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Battle of the Little Big Horn known as Custer's Last Stand.

In this list a military disaster is the unexpected and sound defeat of one side in a battle or war, sometimes changing the course of history.

Military disasters in this list can range from a strong army losing a major battle against a clearly inferior force, to an army being surprised and defeated by a clearly superior force, to a seemingly evenly matched conflict with an extremely one sided result. A military disaster could be due to bad planning, bad execution, bad weather, general lack of skill or ability, the failure of a new piece of military technology, a major blunder, a brilliant move on the part of the enemy, or simply the unexpected presence of an overwhelming enemy force.

One definition of military disaster describes the presence of two or three factors:^[1]

• chronic mission failure (the key factor)
• successful enemy action,
• (less significant) total degeneration of a force's command and control structure

According to this definition, two particular characteristics are not necessary for an event to be classified as a military disaster:

• enormous loss of life
• having greater casualties than the enemy

Ancient era

• The Battle of Muye in 1046 BC, in which a much smaller Zhou force decisively defeated the huge Shang army, that largely defected to the Zhou side. This caused the Shang dynasty to fall.
• The Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, when a large Persian force was destroyed and routed by a smaller Athenian force.
• The Battle of Salamis in 480 BC, where a huge Persian fleet was defeated by a united Greek force.
• The Athenian expedition to Syracuse in 415 BC. The entire Athenian force was either slaughtered, captured, or enslaved.
• The Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC, in which Alexander the Great annihilated a much larger Persian army, thus ultimately conquering the Middle-east.
• The Battle of Changping (262-260 BC), in which 400,000 captured troops from the State of Zhao were massacred after their commander Zhao Kuo fell for a trick by Bai Qi, the commander from the rival state of Qin.
• The Battle of the Trebia in 218 BC, where Hannibal destroyed eight Roman legions and Allied armies in the first major battle of the Second Punic War.
• The Battle of Lake Trasimene in 217 BC, where 30,000 Roman soldiers were ambushed by Hannibal with army of over 50,000 in the largest ambush in history.
• The Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, where Hannibal destroyed the 16 Roman and Allied legions led by Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. In all, perhaps more than 80 percent of the entire Roman army was dead or captured (including Paullus himself).
• The Battle of Julu in 207 BC where Chu forces under Xiang Yu defeated a much larger Qin army. Qin's losses mounted to well over 100,000. The Qin dynasty collapsed soon after.
• The Battle of Ilipa in 206 BC, when an army of 48,000 Romans under Scipio Africanus surrounded and destroyed the Carthaginian army of 54,000.
• The Battle of Utica in 203 BC, where a Carthaginian army of 100,000 was smashed by 7 legions under Scipio Africanus.
• The Battle of Zama in 202 BC, when a Roman army of 34,000 under Scipio Africanus annihilated the Carthaginian army of 50,000 under Hannibal, thus bringing an end to the Second Punic War.
• The Battle of Mobei in 119 BC, where the entire Xiongnu army of over 100,000 men was destroyed by the Han army. This battle and its aftermath ensured the supremacy of the Chinese over the northern barbarian tribes for the next few hundred years.
• The Battle of Arausio in 105 BC, when the allied armies of the Cimbri and the Teutones killed 120,000 Romans in one afternoon.
• The Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, when Crassus with 40,000 soldiers marched into Parthia, expecting to be victorious, chose to march a direct route through the desert instead of the mountains of the north. He and his army was entirely annihilated by 9,000 Parthian soldiers.
  

  Battle of Teutoburg Forest
• The Siege of Alesia in 52 BC, where Gaius Julius Caesar, leading roughly 50,000 Roman soldiers, laid siege to a rebel Gaul army consisting of roughly 85,000 infantrymen and 15,000 cavalry led under Vercingetorix in the fortress of Alesia. The Belgae tribe attempted to relieve the siege with an army of 260,000 warriors. The Romans, through the personal leadership of Titus Labienus, wrought a terrific slaughter upon the Belgae; this demoralising event led the defenders at Alesia to yield, ending Vercingetorix's rebellion.
• The Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, where an enormous army of 226,000 men (including Auxiliaries) under The Second Triumvirate destroyed the 187,000 strong force under The Liberators. This left the Second Triumvirate in sole control of Rome.
• The Battle of Actium in 31 BC, where the navy of Octavianus defeated the navy of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Octavian, left in sole control of Rome, would later become Augustus, Rome's first Emperor.
• The Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, where Germanic warriors destroyed three Roman legions.
• The Battle of Watling Street in 60 or 61 AD, where, as Tacitus and Cassius Dio suggest, between 100,000 and 230,000 British warriors and tribes people led by the British Iceni queen Boudicca, faced off against 10,000 Roman soldiers led by the governor of the British province, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. The result was an overwhelming defeat of the Britons. There was a rumour of 80,000 Britons left dead on the battlefield, while around 400 Romans were dead according to Tacitus, thus ending the British rebellion that had devastated Roman-British provincial towns in southern Britain.

