| 26 FEB 2007 at 1:21pm |
bayonetbrantColonel
Posts : 7056
Joined: 18 MAR 2007
Status : Offline | ORIGINAL: Besilarius
In going over this thread I'm struck by no one mentioning Bannockburn!
Come on! You want a first class, unmitigated disaster? That is it.
Edward I showed how to beat the Scots with combined arms. Edward II who cared not a whit about military efforts gave a textbook example of incompetency.
Um, yeah, actually -
http://www.wargamer.com/forums/fb.asp?m=215141
Then multiple messages arguing the "Britishness" of the English, Scots, Picts, Welsh, Saxons, Roundheads, Hannoverians, Ghurkas, Gerkins, Bangers & Mash, and cod caught in international waters off the Isel of Man starting with:
http://www.wargamer.com/forums/fb.asp?m=215247
Check out GrogNews for wargaming / mil news.
http://grognews.blogspot.com
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 1:38pm |
bicsCenturion
Posts : 236
Joined: 9 DEC 2005
Status : Online | ORIGINAL: bayonetbrant
ORIGINAL: bics
It's not a case of British military history starting in the 1600's or US pre 1789 the statement does'nt make sense. If I describe a battle fought in America 800 years ago by two native American tribes which one side loses as an "American blunder" does that make sense? it only makes sense if you name tribe X as losing/blundering how could the "British" lose either Bannockburn or Stirling? both sides lost then?
Those native American tribes don't trace their existence into the current US government. In fact, they've gone to great lengths to maintain their tribal heritage separate from the US. Where else did Britain come from if not from the English, Scots, Welsh, etc.
I did'nt mean it in a US government sense, lets call it a native American blunder then, it still does'nt identify who made the blunder which is the point I'm making, it's a generalisation the same as saying Bannockburn's a British blunder, Scots British? or English British?
It's not a Britishness debate either, if you simply classify the loser of every battle fought in the British isles between the Scots, English, Welsh and Irish (of which there's hundreds) as a British blunder it tells you absolutely zero about who won or lost.
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 1:44pm |
keithroseCommander
Posts : 1937
Joined: 22 AUG 2003
Status : Offline | Singapore got my vote, but the Somme (whether victory/defeat or draw) was a very poor waste of good men. At least most of the Singapore garrison survived the stupidity of the "planners".
However, as someone pointed out, you don't get to the top without losing a few points along the way, and I think I could safely say our victories have outweighed our blunders. Its amazing how many battles we've lost only to win the war, and that's what counts in the end.
Regards
Keith
Regards
Keith
[i]I started out with nothing & I've still got most of it.[/i]
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 2:13pm |
HeartofoakCenturion
Posts : 209
Joined: 9 JAN 2006
Status : Online | I read somewhere that the reason the Crete invasion was not totally prepared for was that we did not want to give the Germans an inkling that we had cracked the enigma cypher. Command had knowledge of the German intent and did not want to give the game away by looking too ready to meet it and moving extra troops to the island.
In any case we gave the Green Devils a good kicking, Hitler never committed them to another airborne landing after the mauling they got from the troops on the ground.
Si vis pacem para bellum
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 3:24pm |
BoggitColonel
Posts : 3525
Joined: 18 JUL 2003
Status : Offline | One of the older ballsups was the Cadiz Expedition of 1608? It was a complete f**k-up even before it started and got progressively worse. I pity the poor sods who were left to the tender mercies of the Don's when the expedition was abandoned.
The Retreat from Kabul in the First Afghan War 1842 comes a pretty close second. Only Elphey Bey could have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory! (Or at least could have maintained his position in Kabul if he'd been more robust!). A case of a prematurely senile commander being allowed to remain in charge - the army would have been better off if they'd shot him!
Thirdly I generally agree with Bismarck as to the Second Boer War - take your pick of the early battles -mostly unmitigated disasters. Things got different after Kitchener took over.
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 3:42pm |
ComradePColonel
Posts : 6889
Joined: 1 JUL 2006
Location: NL
Status : Offline | In any case we gave the Green Devils a good kicking, Hitler never committed them to another airborne landing after the mauling they got from the troops on the ground.
The Fallschirmjaegers made multiple airborne landings after Crete, including the action to rescue Mussolini. The biggest problem was not the loss in troops but the loss of transports.
