Political mistakes with huge (or minors) consequences

[Brenus]

Political mistakes by military or others.
It’s a long time I thought about this one.
I explain. In 1781, Rochambeau and Washington won the battle of Yorktown. Cornwallis, British General, offered his sword to Rochambeau, who declined, showing Washington.
Politically, the gesture was clear for both sides: The English surrendering to the French, quiet normal, one time I win, one time I loose, so a French victory implication is negation of the American troops, considered as auxiliaries.
For the French side, it implicated a clear recognition of the USA (future) as a new state, so the biggest lost of territory at the time for England.
In 1782, November, the Treaty of Paris made USA independent from UK.
However, the original French-American treaty of alliance stated that the two countries would not negotiate for peace separately. Against all pre-agreement not to do it, the American did and signed separate peace with the UK.
So the French couldn’t recover Canada, and even perhaps pats of India lost by Dupleix.
Now, if Rochambeau would have accepted the Cornwallis’ sword, Yorktown would have been a French victory, and then perhaps all history and geography would have been change. USA would have existed, by smaller, with Canada and Louisiana France should have been a major player (remember Louisiana went from Canadian’s borders to the coast and to the west, so no rush to west for gold, or under French or Spanish/Mexican control).
And perhaps no French Revolution, Louis the XVI would need to raise taxes, so to gather the Assemblee and to start the process which ended for him on the guillotine.

Do you guys have something similar, somewhere, in your history?

[Geoffrey S]

"This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time" for starters.

[Fragony]

Multiculture.

[Kralizec]

The arrogant attitude of William I (first king of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands) towards catholics. The south of the kingdom, Flanders and Wallonia, were primarily catholic and this caused a lot of resentment. In addition William also actively promoted the Dutch language, wich wasn't a problem for the Dutch speaking Flemish but wich angered the francophonic middle class.

Though there were other causes, I'd say Williams policies were the last drop and made the Flemish and Wallonians rebel, and proclaim their independece as Belgium. I can't blame them, but it is a pity that it had to come to this.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Actually, I think most mistakes in history were on the political level. There have been very few battles and wars that have actually changed much, without the political foreplay having a great importance. Even examples such as Hastings, where it might seem the battle itself was crucial, the politics played a major role. One of the reasons Harold wanted to stop William immediately at the coast was because Harold wasn't sure of his claims for England were strong enough, and was afraid of rebellion if William would start plundering southern England. The punic wars are also an example of how great tactics and fairly good, but not great, strategy can't break an empire with a recruitment system where new armies are always raised whenever one is destroyed.

Actually, name almost any mistake/disaster for any nation/group/people in history and I think I'm able to point out an important political reason behind why it went the way it did. Sometimes mistakes which were hard to foresee, but often possible to avoid with a sound policy. Keep in mind that politics are:
- raising and maintaining an army (i.e. determining it's strength)
- all diplomatic actions
- choosing how to fight a war - whether to accept surrender that would make both sides feel victorious and end the fighting, or stubbornly pushing a right to impose a near unacceptable peace on the vanquished

all these things might seem like military matters, but are usually decided by the politicans/kings/emperors etc., not generals

[Ludens]

Actually, name almost any mistake/disaster for any nation/group/people in history and I think I'm able to point out an important political reason behind why it went the way it did. Sometimes mistakes which were hard to foresee, but often possible to avoid with a sound policy. Keep in mind that politics are:
- raising and maintaining an army (i.e. determining it's strength)
- all diplomatic actions
- choosing how to fight a war - whether to accept surrender that would make both sides feel victorious and end the fighting, or stubbornly pushing a right to impose a near unacceptable peace on the vanquished

all these things might seem like military matters, but are usually decided by the politicans/kings/emperors etc., not generals
While I agree with you, I think you are focusing too much on the military side. Economics often play a large role as well. I don't think the French revolution or the American Indepence War happened because of taxes, but because of economically powerful groups who wanted political power as well. A strong governement might have prevented it, but in both cases it was weak. If the taxes had not been levied, the long-term events would have been the same, though on the short-term direct insubordination would have been delayed perhaps a couple of years, until another incident (I almost wrote "excuse") had presented itself.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I agree, the importance of economy wasn't clear in my post, although it's a very central part. As the RTW quote implies, even in the days of Cicero many influential persons were aware of that ~:) But then again the acquiring of money, as well as the usage of it, is politics (by my definition of the word politics, at least).

[Brutus]

The arrogant attitude of William I (first king of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands) towards catholics. The south of the kingdom, Flanders and Wallonia, were primarily catholic and this caused a lot of resentment. In addition William also actively promoted the Dutch language, wich wasn't a problem for the Dutch speaking Flemish but wich angered the francophonic middle class.

