System's Perfect Victim

System's Perfect Victim 1 Part 1: The By-the-Book Admiral 2 Part 2: The Railroad Manager Who Followed Policy 3 Part 3: The Architect Who Obeyed the Emperor 4 Part 4: The Minister Who Balanced the Books ← Series Home The Perfect Execution of a Fatal Order On June 22, 1893, the Mediterranean Fleet was conducting maneuvers off the coast of Tripoli. Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, commanding from HMS Victoria, signaled his flagship to turn inward toward his second-in-command’s ship, HMS Camperdown. The two battleships, each over 10,000 tons, were to execute a simultaneous 180-degree turn, ending up side by side. Tryon’s staff officers watched in silent horror as they calculated the distance. The turning circle of the Victoria was 800 yards. The ships were only 1,200 yards apart. Rear-Admiral Albert Hastings Markham aboard the Camperdown hesitated. The signal was clear, but impossible. He delayed, hoping for a correcting signal. None came. After four minutes of excruciating silence—a lifetime in naval protocol—Markham obeyed. The Camperdown turned. The Victoria turned. Their bows converged. At 3:34 PM, the Camperdown’s ram pierced the Victoria’s hull below the waterline. Thirteen minutes later, the most powerful battleship in the Royal Navy capsized and sank, taking 358 crewmen with her, including Tryon. His last reported words as he stood impassively on the bridge were: “It’s all my fault.” ...

System's Perfect Victim 1 Part 1: The By-the-Book Admiral 2 Part 2: The Railroad Manager Who Followed Policy 3 Part 3: The Architect Who Obeyed the Emperor 4 Part 4: The Minister Who Balanced the Books ← Series Home The Clock That Killed a Hundred On July 9, 1918, at 7:20 AM, two Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway trains approached each other on a single-track section near Nashville, Tennessee. Train #4, the “local,” was running late. Train #1, the “express,” was on time. They were supposed to meet at the double-track passing siding at Shops Junction, but the local was behind schedule. The dispatcher, David Kennedy, followed company policy precisely: he telegraphed orders for the local to wait at the siding for the express to pass. But his clock was four minutes fast. The express engineer’s watch was seven minutes slow. When the dispatcher calculated the meeting time, he used his fast clock. When the express engineer calculated his arrival at the siding, he used his slow watch. The two trains met head-on at 50 miles per hour on a curve, killing 101 people and injuring 171 in what remains the deadliest rail accident in U.S. history. Kennedy had followed every rule. He was using the official company clock. He issued the correct orders. He was the perfect employee. And his perfection helped produce one of transportation’s worst catastrophes. ...

System's Perfect Victim 1 Part 1: The By-the-Book Admiral 2 Part 2: The Railroad Manager Who Followed Policy 3 Part 3: The Architect Who Obeyed the Emperor 4 Part 4: The Minister Who Balanced the Books ← Series Home The Mountain That Was to Be a Man In 334 BC, the architect Dinocrates presented Alexander the Great with the most audacious building proposal in history. He would take Mount Athos—a 6,670-foot mountain peninsula in Greece—and carve it into a colossus. In the statue’s left hand would be an entire city of 10,000 inhabitants. In its right hand, a vast bowl would catch the waters of a diverted river, which would then cascade dramatically into the sea. The statue’s face would be that of Alexander. The conqueror, legend says, was delighted. He asked only one practical question: what would the inhabitants eat? Dinocrates, the visionary, had not considered this. He suggested they would import grain. Alexander, the pragmatist, rejected the plan. The city of Alexandria in Egypt, a practical grid on flat land, was built instead. Dinocrates faded from history, his perfect, impossible vision recorded only as a footnote in the chronicles of architectural hubris. ...

System's Perfect Victim 1 Part 1: The By-the-Book Admiral 2 Part 2: The Railroad Manager Who Followed Policy 3 Part 3: The Architect Who Obeyed the Emperor 4 Part 4: The Minister Who Balanced the Books ← Series Home The Ledger That Lit the Revolution In February 1781, French Finance Minister Jacques Necker published the Compte rendu au roi (Account to the King), a unprecedented document: the royal treasury’s accounts, available for public purchase. Necker, a Swiss Protestant banker, had been brought in to rescue France from bankruptcy. His report was a masterpiece of political theater. It showed a modest surplus of 10 million livres. The public was dazzled by this transparency. The book sold over 100,000 copies. There was only one problem: the accounts were fiction. Necker had omitted the colossal costs of supporting the American Revolution and hid debt through creative accounting. He hadn’t solved the crisis; he had repackaged it as a success. When he was forced to resign in 1783, the façade cracked. His successors revealed the truth: a deficit of 112 million livres. The public felt betrayed. The trust Necker had built through transparency evaporated, replaced by cynicism. When he was recalled in 1788, it was too late. The Estates-General was convened, the Bastille fell, and the monarchy Necker had tried to save with bookkeeping was destroyed by the very expectations his books had raised. ...