Map showing Julian's journey from Constantinople to Antioch (in 362) and his Persian expedition (in 363), ending with his death near Samarra resulting in one of Rome's most catastrophic military failures in its history.^[2]

• The Battle of Guandu in 200 AD, in which the more powerful army of Yuan Shao failed to guard its supplies, and was defeated by Cao Cao.
• The Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD, where Liu Bei's and Sun Quan's combined force destroyed Cao Cao's much larger navy with fire.
• The Battle of Edessa, when Emperor Valerian, in 259 AD., with a 70,000-strong Roman army marched into Persia to end Persian advances into Roman territory. The outcome was an overwhelming Persian victory and the entire Roman army was decimated.
• Julian's Persian War in 363 AD, in which the Roman Emperor Julian invaded the Sassanian Empire under Shapur II, gaining initial tactical victories, but soon being lured into the interior of the Empire, leaving his army trapped and unable to escape. Julian himself perished and his successor, Emperor Jovian, was forced to sign one of the most humiliating peace treaties in Roman history in order to save the remnants of the Roman army.^[3]
• The Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD, in which the emperor Valens was killed while Gothic heavy cavalry ambushed and decimated his Roman heavy infantry.
• The Battle of Fei River in 383 AD, in which the 870,000-strong Former Qin led by its emperor Fu Jian was decisively routed by a significantly smaller (numbered around 80,000) Eastern Jin forces led by Xie An.
• The Expedition to Reclaim Africa in 468 AD, in which Roman general, Basiliscus managed to wreck the large and expensive fleet constructed by his father-in-law, allowing the Vandals to raid the coast of Greece unopposed.
• The Battle of Placentia in 476 AD, in which Gothic Odoacer crushed Orestes and brought end to the Western Roman Empire.
• The Battle of Vouillé in 507 AD, in which Clovis I killed Alaric II and eliminated the core of Visigothic forces, leading to disarray, thus allowing the Franks to seize Aquitania (minus Narbonne).

Medieval era

• The Battle of Salsu in 612, during the second Goguryeo-Sui War, between the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo and the Chinese Sui Dynasty. Goguryeo cavalry forces defeated the massive Sui army at the Salsu River (modern name: Chongchon River).
• The Battle of Yarmouk in 636, where the bulk of the Byzantine military along with their Christian Arab allies are destroyed by the Rashidun Army under Khalid ibn al-Walid, permanently costing the Eastern Roman Empire the Levant.
• The Battle of al-Q?disiyyah in 636, in which the Arab Muslim army decisively defeated the Sassanid army, resulting in the Islamic conquest of Persia and the nigh-collapse of the Sassanid Empire.
• The Battle of Tours in 732. The Muslim Moors marched into southern France meeting no foes, until encountering the Christian Frankish forces led by Charles Martel at Tours. Despite the Moorish advantage over the Franks militarily, they were defeated decisively by the Franks.
• The Battle of Pliska in 811. Byzantine forces were ambushed by a Bulgarian force, leading to the death of the Byzantine Emperor and greatly increased the Bulgarian power in the Balkans.
• The Battle of Achelous in 917. A Byzantine army of 30,000 men was tactically outwitted by a smaller Bulgarian force, causing the death of much of the Byzantine force in one of the bloodiest battles in the Middle Ages. The bones of tens of thousands who perished could be seen on the battlefield 75 years later.
• The Battle of Arcadiopolis in 970. A large force of 30,000 Kievan Rus allied with Bulgarians, Pechenegs and Magyars was defeated by a 12,000 strong Byzantine force through an ambushing tactic. This ended the Hungarian invasions of Europe.
• The Battle of Kleidon in 1014. A large Bulgarian force was destroyed by a Byzantine force in the Belasitsa Mountains. This encounter greatly reduced the ability of the Bulgarian state to resist and essentially led to the fall of the First Bulgarian Empire.
• The Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. A Norwegian army under king Harald Hardrada is destroyed by an Anglo-Saxon army under King Harold Godwinson. The battle is so costly for the Norwegians that only a fraction of the fleet used to transport the army is needed to pick up the survivors.
• The Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Anglo-Saxon King Harold is slain in battle against the Normans led by William the Conqueror, resulting in the Norman Conquest of England.
• The Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The Byzantine Empire suffers a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Seljuks, resulting in the capture of Emperor Romanos IV and Turkish settlement of Anatolia.
• The Battle of Didgori in 1121. David IV of Georgia, with 55,600 soldiers, routs the massive (100,000 minimum, more likely 250,000) army of the Great Seljuk Empire. As a result, the Kingdom of Georgia obtains large swaths of Seljuk territory, including Tbilisi.^[4][5][6][7]
• The Battle of Hattin in 1187, where overconfident Crusader forces from Jerusalem became trapped in a waterless desert area, and thus became easy prey for the Muslim forces of Salah-ud-din (Saladin)
• The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known in Arab history as the Battle of Al-Uqab (Arabic? ), took place on 16 July 1212 and was an important turning point in the Reconquista and in the medieval history of Spain. The Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile were joined by the armies of his rivals, Sancho VII of Navarre and Peter II of Aragon in battle against the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. The al-Nasir (Miramamolín in the Spanish chronicles) led the Almohad army, made up of people from all over the Almohad Caliphate.
• The Battle of Kalka River, 1223. A Mongol army obliterates an allied Kievan-Rus'/Cuman army at a river crossing on the Kalka in the Ukraine. The Mongols draw the Russo-Cuman force out until they are overextended, then attack with their heavy cavalry and destroy the allied forces in detail. The Mongols capture several Russian princes and ritually execute them by crushing them beneath a feasting table on which the Mongol leaders dance and feast.
  

