Due to a miscommunication, the British army's Light Brigade of cavalry troops charged a heavily defended Russian position, resulting in heavy losses and a Tennyson poem.
1905
The Russian Baltic Fleet steamed 18,000 miles to face a superior Japanese fleet, arriving exhausted and in poor condition, and was nearly totally destroyed.
1876
The underprepared and outnumbered U.S. Army 7th Cavalry led by George Custer tried to force thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors back to reservations; there were no survivors.
1879
Having been fooled into splitting their forces, and not having adequately defended their camp, a modern British army was routed by Zulu forces armed with clubs and spears
9 A.D.
3 veteran Roman legions attempting to pacify Germania were annihilated in a series of ambushes by tribal warriors, ending Emperor Augustus's period of expansion.
1513
Due to poor choices of weapons, terrain and tactics, an invading Scottish army was routed by the English, with losses including King James IV and most of the Scottish nobility.
1187
The Crusader forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem allowed themselves to be lured from their fortresses into the desert without water, where they were slaughtered by Saladin's forces.
1942
Unaware that U.S. forces had broken their codes, Yamamoto's Japanese navy failed in making surprise attack, losing all 4 aircraft carriers in a major turning point in World War II.
1942-3
You don't try to invade Russia in winter. Seems nobody told Hitler.
1953
French forces fortified a hill base, wrongly thinking the Viet Minh could not reach it with troops and artillery. The defeat resulted in the fall of the French government and the partition of Vietnam.
1862
Burnside's Union army sends wave after wave of troops towards a wall of entrenched, experienced Confederate riflemen and artillery, decisively losing the Civil War's largest battle.
1588
An 'invincible' invading fleet is outmaneuvered and outgunned by an English fleet which sent in fireships to destroy its formation. The surviving ships limp home round Scotland and Ireland, defeated.
216 B.C.
Roman general ordered their men to charge the Carthaginian lines, unaware of Hannibal's tactic to outflank and charge from the rear, losing 60,000 troops.
1415
A massive army of French knights greatly underestimated the deadliness and accuracy of English archers, got bogged down in muddy ground and suffered 10 times the English casualties.
1915-16
British, French and Commonwealth forces invaded the Dardanelles, aiming to weaken the Ottoman Empire. Incompetence on all fronts resulted in withdrawal after suffering 200,000 casualties.
1941
A massive pre-emptive air assault on the U.S. fleet was meant to curb limits to Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Instead, it brought the U.S. into WWII and the end of Japan's imperial ambitions.
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