Most irrational decisions in history that worked

This is irrational? The Janissaries were a bloated, ineffective force by this point, with many more members on the rolls than actually willing to fight. Mahmud actually managed to disband the force with relatively little backlash, which is all the more impressive considering that his predecessor Selim had been overthrown by them.

I'd reckon Mahmud II is a usually underrated Sultan, whose legacy in starting the Ottoman Empire's road to a modernized state has often been overshadowed (for understandable reasons mind you) by Muhammad Ali Pasha in Egypt.
Arranging the Auspicious Incident was an effective decision, but it could have gone totally wrong. If Mahmud II had ended up assassinated by the Janissaries in 1826, it probably wouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone at the time. However he did navigate very difficult situations in clever ways as he did for most of his rule.
 
This is irrational? The Janissaries were a bloated, ineffective force by this point, with many more members on the rolls than actually willing to fight. Mahmud actually managed to disband the force with relatively little backlash, which is all the more impressive considering that his predecessor Selim had been overthrown by them.

I'd reckon Mahmud II is a usually underrated Sultan, whose legacy in starting the Ottoman Empire's road to a modernized state has often been overshadowed (for understandable reasons mind you) by Muhammad Ali Pasha in Egypt.

I think his point was that it really shouldn't have worked as the Janissaries seemed too strong to defeat. But somehow he managed to do it.
 
Yeah that’s true, but honestly, Alcibiades seemed to inspire irrationality wherever he went. Everybody loved him when he was around and everybody hated him when he was not. Everybody believed him when he was manipulating them, and nobody believed him when he actually spoke the truth.

I picked 407 mainly because by 411 Alcibiades didn’t think it safe to go back, for good reason I presume. He was called back, but that’s mostly because of the several political upheavals Athens faced. By 407 though, the Athenians were close to thinking he was sort of a living god, which was pretty irrational considering how things turned out in the end.
How about we talk about the person who decided to frame Alcibades for breaking Hermes' dick?

Irrational? Yep. But somehow nobody pointed out that it was totally an inside job.
 
Tariq Ibn Ziyad burning his own ships.
That’s actually not unheard of.Various commanders have used such methods to bolster the will of their troops to fight.Xiang Yu did it,Cortes also did it. Many other commanders also did variations of this. Han Xin for example,deliberately positioned his army in front of the river during one battle so that the troops knew that if they tried to flee during battle,they will drown.
 
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How about we talk about the person who decided to frame Alcibades for breaking Hermes' dick?

Irrational? Yep. But somehow nobody pointed out that it was totally an inside job.

Alcibiades was never accused of that, contrary to popular belief. He was framed for profaning the Eleusianian Mysteries by staging a mock ceremony in his house. The only solid evidence they had for that was rumors and the claim that “It’s Alcibiades folks, of course he’d do something like that.” And it worked. Whatever political reasons, some people simply hated his guts.
 
The Dutch Revolt.

A country of only several million, divided into multiple administrative districts, rebelled against the Spanish Empire before its real terminal decline. I know the Netherlands were extremely wealthy and urbanized, and that they weren't actually at first rejecting the Spanish monarch but Philip II's efforts at the Counter Reformation and centralizing, but still. After William the Silent's assassination and England failed expeditions, the Netherlands were in a bad position. Spain then focuses on failed effort sin England and then France, giving the Netherlands time to recover, organize, and reclaim lands for near a decade. During the rest of the war, the Dutch savaged Portugese and Spanish colonies, started to dominate the East Indies Spice trade, and overall entering their Golden Age where they had more merchant ships than all of the rest of Europe (I think?).

The Netherlands had much of the financial, economic, and industrial foundation for this series of events, but the growth from 1550-1650 can't be understated. The Eighty-Years War would probably be classified as a wank in a TL on this site if it hadn't actually happened.
 
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