The Dutch had shot down a large amount of Ju 52's and the expedition to Crete further increased those losses, which simply could not be replaced.
The FJ troops remained effective as a fighting formation for the majority of the war, the defence of Monte Cassino being an example of their later actions.
Boggit (and Bismarck, as I had not replied to him yet): the British were defeated in every major engagement of the First Boer war. Majuba being the most celebrated victory from the Boer perspective. At least the Second Boer war ended in a draw, even though British losses were higher than the Boers and no lessons had been learned apparantly. The First Boer war was more of a disaster than the second in terms of the end result (peace treaty and truce which did not favour the British).
That's why I stated the Boer wars as a whole were a blunder earlier on in the thread. The British didn't end up with a real victory in any of them and apparantly didn't learn a lot from the experience.
In between the Boer wars, the British were also repeatedly defeated by the Mahdi until they brought machine guns to the fight.
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 4:19pm |
KofKCenturion
Posts : 7
Joined: 12 APR 2006
Status : Online | QUOTE
In between the Boer wars, the British were also repeatedly defeated by the Mahdi until they brought machine guns to the fight.
QUOTE
What actions did British forces in the Sudan lose?
Hicks Pasha was defeated, but his force was Egyptian, not British.
Gordon commanded an Egyptian-Sudanese force, not British.
The Gordon Relief Expedition won all of its engagements, but was delayed long enough to fail to relieve Gordon, arriving two days late.
The British under Graham beat the Sudanese at El Teb, after Valentine Baker's Egyptians were defeated at the first battle there.
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 4:51pm |
ComradePColonel
Posts : 6889
Joined: 1 JUL 2006
Location: NL
Status : Offline | The British devised the plans and delivered the officers, so if we would use a purist interpretation the blunders would be Egyptian, through, but in this case I'd say they were British.
The namesake of that "Gordon relief expedition" died in Khartoum in 1885, and he was definately British.
The Mahdi defeated the British multiple times in 1883, 1884 and 1885 only at Omdurman was the tide turned and the Khalif Muhammad Ahmad was not totally defeated until 1899.
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 4:55pm |
KofKCenturion
Posts : 7
Joined: 12 APR 2006
Status : Online | The Mahdi never defeated British forces in the field at any point. Every encounter between British troops and the Sudanese resulted in British victory.
I have a problem calling the Mahdi's defeat of Gordon a victory over the British because Gordon was employed by the Egyptian government. If that consitutes a british defeat, then all of Gordon's victories in the Chinese civil war at the head of the Ever Victorious Army would be classified as british victories, which is patently absurd.
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 5:19pm |
KofKCenturion
Posts : 7
Joined: 12 APR 2006
Status : Online | It should perhaps be noted too that the British evinced no interest in returning to the Sudan until 1896 for political reasons. There were further actions between Anglo-Egyptian and Mahdist forces post 1885, for example the attempted Mahdist invasion of Egypt in 1889, which was defeated at Tushki.
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| 26 FEB 2007 at 5:19pm |
djdemoColonel
Posts : 8465
Joined: 29 JUN 2004
Location: UK
Status : Offline |
ORIGINAL: grab
Battle of the Somme, 1916, 60,000 casualties at the end of the first day.
Yeah, but we advanced almost a mile, so it was worth it. []
A lot of lessons were learned at the Somme, and it did ease the pressure at Verdun... it was a phyric victory.
"To those looking for 'Victory' they know where they can find it; it's somewhere in the dictionary between the words Venereal and Virus."
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| 27 FEB 2007 at 2:27am |
ComradePColonel
Posts : 6889
Joined: 1 JUL 2006
Location: NL
Status : Offline | KofK: some of the "blunders" described in this thread are "blunders" because of their planning.
In the case of the Mahdi defeat of the Anglo-Egyptian forces, the forces were lead by the British who also made the plans. As such, it can count as a military "blunder" for the British (the Egyptians could only comply basically).
