great non-battle victories:battle of guandu

[nokhor]

the purpose of this 'great non-battle victories' series is to illustrate some decisive victories that were gained not primarily through combatants slaughtering one another, but rather where a commander gained a great victory through cunning, treachery or some other means that caused the destruction of the enemy, with the physical battle itself not being the main reason for the defeat.

battle of guandu
a battle during the romance of the three kingdoms period in china, where a force of 20,000 under cao cao held off and defeated a force 5 times it's size mostly through anticipating the enemy's moves, and hitting at their logistical weak points.

http://china-corner.com/article_list.asp?id=984

[Uesugi Kenshin]

the purpose of this 'great non-battle victories' series is to illustrate some decisive victories that were gained not primarily through combatants slaughtering one another, but rather where a commander gained a great victory through cunning, treachery or some other means that caused the destruction of the enemy, with the physical battle itself not being the main reason for the defeat.

battle of guandu
a battle during the romance of the three kingdoms period in china, where a force of 20,000 under cao cao held off and defeated a force 5 times it's size mostly through anticipating the enemy's moves, and hitting at their logistical weak points.

http://china-corner.com/article_list.asp?id=984

Well I guess you could term Saratoga and Yorktown as two non-battles that won the American Revolution.

The Battle of Saratoga was won primarily because the British were unable to secure supplies in the Battle of Bennington (and lost a hundred or so Hessians there?) and were eventually out-maneuvered by more mobile American "formations" and surrendered after being surrounded with little ammunition and food.

At Yorktown a French naval victory helped the Franco-American forces to surround the British under Cornwallis (?) on a peninsula and though I believe there was more fighting at Yorktown the British tactical and supply position was almost untenable as that held by the British at Saratoga and from what I remember they quickly surrendered.

Oh another key reason the British surrendered at Saratoga was that of the three prongs of their offensive the one headed to Albany from the West was stopped by effective guerrilla action and casualties, the one from the South never turned North and instead marched against Pennsylvania, and the one from the North was then left alone against the united, if somewhat disorganized, forces of New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and the Republic of Vermont.

P.S. I didn't say the "Republic of Vermont" because I think it's awesome that Vermont was a country for over a decade with an effective government and essentially won the Battle of Bennington by providing the coup de gras to the Hessian forces when they were about to turn the tide of battle, or because Ethan Allan happened to be crazy enough to beat up New York sheriffs until New York eventually decided that us crazy mountain folk weren't worth it.

[Innocentius]

Not a victory, but Matthias Gallas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Gallas) was infamous in his days for losing entire armies without ever putting them to fight; instead, they perished from starvation, diseases and desertion during endless campaigns of tidious maneuvering.

[TinCow]

Here are two obvious ones, both weather related:
Destruction of the Mongol invasion fleets in the 13th Century
Destruction of the Grande Armée in 1812

[Conradus]

Reminds me of the destruction of the Spanish Armada through small seabattles and storms.

[CountArach]

Destruction of the Grande Armée in 1812
That wasn't so much a Russian victory as much as it was a French loss.

[Rodion Romanovich]

In fact it's been claimed that it had not as much to do about weather as claimed in the past. There was a post linking sources proving this in the Empire:TW subforum recently. Indeed, it would be really odd if we were to trust the historical sources on this point: that the years of Charles XII's invasion, Napoleon's invasion, and Hitler's invasion of Russia just happened to have much colder winters than any other winters, as if invading Russia would cause the winter to get colder. A combination of poor logistics from the invaders, and good manouver from the defenders (blocking crucial paths, and preparing to take huge losses to stall the advances at critical times) have always been used by Russia in these defensive wars - for example the manouver to block the path to Moscow for Charles XII, the accepting of high casualties at Smolensk and Borodino to give Napoleon a lot of injured soldiers to deal with (screwing up logistics) and delaying him, then blocking the southern roads for Napoleon in his retreat, and finally the bloody Soviet counter-attacks in the East Baltic region during the middle of the autumn in 1941 to be able to prepare better defenses at Leningrad and Moscow, delaying the advance there until winter, just to give a few examples. All 3 campaigns were won mostly by manouvering so as to increase the attrition losses to the opponent, with the battles themselves being of secondary importance.

[master of the puppets]

certainly peter the greats scorched earth approach defeated the swedes more than his fighting men.

[Paradox]

the purpose of this 'great non-battle victories' series is to illustrate some decisive victories that were gained not primarily through combatants slaughtering one another, but rather where a commander gained a great victory through cunning, treachery or some other means that caused the destruction of the enemy, with the physical battle itself not being the main reason for the defeat.

battle of guandu
a battle during the romance of the three kingdoms period in china, where a force of 20,000 under cao cao held off and defeated a force 5 times it's size mostly through anticipating the enemy's moves, and hitting at their logistical weak points.

http://china-corner.com/article_list.asp?id=984
Guan Du wasn't a 'great non-battle victory'. In fact, it consisted of multiple battles that involved brute strength and tactics alone, many died. Take the assault of Baima for example, Yuan Shao sent his two most powerful generals to occupy the castle, fortunately for Cao Cao, Guan Yu, one of Liu Bei's (governor of Xu) vassels, was in his service. At that battle, Guan Yu and Zhang Liao were to ambush Wen Chou, the tactic worked and the great general was slain. As for Yan Liang, he was killed by Guan Yu at the same battle.

After Cao Cao's decisive victory, an officer of Yuan Shao, Xu You, gave Cao Cao valuable information.....the position of Yuan Shao's main supply depot. One of the supply depot's defenders defected after it was burned while the other was drunk.

[Seign Thelas]

Cao Cao actually was able to defeat Wen Chou and Yan Liang by himself. Guan Yu killing them was in the novel only.

[Paradox]

Yes, but Guan Yu did help out. And who said he didn't kill them historically? I don't like Guan Yu all that much, but he did rout both. He ambushed Wen Chuo along with Zhang Liao and struck Yan Liang.

[Seign Thelas]

My mistake, he killed Yan Liang personally, but in his historical biography (San Guo Zhi), Wen Chou isn't even mentioned, largely due to the fact that Wen was killed in an ambush devised and carried out by Cao Cao.

[Paradox]

I believe it was carried out by Zhang Liao, not Cao Cao. There is even evidence that Guan Yu used trickery to defeat Yan Liang, some sources state that he faked a defection.