Friendly Fire

that normally would have been locked. But if you miss deadlines or you prove difficult to work with, your reputation will suffer, and the people who used to stand behind you will get as far away from you as possible. You might think someone who wrote children's book for a living would be a pleasure to work with. Someone who spun fantastical tales of giant peaches and big friendly giants couldn't have been a nightmare to work with. Right wrong.

British author Rawl Dahl rose to fame with books that became iconic works of literature and continue to be read by children all over the world. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and the Witches are all beloved for their colorful storytelling and memorable characters. However, a shadow has followed these tales and their author since their publication. Doll was often described as being racist, anti Semitic, and misogynistic in both his personal life and in his stories.

And how we approached problematic literature, especially literature written for children, is as complicated as the man who wrote them. Just ask those who were responsible for bringing his words to the world. They often dealt with him across the ocean, and even that wasn't enough. Sometimes. Doll had grown up embodying his nickname of the Apple, which he'd earned due to his mother's adoration for him compared to her other children.

He attended boarding school from a young age and dabbled in writing, but his imagination proved far more developed than his literary skills at the time. Still, he enjoyed coming up with stories and conjuring new ones based on his experiences at school. Doll went on to enlist in World War Two with the Royal Air Force. After sustaining an injury during a crash, he healed up, flew several more missions, and eventually went home to start his new life as

a civilian. He married American actress Patrician Neil in nineteen fifty three, and together the couple had five children. It was during her fifth pregnancy, though, when Neil suffered three cerebral aneurisms. Her husband took over caring for the family, but he also treated her horribly. As she recovered, he implemented a cruel recovery regimen to get her back into acting.

When she wanted something but couldn't remember what it was called, he would refuse to give it to her, tell she used its correct name, and this went on for ten months. Several years later, Doll began an affair with another woman. You see, there was a reason why his wife referred to him as rolled the rotten Doll was also notoriously arrogant about his work and the money he made with it. At a party thrown by playwright Tom Stoppard, Dall met

Kingsley Amos, a novelist who wrote adult fiction. Dall told him that if he really wanted to earn money with his work, he should start writing children's books instead. The two men then had an awkward conversation before Dahl left the party. In his private helicopter. Amos despondently wrote about the evening later saying, I watched the television news that night, but there was no report of a famous children's author

being killed in a helicopter crash. Doll just had that kind of effect on people, But it was how he treated the ones who published his novels that nearly ended his career. Publishing house Alfred A. Knoff had been putting out Doll's books for many years. In nineteen eighty, the editor in chief, Robert Gottlieb, received a frantic letter from the author, claiming he was running out of his favorite pencil,

the American made Dixon Ticonda roga. He demanded, someone competent and ravishing, if those were his words, not mine, send him a box of six dozen Taikonda rogas. Gottlieb brushed the letter off as a joke and tossed it aside, only to find out a few months later that Doll had most certainly not been playing around. So Gottlieb's assistant sent him some pencils of a different variety instead, but

this only incensed the author further. He wrote back, demanding not only the pencils he had asked for, but several other accommodations as well, and if Gottlieb didn't acquiesce, Doll was prepared to go to another publisher. The editor had had enough. He composed a letter of his own, in which he called Doll uncivil and accused him of bullying. He would no longer tolerate Tantrum's or rudeness either, and Gottlieb ended his letter by providing Doll with an ultimatum

of his own. Unless you start acting civilly to us, there is no possibility of our agreeing to continue to publish you. The day the letter went out, everyone in the office got up on their desks and cheered. Rawl Dahl had become the villain of his own story, and he had just been defeated. War is frenetic, with bombs going off and guns firing from all directions. It can

be hard to tell which way is up. Throw in the unpredictable nature of an opposing force, and it's only a matter of time before a wrong decision turns deadly. Wars aren't new, nor are their effects on those who fight them. Trauma, disorientation and PTSD have affected soldiers for hundreds, even thousands of years. Back in, for example, soldiers faced one of the most heated battles of the Austro Turkish War. Thousands were left dead or injured because they had no

idea what was going on. It was the night of September twenty one, and roughly one thousand Austrian forces had entered the Romanian town of karen Sabis. They'd been fighting the Ottomans, namely the Turks, and had come to the town in order to maintain control of the nearby Daniebe River. Turkish forces were close by, and the Austrians wanted to be prepared. To make sure their position was secure. A

small cavalry contingent scouted the area for Turks. Everyone else stayed back at the camps to get ready for the next day's fight. The cavalry crossed the nearby Timis River, hoping to surprise the enemy. What they actually found was a different kind of trouble. They came upon a group of Romani travelers who invited the men to stop and take a load off. They offered them schnops, of which the Austrians were only too happy to partake. After all, they had a long day made longer by their night

of patrolling. The cavalrymen drank for much of that night, knowing tomorrow would be a day of bloodshed for both sides. Eventually, though, they were confronted by a unit of Austrian infantry soldiers who gazed upon the scene in both disbelief and jealousy. They demanded the cavalry share the snaps with them, but the men were drunk, too drunk to make good decisions so late in the night, and they told them no, and rather than share their drinks, they barricaded themselves using

empty barrels. A fight broke out, fists were thrown, and then someone somewhere fired a single shot across the river. The Austrians back at the camps believed the shot to have come from the Ottoman army. They shouted a warning of Turks Turks, which caused the partying soldiers across the river to panic. To them, it seemed like the Ottoman army had reached their camps, so they ran back to help. But the Austrian forces had one major problem. Not all

of them were actually from Austria. Their army was made up of Austrians, Germans, checks Croats, Serbs, and soldiers from other European in countries, nobody spoke the same language, so communication was difficult. This led to quite a few misunderstandings, including a big one on this night. You see, as the cavalrymen and infantrymen retreated back to their camps across the river, awaiting officer shouted halt in German, meaning stop. Some of the approaching men, who did not know German, though,

thought he was yelling Allah. A pronouncement like that could only have come from a Turkish soldier the enemy. After that, an Austrian commander ordered artillery fire on the incoming soldiers, believing them to be the Ottomans. Scared and unsure of what was going on, the drunken cavalrymen and infantrymen began firing back, also under the impression that they were shooting

at the Ottomans. In other words, each side thought that the other was the enemy, and a firefight ensued in what came to be known as the Battle of karen Sabez. They waged war all night, and by the time the battle was over the following morning, as many as ten thousand Austrian soldiers had either been killed or wounded. A few days later, the Ottoman army actually showed up, and without a proper Austrian army to oppose them, they easily

took over Karen Seves. Some historians believe the battle to have never taken place, since it wasn't officially recorded until forty years after the fact. However, it's also possible that no one wrote it down for a reason that just about all of us can sympathize with cheer embarrassment. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about

the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.