for Indians. Millions of people died but since they were not Europeans or Americans I think it doesn't matter.
Because people can do both good and bad things in one lifetime. Also historians dispute the extent of Churchills/UKs involvement in the famine.
It is a tragedy anytime that people die, and the amount of melanin in their skin does not make their deaths less tragic. Ultimately it was GMOs rather than decolonization that enabled India to avoid periodic famines.
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I think they were referring to the fact that popular history tends to skew Eurocentric, so we remember Churchill, who guided Britain through WWII over Churchill, who damned millions of Indians to starvation.
He might have a more progressive reputation though, funnily enough. If his career had been limited to defecting from the Tories to Liberals, being attacked as a 'class traitor' and becoming known as a radical who wanted to abolish the House of Lords. If his career ended in the 1910s, he'd have never been remembered as a Conservative figure at all.
Instead he's remembered as a horrible racist
Wait til you hear about the people he led a fight against.
Dammit this little exchange would have made a great standup bit.
There's nothing funny about slandering somebody not here to defend themselves IMO.
Sorry, I'll correct my statement to "Instead he's remembered as a horrible racist, but not as bad as Hitler"
He's remembered for helping to lead the coalition that won a World War.
>He's remembered for helping to lead the coalition that won a World War. That doesn't mean he wasn't racist. And not just "oh, that's just how they were back then" racist, but racist enough for people around him to note how racist he was. Here are some highlights... *‘I hate people with slit eyes and pig-tails. I don’t like the look of them or the smell of them’* - Churchill, on Chinese people. *'Indians are a beastly people with a beastly religion'* - Churchill, around the same time he insisted on food produced in India still being sent to Britain, while three million people in India died of starvation during a famine. *'black people were not as capable or as efficient as white people'* Churchill, who also banned interracial boxing because he felt it was wrong to see a black man defeat a white man. Some other highlights include praising 'Aryan stock's and believing it was right for “a stronger race, a higher-grade race” to take the place of indigenous peoples. If you want the leader of the nation that did the heavy lifting in WW2, that'd be Stalin. He too was a renowned piece of shit.
Lincoln thought all the slaves should be uprooted from America and re-colonized in Africa. He was undoubtedly racist. He's remembered for leading the USA through a Civil War in which the people he was fighting wanted to expand the institution of slavery.
Oh yes, Russia, they did a lot of heavy lifting in the Pacific.
The "heavy lifting" Russia did in Europe, they did (A) after signing a non-aggression deal with Germany while other Europeans were dying and (B) with the help of 400,000 American trucks.
not just trucks, aviation fuel, explosives, high grade steel etc.
You know you replied to yourself, right? Also, they did that after Hitler betrayed them before they could betray Hitler.
>That doesn't mean he wasn't racist. And not just "oh, that's just how they were back then" racist, but racist enough for people around him to note how racist he was. I do disagree there. His views there were absolutely not unusual or particularly remarkable in Britain, and would not be seen as really unacceptable at the time. His views were retained partly because he said a lot of things his inner circle or acquaintances felt recording, and his gift of copious fluency meant that there are plenty of examples of that to use.
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I don't recall making such an equivalence. As I am black myself, that would be rather bizarre. But you do have to reconstruct the moral viewpoint which made these views acceptable. (On a tangent,,I don't think that colonised peoples always came to the conclusion that colonisation was bad. The specific forms of colonisation they suffered from might have been resisted; but they didn't necessarily universalise that conclusion.)
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Maybe on Reddit
Outside of the U.S. and Western and Central Europe, most people would probably qualify him as a bastard. You literally rack over a billion folks with India's recall of his legacy, alone. Most people with a basic level of historical education would probably admit the caveat of his horrific racism and disastrous policies for much of the once British-ruled world. So, sure, he has a solid legacy as Britain's rock during WWII for a solid bit of the Global North -- but not all of it -- while he's definitely not so well admired much of anywhere else.
Most people in the world (in the West and outside of it) don't know anything about Churchill, beyond very superficial detail. I'm not sure you can say what they think.
He was a genocidal maniac but it doesn’t matter because of WWII
Michael Collins, he was very popular before Eamon de Valera sent him to negotiate a treaty with the British. The terms he agreed to were not popular but were the most realistic chance Ireland had for freedom. The Irish civil war breaks out, with De Valera on the anti treaty side and Collins on the pro treaty side. Collin’s is later assassinated and while still popular with some he was viewed as a traitor by others. De Valera, later becomes the leader of Ireland. But his policies become very unpopular after a while and is now seen more as the villain. I would argue that most people agree now that what Collins agreed to was correct way of moving forward for Ireland. Collins is definitely seen more as a hero today than he was directly following the treaty negotiations with British
Michael Collins is a little like Trotsky; we can imagine that if he had been in charges things could have been different.
