Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 February 13

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February 13

Clarifications with the Mayerling Incident

First off, "The crown of her skull showed a large area of trauma, indicating she could have possibly died from a blow to her skull, which would support the version that Vetsera had not been shot by Rudolf." What does "blow" in this sentence mean? I interpreted "blow" as in a shoot in the head, but then, latter part of the sentence contradicts that by saying she was not shot.

Secondly, after reading the article, I'm still confused on what really happened? There are many conflicting accounts of what happened, and I don't know which one is true. I just want to know the version of what happened that most people accept to be true, or a version with the most supported evidences. Pendragon5 (talk) 06:47, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

blow in this context usually means a blunt impact. —Tamfang (talk) 07:53, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I still don't know what blunt impact supposes to mean. What was the weapon used to kill her? The article only mentions gun. Pendragon5 (talk) 09:01, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

A blunt impact is, for instance, being hit with a baseball ball, candle-stick, etc. Thus a blow to the head means the head was hit by something, normally blunt. (Just to close off those lines of the question). --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:17, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

It means the article needs some rewriting. The information is not clearly cited, but a nearby citation is to Robert Pannell. In a letter written in response to Gabriel Ronay's article "Death in the Vienna Woods" appearing September 2008 in HistoryToday. Pannell's letter notes that after the graverobbing by Helmut Flatzelsteiner, the skull was "in such a state of disintegration and actually incomplete" the idea that she had possibly been "either shot in the head or stabbed" "could not be definitely confirmed." The conclusion that an incomplete, poorly preserved skull indicates that Marie "possibly died from a blow to her skull" is unwarranted and unsourced; the skull neither proves nor disproves that notion. I think most people believe Rudolph shot Marie in the head and then killed himself with the same gun. He could have pistol-whipped her, I suppose, and caved her skull in, but that's not the usual way such murder/suicides go. - Nunh-huh 10:30, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

If the skull was in such a bad condition then there was no way they could tell "a large area of trauma" on her head. I feel that information is completely made up, and it does not even have a source to back it up. I don't know why such false information remain in Wikipedia article?

On a side note, it doesn't make sense for him to pistol-whip her. It is a much more painful way to die, and he probably had to give her many blows to kill her off. He apparently loved her a lot, and they planned to suicide together. It doesn't make any sense that he would do that instead of a quick painless dead (shooting her). Pendragon5 (talk) 11:42, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

well, yes, I agree, but you asked what people had hypothesized. And there have been all kinds of hypotheses, because once there's an attempt at a cover-up you can no longer be sure of the facts. As for Mary, I think she was just available, as opposed to being a great love-affair/Liebestod kind of thing that people with romantic notions fantasize about. Apparently Rudolf didn't want to go alone. She was a silly, deluded girl age 17 when she died, and taken advantage of both by the somewhat disreputable Gräfin Larische (who surprisingly is unmentioned in our article) and Crown Prince Rudolf. - Nunh-huh 12:14, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

If prince Rudolf didn't truly love her then why would he planned to suicide together with her? My understanding is that the king wanted him to break up with her, but he would rather die than to do that. Pendragon5 (talk) 01:43, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

For a very short list of some of the alternatives, have a quick look at the New York Tiimes article here. - Nunh-huh 16:23, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Nunh-huh, who was the Gräfin Larische? She doesn't appear anywhere on Wikipedia; Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University is the only article in which the word "Larische" appears at all, and that's merely the name of a building at this university. Nyttend (talk) 15:25, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

So sorry, Nyttend, my tendancy to add an "e" the the ends of words when typing sent you off on an unnecessary search. She is Marie Louise Elizabeth Mendel, illegitimate daughter of Ludwig Wilhelm, Herzog in Bavaria, and his (eventual) wife Henrietta Mendel, and wife of Graf Georg Larisch von Moennich. Our article is Countess Marie Larisch von Moennich. I think the German article is probably better right now. It was she who arranged the assignations of Mary Vetsera and Crown Prince Rudolf. - Nunh-huh 16:15, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Invading England from France

I just encountered Armada of 1779 for the first time, although I was aware of situations such as Napoleon's plans to invade England.

