Worst military mistakes.

[Che Roriniho]

I mean no offence to you when I say this Che Roriniho, but in all honesty I laughed when I read that.

Antiochos III the Great was the greatest and most successful of the Seleukid kings second only to Seleukos I Nicator himself. When he ascended the throne he ruled the bare heartlands of the empire namely Syria, Assyria and most of Mesopotamia. From the moment he was crowned he was at war with every kingdom in the East, and by the time he went to war with Rome he had successfully defeated the Armenian(Hayasdan), Parthian(Pahlava) and Baktrian kings in battle and brought them back into the empire as subservient vassal states. There are many other things he did worthy of note, but I don't want to make such a post when my fellow Seleukid supporters *winks at abou* can make one much more eloquent and understandable.

Antiochos Megas has an undeserved reputation as incompetent or foolish mainly because he was portrayed as such by Roman historians. The Battle of Magnesia and the number of troops the Romans had are greatly distorted as are the losses they recieved. Antiochus routed the entire left wing of the Romans leading a charge made up of Agema, Kataphracts and Hetairoi and yet Livy and Appian say the Romans suffered only 300 casualties?

Ooops... That'll be my bad then. Sorry, Antiochos Megas!

*Runs, accidently leaving a Fig Leaf behind*

[tapanojum]

Not exactly military mistake, but more like a major mistake in general.

King Fu-Ch'ai of the state of WU being overrun by the state of Yueh.

Fu-Ch'ai had defeated Yueh and instead of exterminating the leading power in charge, he allowed Kou-Chien of Yueh to live. (Of course, great gifts and bribes were given for the survival). Then Fu-Cha'ai allowed his former enemy to influence his actions. Ultimately he ignored the advice from one of his best advisors/generals yet allowed Kou-Chien's propoganda to enter his mind.

The advice of course was to NOT invade the northern state. To finish taking over Yueh because they will eventually cause the destruction of Wu.

Long story short, Wu ended up invading another great state to their north while the Yueh broke alliance and invaded from the south and taking Wu for themselves just as was predicted.

[Ludens]

Battle of Karánsebes

Maybe not a military mistake or maybe it is. Hilarious all the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karansebes

About Pearl Harbour, back in my childhood I possessed a series of old Reader's Digest books containing war stories of WWII. It was practically entirely American propaganda. For example, they claimed that Japan's attack was inspired by an US navy war simulation in which exactly the same scenario was played out. Attacking US planes sneaking up on the battleships stationed in Pearl Harbour could get a very clear shot, especially if the anti-aircraft defences were caught unprepared. Even at time, I wondered that, if it were true, didn't it mean that the Americans had made the same mistake twice?

I am not sure if it was true, however. For all I know, the attack was inspired by the British raid on Taranto.

[Victor1234]

Battle of Karánsebes

Maybe not a military mistake or maybe it is. Hilarious all the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karansebes

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...7&page=1&pp=20

Not that I like the Austrians or anything, but this is one case where they didn't screw up.

[Che Roriniho]

It was transporting small arms to Europe.

This is a common misconception, partially fuelled by a fact that exploded violently after sinking. This wasn't because it wasd carrying arms, but because of the tightly packed coal-dust (it was a steam ship, and a reasonably often-used one, so there was lots of compacted fuel), which, like any tightly packed flammable dust, exploded violently. I don't know exactly where the rumour of it carrying explosives started, but possibly It was German, to justify it's destruction, which would make sense, as their Intel was indicating this, even though it was false.

[Sarcasm]

You had been wondering for long that why I've joined (And actually I have been invited not joined by myself) the team? lol Poor Sarcasm what a great pain you had Now I hope you feel better after disclosing this mystery

Huh?

[Che Roriniho]

Huh?

So it wasn't just me going completely mental then? *whew* Also, Double-You Tee Eff?

[The Persian Cataphract]

Back to the topic

[Che Roriniho]

Back to the topic

Agreed. Arnhem.

[Constantius III]

I'd also add Manzikert to this list--that was a bungled campaign if there ever was one.

Uh...Romanos Diogenes did just fine for most of the campaign. What lost the battle for the Romans wasn't their own mistakes or inherent inferiority (both myths) but the treachery of Andronikos Doukas, who pulled back most of the army so that the emperor and a small detachment were able to be surrounded by the Seljuqs. And really, the battle wouldn't have been such a disaster were it not for the revolt in Bulgaria that diverted Emperor Mikhael VI's and strategos Nikephoros Bryennios' attention. They were only able to send a relatively small detachment to fight the Seljuqs under Isaakios Komnenos, which was defeated. They probably should've sent Bryennios to fight the Seljuqs and Komnenos to quash the Bulgars. Anatolia was more important.