  Mongol invasion of Poland (late 1240-1241) culminated in the Battle of Legnica
• The Battle of Legnica, 1241. A Mongol army under Baidar crushes an allied force of Poles, Germans, Bohemians, crusaders and mercenaries under King Henry II the Pious of Poland. Poor discipline within the allied ranks allows the Mongols to destroy first the knights and then the infantry. Henry II is killed, as are many nobles and princes, and most of the allied army except for the Bohemian contingent, which the Mongol army decides not to pursue having incurred heavy casualties.
• The Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. English Earl John de Warenne's well-equipped army were trapped on a narrow bridge by William Wallace's 15,000 unarmored, lightly armed Scots, bearing the traditional long spears of lowland Scotland. The bridge had been chosen as the point of engagement by Warenne, even though the river could easily have been forded just a few miles upstream.
• The Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, Flemish foot militia defeat a superior French army through the mass use of pikes in assembles into schiltrons.
• Siege of Chittorgarh (1303) the Delhi Sultanate ruler Alauddin Khalji captured the Chittor Fort from the Guhila king Ratnasimha, killing all its defenders after an eight month long siege. After his victory, Alauddin ordered a general massacre of Chittor's population. According to Amir Khusrau, 30,000 Hindus were "cut down like dry grass" after the siege.
• The Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. A Scottish army of around 7000 men under King Robert I defeats a roughly 20,000-strong English army near Stirling Castle. The English knights fail to penetrate the schiltrons of Scottish spearmen on the first day, and are routed completely the next day when Robert decides to counter-attack. King Edward II of England only narrowly escapes capture, and some of England's most important nobles are killed or captured.
• The Battle of Maritsa in 1371 was defeat of thousands of Serbs by Ottomans.
• The Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 was the rout of an allied army of Hungarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German and assorted troops at the hands of an Ottoman force in modern-day Bulgaria. It is often referred to as the Crusade of Nicopolis and was the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages.
• The Battle of Agincourt in 1415. A large French army, with a large contingent of knights, was defeated by Henry V's much smaller army, which included the famed English longbowmen.
• The Tumu Crisis in 1449. A very large force (500,000) of the Ming dynasty were defeated by a very small army (20,000) of Mongols, and the Zhengtong Emperor of the Ming dynasty was captured. This battle is regarded as the greatest military debacle of the entire Chinese history. There is a legend that Zhengtong Emperor had been working as a herder during the capture in Mongol.

16th century

• The Battle of Cochin in 1504. 200-1000 Cochinese Indians aided by 140 Portuguese fended off an army of 57,000-84,000 Zamorin soldiers, resulting in Zamorin imperial attempts being stopped and preservation of the independence of the Kingdom of Cochin, also securing the continued presence of the Portuguese in India.
• The Battle of Flodden Field in 1513. A Scottish invasion of England is defeated, resulting in the death of the popular King James IV of Scotland, as well as most of Scotland's nobles.
• La Noche Triste in 1520. Hundreds of Spaniards and thousands of their native allies are slaughtered by Aztec warriors as they flee the capital city of Tenochtitlan.
  

  The battle of Mohács, on an Ottoman miniature
• The Battle of Mohacs in 1526. The Ottoman army crushed the Hungarian forces, who lost their king, Louis II during retreat. The battle marked the end of the medieval Hungarian state.
• The First battle of Panipat in 1526. Babur sacked Delhi and defeated Ibrahim Lodhi. This battle marked the use of gunpowder for the first time in any battle in Indian subcontinent and also establishment of Mughal rule in india. Ibrahim Lodhi's war elephants panicked and crushed Lodhi's army after hearing cannon sound.
• The Siege of Vienna in 1529 marked the height of the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman the Magnificent failed to capture the city, despite significant advantages in manpower.
• The Siege of Güns in 1532. The defending forces of the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy under the leadership of Croatian Captain Nikola Juri?i? , defended the small border fort of K?szeg with only 700-800 Croatian soldiers, with no cannons and few guns. The defenders prevented the advance of the Ottoman army of over 100,000 toward Vienna, under the leadership of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and Pargal? Ibrahim Pasha.
• The Battle of Cajamarca in 1532. Francisco Pizarro and less than 200 Spaniards hold off against nearly 10,000 Incan warriors, killing 2,000 and capturing the Incan Emperor, all without sustaining a single casualty.
• Battle of Solway Moss in 1542. 15,000-18,000 Scottish troops were defeated by 3,000 English after becoming trapped in a bog.
• Battle of Sammel(1544) Sher Shah Suri's army of 80,000 Pashtuns gained costly victory against a small band of Rathore horsemen, Shah is said to have commented that "for a few grains of bajra (millet, the main crop of Marwar) I almost lost the entire kingdom of Hindustan."
• Battle of Okehazama in 1560. Imagawa Yashimoto's invasion of Owari province halted completely, after being ambushed by Oda Nobunaga's force during the night, leading to large casualties, many officers (including Yashimoto) dying, and his army being forced into a rout and eventually dismemberment.
• Great Siege of Malta in 1565. The siege resulted in catastrophe for the Ottoman Empire.
• Battle of Szigeth in 1566. 2,300 Croatian troops under Nikola ?ubi?-Zrinski held Ottoman army of 100,000 troops and 300 cannons, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, for a month. Ottoman army lost 30,000 soldiers, while Suleiman himself died.
• Siege of Chittorgarh (1567-1568) Forces led by Akbar surrounded and besieged 8,000 Rajput and around 40,000 peasants under the command of Jaimal in Chittorgarh.