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| 27 FEB 2007 at 4:28am |
KofKCenturion
Posts : 7
Joined: 12 APR 2006
Status : Online | The Mahdist forces never defeated Anglo-Egyptian forces, They only ever defeated Egytptian forces though, which is my point. As such, I don't qualify them as British blunders. The defeats of Hicks Pasha and Valentine Baker (leading Egyptian troops) by the Mahdists were at least in part due to the poor quality of the Egyptian troops allotted them, rather than down to incompetence upon the leaders' part. It's noteworhty that after the re-training of the Egyptian forces post 1885, they were never again beaten by the mahdists.
On a related note, the governor of Darfur was Slatin, an Austrian. Now, he was roundly beaten by the Mahdi, at the head of Egyptian troops; if we apply your criteria, then would you count this as an Austrian defeat? Personally, I don't think that it makes much sense to characterise it so.
Anyway, I would qualify these defeats as being blunders that are part of British military history, as British officers were involved, but not British military blunders in themselves, as they did not involve British forces, but rather officers seconded, or in some cases, serving as mercenaries in the army of, what was, a foreign power. In the same way, the Arab Rebellion instigated and led by Lawrence of Arabia does not qualify as a British military victory, even though it is indisputably part of British military history. Similarly, the unsuccessful defence of Kars during the Crimean War was led by a British officer; this does not though make it a British defeat, as the army he commanded were Ottomans.
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| 27 FEB 2007 at 10:41am |
tayeteCenturion
Posts : 148
Joined: 15 OCT 2003
Status : Offline | ORIGINAL: Boggit
I pity the poor sods who were left to the tender mercies of the Don's when the expedition was abandoned.
It is quite interesting that even Nelson wrote to the Governor of Tenerife (Canary Islands) to thank him how the spanish people had treated all the wounded they had left behind after their disembark.
That happened again after Trafalgar, where the people from Cadiz helped all the wounded (french, english and spanish) without distinctions, as was recognized by the english officers.
On the other hand, it has always seemed funny to me how the english treated the survivors of the "Armada Invencible", torturing and hanging them. At the same time, the irish helped the spaniards to hide, and even some families now have spanish names from their ancestors who could avoid death and marry some red haired irish girl.
I am not trying to open a flame war, but brutality is a constant in war, and none is free of it. But it has widely been accepted how the spanish armies treated prisoners (just take a look at the "Division Azul" in Rusia, vs Wermatch) unless they were spanish too [][][][]
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| 27 FEB 2007 at 11:19am |
BoggitColonel
Posts : 3525
Joined: 18 JUL 2003
Status : Offline |
ORIGINAL: tayete
ORIGINAL: Boggit
I pity the poor sods who were left to the tender mercies of the Don's when the expedition was abandoned.
It is quite interesting that even Nelson wrote to the Governor of Tenerife (Canary Islands) to thank him how the spanish people had treated all the wounded they had left behind after their disembark.
That happened again after Trafalgar, where the people from Cadiz helped all the wounded (french, english and spanish) without distinctions, as was recognized by the english officers.
On the other hand, it has always seemed funny to me how the english treated the survivors of the "Armada Invencible", torturing and hanging them. At the same time, the irish helped the spaniards to hide, and even some families now have spanish names from their ancestors who could avoid death and marry some red haired irish girl.
I am not trying to open a flame war, but brutality is a constant in war, and none is free of it. But it has widely been accepted how the spanish armies treated prisoners (just take a look at the "Division Azul" in Rusia, vs Wermatch) unless they were spanish too [][][][]
@Tayete[]
You are not opening a flame war, you are making sensible and reasonable comments.
I quite agree with all you have said and I am not singling out Spain as being a barbarous nation without qualification.
My opinion and reference to the survivors of the disasterous and misconceived Cadiz Expedition remain unchanged - it is on record that those that were abandoned in Spain were tortured and killed. In that respect it is little different to the treatment of the survivors of the Armada captured by English (and a lot of Irish too) some 25 or so years earlier, as you rightly point out. Of course I am looking at this from a twenty first century perspective and the way you looked at war in the 16th or 17th Century reflected life at the time - as Hobbes said in Leviathan - "nasty, brutish and short". An enemy prisoner not worth a ransom or a heretic was often regarded better dead. The age on enlightenment had not yet arrived.
