Home by Christmas: Difference between revisions

Quite a lot, actually. This trope is about overconfidence in a war situation, be it about the entire war or a specific attack - the point is that [[Tempting Fate|what is assumed beforehand to end in a quick and easy victory]] turns into a long and gruelling battle (or even a quick and easy ''defeat'') instead. This makes any ''statements'' of confidence about the matter, such as 'Tomorrow we'll have coffee in Huesca' in the page quote, a lot [[Harsher in Hindsight]].

 

 

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== [[Literature]] ==

** Later in the book, one character bemoans that "We were going to sail into Klatch and be in Al-Khali by teatime, drinking sherbet with pliant young women in the Rhoxi," mirroring the confident statements of some WWII soldiers that "We'll be drinking coffee in Berlin by teatime."

** They even [[Lampshade]] this with a quote from V.K. Plehve (see the [[Real Life]] section below), providing the [[Title Drop]] for the book in the opening epigraph.

 

== [[Television]] ==

* ''[[Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip]]'': during a two parter where a cast member's brother is being held hostage in Afghanistan, we see a [[Flash Back]], during which the President of the network (who was only a VP then) opines that the war will be over in a month.

* The Battle of Serenity Valley in ''[[Firefly]]'' was assumed by Alliance command to be an easy victory. Though the Independents would ultimately lose the battle due to massive Alliance air support, the browncoats were nonetheless able to hold the Alliance for far longer than anyone thought possible (the fact that the Alliance ''had'' to call in the air support was a victory of sorts). Unfortunately, it's implied that the "victory" in the valley was ultimately disastrous for the Independents, who surrendered not long after.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|The Covenant]] from ''[[Halo]]'' believed that their war against humanity would be a short venture. Instead, the war would drag on for another twenty-seven years with no end in sight for either side and would divide Covenant society to the point of [[Civil War]] (the opposite effect was true of the humans, whose many factions, after years of fighting amongst one another, generally agreed to unify against the common threat of genocide by the Covenant war machine, though there was still fighting between the groups as of 2552).

* The opening of ''[[Hogs of War]]'', as with any other [[War Tropes]] parodied, literally ends with this: [[Blatant Lies|"With some luck, it will all be over by Christmas".]] The obligatory [[Harsher in Hindsight]] part comes when, in the ending, we find out that the glasses-wearing soldier seen in the opening got dumped by his girlfriend and is now homeless due to his house having been destroyed during the war.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

*** Operation Market Garden had much more complex reasons for being initiated, as well. Eisenhower felt that he ''had'' to launch the operation to appease ''his'' superiors (the civilian politicians who wanted the war over as quickly as possible). He felt that a more measured approach, steadily winning ground from the Germans, would have been better, but he instead committed most of his forces to the operation in an attempt to secure a route straight to Berlin. In fairness, had the operation succeeded, the war ''would'' have been over by Christmas of 1944, possibly long before. The failure of the operation and the sheer amount of resources committed to it, which then tied up ''more'' resources in an attempt to save the men who were cut off from Allied aid, meant that the war would drag on until May 1945.

* When Boris Yeltsin's popularity declined, he thought he needed a quick military victory to boost his prestige. The Chechen rebels would do nicely... or so he believed. The result was a long and bloody war which ended in humiliating defeat for the Russian army, ultimately doing little more than showcasing that the once-feared Red Army was not even a shadow of its former self.

* During the [[Korean War]], General Douglas [[Mac Arthur]] was quoted saying this almost word-for-word about the progress of coalition forces. Then the Chinese entered on the opposite side and the war was stretched out for a few more years.

* A complaint occasionally fielded about the American public during the [[War On Terror]], especially in the early years, was that they expected this ''despite'' warnings from government officials that they were in for a very long campaign. Blame for this is typically laid upon the surprisingly easy victory in [[Curb Stomp Battle|Desert Storm]], where the American-led coalition steamrollered over the Iraqi forces. Then again, the Gulf War of 1991 was a very different sort of war from the wars the US would be fighting in the early 21st century.