As for the Lusitania carrying arms: listed on its manifest (on the first page) were 4.2 million rounds of Remington ammo and over a thousand 3-inch shells, and (I think) some fuses too. These, being small arms, would not have contributed to any explosion (they didn't explode when shipped in bulk). Has nothing to do with the famous 'second explosion', but they were there all the same.

[Justinian II]

Uh...Romanos Diogenes did just fine for most of the campaign. What lost the battle for the Romans wasn't their own mistakes or inherent inferiority (both myths) but the treachery of Andronikos Doukas, who pulled back most of the army so that the emperor and a small detachment were able to be surrounded by the Seljuqs.

That's the bungled part, IMO. I'm not sure it was quite a good idea to bring your enemy on campaign with you, AND HAVE HIM IN CHARGE of a contingent.

But yeah, Manzikert needn't have had the effect it DID have in the long run. Or even, if Romanos managed to keep the throne. It was the resulting cascade of civil war that really did Anatolia in, IMO.

[Constantius III]

That's the bungled part, IMO. I'm not sure it was quite a good idea to bring your enemy on campaign with you, AND HAVE HIM IN CHARGE of a contingent.

Yeah, it did kind of seem out of character for Romanos to leave Botaneiates at home and bring along Doukas. Kinda like Boney bringing Grouchy to Waterloo and leaving Davout behind, except Grouchy wasn't about to try to kill Napoleon (only ruin his chances of smashing the Prussians). Taking 'keep your friends close and enemies closer' to a whole new level. Normally, for roleplaying purposes in EB, I bring along generals with the 'Disloyal' trait with a 'Loyal' general on campaign, so they're not in control of a city and they don't have an army to themselves...guess this was the repercussion...

But yeah, Manzikert needn't have had the effect it DID have in the long run. Or even, if Romanos managed to keep the throne. It was the resulting cascade of civil war that really did Anatolia in, IMO.

Yup. Romanos' story after losing Manzikert is awfully sad. Depressing, even. Gets captured by Alp Arslan, ransoms his way out by promising to pay him when he retakes the throne, but the forces of the betrayers are too much for him, so he surrenders and promises to enter a monastery, but then gets blinded anyway and exiled. The blinding is done so badly he gets an infection and starts to die, but before he does, he collects all the money he can get to send to Alp Arslan as a gesture of good faith. Tragedy.

[We shall fwee...Wodewick]

9/11 - how is that a military mistake?

1) You couldn't say that it helped America very much or that the terrorists are dead or ever will be.

2) You could argue that they don't represent a military force and was purely civilians attacking a civilian target.

3) and the option it wasn't terrorists but the government in which case it was a mistake because they are now stuck in Iraq.

PS: No talk about conspiracy theories are a load of crap or that the American government is evil and did it. It isn't relevent. Understood?

[Skandinav]

Regarding Pearl Harbour,
U.S embargoes against the imported oil dependent Japan were important triggers for the japanese "surprise" attack, for whom, as with the rest of the worlds political spectators, the war in the pacific was inevitable; Roosevelt desired it and the stage was set with, despite the obvious threat of a vengeful Imperial Japanese Navy, a completely unprepared american garrison on an island with a strategical advantage for a U.S attack thought more than likely by the Supreme War Council.
This could by some be considered historical revisionism but I fail to believe that any would argue against the fact ( and historical evidence ) that the attack was not as unexpected as it is often made to be.

[teh1337tim]

actually ive gone to the national archives and read declassified documents of roosevelts contact with his secretary of state about pearl harbor

i believe it was at start of november or middle that the US intel detected the 4 fleet carriers and 2 battleships +-12 destroyers were gone from there northern japan harbor area
after that another doc said that roosevelt got intel of troop movement in southeast asia

well tbh US was preparing 4 war by 1940 starting with lend lease
(what better, hey lets make free tanks for allies! get those factories started)
bam 1942-- more shermans more shermans!!!!!4 years later
50,000 variants produced... epic! ... not rly

my worst i would say would be in the american revolution
general cornwallas? (SP)
barracaded himself and was surrounded by french/american force on land and sea and surrendered
thus ending the revolution and effectively saying the United states of America was borned...US of A!!

[Ibrahim]

anyone mentioned the eastern font in 1941? that was the bggest blunder anyone ever made in the 20th century.

[||Lz3||]

anyone mentioned the eastern font in 1941? that was the bggest blunder anyone ever made in the 20th century.

at the first page

Operation barbarossa

[Ibrahim]

oh, i thought that read assorabrab or something..mustbe the headache.

as for that battle in romania, that was retarded: 10,000 casualties because some stupid Hussars didn't feel like sharing?? well, at least the ottoman turks had a free victory. nice to see them actually having anything after 1683 going right for them.

