Most humiliating defeats in History

That is what I originally intended the numbers to relate to


But thanks for the add on with the overall numbers lost in the operation.

 

Cant think of what you could be possibly on about..Irish and English....friends and comarades, brothers.....never a bad word between us...God Bless the Irish...God blessed the English...God help the Welsh...God loves a scots tryer.

Battles though...humiliating defeats....

Roman revenge on Bodicea....off she goes, burns the barracks in East Anglia, marches on Londinium....

Then goes and throws it all away in a mad charge on Druid hating Romans.

If only...Quick sweep round the rear...Romans massacred...no Cnut, William never even gets on his boat...and Hadrians wall not needed...Scots and Welsh join in big gang of Britons. All off to invaded the Vikings. quick side step to the right, march on Moscow. Head back west, pope abandons Rome. Sun on Cairos beaches, knock down a few pryamids, boat back home for tea.

Invent bnoculars, look west..whats that big thing in the water..We shall call it Britmerica. Make ready the fleet...

Most humiliating defeat....Romans beating Bodicea to a pulp.

 

1100 Argies 500 Para's Goose Green, 1982 and the winner is.........bit unfair really there were only 1100 Argies

 

Battle of the Kasserine Pass

 

With ancestors with names like Gunn and Billingsley I'd say Welsh and Scots mostly.....

 

double post

 

Did my post just disappear?
edit: It did.

What I meant to say is that the 750,000 figure includes losses of the Axis Allies, not just the German.

"120,000 Romanians, 120,000 Hungarians, 120,000 Italians were killed, wounded or captured. 50,000 ex-Soviets Hiwis (local volunteers incorporated into the German forces in supporting capacities) were killed or captured by the Red Army."

Army Group B:
German Sixth Army
German Fourth Panzer Army
Romanian Third Army
Romanian Fourth Army
Italian Eighth Army
Hungarian Second Army
Croatian Legion

 

Oh dear lord...another one....

 

WE ARE EVERYWHERE

 

Sluys 6/24/1340. The English and French meet in the Channel off Sluys near Bruges. The French are crushed at sea by the English. More Frenchmen died at Sluys than Agincourt, Waterloo or, Dein Bein Phu. The outnumbered English fleet captured 166 of 190 French vessels involved. It was a naval defeat that makes Trafalgar look lame by comparison. This victory paved the way for the English victory at Crecy six years later.

 

The American Civil War: Battle of Bull Run (for the Union)
World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass (For the Allies)
World War II: Battle of Singapore (For the Allies)
Persian Gulf War: Everything (for Iraq)

 

The Battle of Leyte Gulf for proportion of US Losses to Japanese losses.

(US Low, IJN High

 

Battle of New Orleans, terrible defeat for the British- even worse, the war was already over

San Jacinto- this is what happens when your entire army has nap time

Even worse- The Massacre of the British Army under Elphinstone in Afghanistan. Only one survivor

 

The battle Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans, and around 6000 united Greeks along with the great victories by the Athenian Navy at sea, held back the might of the estimated 1,000,000 strong Persian Army.

Ah the advantages of a great army holding a great bottleneck, where numbers do not matter.

 

Attacking troops in defensive positions is always costly to the attacking forces if it goes wrong, and 2,000 casualties even in 18th/early century warfare is hardly classed much more than skirmish.
The Battle of New Orleans is important to the USA in that it gave them the impression (false) that the USA won the war of 1812, and therefore is an important part of their folk-lore, but to the British its just a mere footnote to a silly minor war

 

I can only wonder if Thermopylae is really mostly just a myth and these Spartans and Greeks were merely just a speed bump for the Persians in reality.

 

From Wikipedia : "At the end of the day, the British had a little over 2,000 casualties: 278 dead (including three senior generals), 1186 wounded, and 484 captured or missing. (ref: Brooks, Charles B p.252, Reilly, Robin p.297) The Americans had 71 casualties: 13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing."

That's pretty humiliating, whether the British like to admit or not

 

It is stated as Ancient History not as a Myth like Achilles and the Trojan Wars. Although the Persians did lose the battle of Thermopylae they casualties sustained by the Persian army were high for such a small area of battle especially in comparision to the number of Greek soldiers lost.

Furthermore the Perisans pushed past after 5 days of being held at Thermopylae where they then invaded the abondoned Athens, and continued to sack and eventually burnt the city to the ground. They then battled the Greek Allied states Armies, where best odds put the numbers as match as a 1-9 ratio in favour of the persians. The persians were defeated just like the last attempted invasion of Greece.

Greece at this time was considered to a super power with the best army of the time, the spartans were themselves considered to be the elite of the elite.

I doubt that it is simply mythology espceially since the Greeks themselves built a statue of the King Leonidous in memory of the battle, as well as there a records that Alexander the Great also paid tribute to the men that held the pass.

 

I don't disagree with the fact that it actually happened, but I do question the massive supposed "kill ratio". It may have been more even than one would imagine and the Spartans may have been blown up to the "rambo" equivalent of the ancient warrior.

And one must factor in the numerous support, naval, and supply personnel that the Persians needed to field on the assault. Surely it was a logistical nightmare to support such a large force in ancient history.