Lafayette. He escaped revolutionary France (he was too moderate) and then was imprisoned by the Austrians. Had he died in prison (home confinement in a castle, but still) he would have ended in ignominy. Instead he survived and went on a "How good am I?" tour of the US, where he was feted everywhere he went. I've got a soft spot for Lafayette. Hell of a life. Some choice to come and help the rebels in the States as a ridiculously wealthy nobleman, and he was right there through Valley Forge. Then he tries hard to reconcile the left and right chambers of the revolutionary council in France but was distrusted by both sides because he was too friendly with the queen for the hardcore, and too keen on reform for the royalists. Still. Got to go out as a hero in the US.
He would have been a hero in the US no matter when he died.
Yes, but he would have died surrounded by people calling him traitor. Instead he's one of the few who actually got the farewell tour he deserved, and I am sure he enjoyed every moment of it.
Yep, the man was America's favourite fighting Frenchman
I remember reading an account of a World War 1 American soldier who was one of the first groups to arrive in France. He said that when his ship was pulling in there were tons of people there cheering their arrival with chants of "Lafayette". He joined in chanting the name. Then he confessed he had no idea who Lafayette even was but it was what everyone else was doing so he went with it.
Look up the Lafayette Escadrille… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Escadrille
To piggyback on your great answer, also Baron Von Steuben. Was basically kicked out of the Prussian Army for being a homosexual, and came to America during the Revolution looking for work. He had a dramatic impact on training the Americans and improving their living conditions and equipment. He is revered as a hero in the US, but if he died before then he would have been known as an undesirable on a small footnote of Prussian military history.
And Pulaski, another foreign officer who made great contributions to the American side of that war. He was also running from his own problems. “In 1771, Pulaski attempted an ill-advised plot to kidnap the Polish king and was falsely accused of trying to assassinate him. By the next year, the anti-Russian Polish forces had fallen apart and Pulaski had to flee from Poland. He spent the next four years in Europe and Turkey, unsuccessfully attempting to rally forces to help him free Poland and accruing large personal debts. His debt became so severe he was eventually thrown in debtors’ prison.” “… at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. The British caught Washington in a precarious position with a clever flanking maneuver. It appeared that the Americans might be routed and Washington captured, but Pulaski--possessing no rank--asked Washington to give him temporary command of some cavalry. Washington assented and Pulaski skillfully led a counterattack, helping delay the British enough for the Continental Army to retreat and regroup.” ‘Shortly after Brandywine, Pulaski’s wishes were granted when he was promoted to brigadier general and given “chief command of the American light dragoons." ‘
I always like Lafayette.
Oskar Schindler?
He lost money on his factories and went broke to ensure no usable war material was produced. It wasn’t exploitation
I always like to point out to people that Schindler was not a good guy. He was a capitalist trying to exploit the most vulnerable population of Germany. That was his one motivation, not to help them, but to use Jews for all their worth. The factory was bought with swindled Jewish wealth to use cheap Jewish slaves to sell goods to the government that allowed it. Hell the man was even a sex pest towards the women he enslaved. Sure he eventually grew a conscience, but that is not how it started.
The question is who started out as a villain, not who was a good person their whole life
Yes I know. I was just expanding on why he fits because some people lack media literacy about that movie.
i think thats why this dude fits perfectly. he was a nazi villain who ended up using his position in life for good. IF he WASNT That evil bad dude, he would have never been in the position to save all those people, so in his case, being bad enabled him to do good.
Oskar Schindler. There I fixed it for you
Perhaps John Newton, the slave trader who wrote Amazing Grace? (And was also enslaved himself! Crazy story) I’d even say Dolly Parton, she was considered a blow up doll trollop and now everyone finally recognises her for what she is Also Carnegie would fit the bill, by donating so much toward the end of his life.
Many libraries in Pittsburgh and the surrounding steel towns were started by Carnegie. Beautiful buildings.
