The Greatest Military Victories in History?

[General Brewster]

Good cause it's a nice topic!

[Domen123]

Lubieszow 1577 - a "royal" Polish army defeated a much larger "rebel" army of German mercenaries and militia from Gdansk:

The Polish army at Lubieszow numbered 1222 cavalry (including 992 Winged Polish Hussars, 36 royal Hungarian Hussars, 95 so calledd "cossack cavalry" - but they were actually not ethnic Cossacks, 45 Petyhorcy, 54 Lipka Tatars) and 730 Hajduk Infantry (Polish & Hungarian). There were also 6 guns and 27 small guns (hakownice).

However, 100 infantry was left to defend Tczew (Dirschau) together with 4 of the heavy guns. Further 30 infantry and 60 cavalry were left to defend the river crossing near Rokitki. So in the end only ca. 1160 royal cavalry and 600 infantry took part in the actual battle.

The royal army was under command of hetman Jan Zborowski.

The Danzig's army consisted of 3500 German mercenaries - 3100 Landsknechts and 400 Reiters - as well as 400 cavalry from Danzig (including 200 militia cavalry and 200 Reiters - so called "Sons of Danzig") and 5000 - 8000 militia infantry, in total 9-12 thousand soldiers under Hans Winkelbruch von Kölln. His army also had 7 guns and 30 hakownice. Of the Danzig's militia soldiers, only some 1600 - 1900 had body armors.

Winckelbruch made a mistake at the start of the battle - he wrongly chose the route of march for his Landsknechts and Reiters, who were supposed to attack the royal forces from the south. Being afraid that Zborowski would retreat from the battlefield, Winkelbruch picked the shorter route of bypassing the Polish forces. Instead of going around of the Lubiszewskie Lake, he decided to cross Motlava river using the river crossing near Lubiszew. However, Zborowski's army was moving so fast, that German forces did not manage to finish their river crossing before the Poles arrived. Before the battle started, only 600 Reiters and half of the Landsknechts (ca. 1600) managed to get to the eastern bank of Motlava. Reiters were deployed on the right wing and behind them Landsknechts. The left wing of the German mercenary army was occupied by Landsknechts and 3 guns and 30 hakownice (hakownice were positioned on waggons). They also attempted to build a palisade in front of their positions (to protect their positions from cavalry charge), but did not manage to finish it before the Poles arrived.

Most of the actual fighting took place on the left bank of Motlava, between German mercenary forces of 2200 men and the Polish forces of 1760. After those fightings on the left bank were over, and German mercenaries defeated, the battle turned into a mass rout.

This is roughly how the battle progressed, chronologically:

1. On the right wing of royal forces (left wing of Danzig's forces) - fire fight between Hajduks and Landsknechts took place.

2. On the left wing - first charge of royal cavalry (300 Hussars and Petyhorcy) against Germans (600 mercenary and Danzig's Reiters) didn't manage to break the German lines - Petyhorcy and Hussars stopped the unsuccessful charge and withdrew.

3. On the right wing - Hajduk infantry attacked and captured 3 German artillery guns.

4. On right wing - fire fight between Hajduks (they conducted fire also from 3 captured guns) and Landsknechts (they fired from guns positioned on waggons).

5. On the right wing - attack of German pikemen on Hajduks. Hand-to-hand fight between Hajduks & Landsknechts. Hajduks took the upper hand - they cut down enemy pikes using their sabers, long axes and broadswords.*

*Hajduk enlisted (ca. 90% of Hajduks - if not including officers) were armed with long firearms (matchlocks or muskets), long axes (which served them also as furkets during fire fights) and sabers or broadswords each. Hajduk NCOs (ca. 10%) were armed with short pikes (ca. 3 meters long).

6. On the left wing - when hand-to-hand fight between the pikemen and the Hajduks was in progress on the right wing, royal cavalry (200 Hussars) once again charged enemy lines. This time the charge of Hussars crushed enemy Reiters (600). Reiters started to flee and caused confusion in ranks of Landsknechts who were positioned behind them. After dispersing the Reiters, all the Hussars (over 900) striked the - partly confused - ranks of German infantry and smashed it.

7. On both flanks German soldiers started to flee from the battlefield. All of Polish cavalry started to chase the fleeing enemy.

8. When German mercenary troops were destroyed on the eastern bank of the Motlava, militiamen from Danzig - seeing the defeat of mercenaries - panicked and started to flee. Also those of the Landsknechts who didn't manage to get to the eastern bank of Motlava before, now started escaping. Polish cavalry proceeded with chasing the fleeing enemy, cutting them down.

After the battle 4416 enemy bodies were buried. A few thousands further enemies were captured. Only few thousands made it back to the gates of Danzig. Royal losses were reported as 59 killed & 128 wounded. Most of these losses were suffered by Hajduks in combats vs Landsknechts.

The Polish losses were 59 killed (including 18 cavalry & 41 infantry) and 128 wounded (including 50 cavalry & 78 infantry), as well as 38 horses killed and 65 wounded.

We know these numbers thanks to existence of a detailed casualty report from that battle.

