Relatively unknown military blunders.

[elfaor]

Relatively unknown military blunders.

What about a thread to present, discuss and ridicule the blunders of any army from any time-frame or continent.

Just for fun, nothing inflammatory or degrading towards any country’s “heroes”. :grin *tongue*

Please try and post relatively unknown episodes!


I’ll start with two examples from the eternal feuding Greeks and Turks:

1. During the 1st Balkan war, just after the battle at Sarantoporous and while the Greek army was advancing towards Salonica and Ioannina a small group of about 20 Turkish soldiers was stranded behind the Greek lines. Rather than surrendering they raided an isolated post-relay station, one of the postmen escaped and reached the headquarters of a Greek division whereas he informed its commander of a the incident. The idiotic general in question believed that thousands of Turkish soldiers were behind his line ready to attack him and ordered the division initially to halt its advance and after a few hours to start retreating, at this point he decided to underline the importance of his last command by personal example and abandoned his HQ. Seeing his reactions his reactions he immediate subordinates followed suit, having lost any communication with the divisional HQ the regimental commanders feared the worse and sped up the retreat which by the end of the day was an all out route…. 20 men routed a whole division in a single day…………..

2. During the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1973 the Turkish army feared that the Greek army may try and re-enforce the island’s Greek-Cypriots, to counter such a threat they dispatched a flotilla of 3 destroyers to intercept any possible Greek convoy. In the event the Greeks never send any convoys but somehow a few days after the Turkish flotilla was deployed, the Turkish air force was convinced that it spotted the aforementioned convoy. They launched dozens of fighter-bombers to engage and sink it. The Turkish airplanes indeed intercepted a small flotilla of three destroyers and engaged it. Even though the ships sported Turkish flags the pilots were reassured that it was a dirty little trick by the Greek sailors who tried to confuse them. During the rest of the day the Turkish air force HQ received continuous reports of the successful attacks to the three Greek ships while the Turkish Navy HQ received continuous reports of the successful defence of its three ships against Greek planes. By the end of the day two destroyers were sunk and 4-5 airplanes were downed. The two sides fought with such ferocity that even after the ships were sunk the surviving sailors were strafed by the Turkish airplanes! Nice coordination eh? To top it all parts of the Turkish navy and airforce HQ were housed in the same building!

[Dr Zoidberg]

You could call any of the side campaigns during World War I military blunders. They diverted mucn needed men and equipment away from the Western Front to what were essentially sideshows. The Gallipoli campaign is a prime example. 480,000 Allied troops dedicated to an operation that barely moved off the intial beachhead. 8 moths and 250,000 casualties later, its declared a failure and the troops evacuated. Imagine what anther 480,000 men could have done on the Western Front.

[Trax]

The Austrian army of the late eighteenth century was a shambles. A polyglot mixture of nationalities led by officers who often did not speak the same tongue as their troops; the Hungarians fought with the Croatians, the Lombards hated the Slovenes and none of the troops liked or respected their Austrian officers. The senior army commanders were chosen by social connection rather than ability and the supreme commander, the Emperor Joseph II, was a legend in only his own imagination. In the 1788 campaign against their old enemy, the Turks, inspired leadership led to the army camping in a swamp where disease killed 33,000 in a short time.

To stop a Turkish army marching on the fortress of Vidin, the Austrian army left Belgrade to take up a blocking position on the river Timisul. On the night of 17th September 1788 a vanguard of Imperial Hussars crossed the Timis bridge at Karansebes. Once across the river they found no Turks, but a wagon camp of Wallachian gypsies who entertained them with schnapps and women.

The next troops to cross the river were infantry but the Hussars had bought all the booze already and had no intention of sharing. In fact they fortified the wagons and chased away the infantry. In the darkness a fight broke out and shots were fired. To scare away the Hussars some of the infantry pretended to be Turkish but this only panicked other infantry of differing nationality. An Austrian officer kept shouting "Halt, Halt" but some soldiers thought he was calling "Allah, Allah" and intensified their shooting. Fenced off in the camp were the carthorses which panicked in the noise and stampeded. A corps commander thought this was a cavalry charge and opened up with artillery.

In the darkness with shouts all around, many in a strange language, and with shots crashing out troops began to panic. As regiments fled troops behind them thought that the escapees were Turks charging them and opened fire. The Emperor was caught up in the rout and was thrown from his horse into a river. Artillery gunners cut their traces and fled on the draught horses. Any officers that tried to stop the rout were trampled underfoot. Houses were plundered, women raped, villages torched. Equipment was scattered everywhere.

Two days later the Turks turned up at Karansebes to find that the Austrians had left - all bar the 10,000 dead and wounded ones.

I have posted it before, but its worth repeating IMHO.

[therussian]

How about one of the biggest military blunders in history, the Campiagn of 1812? Had not Napoleon attacked Russia and lost over 500,000 of his best men, he probably would have been able to dominate Europe for a far longer time than if he had not attacked Russia. With those extra 500,000 men, he would not have been defeated at Liepzig, he prbably would not have been dethroned and would have gone on campainging in Europe till old age.

Edit:Whoops didn't see the "relatively unknown" part. Oh well.

[imb39]

I remember reading about a British Admiral who declared war on Russia during the 18th century. Needless to say he was recalled and war did not happen... I don't know if it is a blunder but I imagine the British Government must have done a collective poop when they got the news!

[Dithyrambos]

I'll say the whole incident where the Japanese invaded Korea, and got the snot kicked out of them. Sadly, too many of the Samurai fanboys don't recall the Samurai getting massacred, so it's in the "unknown and irrelevant" category.

[Redman]

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg@Mar 30 2005, 06:20 AM
You could call any of the side campaigns during World War I military blunders. They diverted mucn needed men and equipment away from the Western Front to what were essentially sideshows. The Gallipoli campaign is a prime example. 480,000 Allied troops dedicated to an operation that barely moved off the intial beachhead. 8 moths and 250,000 casualties later, its declared a failure and the troops evacuated. Imagine what anther 480,000 men could have done on the Western Front.

I wouldn't exactaly call the gallipoli stuff up relativly unknown. but a blunder it was (b*^#@y Churchill)