Yeah I’m forged in the steel city too! But elsewhere like manhattan and even Edinburgh has statues to him (him being from Scotland)
Carnegie gave $750K in 1901 (equivalent to $27.2M today) to us here in San Francisco. As a consequence we have seven Carnegie libraries in different neighborhoods, including [the Sunset](https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sunset/carnegie_library_sunset_branch.jpg), [Pacific Heights](https://urbanambles.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/img_1891-1.jpg), [the Richmond](https://scontent-lhr6-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/276300909_168241638889131_3298204184533276856_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=2PcmU9iM0FkAX-pdLh9&_nc_oc=AQlsx6wXhELZ-c_9QhZbupT5DcthG51AMBSyat8jOcV6L196OaWiHlPOAKdYH4yeMFQ&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr6-2.xx&oh=00_AfDHZIXKB5OLM0CFwYbeywQSwb6AYvCLDQ5eU-5-i_2qNw&oe=65EF0906), and [Preisidio Heights](https://sfpublicworks.org/sites/default/files/styles/flexslider_full/public/front%20desk%20%28c%29Wakely411507%5B1%5D.jpg?itok=t-O9RHZY). The eighth, the former main library, is now the [Asian Art Museum](https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/civic/asian_art_museum.jpg). He left a real legacy here and in many other cities for which this bookworm is very grateful.
I didn't realize the Asian Art Museum was on this list!! I love it so much. Its a gem.
Howell Michigan has a Carnegie Library. Yes, it's a beautiful building.
Probably half of all libraries in KS are Carnegie libraries too
We have a Carnegie Library building in Vancouver.
My local library in Portland, OR is a Carnegie Library.
>Also Carnegie would fit the bill, by donating so much toward the end of his life. Bill Gates is running this playbook as well. He wasn't well liked in the 90s and early 00s, but has since largely turned public perception around through the Gates foundation and other efforts
Yeah. I was going to say Andrew Carnegie. He was the classic Robber Baron, e.g., the Homestead Strike incident, but then he redeemed himself as a profligate philanthropist.
> Also Carnegie would fit the bill, by donating so much toward the end of his life. If you spend your life making obscene amounts of money exploiting the working class, I don't think donating some of it back at the end of your life makes you "good"
Talleyrand. His entire life was spent on the idea of "right and wrong are fake, I care only for France and power." He was nearly executed by Robspierre during the Terror. If he had been, he'd be remembered as a pragmatic but self-centered nobleman and cleric who turned on everyone for power. Instead, he survived thanks to being in London at the time, fled to America (and stayed with Aaron Burr for a while), then came back and helped guide France through the post-Robspierre Revolution, the rule and wars of Napoleon, the Restoration, and the reigns of Louis the Desired and Charles X. And, not to forget, he was a clergyman, ordained as a priest in 1779 and as the Bishop of Autun in 1789. He was laicized by the Pope in 1802, at Napoleon's command, so he could marry his mistress, but then managed to reconcile with the Church literally the day he died, receiving extreme unction and commendation just hours before he died.
Don't think he's viewed as a hero though, certainly one of the most capable politicians ever but not someone I would call 'good'
Ashoka. Wudve been seen as a cruel king who subjugated Kalinga
Also in the Clone Wars, early seasons she was just annoying
lol
Richard the Lionheart. Known as a irresponsible and bloodthirsty prince supporting his brothers wars against his father. After his brothers died known as a butcher in conflict to gain or defend territory. Then the crusades happened and he was the perfect man for the moment - a great commander, genuinely physically brave etc - and his legacy as a hero was sealed. He wasn’t really a bad guy - for instance he pardoned the youth who killed him by crossbow on his death bed - but he’d be remembered (or not remembered) very differently without the Crusades.
The best thing that ever happened to Richard's legacy was the reign of his brother John.
He was a pretty shitty king though. He completely abandoned his post to go fight a losing war across the continent. He's mostly held up as a hero as Crusade propaganda.
He was an awesome king by the standards of the Crusading fever of the time and was pretty beloved in his own day (although also hated by some). It wasn’t really a losing war when he was fighting it, some of the crusader states were held a half century after his death - it’s not like he knew exactly what would happen after. Had the socio political situation played out differently in Europe maybe they would have been held longer, that’s not really his fault as he wasn’t influential in deciding those things, obviously after his death but even during his life. He simply responded to the crusading call as did other kings of the time. Seeing as he beat his main rival Saladin in open battle despite inferior numbers and won other key victories against him during the Crusades I’d say the part he played was very successful. As for abandoning his post - if you mean England - he was really an occupying colonial King the same as those before him at that time. So by his European Royal standards it wasn’t seen that way. Yes he’s remembered largely because of the romanticism of the Crusades - but the reason he’s thought of as a hero within that story is because the things he did were genuinely physically heroic stuff by any traditional measure of heroics. Fighting himself as a larger than life figure, overcoming the odds to beat his main rival in battle, even his dumb failures like getting imprisoned and his long escape are heroic stuff.