[Shigawire]

My vote would go with Krusader. For "Battle of Karansebes"

[Teutobod II]

Russian invasion of East Prussia 1914 + their further action the following 3 years

British/Indian landing attempt of Tanga 1914 with halftrained Indian troops and no recon of the area

British defence of Hong Kong 1941

[Fiddler]

Why was the russian invasion such a huge mistake?

They got beaten, yeah, but the russians brought two armies to eastern prussia much faster than the german general staff deemed it possible and this lead to the decision to relocate two corps from the west to the east, which missed both the battles in the east and the first battle of the marne in the west, maybe even tipping the scales in favor of the french and british.

Maybe we should provide a definition of a "grave military mistake", and where blame for "worst mistake" is due and where the defeat was rather a result of bad luck, fog of war or a decision which seemed reasonable at the time but has been declared wrong by hindsight.

[V.T. Marvin]

Battle of al-Hattin (wiki here and especially basically anything that Raymond of Tripoli has done before it might easily qualify as one of the biggest blunders in military history.

[Victor1234]

My vote would go with Krusader. For "Battle of Karansebes"

Well, since you guys don't seem to like reading links, I might as well paste the stuff here.

Sounds made up, to be honest.

-The only translation is in the Spanish wiki
-The German wiki article on Joseph II and the Austro-Turkish war doesn't even mention it
-There were no Romanian infantry regiments in the Austrian army (granted, I only looked at the Austrian army during the Napoleonic Wars, but close enough), which means there'd only be few Romanians here and there and not enough to put a whole army to flight by shouting 'The Turks'.
-The hussar regiments were all composed mostly of Hungarians (as is the name of the town), although there is no reference to the battle on the Hungarian wiki and no reference to Hungarians in the English article itself.
-It sounds idiotic to begin with and the inclusion of gypsies selling schnapps to travelling soldiers only further heightens this pretension. No self-respecting Hungarian hussar would drink anything but red wine or palinka.

Edit: Also, the inclusion of idiotic parts like that it was gypsies selling alcohol, Austrians shooting at shadows in the night with artillery, the soldiers who could not understand each other mistaking Halt for Allah, the drunken party and all, makes it sound like it was written by someone with no knowledge of the area in general or the Austrian army in particular, who wanted to make it seem like he knew what he was talking about by throwing in the words: gypsies, Slavs, minorities, etc.

This is the description given by Joseph II himself in a letter (from M.Z.Mayer monography on the campaign)

"Everythïng was proceeding in the greatest order and we would have arrived
in Caransebes without the enemy's knowledge for it was night All of a
sudden a group of Wallachians.. became alarmed and fired their rifles
which threw a unit of hussars and dragoons into confusion .... They
answered this fire before finally attacking the infantry.... The column in
which I found myself was completely dispersed. Cannons, wagons and all
the tents were turned over, it was horrible; [my] soldiers shooting at each
other! Eventually calm was restored, and we were luckyethat the Turks
were not on our trail otherwise the whole army would have been
destroyed. Nevertheless, we lost not only the pots and tents with
considerable damage to other baggage but also three pieces of artillery."

The loss of 3 pieces is a long way from losing 10.000 men, that is traced back to P. Bernard article on Joseph II, but as he doesn´t mention sources it is probably made up.

Yeah. I really wondered what happened. It seems to be that articles on Caransebes in Wikipedia offer more information about that battle than just articles about the battle of Caransebes. English, French, Hungarian and Italian wiki webpages on city of Karansebes mention the date of that battle shortly if I translated them correctly. I am certain that something happened there in that date, September 17, 1788.

Not really. The English article says "during the wars" and "in 1788". Not exactly specific on either account. The Hungarian article also seems to have been copied directly from the English (especially as on the Hungarian pages for Joseph II and the Austro-Turkish war, there's no reference, as well as no specific article for this battle).

Here's what the reference is on the Hungarian wiki that you mentioned:

1788-ban itt zajlott le a karánsebesi csata a császári hadak különböző alakulatai között, amelyek egymást török csapatoknak hitték. Ezután a törökök akadálytalanul törtek be a városba és felégették.

"In 1788, the battle of Karánsebes took place here, between the various elements of the Imperial army, which believed each other to be the Turkish army. After this, the Turks broke into the town and burned it without any opposition."

No mention of the actual battle, the losses, the exact date or anything.
Plus, the Hungarian wiki has a nasty habit of borrowing material, references and all from the English wiki, just translating it.

The German article just mentions how it was part of the Austrian military frontier with no reference to the battle.

The French article mentions the battle as the only bit of history associated with the town. A copying job is most likely the case if that's the only bit of history they have for it.

I think if the battle did happen (which is dubious in the first place), it certainly wasn't 10,000 dead and wounded.

Geoffrey Regan´s book The Brassey's Book of Military Blunders. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's. ISBN 157488252X. mentions that battle and it was the primary source. I wonder what sources Mr. Regan used in Karansebes issue.

