great non-battle victories:singapore

during WWII, 35,000 japanese soldiers under yamashita defeated a force of 80,000-130,000 british troops under percival and forced them to surrender. gaining local aerial and naval superiority, and using feints and attacking from directions not expected by his opponent, yamashita was able to to keep his enemy demoralized and spread thin. yamashita also coordinated an excellent use of combined armies to gain local superiority in specific areas and kept his opponent off balance. casualties rates that i've seen were about 7000 for the british and 5000 for the japanese.

http://www.awm.gov.au/units/event_221.asp

It sounds to me that though the Japanese did not win that battle through the great slaughter of their enemies it was still definitely a battle victory, rather than a diplomatic, espionage or other form of non-violent victory.

The British lost Singapore because of thier own racism and arrogance. When the 'little Japanese' fought will skill and daring against the forces of the Empire, the British commanders folded like cheap suits.

In my opinion, Singapore is the battle that destroyed the British Empire, because it smashed the aura of invinciability that the British had in Asia since at least the battle of Plassey in 1757. That aura was what kept the locals in Singapore, Burma, Malaya, India and China 'in thier place'. When the aura went with the 100,000 Imperial soliders who surrendered at Singapore (which itself was a symbol of British power), the Empire fell in rather short order.

Yamashita accomplished a classic "blitzkrieg" using bicycles. He flanked, out marched, and occasionally out-fought the British forces. With morale plummeting, he simply let them fall into the bag at the end.

On the other hand, the force taking Hong Kong had almost no ammo and the Brits there surrendered anyway.

Winston Churchill called Singapore the worst disaster in British history (or something like that), I think. An exaggeration, but still. It was a part of the larger collapse of British authority all over South East Asia.