Buffalo Bill Cody took his Wild West show through Europe more than once. “The 1891 tour through northern Europe involved ten stops in Germany alone, with only occasional mishaps or alarums. One occurred while Annie Oakley was giving shooting lessons to a Bavarian prince – a horse broke loose and came charging their way, forcing Annie to wrestle the startled prince to the ground.
“Kaiser Wilhelm saw her shoot a cigarette out of her husband’s mouth and demanded that she try it with him, which she did, though she didn’t like the Kaiser and later remarked that he was just the sort of man who would start a war.”
“When World War I broke out … Annie remembered how much she had disliked the Kaiser – after all, millions might not have lost their lives if she had just shot the Kaiser rather than his cigarette.”
source: The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America by Larry McMurtry
3 comments:
So many leaders. So many bullets aimed in the wrong directions.
She was a pretty good shot, though, huh?
Sounds like it. I'd have a hard time volunteering to be part of any target. Either the Kaiser was very brave or very stupid. Very silly either way.
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