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July 14

Rifle drill in The Good Soldier Svejk: what was the author thinking?!

OK, this is about the scene in Part 3, Chapter 2 of the book, where the sergeant is making Svejk practice rifle drill at Budapest Station on orders from Captain Sagner -- and here's the exact sequence of commands, as written in the book (in German): "In die Balanz! Beim Fufi! In die Balanz! Schultert! Bajonett auf! Bajonett ab! Fallt das Bajonett! Zum Gebet! Vom Gebet! Kniet niederzurn Gebet! Laden! Schiessen! Schiefien halbrechts! Ziel Stabswagon! Distanz zwei Hundert Schritt... Fertig! An! Feuer! Setzt ab! An! Feuer! An! Feuer! Setzt ab! Aufsatz normal! Patronen versorgen! Ruht!" Which begs the question: did Hasek not know, or not care, that with this sequence of commands the sergeant would require Svejk not only to aim a loaded rifle at his own battalion's staff carriage (in itself a gross violation of firearm safety), but to actually perforate it with 3 shots?! And how come the editor didn't catch this either?! 69.181.91.208 (talk) 08:09, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I know nothing about military commands and wouldn't have noticed anything unusual about that sequence of commands either, but I'm pretty certain it's "Beim Fuß" (not "Beim Fufi"). Did you check the Czech original? Are the commands given in German there too? ---Sluzzelin talk 10:00, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember that particular sequence (it's been something like 40 years since I've read the book) but in general, Hasek makes fun of the rigidity and superciliousness of German officers, so I wouldn't put it past him that he depicts them conducting an exercise in which they would risk their lives (and many others). Especially when you take into account that they're barking orders in German at Czech soldiers who probably barely speak the language and are likely to misunderstand what is being asked of them. In many parts of the book, Svejk embarrasses the German army simply by following to the letter orders that turn out to be absurd. Xuxl (talk) 14:35, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They are given in German in the book. It is indeed "Beim Fuß". There are more scannos: "Fallt" should be "Fällt", "niederzurn" should be "nieder zum", "Schiefien" should be "Schiessen" (or, in the orthography at the time, "Schießen"), and "Hundert" should be "hundert" with a minuscule "h". The novel is satirical, like Catch-22, so the commands of the sergeant do not need to make sense. --Lambiam 21:51, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the multi-lingual Austro-Hungarian army, orders were given in German, following an Imperial edict. Recruits who didn't know German, which were a majority, were taught a vocabulary of about 80 German words so that there was some chance that they could understand what they were being ordered to do. [1] Apparently nobody thought of teaching them German at school. Alansplodge (talk) 22:34, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Austria-Hungary was a massively complicated state, German was something of a lingua franca only by default since the ruling family, the Habsburgs, were German-speaking. However, it was never a culturally cohesive state; it was composed of at least 3 constituent parts, each of which was internally semi-independent anyways (Cisleithania, Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen, and Bosnia-Herzegovina), and each of THOSE parts was in turn composed of additionally semi-independent parts (i.e. Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, etc. etc.) and borders largely ignored ethnic distinctions anyways. Being ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs was really the only thing tying it all together. If you REALLY want to get into how messy it was, there were both Imperial and Royal institutions (abbreviated k.u.k in German) that referred to Austrian and Hungarian parts of the dual monarchy, and there was also distinctly Imperial–royal (abbreviated k.k. without the "und" in German) that referred to the non-Hungarian parts (i.e. Austria and Bohemia) parts of the State. The Common Army fell under the k.u.k. umbrella, but for most of history the Hungarian part of the empire argued and agitated for separate armed forces. --Jayron 32 17:52, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is an article about Army Slavic and this fragment explains how it (not) worked. --Error (talk) 18:06, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[un-indent] So the endangerment aspect was intentional on Hasek's part, to show how the officers didn't care about their own lives or those of their enlisted men? Thanks -- that makes sense! As for the linguistic errors, I have my own theory -- perhaps the sergeant didn't speak German very well himself (especially since this was a mostly Czech company)? 2601:646:8A01:B180:B930:4880:B2A2:F475 (talk) 07:59, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If by linguistic errors you mean the scannos, like "Fufi" for "Fuß", surely these are due to limitations of the optical character recognition software used to transform the scanned pages of a printed book into digital characters. --Lambiam 21:39, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Godzilla 1998 French Nuclear test

Supposedly the Godzilla in this version is born of radiation by the French nuclear tests at the Polynesia, although these tests ended in 1996, so, how is it explained that the monster appears only two years later? Thanks for your answers and greetings.--83.59.31.208 (talk) 16:42, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy link: Godzilla (1998 film). My 3¢:

These 193 French test detonations ended in 1996, but began in 1968 (see France and weapons of mass destruction). Does the film explicitly say or imply when the significant detonation(s) occurred?
Presumably a "monster" supposedly resulting from fallout affecting an iguana egg would take at least two years (semi-realistically many more) to grow to "monstrous" size.
Since the entire premise is fantastical (radiation-induced mutations could not actually cause an individual iguana to grow to anything like such a physiologically impossible size), we should not demand rigorous logic from all other aspects of the film. The long-running Gojira/Godzilla franchise's scenario requires the willing suspension of disbelief from its viewers.

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230,.195} 2.122.177.31 (talk) 17:14, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Thanks for your answers :). --83.59.31.208 (talk) 18:25, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]