I would add for the record that you are right that a lot of Irishmen (and Scots too (who often get forgotten in this), particulary from the Western Isles (the Lowlanders were predominantly protestants)) did help their co-religionists from the Armada. But you should realise too that a lot of Irishmen killed the survivors of the Armada for reasons of robbery, fear of banditry by survivors, reward by the English authorities and for the fun of it - this is on record too. I remember a lot of this from my childhood - I grew up in Northern Ireland and a lot of the ships wrecked were in the north and west of Ireland. Interestingly, the first Irish Head of State was Eamonn de Valera - a Spanish name!
That Spain, in the instances you mention, has shown compassion and humanity to the prisoners and civilians under their control is a credit to Spain and those Spanish troops.[]
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| 27 FEB 2007 at 12:14pm |
FlashmanCommander
Posts : 2127
Joined: 3 JAN 2005
Location: England, Worcestershire
Status : Offline | Iread somewhere once that the British honor their biggest defeats more then their victories.
What were some of their biggest defeats?
Yes we British do like our Great military disasters almost as much as our victories. Perhaps more so! Strange but true. Provides a great opportunity for grumbling, moaning and generally being pessimistic! Maybe its all down to our rainy climate...
I should clarify this a little. It's not the fact of being defeated that's honoured by the British. Far from it. Most defeats are quickly forgotten. It's [i]the manner of the defeat [/i]that makes them stick in the mind !
A proper British disaster usually involves a Command / Policial / Diplomatic blunder, an epic last stand and eveyone dieing bravely.
(Posthumous) Victoria crosses all round...
On this basis Isandlwana was a 'good defeat' whereas Singapore was just crap. No medals for that one !
[image]http://www.wargamer.com/forums/upfiles/3289/FA7A9A030C904C0C9CB197046F5A66.jpg[/image]
Pride of the24th. Bud Bradshaw
The 24th Regiment of Foot played a most unique and tragic role in the Zulu war of 1879. This veteran stands fast, bayonet fixed, chambering his last round. LOW INVENTORY !!!
Nows that a proper defeat !
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| 1 MAR 2007 at 7:23pm |
BesilariusCommander
Posts : 1543
Joined: 14 NOV 2003
Status : Offline | Flashy, something similar was at work during the naval combat of the Napoleonic Wars. There were some instances where French ships managed to beat or capture english ships. The Naval Gazette and the public were horrified by this, but always seemed mollified if the butcher's bill on the english crew was particularly big.
Never quite knew how to take this, but sort of along the lines that "we lost, but made up for it by dieing in large numbers."
I guess the feeling was that frogs would have cravenly surrendered rather than fight on?
"When I must choose an officer to perform an act that requires a good brain, everything else being equal, I choose the one with the biggest nose." - Napoleon
"If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything." - the Duke of Wellington
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| 1 MAR 2007 at 10:28pm |
madman53Centurion
Posts : 461
Joined: 9 JAN 2006
Status : Online | ORIGINAL: redcoat2
Monty. It is unfortunate that Monty is often remembered for his failure to secure the last bridge at Arnhem when his earlier victory at El Alamein helped to turn the tide of WW2.
Yeah great victory, outnumber the German 6 or 8 to 1. Hard to assign any value to the Italian forces. I actually applaud the Italian for not fighting for fat Benito, I wished the Germans behaved the same way for an even worse dictator.
Monty could not even clean out the approaches to Antwerp in time of course the British War Museum has an exhibit about the genius of Monty. By the way I am a Canuck and we were sacrificed by British military geniuses more than a few times.
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| 2 MAR 2007 at 2:29am |
KirksoneCenturion
Posts : 23
Joined: 12 NOV 2005
Status : Online | El Alamien was a superb victory it was more than just numbers to win againist Rommel. General Montgomery carefully planned and husbanded his forces until he was sure he could win. It's easy to forget El Alamien was not just a victory it was a ray of hope a beacon if you will recognise by 1941 Britain had suffered a string of defeats the fall of France, the loss of Tobruk, Greece and Crete the loss of Singapore and Malaya. But El Alamien gave the Allies the confidence to see the German could be beaten on the field of battle and was not invincible. And as for Market Garden it was far from just an ego trip although it was complex and had many faults hindsight is always 20/20 if it had been successful maybe it could have ended the war in 1944?. I'm a New Zealander and we too paid a heavy price for British military blunders but we also fought alongside the British when they won victories and helped turn the tide.