The fall of Spanish Armada in 1588

• The Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Holy League's fleet defeated the Ottoman fleet in one of the largest naval battles of human history. The Ottomans lost 240 ships (out of about 300), while the League lost 12 of their 210 ships.
• The Spanish Armada in 1588. An English fleet sends fire ships into the Spanish invasion fleet destroying some and scattering the rest effectively ending the invasion threat. The Armada would later run into storms and almost half the ships never returned to Spain, as well as more than half the troops.
• The English Armada in 1589, where the English fleet was defeated by the recovering Spanish fleet. This allowed the Spanish fleet to quickly recover and maintained their shipping from the Americas.
• The Battle of Sisak in 1593, where small Croatian contingent of 300 men managed to hold army of 10,000 Ottomans, which was then annihilated by incoming Croatian army.
• The Battle of Myeongnyang, on October 26, 1597, the Korean Joseon Navy, led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin, fought the Japanese navy in the Myeongnyang Strait, near Jindo Island, off the southwest point of the Korean Peninsula. With 13 ships remaining from Admiral Won Gyun's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chilchonryang, Admiral Yi held the strait as a "Last Stand" battle against a fleet of 133 Japanese warships and at least 200 logistical support ship.
• The Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598. An English force of 4000 is attacked by Irish defenders under Hugh O'Neill and defeated. This temporarily put Ireland out of English control, allowing the rebellion to spread throughout Ireland.

17th century

• The Battle of Pratapgarh in November 1659. The battle was fought between invading Adilshahi forces and defending Maratha forces under Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Adilshahi forces composed of 30,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry along with 1500 musketeers. There was a reserve force of 12,000 infantry. The Adilshahi forces were scattered in the region. The opposing Maratha forces numbered 6,000 light cavalry, 3,000 light infantry and 4,000 reserve infantry. The battle turned out to be a rout for Adilshahi forces (5000 killed, 5000 wounded, and abandoned artillery and wealth) after Afzal Khan (general) was killed in Hand-to-hand combat by Shivaji Maharaj.
• The Battle of Umberkhind in February 1661. The Battle was fought between invading Mughal forces and defending Maratha forces under Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj. 30,000 strong Mughal army was routed by 3000 Maratha forces in a fine display of Guerilla Warfare. The war lasted for few hours and ended with complete unconditional surrender of Mughal forces.
• The Raid on the Medway in June 1667. A Dutch fleet led by Michiel de Ruyter sailed up the river Medway and attacked the English fleet lying at anchor at their home base of Chatham. Ending in a decisive victory for the Dutch, and an unfavorable peace for the British in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
• The Battle of Saraighat in March 1671. The Ahoms under their general Lachit Borphukan defeated the Rajput general Ram Singh's Mughal imperial forces consisting of 4,000 troopers (from his char-hazaari mansab), 1,500 ahadis and 500 barqandezes by an additional 30,000 infantrymen, 21 Rajput chiefs (Thakurs) with their contingents, 18,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers and shieldmen and 40 ships.
• The Battle of Vienna in September 1683. A coalition of armies from Poland, Germany, Hungary and Italy fought the invading Ottoman Turks. The Polish King Jan Sobieski led one of the largest cavalry charges in history and crushed the Ottoman force.
• The Battle of Narva in November 1700, where the city of Narva was under siege by a Russian force of 37,000 men, led by Charles Eugène de Croy. A blizzard against the Russian side allowed a Swedish army, led by Charles XII of Sweden, to win despite having only 12,000 men.

18th century

• The Battle of Poltava in June 1709. Charles XII of Sweden's disastrous defeat ended his march on Moscow during the Great Northern War and marked the beginning of the decline of the Swedish Empire.
• The Battle of the Salween River in September 1718. An entire Qing army was destroyed by Zunghar Mongols.
• The Battle of Karnal in 1739 was a battle in which an invading Persian army under the military genius Nader Shah decimated a much larger Mughal army in a matter of hours and thereby subdued the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah, making him a vassal of Nader Shah's.
• The Battle of Cartagena de Indias in March-May 1741. This battle, fought in the War of Jenkins' Ear, saw a huge British amphibious force of 26,400 men and 186 ships beaten back and defeated by 6,000 Spanish troops and just 6 ships. The British pulled back after losing many men to disease.
• The Battle of Assietta on July 19, 1747, between a French force of 40,000 men and an Italian Force of 15,000 men from Sardinia. All French attacks were repelled by the Italians, resulting in 6,400 French killed, including general Louis Forquet.
• The Battle of the Monongahela River at the beginning of the Seven Years' War (July 9, 1755). A small contingent of French and allied Indians soundly defeated a far superior British-American force under the command of General Edward Braddock, the commander-in-chief of British forces in North America. Braddock was killed in the battle as was the French commander, Daniel-Hyacinthe de Beaujeu.
• The Battle of Plassey on June 23, 1757, when the British East India Company decisively defeated a much bigger force fielded by Siraj Ud Daulah and gained their first major foothold into India.
• The Third Battle of Panipat on January 14, 1761, between the two indigenous South Asian military powers of the time, the Afghan Durrani Empire and the Hindu Maratha Empire. The Durrani forces were able to achieve decisive victory. The battle is considered one of the largest fought in the 18th century,^[8] and has perhaps the largest number of fatalities in a single day reported in a classic formation battle between two armies. The extent of the losses on both sides is heavily disputed by historians, but it is believed that between 60,000-70,000 were killed in fighting from both sides, and another 40,000-70,000 Maratha non-combatants massacred following the battle.^[9][10]
• The Battle of Buxar(1764) was an engagement in which 8,000 British East India Company troops defeated a Mughal Army of 40,000, allowing the British to establish dominion over northeastern India.
• The Battle of Trenton was a battle of the American Revolutionary War that took place on the morning of December 26, 1776, in Trenton, New Jersey. American forces commanded by George Washington surprised and defeated Hessian mercenaries fighting for the British.
  

