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Friendly Fire · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. A reputation can make or break your career.
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  Speaker 1: Do the right things and make good choices, and you'll
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  Speaker 1: go far. People will vouch for you, doors will open
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  Speaker 1: that normally would have been locked. But if you miss
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  Speaker 1: deadlines or you prove difficult to work with, your reputation
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  Speaker 1: will suffer, and the people who used to stand behind
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  Speaker 1: you will get as far away from you as possible.
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  Speaker 1: You might think someone who wrote children's book for a
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  Speaker 1: living would be a pleasure to work with. Someone who
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  Speaker 1: spun fantastical tales of giant peaches and big friendly giants
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  Speaker 1: couldn't have been a nightmare to work with. Right wrong.
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  Speaker 1: British author Rawl Dahl rose to fame with books that
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  Speaker 1: became iconic works of literature and continue to be read
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  Speaker 1: by children all over the world. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
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  Speaker 1: James and the Giant Peach, and the Witches are all
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  Speaker 1: beloved for their colorful storytelling and memorable characters. However, a
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  Speaker 1: shadow has followed these tales and their author since their publication.
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  Speaker 1: Doll was often described as being racist, anti Semitic, and
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  Speaker 1: misogynistic in both his personal life and in his stories.
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  Speaker 1: And how we approached problematic literature, especially literature written for children,
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  Speaker 1: is as complicated as the man who wrote them. Just
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  Speaker 1: ask those who were responsible for bringing his words to
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  Speaker 1: the world. They often dealt with him across the ocean,
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  Speaker 1: and even that wasn't enough. Sometimes. Doll had grown up
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  Speaker 1: embodying his nickname of the Apple, which he'd earned due
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  Speaker 1: to his mother's adoration for him compared to her other children.
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  Speaker 1: He attended boarding school from a young age and dabbled
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  Speaker 1: in writing, but his imagination proved far more developed than
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  Speaker 1: his literary skills at the time. Still, he enjoyed coming
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  Speaker 1: up with stories and conjuring new ones based on his
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  Speaker 1: experiences at school. Doll went on to enlist in World
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  Speaker 1: War Two with the Royal Air Force. After sustaining an
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  Speaker 1: injury during a crash, he healed up, flew several more missions,
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  Speaker 1: and eventually went home to start his new life as
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  Speaker 1: a civilian. He married American actress Patrician Neil in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty three, and together the couple had five children. It
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  Speaker 1: was during her fifth pregnancy, though, when Neil suffered three
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  Speaker 1: cerebral aneurisms. Her husband took over caring for the family,
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  Speaker 1: but he also treated her horribly. As she recovered, he
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  Speaker 1: implemented a cruel recovery regimen to get her back into acting.
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  Speaker 1: When she wanted something but couldn't remember what it was called,
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  Speaker 1: he would refuse to give it to her, tell she
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  Speaker 1: used its correct name, and this went on for ten months.
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  Speaker 1: Several years later, Doll began an affair with another woman.
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  Speaker 1: You see, there was a reason why his wife referred
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  Speaker 1: to him as rolled the rotten Doll was also notoriously
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  Speaker 1: arrogant about his work and the money he made with it.
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  Speaker 1: At a party thrown by playwright Tom Stoppard, Dall met
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  Speaker 1: Kingsley Amos, a novelist who wrote adult fiction. Dall told
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  Speaker 1: him that if he really wanted to earn money with
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  Speaker 1: his work, he should start writing children's books instead. The
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  Speaker 1: two men then had an awkward conversation before Dahl left
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  Speaker 1: the party. In his private helicopter. Amos despondently wrote about
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  Speaker 1: the evening later saying, I watched the television news that night,
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  Speaker 1: but there was no report of a famous children's author
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  Speaker 1: being killed in a helicopter crash. Doll just had that
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  Speaker 1: kind of effect on people, But it was how he
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  Speaker 1: treated the ones who published his novels that nearly ended
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  Speaker 1: his career. Publishing house Alfred A. Knoff had been putting
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  Speaker 1: out Doll's books for many years. In nineteen eighty, the
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  Speaker 1: editor in chief, Robert Gottlieb, received a frantic letter from
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  Speaker 1: the author, claiming he was running out of his favorite pencil,
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  Speaker 1: the American made Dixon Ticonda roga. He demanded, someone competent
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  Speaker 1: and ravishing, if those were his words, not mine, send
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  Speaker 1: him a box of six dozen Taikonda rogas. Gottlieb brushed
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  Speaker 1: the letter off as a joke and tossed it aside,
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  Speaker 1: only to find out a few months later that Doll
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  Speaker 1: had most certainly not been playing around. So Gottlieb's assistant
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  Speaker 1: sent him some pencils of a different variety instead, but
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  Speaker 1: this only incensed the author further. He wrote back, demanding
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  Speaker 1: not only the pencils he had asked for, but several
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  Speaker 1: other accommodations as well, and if Gottlieb didn't acquiesce, Doll
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  Speaker 1: was prepared to go to another publisher. The editor had
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  Speaker 1: had enough. He composed a letter of his own, in
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  Speaker 1: which he called Doll uncivil and accused him of bullying.