"time is the fire in which we burn"
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| 2 MAR 2007 at 5:42am |
ComradePColonel
Posts : 6889
Joined: 1 JUL 2006
Location: NL
Status : Offline | Considering the odds and the fact that the DAK managed to get away to fight another day, El Alamein was not a superb victory, but a marginal one. Rommel's supply situation and the lack of quality (on average) of the Italian Navy and Army did more to ensure his defeat than the battle of El Alamein. It would eventually take a two pronged assault from the British in the south and the Americans and Free French in the west to dislodge him from North Africa.
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| 14 MAR 2007 at 6:40pm |
danlongmanCenturion
Posts : 882
Joined: 14 MAR 2007
Status : Offline | I am new here, but have been lurking for a long time. It has been entertaining to say the least.
About this poll, I have to vote Singapore where the British lost everything -and did it very badly too. The
Royal Army, the RN and RAF lost all their assets committed and an Australian infantry division too.
I think only an american would include revolutionary war battles and only canadians (like me) would include
Dieppe. Dieppe was not really a disaster for the British, except maybe the air battle where they definitely
came in second. They took away many lessons from the experience mainly because they did virtually everything (planning and supportwise) wrong. For the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division it was a disaster with
over 900 dead in a morning and about 3000 captured. The death toll is comparable to the USMC at Tarawa.
I went to Dieppe a couple of years ago and the place is a deathtrap. Headlands over 200 ft tall fronted by
sheer cliffs flank the shingle beach which is very steep and composed of coarse gravel. (Incredibly hard to
walk on/in). The German light AA and AAA units which caused most of the casualties had the beach in
complete enfilade, some were actually behind the troops struggling up the main beach. The beach is bordered by a seawall 4 to 8 ft tall which the tanks could not climb. Only somebody completely out of touch with their capabilities would imagine a success here.
In closing some notes on the Canadian Army in WWII. In the long run the Dieppe disaster only caused about
1/40th of Canada's fatal casualties. Canada sent to europe one army structure (command, artillery, logistics etc.) two corps (1st and 2nd) formations which comprised 3 infantry divisions (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and 2 armoured divisions (4th and 5th) additionally there were 2 independant tank brigades each with 150+ tanks. Also one weak infantry brigade was sent to Hong Kong where it was destroyed/captured and another was sent to Kiska in the aleutians where friendlies shot at each other in the fog until they realised the Japanese had vacated. Just my two bits for the record.
"Patriotism is the belief that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it." George Bernard Shaw
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| 14 MAR 2007 at 7:41pm |
Jointops06Commander
Posts : 2653
Joined: 20 JUL 2004
Status : Offline | Nice thread and the Somme gets my vote due to the carnage involved for the gains. What I would say though, is look at a map of the world and focus on Britain. Now think of military projection and wonder on how such a small population had such a great influence on this planet.
That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse. Then again quietly confident but what of? The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
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| 14 MAR 2007 at 7:50pm |
FlashmanCommander
Posts : 2127
Joined: 3 JAN 2005
Location: England, Worcestershire
Status : Offline | Besilarius
Never quite knew how to take this, but sort of along the lines that "we lost, but made up for it by dieing in large numbers."
I guess the feeling was that frogs would have cravenly surrendered rather than fight on?
Maybe its the British tradition of sportmanship. Losing the game isnt a disgrace just as long as you've put some effort into the match.
As the expression goes "It's Not Whether You Win or Lose, but How You Play the Game" that counts.
Which is ok until you come across a German Centre-forward armed with a heavy machine gun !
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| 14 MAR 2007 at 8:37pm |
BesilariusCommander
Posts : 1543
Joined: 14 NOV 2003
Status : Offline | There was one expedition to the West Indies that just about destroyed the whole british army. I am having a bad moment, and the war and the island won't come, but my recollection is that just about the entire peacetime army was loaded over to the Caribbean where they went to take a French sugar island. Within about three months something like ninety percent had died from yellow fever. May have been the War of Jenkin's Ear?
At any rate, this was comparatively much bigger percentage loss than France 1940, or Singapore.
Good old aedes aegyptai. Where would we be without DDT?
"When I must choose an officer to perform an act that requires a good brain, everything else being equal, I choose the one with the biggest nose." - Napoleon
"If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything." - the Duke of Wellington
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