  Surrender of General Burgoyne; this painting hangs in the United States Capitol Rotunda
• The Battle of Saratoga in September-October 1777. John Burgoyne's British Army is captured after the battle by the Continental Army under Horatio Gates.
• The Battle of Camden in August, 1780. The American forces under Horatio Gates were defeated by the British who were half their size in numbers. This battle in the South turned out to be important for the British General Lord Cornwallis.
• The Battle of Polliur was a defeat for the East India Company at the hands of Kingdom of Mysore during the Second Anglo-Mysore War. The Mysorean usage of long-distance rockets under the direction of Tipu Sultan allowed them to defeat a numerically superior East India Company force and ultimately win the war.
• The Great Siege of Gibraltar in June 1779 - February 1783. During the American Revolution a combined Franco-Spanish force lays siege to a British garrison for nearly four years. A 'Grand Assault' of over 60,000 men, and 150 assault vessels by the besieging forces in September 1782 results in total disaster, with over 6,000 casualties and dozens of ships lost.
• The Battle of Karánsebes on the 21st of September 1788. A friendly fire incident including drunken soldiers arguing over recently purchased schnapps ending in massive confusion and the loss of 1,200 Austrian soldiers, 3 cannons and the payroll for the entire army. Nicknamed, "The Battle of the Schnapps".

19th century

• Battle of Assaye 1803: A British force of 10,000 men, led by Arthur Wellesley, defeats a Maratha force of 50,000 and ultimately leads to a British victory in the war.
• Battle of Khartoum Entire Anglo-Egyptian garrison annihalted by Mahdist Sudanese forces, resulting in the death of Major General Charles George Gordon.
• Battle of Shaykan 10,000 strong Anglo-Egyptian force captured or killed by Mahdist Sudanese resulting in the death of Colonel William Hicks.
• The British invasions of the Río de la Plata. Taking place during the Napoleonic Wars, the British intended to take advantage of Spanish struggles to assert their authority in South America during that time. At first they were successful, and the Spanish Viceroy fled to Cordoba. However, the local Criollo forces under Santiago de Liniers and others remained loyal to the Spanish and eventually wrestled control of Buenos Aires back from the British.
• The Battle of Bladensburg. War of 1812, the rout of the U.S. Army dubbed "the greatest disgrace ever dealt to American arms" in 1814 by a smaller force of British army regulars and Marines under General Robert Ross, which led to the burning of Washington. Described in an 1816 American poem as the Bladensburg Races after American troops ran through the streets of Washington in disarray. Ross was later killed in action by American soldiers on campaign during the Battle of North Point but was subsequently honoured posthumously as Ross of Bladensburg. His US opposite, General William H. Winder, was later court-martialled but cleared of blame.
  