According to Matthew Z. Mayer, Joseph II and the campaign of 1788 against the Ottoman Turks (a thesis submited in the McGill University in 1997), the history is traced to an article by Bernard, Paul P. 'Austria's Last Turkish War.' Austran History Yearbook. VOL 19-20, 1983-1984, pp. 15-31, where he says that "before order could be restored over 10,000 men had been lost" but he also fails to give any source. In contrast the letter by Joseph II himslef paints a very different picture. Mind that it was a private letter to Archduke Leopold, and in other private letters written in the campaign Joseph II saved no criticism, so in all probability his tale of "3 guns lost" if no other primary source is found should be considered the right one.

Personally, I find the idea of infantry firing, spooking the calvary and then causing a bit of a ruckus more believable than a drunken party where the calvary erect fortifications (!) around the alcohol and the army misunderstands halt as allah, leading to 10% losses for the army.

One thing that bothers me about the account though.....the infantry became alarmed and fired their rifles. Is it a translation error from German or what? The Austrian infantry used muskets in 1788 and there are seperate words in German for rifle and musket.

Yes, that also surprised me, could be the translation, or maybe rifled muskets? those were used by light infantry at the time

I thought about that too, but going by the Napoleonic Wars Austrian army, the only units equipped with rifles were the Tyrolian Jaegars. Apparantely, they accepted only Germans (and later due to the demands for manpower during the wars with Napoleon, Czechs as well) but no Romanians. Considering there were no Romanians in the calvary and no Romanian-specific infantry regiments either, it seems to me the Austrians used them mostly as replacements for the regular line infantry regiments.

I don't know about others languages but in french we also have a different word for musket and rifle, but as the etymology isn't the same than the english one, the meaning of the french "fusil" is less precise (as it's not necessarilly a "rifled" gun...).

That means, for exemple, that in napoleonic times french soldiers used what we would call "muskets" in the modern english terminology, but those "muskets" were called "fusils" (rifles) in french at the time and even to this day.

So, don't let yourself be overly confused about terminology and translation, that may be the same or something similar in others languages too.

It's a fact i've noticed,that usually english (or maybe just modern english) is very precise about weaponry names while in french and especially in primary sources (modern french try to be more precise too), the names for weapons are used for a wide variety of sometimes quite different weapons (a poleaxe is just an "axe" in french for exemple (that may be because creating composed word is far more difficult in french, or for others reasons linked to the logic of the language).

Sorry guys, but this seems like a prime reason why we shouldn't trust Wikipedia......

[Atraphoenix]

chanakkale amphibious assoult WW I,
dardannels war that both armies casulties passed 500 000 ... appr. 10 -15 soldiers died for one square of meter......

[Ibrahim]

oh.. I see. so basically the battle of krasanbes was actually a minor accident, with few losses and 3 wrecked guns? oh well.

that story in wikipedia was darn amusing though. false, but still amusing.

wait, victor: why not rewrite the wikipeda article, that way no one else gets screwed by this? 9just a suggestion)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Carrhae is really an example of everything going right for one side and wrong for the other. As far as Crassus is concerned I can see several failures, which are not the same as the mistakes.

1. Failure to support his cavalry with his infantry and vice versa.

2. Failure to fight on prepared ground of his chosing.

3. Failure to eliminate the Parthian supplies (as I recall the archers were dropping out and trotting off to reload.)

4. Failure to appreciate that a horse archer is both an archer and a horseman and therefore represents two of the three components of an army.

As far as I can see Crassus needed either more archers or more cavalry. While he was not an incompetant he was used to fighting other Romans and he failed to appreciate the nature of Parthian arms. That would seem to be exactly the same mistake that Darius, Xerxes and Mardonius made regarding the Greeks.

Lesson One, Know your enemy and yourself.

[Lusitani]

Well this one was a military mistake...for some anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...3%A1cer_Quibir

(Dont start bashing me for using wikipédia...dont have time for too much research :P lol)

[Celtic_Punk]

Hitler's biggest mistake was engaging stalingrad... he should have spearheaded for the oil fields like he planned in the firstplace... if he took stalingrad he would have just made the russian resolve stronger. his second biggest mistake was allowing the 6th army to be surrounded, and not letting them retreat. Of course he was completely barmy by this point in the war (YES there was a time when he wasnt such a raving lunatic!)

also i thought i might aswell say it, being a soldier n all...

"Our's is not to reason why, but to do and die."

[Meneldil]

La "drôle de guerre" in 1939-40 was an horrendous mistake. France and UK had the resources and the manpower to crush Germany early on, thus ending the not-yet-worldwide-WWII, yet the inapt military leaders decided to wait for the opponent after launching a few attacks there and there.

[Gaivs]

Alexander crossing Gedrosia.