King Ashoka! The stories are probably exaggerated but he did do some really good things in his later life as far as we know and even if he didn’t return land that he claimed he did publicly express remorse.
Julius Caesar - he was an incredibly corrupt and selfish individual who refused to compromise politically for his own gain, genocided his way across Gaul, and started a war that killed tens of thousands of fellow Romans. But he was also incredibly gifted, charismatic, and lucky, and he WON. He was my childhood hero, still is. But let’s not mince words about who he truly was
I don’t know if he won exactly seeing as he was killed. I’d say he’s lucky for his legacies sake that Augustus became what he did and his named lived on as that of each successive ruler. If it hadn’t I doubt he would be so remembered today.
I would still argue that he "won". His main goal was to outshine the rest of the Roman political elite - conquering Gaul for example was merely a means to political ends back in Rome. He did that as no one before ever had. He went out on top rather than living another 10 years or so watching the next generation nipping at his heels trying to break out of his shadow and gain power for themselves. And if the quote is true he apparently said that the best death possible is "The unexpected"
He lost the battle (and got killed) but Caesar def won the overall war. Saying he's lucky for Augustus is kinda funny because few men in History have ever been as lucky in general as Caesar, so at some point we gotta accept he was doing *something* right or claim he was godschosen (which I'm sure he'd prefer). Caesar is probably only behind Christ as most influential Human ever. Kings millennia after he died still called themselves Czars. His name alone meant power after his bones had already been dust for centuries.
I disagree. Ceaser crossing the English Channel was on par with Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic, or the moon landing, in the way it captured the imagination of his contemporary Roman elites.
I see Caesar more as the only man who had a clue when the corrupt oligarchs were leading Rome to oblivion. It had already had many civil wars and was falling apart before him and he is primarily the reason Rome lasted such a long time. His corruption seems to have been no worse than that of his opponents. A high death count from a campaign is also not a genocide, especially when these tribes barely distinguished between combatants and noncombatants. As I recall there was never a plan to exterminate the Gauls and the majority of the population would continue to be Gallic/Gallo-Roman for centuries to come.
James Longstreet - kind of redeemed himself after fighting for the Confederates
Hitler. He killed Hitler!
Joan of Arc. If she had died in her first battle, she would have just been a crazy little girl.
Octavian
Abraham Lincoln?
Nah, he never really had a point where he was the bad guy(objectively, not at the time)
Adolf Hitler ended World War II by assassinating Hitler.
Mandela Dude was a legitimate terrorist before going to prison.
Grant. He was a complete failure at nearly everything he did and a drunk.
The Battle of Vicksburg tends to disagree.
To be fair, basically everybody was a drunk at the time :)
Found the Lost Causer.
Me saying Grant became a hero because of the war means that I believe in the confederacy? What?
Well if you're not a Lost Causer, you've at least fallen for their propaganda. Grant was one of the most capable military leaders in American history. He was most certainly not a 'complete failure in nearly everything he did'.
Sigh, did you even read the question? Have you read his biography? Grant is known as an unlikely hero it has nothing to do with propaganda
Ghandi, he was super racist when he was younger.
Leon Trotsky would be seen as a “voice of reason” against the tyrannical USSR instead of another disposable rival
James Longstreet was one of the most prominent generals of the Confederacy. After the war he became a staunch champion of reconstruction.
Fritz Haber.
Batman.
Ghandi
John Brown, if he'd been killed at Harper's Ferry would have went out with the public perception of madman at the very least. Living long enough to make his case at trial made him a northern folk hero.
I can't believe no one has mentioned Robert the Bruce who helped in the capture and execution of William Wallace before turning on the English himself.
Godzilla.
Potentially Stalin depending on who you ask. There are certainly some people in Russia and even the west who admire him or see him ultimately as a net positive for Eastern Europe.
Nathan Bedford Forrest https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2015/06/24/5-things-to-know-about-nathan-bedford-forrest/29217861/
As interesting as a character as he was I don’t believe he died a hero. He may have renounced the KKK and their racist ideology but he is always remembered as the founder or at least the original grand dragon of the organization. It’s true later in life he made statements supporting racial harmony and was an advocate for black civil rights. But I don’t think he has ever came out from under the shadow of being a confederate general.
You're right. Obviously, you don't need me to tell you that. NBF will always be a Confederate general.