During their second parlé, when Bogart again offered them a pint of water for every gun turned in, wouldn't it have been the wise move to hand over all the rifles of the Germans who already had died. I mean, sure, you'd be handing over firepower in the technical sense, but nine guys would not do better with 200 rifles than with 9. Seemed like a rather obvious solution.
shareAh...you forget what Frenchie said: "...these are Nazis. They're like a mad dog !"
You couldn't expect the Germans to even pretend to grovel for water from the Allies. At this point in the war, they were still proud. And with pride, goes the fall !
CmdrCody
Plus the Nazis didn't know there were only 9 men.
shareSeems like the Germans would know something was up just because Bogart asked for rifles. it just sounded strange. "Water for rifles or we'll kill you with the rifles we don't have."
shareThe Allies' objective was to take the rifles from the Germans, not to obtain them for use against the Germans.
The Allies' objective was to take the rifles from the Germans, not to obtain them for use against the Germans.Exactly. They wanted the Germans to disarm themselves (although I do wonder what they would have done if the Germans took them up on the offer...they didn't have enough water to pay the promised pint per rifle). share
Exactly, my point still stands regardless of how many people the Germans thought that Bogart &co had with them.
It would be assumed that everyone was armed, and giving them more rifles wouldnt make them more dangerous, the Allies wouldnt be able to use more guns than they had men anymore than the Germans would be able to use more guns than they had men. Bogart's request was as an act of disarmament, not as a transfer of weapons so he could arm his men.
And even if the Germans didn't want to "grovel" to the Allies, this wouldnt have been groveling, but rather shrewd counter maneuvering to Bogart's negotiation. I think there's no reason the German Kommander didn't take the deal with the dead Germans' rifle for pints of water other than as a plot device.
Maybe if Bogie had insisted that live Germans come on up to the castle and surrender their weapons in exchange for the water? But I see the point that they then could have gone back to the lines, searched for the weapons of some dead guy, and kept on fighting.
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
Bogart knew the German officer would never take him up on his offer for two reasons:
1) The nature of the offer put the German commander over a barrel, and he couldn't afford to let his men know about it. What little water Bogart was offering them per rifle wasn't enough to sustain nearly 500 men. Even if they turned over half their rifles, it would only be enough water for maybe a day. Then what? This was the only water for perhaps hundreds of miles, and now they had fewer weapons. So they turn over more weapons...then what? It was really an all or nothing situation. But if the German soldiers found out that all they had to do was turn over all their weapons to get all the water they wanted, the officer would lose control over them and be forced to surrender...which he was never going to do.
2) Bogart knew the German patrol had reported how few men he had. The audacity of his offer in light of the overwhelming odds against him was only meant to piss off the German officer and keep him convinced there was enough water worth staying and fighting over.