  Napoleon's army at the retreat from Russia at the Berezina river
• Napoleon's Invasion of Russia in the summer and winter of 1812 where Napoleon lost almost all of his troops; it was the turning point of the Napoleonic wars.
• The Battle of New Orleans. War of 1812. On January 8, 1815, a British force of more than 8,000 attacked entrenched positions manned by 4,000 Americans commanded by Andrew Jackson, losing more than 285 dead, to 55 killed and 185 wounded. The battle was fought after the Americans and British had agreed to peace (the Treaty of Ghent, Belgium), but sea-borne communications were too slow to prevent the battle.
• The Battle of Waterloo. Napoleonic Wars, June 18, 1815. Napoleon was defeated by a coalition of Anglo-Prussian-Dutch-German forces. This led to his exile to St. Helena, where he died six years later.
• The Battle of Koregaon, 1st Jan 1818: Fought between the British Light Native Infantry (500 in number) and Peshwai Forces of 28,000. The troops fought continuously for more than 12 hours without food or water. Peshwai forces finally retreating from the battlefield by day end.
• The Battle of Gravia Inn. during the Greek War of Independence,8 May 1821. The Greek leader, Odysseas Androutsos, with a group of 120 men repulsed an Ottoman army numbering 10,000 men and artillery under the command of Omer Vrioni. This attack is considered important to the outcome of the Greek revolution because it forced Omer Vrioni to retreat, leaving the Greeks to consolidate their gains in the Peloponnese and capture the Ottoman capital of the Peloponnese, Tripoli. Over 300 Ottomans were killed and 800 were wounded with the Greeks losing only six men.
• The Battle of San Jacinto. Texas Revolution, April 21, 1836. General Santa Anna, fully aware that the Texian Army was very nearby, ordered his exhausted army to take an afternoon siesta and failed to post standing skirmishers or sentries. This led to an absolute rout when the Texian Army under command of General Sam Houston made a surprise attack in broad daylight, with 630 of Santa Anna's 1400 troops killed against 9 Texians and almost the entire remainder captured, including Santa Anna himself. This also proved to be the decisive battle of the entire war as the Republic of Texas then successfully negotiated with Santa Anna the withdrawal of all of his remaining troops from Texan soil at the Treaties of Velasco.
• The Battle of Blood River. Andries Pretorius and his 470 commando Voortrekkers defeated an estimated 15,000-21,000 Zulu attackers under Dingane kaSenzangakhona on the bank of the Ncome River on 16 December 1838. The Zulus surrounded the trekker laager and waited for daybreak. The battle was fought till the afternoon. Over 3,000 Zulu were killed and an unknown number injured. Only 3 Voortrekkers were lightly wounded.
• The Charge of the Light Brigade. Crimean War, 1854. A British officer misinterpreted an order and led a suicidal charge against Russian artillery positions. ("Not tho' the soldier knew, someone had blunder'd", Tennyson)
• Battle of the Little Bighorn. June 1876 - Montana Territory. Lieutenant Colonel George Custer attacks a superior force of armed Lakota Sioux warriors, gets himself and the entire 7th Cavalry Regiment killed, the only survivor being a lone horse. 268 U.S. troopers were killed and 55 were wounded.
• Battle of Isandlwana, January 22, 1879. In the first major battle of the Anglo-Zulu War, a Zulu impi overwhelmed and defeated two battalions armed with modern rifles and artillery. The battle was a major victory for the Zulus during the opening stages of the war.
  

  The last stand of the 44th Foot, during the Massacre of Elphinstone's Army in Afghanistan
• William Elphinstone's disastrous withdrawal in 1842 during the First Anglo-Afghan War led to the loss of about 3,500 British and Indian soldiers and civilians numbering about 10,000.
• Both the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Battle of Cold Harbor become horrible one-sided battles in which Union Army advances on entrenched Confederate Army units result in horrendous casualties during the American Civil War.
• Battle of Chancellorsville. April 30, 1863 - May 6, 1863. General Robert E. Lee defeated the Union Army of the Potomac under "Fighting Joe" Hooker, even though the North had twice as many troops. However, twenty percent of Lee's army was injured or killed, including General Stonewall Jackson, and his losses were difficult to replace. Lee's weakened army went on the offensive, but less than two months later was defeated and forced to retreat after the Battle of Gettysburg.
• Pickett's Charge by the Confederates in the Battle of Gettysburg was easily repulsed and, along with the cost of the previous two days of the battle, permanently crippled the Army of Northern Virginia.
• Battle of Fish Creek has been categorized as a disaster for the Canadian Militia who greatly outnumbered their Metis counterparts, but suffered a major defeat, in 1885.
• HMS Victoria collided with HMS Camperdown and sank with the loss of 358 lives after the fleet commander George Tryon ordered a sudden turn during manoeuvres in 1893.
• The Battle of Adwa fought between the Royal Italian Army and the Imperial Ethiopian Army in 1896. The Italians were completely defeated and the battle confirmed the independence of Ethiopia.
• The Battle of Majuba Hill during the First Boer War resulted in a Boer victory over the British Army, which held the high ground, and ended the war in the Transvaal Republic's favour.

20th century

Turn of the century

• The Battle of Tsushima - the Russian Baltic Fleet was sent halfway around the world and was comprehensively defeated by the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet in the Tsushima Straits in 1905, forcing Russia to surrender Korea, Port Arthur, Talien, the South Manchuria Railway, and its mining concessions to Japan.

First World War

• The Battle of Tannenberg -- August 1914, at the first month of the war, in the forests of East Prussia. The Russian First and Second Armies consisting of 230,000 men have a catastrophic defeat suffering 170,000 casualties against the German 8th Army of 150,000 that suffers 13,000. Although having numerical superiority, the two Imperial Russian Army commanders are at enmity with each other, their soldiers are poorly trained, ill-prepared, composed largely of illiterates, for supplies they rely on two outdated trains and the use of Cossack horses, and for communication they use radio messages that have been already decrypted by the Germans. Though numerically inferior, the Imperial German Army has vastly superior technology, planning, mobilization and mechanization, their units have superior training, equipment and tactics, and the commanders are united and communicate with each other. The victory is so total that Russians come out from the forests massively to surrender, forming a line that spans miles and provokes a traffic jam -- 60 trains are required to transport Russian POWS and captured equipment to Germany. The event would be known by the Germans as "Erntetag", or "Day of the Harvest".
• The Battle of Sarikamish - Ottoman forces attack Russian fortifications in the Allahuekber Mountains in late 1915. They suffer devastating losses because of their use of outdated tactics and ill-preparedness for low-temperature combat.
  