Though there were other causes, I'd say Williams policies were the last drop and made the Flemish and Wallonians rebel, and proclaim their independece as Belgium. I can't blame them, but it is a pity that it had to come to this.
They just shouldn't have shown that opera...

[Ash]

The arrogant attitude of William I (first king of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands) towards catholics. The south of the kingdom, Flanders and Wallonia, were primarily catholic and this caused a lot of resentment. In addition William also actively promoted the Dutch language, wich wasn't a problem for the Dutch speaking Flemish but wich angered the francophonic middle class.

Though there were other causes, I'd say Williams policies were the last drop and made the Flemish and Wallonians rebel, and proclaim their independece as Belgium. I can't blame them, but it is a pity that it had to come to this.
Well the Flemish and the Walloons weren't part of the Netherlands for centuries before 1815, no surprise that they couldn't work with us Dutchies. Guess the cultural difference was just too large. And still is too large I might add.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

"Gentleman" Jonny Burgoyne believing that Bennington was full of torries and would gladly divulge it's store of weapons, ammo, food, and horses to his army.

Needless to say the Battle of Bennington proved him wrong fairly quickly, and then was one of the most important factors in his loss of the Battle of Saratoga. Some would say that it was the turning point of the American Revolution.

[Mr White]

They just shouldn't have shown that opera...

I think that the fact that the riot started after the ' the blind of Portici' is a myth. Just something that was told because it fitted more in the romantic state of mind in those days.

Might I add that there is a huge difference in culture between the Flemish and the Walloons. I'm from Flandres and I study public management so I know what I'm talking about. Flandres has a tradition (in administration) just like the northern countries of Europe such as the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. These countries focus on effeciëncy, effectivity and transparancy of the public administration.
Wallony has a more southern tradition just as France, Spain, Italy, ... This means that the organisation of the government is more targetted at a sort of big family, with a strong pater familias ( the president, major, ...) and the possibility to ask specific things of him or other people with mandates. They then can 'arrange' certain things.

In Belgium their have been some riots about a Walloon politician meddling with a court case (nothing serious) and thus neglecting the seperation of powers. In Wallony this was normal in Flandres this was absolutly not done.

I'm not passing judgement on one or the other (as both have it's vices and virtues) but I have to say that Flandres is much more compatible with the Netherlands and Wallony with France. The fact that in 1815-1830 thgeir was such a huge cultural difference was because at that time the French speaking part of the population ( the rich and the nobility) had the power.

[TinCow]

I'll go with the Persian sultan who decided to reply to Genghis Khan's trade proposal by returning his emissaries' heads sans bodies. The entire Middle East and much of Europe suffered from that mistake.

The Great Leap Forward was a rather massive mistake as well.

[Rosacrux redux]

As LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix points out, the political decisions (based, in turn, mostly on economic grounds - I'd reverse the reasoning and borrow from Klauzevitch to say that politics is the continuation of economic antagonism with other means ~D ) have affected almost everything in the history of mankind. I can hardly find a military event that was not had a seriouw political background (and that background, in most occassions, had determined the outcome of the military aspect of things).

For a Grand mistake, I'll pick one I know all too well.
In 1920 Greece had occupied - as a result of its participation in the WWI and the operations in Crimea against the "Reds" - the whole Thrace minus Constantinoupolis and a significant part of Asia Minor (the Smyrna area). With the consent of its Entente allies (in the case of UK, encouragement) Greek furthered its ZOI in Asia Minor and occupied almost the whole western and central-western part of it by Summer 1920. All that was achieved under the guidance of a political mastermind, Eleftherios Venizelos. The Turks under Kemal wouldn't surrender and fought fiercely, but they lost ground and were pushed back a few dozen kilometeres from Ankyra. But then...

Then, in fall 1920, Venizelos lost the election and a new government (Right wing, that one, Venizelos was Center) took office. The new government made two GRAND mistakes
- ts first move was to hold a referendum on wether the Germanophile king George should return. The "people" voted YES and George's return rendered the Entente very cautious towards Greece. France and Italy removed their support (and both aided Kemal under the table) and UK stopped acting in favor of Greece and just stalled to see where this was going. The second mistake was that the military operations were not resumed but only 6 months after the elections, giving ample time to Kemal to receive adequate weapons and support from USSR, Italy and France and organize his army. Also, despite the obvious need to reinforce the depleted and exhausted Greek forces in Asia Minor, the government didn't send a single soldier and was completely unable to feed and equip the existing forces properly.

The result was a crushing defeat of the Greek army (undefeated in that campaign up until that point) during the Turkish offensive and the abandoning of Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace - a series of events that are noted as the greatest Tragedy of modern Hellenism - and put to eternal rest the plans for revival of the Byzantine Empire.