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  Speaker 1: He would no longer tolerate Tantrum's or rudeness either, and
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  Speaker 1: Gottlieb ended his letter by providing Doll with an ultimatum
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  Speaker 1: of his own. Unless you start acting civilly to us,
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  Speaker 1: there is no possibility of our agreeing to continue to
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  Speaker 1: publish you. The day the letter went out, everyone in
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  Speaker 1: the office got up on their desks and cheered. Rawl
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  Speaker 1: Dahl had become the villain of his own story, and
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  Speaker 1: he had just been defeated. War is frenetic, with bombs
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  Speaker 1: going off and guns firing from all directions. It can
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  Speaker 1: be hard to tell which way is up. Throw in
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  Speaker 1: the unpredictable nature of an opposing force, and it's only
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  Speaker 1: a matter of time before a wrong decision turns deadly.
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  Speaker 1: Wars aren't new, nor are their effects on those who
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  Speaker 1: fight them. Trauma, disorientation and PTSD have affected soldiers for hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: even thousands of years. Back in, for example, soldiers faced
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  Speaker 1: one of the most heated battles of the Austro Turkish War.
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  Speaker 1: Thousands were left dead or injured because they had no
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  Speaker 1: idea what was going on. It was the night of
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  Speaker 1: September twenty one, and roughly one thousand Austrian forces had
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  Speaker 1: entered the Romanian town of karen Sabis. They'd been fighting
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  Speaker 1: the Ottomans, namely the Turks, and had come to the
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  Speaker 1: town in order to maintain control of the nearby Daniebe River.
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  Speaker 1: Turkish forces were close by, and the Austrians wanted to
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  Speaker 1: be prepared. To make sure their position was secure. A
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  Speaker 1: small cavalry contingent scouted the area for Turks. Everyone else
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  Speaker 1: stayed back at the camps to get ready for the
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  Speaker 1: next day's fight. The cavalry crossed the nearby Timis River,
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  Speaker 1: hoping to surprise the enemy. What they actually found was
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  Speaker 1: a different kind of trouble. They came upon a group
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  Speaker 1: of Romani travelers who invited the men to stop and
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  Speaker 1: take a load off. They offered them schnops, of which
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  Speaker 1: the Austrians were only too happy to partake. After all,
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  Speaker 1: they had a long day made longer by their night
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  Speaker 1: of patrolling. The cavalrymen drank for much of that night,
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  Speaker 1: knowing tomorrow would be a day of bloodshed for both sides. Eventually, though,
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  Speaker 1: they were confronted by a unit of Austrian infantry soldiers
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  Speaker 1: who gazed upon the scene in both disbelief and jealousy.
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  Speaker 1: They demanded the cavalry share the snaps with them, but
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  Speaker 1: the men were drunk, too drunk to make good decisions
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  Speaker 1: so late in the night, and they told them no,
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  Speaker 1: and rather than share their drinks, they barricaded themselves using
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  Speaker 1: empty barrels. A fight broke out, fists were thrown, and
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  Speaker 1: then someone somewhere fired a single shot across the river.
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  Speaker 1: The Austrians back at the camps believed the shot to
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  Speaker 1: have come from the Ottoman army. They shouted a warning
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  Speaker 1: of Turks Turks, which caused the partying soldiers across the
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  Speaker 1: river to panic. To them, it seemed like the Ottoman
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  Speaker 1: army had reached their camps, so they ran back to help.
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  Speaker 1: But the Austrian forces had one major problem. Not all
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  Speaker 1: of them were actually from Austria. Their army was made
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  Speaker 1: up of Austrians, Germans, checks Croats, Serbs, and soldiers from
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  Speaker 1: other European in countries, nobody spoke the same language, so
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  Speaker 1: communication was difficult. This led to quite a few misunderstandings,
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  Speaker 1: including a big one on this night. You see, as
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  Speaker 1: the cavalrymen and infantrymen retreated back to their camps across
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  Speaker 1: the river, awaiting officer shouted halt in German, meaning stop.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the approaching men, who did not know German, though,
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  Speaker 1: thought he was yelling Allah. A pronouncement like that could
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  Speaker 1: only have come from a Turkish soldier the enemy. After that,
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  Speaker 1: an Austrian commander ordered artillery fire on the incoming soldiers,
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  Speaker 1: believing them to be the Ottomans. Scared and unsure of
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  Speaker 1: what was going on, the drunken cavalrymen and infantrymen began
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  Speaker 1: firing back, also under the impression that they were shooting
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  Speaker 1: at the Ottomans. In other words, each side thought that
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  Speaker 1: the other was the enemy, and a firefight ensued in
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  Speaker 1: what came to be known as the Battle of karen Sabez.
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  Speaker 1: They waged war all night, and by the time the
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  Speaker 1: battle was over the following morning, as many as ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand Austrian soldiers had either been killed or wounded. A
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  Speaker 1: few days later, the Ottoman army actually showed up, and
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  Speaker 1: without a proper Austrian army to oppose them, they easily
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  Speaker 1: took over Karen Seves. Some historians believe the battle to
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  Speaker 1: have never taken place, since it wasn't officially recorded until
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  Speaker 1: forty years after the fact. However, it's also possible that
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  Speaker 1: no one wrote it down for a reason that just
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  Speaker 1: about all of us can sympathize with cheer embarrassment. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.