  Landing at Gallipoli, April 1915
• The Siege of Kut - The British Indian 6th Division attempts to capture Baghdad but its commanders underestimate the strength of the Ottoman Army and meet unexpectedly heavy resistance. They were defeated at Battle of Ctesiphon (Selman-? Pak), and besieged in Kut Al Amare. Despite relief efforts by British troops, Kut surrendered to Ottoman Forces on 29 April 1916 ending up with capture of the division's commander Major General Charles Townshend, many high ranked British Indian Army officers, and 11,000 soldiers. Around 30,000 casualties had been suffered.
• The Siege of Przemy?l - The Austro-Hungarian garrison of Przemy?l Fortress surrendered to the Russian Third Army on 22 March 1915, after holding out for a total of 133 days. The loss of the fortress was a serious blow to Austro-Hungarian morale and opened the possibility of a Russian invasion of Hungary.
• The Gallipoli Campaign - April 1915 to January 1916. A combined British, Commonwealth and French attempt to capture Istanbul becomes a stalemate on the Gallipoli Peninsula and is abandoned.

Intra-wars era

• The Battle of Warsaw (1920) also known as the Miracle at the Vistula was the decisive Soviet defeat in the Polish-Soviet War.
• On 1 July 1921, the Spanish Army in north-eastern Morocco under Manuel Fernández Silvestre collapsed when defeated by the Berber forces of Abd el-Krim, in what became known in Spain as the disaster of Annual. Some 8,000 soldiers and officers reported killed or disappeared out of some 20,000.

Second World War

Surrendering British troops held at gunpoint by Japanese infantry in the battle of Singapore

• The Polish Campaign (September 1-October 6, 1939): One week after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact dividing Poland, the Wehrmacht invaded Poland from Silesia, East Prussia, and Slovakia. The Polish Army withdrew eastwards but the Red Army invaded eastern Poland, as the Wehrmacht obliterated a substantial part of the Polish military in the Battle of the Bzura. The Polish military finally retreated to the southeast with the expectation that the Allied Powers would intervene through the Romanian Bridgehead. However the predicted aid never arrived and the Germans and Soviets overran the country. The remaining troops and government officials evacuated to Romania and Hungary, and afterwards some reorganized their units in France to fight on the Western Front.
• The Battle of Suomussalmi in December 1939 and January 1940. The Finnish Army won a significant victory over the much larger Red Army, preventing the Soviets from capturing Oulu.
• The Battle of Raate Road - During the Winter War, a Finnish division outnumbered 2.5 to 1 defeated the Soviet 44th Rifle Division by breaking them up into smaller groups. The Finnish suffered 20 times fewer losses than the Soviets
• The Battle of France in 1940 - the Allied army moved to meet the Germans inside Belgium, believing the Maginot Line would force the Germans to rerun the Schlieffen Plan, but was cut off by a German advance through the Ardennes.
• Operation Compass in North Africa during winter 1940-41, after the failed Italian invasion of Egypt. The Royal Italian Army built their forts too far apart so they were not mutually supporting, and lacked tanks or other mobile forces. the Western Desert Force, a British force of 35,000 men, was able to rout the Italian 10th Army of 150,000, forcing them back 800 km (500 mi) and capturing around three times their own number for almost no losses.^[]
• Operation Typhoon, the failed German drive towards Moscow in 1941^[]
• Battle of the Philippines (1941-42). American and Filipino forces, commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, were isolated and overrun after five months of continuous combat despite advanced warning of attack after Pearl Harbor. It is generally considered the largest defeat in US history, with over 100,000 Allied troops captured.
• The fall of Singapore in February 1942 to two Japanese divisions was the largest surrender of Commonwealth troops in history and destroyed the linchpin of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command. Although the Japanese invasion force was 1/3 of the size of the defending force, Japanese air attacks on the city and lack of water proved decisive. Prime Minister Winston Churchill considered it to be the worst defeat in British military history.
• The Battle of Midway was one of the turning points of World War II. Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy planned to invade the American navy base at Midway Island. U.S. Navy intelligence had broken Japan's main naval code and anticipated the attack. Japan lost four fleet carriers in three days, due to ill timing of fuelling and arming of aircraft, American fortitude and good fortune, and, ultimately, poor planning by Yamamoto.^[11]
  

  Center of Stalingrad after liberation in 1943
• The Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-43 was one of the turning points of World War II. German General Friedrich Paulus failed to keep a mobile strategic reserve and the Sixth Army was surrounded by a rapid Soviet flanking attack. Rubble caused by German bombing and artillery fire left their tanks unable to enter the city. The 250,000+ German troops in Stalingrad surrendered even though Adolf Hitler had promised they would never leave the city.^[]
• Operation Bagration (1944). The Soviet summer offensive sliced through the German line and reached Poland within two weeks, and also destroyed Army Group Center with a loss of well over 400,000 men, the backbone of German forces on the Eastern Front.
• The Battle of the Philippine Sea - was the final carrier battle of the Pacific War, fought between the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy's 1st Mobile Fleet. Although the Fifth Fleet failed to completely destroy Japan's carrier force in the battle, the aerial combat became known as the "Great Mariana Turkey Shoot" due to the heavy losses sustained by Japanese carrier planes.
• The Battle of Leyte Gulf (23-26 October 1944) - a climactic battle in the Pacific Ocean that is perhaps the largest naval battle in all history. The Imperial Japanese Navy prepared for a titanic battle in the hopes of turning the tide of the war and allocated a huge part of their war effort. It was the last time the Japanese had significant resources to fight the war, much of their ships and planes were destroyed.