In a pre-mechanised context, how long would it have taken to invade England, once the boats were ready to leave port? I don't care whether you're going from Calais to Dover, or north from the northern tip of Manche, or from Boulogne to somewhere near Richborough Castle, or anywhere else (of course I understand that shipping times will vary with varying distances); I'm just curious approximately how long would have been required for an invader to maintain naval supremacy. Obviously you wouldn't have a huge deal of risk to the soldiers when they were still in port, so presumably we're just talking the time to transport them and disembark them, and given the length of England's coastline and the lack of today's speed of transportation, you'd have a great chance of landing them at a spot where there weren't significant coastal defences: no Atlantic Wall, and no easy way to transport thousands of soldiers scores or hundreds of miles in a day when you hadn't already planned that precise trip. I know that there are other factors, e.g. supply lines for many thousands of men (but perhaps the army could live off the land in the right time of year) and the inability of pre-telecommunications admirals to know exactly when it was safe to go back to port; I'm just imagining a situation in which the army begins to leave port and is able to land before they experience significant losses due to British/English naval attacks on the transports. Nyttend (talk) 14:19, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

To land enough forces to establish superiority, you'd either need a huge navy or to send the ships back and forth for more loads. This back-and-forth would be rather slow, since the wind would only allow for going in one direction quickly (you can sail in the opposite direction of the wind, but this is slow, requiring tacking). StuRat (talk) 16:30, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Duke William of Normandy had pretty good success back in 1066. However, he may have been met with minimal resistance, as King Harold was up north fighting another invader. Also, I may be wrong, but weren't William's Viking-style longboats also equipped with oars? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:30, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

The later Protestant wind blew a little harder. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:16, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Vikings had longships, but like longboats, they had rowers. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:33, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

The Bayeux Tapestry shows them felling trees and building boats, but I don't think anything indicates any return trips. Of course, the operational scale was probably rather smaller. As regards longboats, I'm reminded of Flip Wilson's bit about Columbus. "As they neared land, Columbus cried out, 'Lower the longboat!' Which was actually the short boat on the side of the big boat." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:02, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Willy's longships had oars, but he almost certainly also also had Knarrs, and anyways, nobody in his right mind would row a large fleet against the wind. Viking ships could tack, but not too well, and practically not in a huge formation of ships with different capabilities. The Normans waited for several weeks until they had a favourable wind for crossing. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:46, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Rowing is slow, too, unless you are in racing shell, and it would be hard to carry marines in those. :-) StuRat (talk) 18:55, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Slow, hard and mostly thankless. Definitely not how you'd want to take the whole trip. But when smooth sailing isn't an option, it sure beats slowly drifting backward (or inward). InedibleHulk (talk) 19:15, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

If you take the Cutty Sark (or equivalent) from Cap Gris Nez, you can have 1,700 tons of whatever on the South Foreland in about 57 minutes (with good fortune). About a day's march to London from there, if I'm converting correctly from train time. Presuming you packed a midget assassin inside a (magnificent) cake for the King, the whole conquest shouldn't take a weekend (barring a lot of things). InedibleHulk (talk) 19:31, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

It could take days for the troop transports to navigate the roads of each port.
Sleigh (talk) 03:06, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Fortunately for us, Napoleon has already done all the arithmetic. He constructed a fleet of some 2,000 vessels, many of them shallow-draught prams, intended to carry 200,000 troops and 50,000 sailors across the Channel in a single lift, which Napoleon thought would take eight hours (see Napoleon: A Biography by Frank McLynn (p. 323)). Had he succeeded in doing this, the regular British Army would not have been able to muster a force anything approaching that size and their tactical ability in the field at that stage of the war was somewhat inferior to the French. There were also the Militia and the Volunteers, but their enthusiasm exceeded their training by a considerable degree. The Napoleonic French Army had no logistic chain except for the resupply of ammunition, because they subsisted entirely by "foraging" (ie stealing food and fodder from the locals). Happily, Napoleon had not taken into account tides, weather and the Channel Squadron and so his invasion boats were left to rot and the Armee d'Angleterre went off to Austerlitz. Alansplodge (talk) 03:18, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Was it a realistic goal to create 2000 such ships at that time ? StuRat (talk) 14:17, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

It wasn't a goal, he actually did build them all, spending all the proceeds of the Louisiana Purchase in the process. He later tried to pretend that it was all a bluff. Alansplodge (talk) 19:43, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

That's undocumented, if someone feels like initiating a new spreadsheet on the subject. --Askedonty (talk) 20:19, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Titanic

How many first, second and third class passengers could the Titanic accommodate. I know it could house 3,547 people but am unsure how this was distributed - although I do know there were a lot of empty first-class cabins --Andrew 18:26, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

According to our article Titanic, it had a capacity of 833 people in First, 614 in Second and 1,006 in Third. The other 900 or so people potentially on board would have been crew. --69.159.9.222 (talk) 19:23, 13 February 2016 (UTC) (by edit request) ―Mandruss ☎ 19:42, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Of course, a first-class passenger gets far more room than a third-class. If you booked it exclusively for the huddled masses, filled every free room (not just bedrooms) with bunk beds and didn't offer much aside from napping, that's a different story. By lifeboat standards, where 8 cubic feet counts as one person's capacity, the Titanic could carry over 500,000. It wouldn't be pretty. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:54, 13 February 2016 (UTC)