Chojnice 1454 - the last victory of the Teutonic Order and another sign of the end of the era of levy armies (including knighthood):

A description of this battle can be found in a book "Państwo zakonu krzyżackiego w Prusach. Władza i społeczeństwo" ("The state of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. The authorities and the society"), Warsaw 2008.

During the Summer of 1454 the Grand Master and his envoys managed to gather an army of mercenaries from eastern areas of the Holy Roman Empire, including Bohemia and Austria. That army numbered around 9000 cavalry and 6000 infantry, as well as supply columns and some artillery guns. In the middle of September 1454 it entered the southern Pomerania, advancing towards Chojnice (Konitz) which were besieged by forces of the Prussian Confederation. The Polish king hastily called the mobilization of noble "levy en masse" from the province of Greater Poland and ordered it to concentrate to the south of Chojnice, near Cerekwica. He wanted to come with relief to the endangered Prussian Confederation's forces besieging Konitz. Near Cerekwica the gathered Greater Polish nobility enforced granting them a privilege on the king (on 14 September). That privilege was increasing the influences of the Polish Parliament.

On 17 September "levy en masse" from Greater Poland connected with the Prussian levies. Together the combined forces numbered 16000 cavalry & several hundreds infantry, apart from several further thousands of servants & men protecting supply columns. This army was reinforced also by 2000 mercenary troops hired by Prussian Estates and 500 hired by Danzig.

So in total the number of combatants (not including servants) was something like 15000 Teutons (9000 cavalry and 6000 infantry) vs 19000 Poles & Prussians (16000 cavalry and some 3000 infantry). The commander-in-chief of the allied Polish-Prussian army was king Casimir. The commander-in-chief of the Teutonic army was Bernard Szumborski.

In the Teutonic army both cavalry (9000) and infantry (6000) were professional mercenaries. In the Polish-Prussian army cavalry (16000) was unprofessional "levy en masse" and only some 2500 out of some 3000 - 3400 infantry were professional mercenaries.

During the battle this Teutonic mercenary army of 15000 was also supported by garrison of the besieged Chojnice (Konitz). And it appears from the description in this book, that support received from the garrison of Konitz was decisive for the final outcome of the battle.

On 18 September the Teutonic (German-Bohemian-Austrian) mercenary forces arrived.

The battle started.

In the first phase of the battle Polish forces took the upper hand - the Teutonic commander-in-chief was captured. Only Teutonic fortifed waggon fort (tabor), with significant amount of infantry inside, continued to resist. In this phase the Teutonic garrison of besieged Chojnice (Konitz) carried out a raid on Polish-Prussian rears, the camp of Polish forces and the supply columns on the right bank of the nearby lake. It caused panic among Polish-Prussian forces, which started to flee across a thin passage across the lake. During that escape they were attacked by Teutonic mercenaries from the left bank of the lake, once again under command of (recaptured from Polish captivity) Bernard Szumborski. The king - who personally fought in battle - managed to escape to southern Greater Poland. Large part of the Polish-Prussian army managed to escape.

Around 3000 men of the Polish-Prussian army died in battle. 300 Polish knights were captured, including 3 commanders of cavalry units. Probably also many other men from the Polish-Prussian army - apart from those 300 Polish knights - were captured.

Teutonic losses are not given. Considering that the 1st phase of the battle was pretty unfavourable for the Teutons, their losses could be bigger than 100 killed (100 killed is given by English wikipedia).

Authors of this book also write (in references) that a more detailed description of the battle can be found in "Pomorze w dobie wojny 13-letniej" ("Pomerania during the 13-years war") by K. Gorski and "Trzynastoletnia wojna" ("The thirteen-years war") by M. Biskup.

[Aibolit]

Thats true no matter they're not ready or sleeping, its a military victory but a great military victory ? in my opinion no.

This campaign/battle can be named Great, cause it interrupted very probable possibility of Russian disaster in that war, and what could we got after that?
Napoleon invades in Russia - Ottomans in the whole military power invades at South Russia as Napoleon's allies - Sweds looking at this disaster gathers all their forcers for Final Breakthrough at StPetersburg... Russia suffers completely defeat and Napoleon became the first Fuehrer of Europe..

[panzer 4]

This campaign/battle can be named Great, cause it interrupted very probable possibility of Russian disaster in that war, and what could we got after that?
Napoleon invades in Russia - Ottomans in the whole military power invades at South Russia as Napoleon's allies - Sweds looking at this disaster gathers all their forcers for Final Breakthrough at StPetersburg... Russia suffers completely defeat and Napoleon became the first Fuehrer of Europe..

well this was only cited in a wikipedia page and i havnt found any actual source depicting this, so i am still skeptical about this raid, if it did indeed happen.

[Biggles]

In terms of scale, I'd say Battle of the Somme. 9.7 km ground was captured during six months of bitter fighting and number of casualties rises over a million altogether. The British lost aprox. 2 men for every centimetre.

[edit] Sorry! Missed that it was supposed to be victories, and not just battles! Trust me, in my opinion, there was no victor at the Somme!

[Domen123]

9.7 km but on a very long front (something like 100 - 200 km? - if I recall correctly). So in total around 9700 - 19400 square km.