Cold War era

• The Battle of Inchon in September 1950 was an amphibious invasion during the Korean War that resulted in a decisive victory for the United Nations forces led by General Douglas MacArthur. The battle at Incheon led to the recapture of the South Korean capital, Seoul, two weeks later and a general collapse of the Korean People's Army, with 135,000 North Korean prisoners taken by the Americans in the next four weeks.
• The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, in which the French Far East Expeditionary Corps advanced deep into northwestern Vietnam near ?i?n Biên Ph? to cut off the Viet Minh's supply lines from Laos and force it into a confrontation. The Viet Minh besieged the French and smuggled heavy artillery through mountain terrain, preventing resupply by air with anti-aircraft guns. The defeat forced the French Armed Forces to withdraw from North Vietnam in 1954.
• The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a United States-backed attempt in 1961 to overthrow Cuban President, Fidel Castro, using 1,500 Cuban exiles. Not only were the exiles heavily outnumbered when they reached the bay, but the US-promised air support never came to aid the exiles.
• In the Six-Day War, in response to Arab threats of invasion and low-level attacks, Israel launched surprise air attacks which almost completely destroyed the Air Forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, followed by a series of ground, air, and naval attacks which saw the capture of the Sinai from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria, victories which lead to heavy Arab losses in personnel and material.
• The Battle of Longewala - during the western theater of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Pakistan launched a large-scale offensive (involving 2,800 soldiers, 65 tanks and more than 130 other military vehicles) to capture a small Indian Army post at Longewala manned by 120 personnel and one jeep-mounted recoilless rifle. Despite numerical inferiority, the Indian Army successfully held on to the post during the night. In the morning Indian Air Force aircraft were launched at first light. This air offensive halted the progress of the Pakistani regiment. The ensuing battle resulted in destruction and capture of more than 100 Pakistani tanks and military vehicles,with only 2 solider's death from Indian side.^[12][13]
• Operation Eagle Claw, a U.S. attempt to rescue hostages in Iran in April 1980 during the Iran Hostage Crisis. This operation was marked by a series of planning, mechanical and communication failures that led to the deaths of eight American servicemen, and failed to rescue the hostages and humiliated the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
• The Battle of Afabet, where the Eritrean People's Liberation Front killed 18,000 Ethiopian soldiers and prevented Ethiopia from destroying the EPLF.
• The Gulf War, in which the Iraqi Army had invaded and annexed Kuwait, resulting in a vast international coalition being assembled in response. The Coalition then launched a counter-invasion of Kuwait and Iraq proper, resulting in the complete reversal of all Iraqi territorial gains, the devastation of the Iraqi Army (with over 100,000 casualties), and Ba'athist Iraq becoming an international pariah state.

Post Cold War

Ruins in Vukovar in 1991 after the JNA invasion.

• Battle of Vukovar (1991). In the Croatian War of Independence 36,000 soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) laid siege to the city of Vukovar, held by the 1,800 Croatian National Guard and civilian volunteers. After 87 days, the ruined city fell to the JNA. The siege exhausted the JNA and was a watershed moment in the Croatian War.^[14][15]
• Operation Corridor 92 (1992). The largest operation during the Bosnian war in which the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) managed to re-establish a road link between the city of Banja Luka in the west of the country and the eastern parts of the territory controlled by the Bosnian Serbs. The VRS successfully captured Derventa and pushed the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the Croatian Army (HV) north, capturing several towns in the process. In the second phase of the offensive, the VRS reached the Sava River, the border with Croatia, and destroyed a bridgehead held by the HV and the HVO at Bosanski Brod. The offensive involved more than 60,000 troops and resulted in heavy casualties for HV and HVO.^[16][17][18]
• Battle of Grozny (1994-95), a Russian invasion of the city of Grozny at the dawn of the First Chechen War that became a bloody urban battle. Despite the Russian army outnumbering Chechen separatists at an estimated 6 to 1, constant separatist ambushes against Russian convoys of infantry, fighting vehicles and Russian units entering the city caused a breakdown in Russian morale and the complete destruction of the Maikop 131st brigade. The Russian casualty rate was estimated to be over 2,000.

21st century

• Fall of Mosul (2014), The Iraqi Army had 30,000 soldiers and another 30,000 federal police stationed in Mosul, facing a 1,500-member ISIL attacking force. However, after six days of fighting, the central city, Mosul International Airport and the helicopters located there all fell under ISIL control.

See also

• Pyrrhic victory
• Friendly fire

References

Further reading

• Military Intelligence Blunders and Cover-Ups, by Colonel Hughes-Wilson John (ISBN 0-7867-1373-9)
• Geoffrey Regan's Book Of Military Blunders, by Geoffrey Regan (ISBN 0-233-99977-9)
• Scottish Military Disasters, by Paul Cowan (ISBN 978 19032 38967)