We’ve become so accustomed to pop culture stories of ragtag bands of brothers with the cheapest equipment possible defeating vast legions with sophisticated weaponry that we can lose sight of how rare such situations are in real life. There are plenty of articles on the topic, and too many of them end up with the title stating that the numerically superior army is going to win. Not this time. Only the most hardcore war buffs will be unfamiliar with at least a couple of the battles featured here, so the suspense will be there again, whether the underdogs prevailed or whether numbers, weapons, and equipment prevailed.
10. Battle of Leipzig
This battle is largely overlooked in histories of the Napoleonic Wars, although it was one of the most important battles of the era and in many ways the largest continental battle of the century. In 1813, Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armée invaded Prussia (modern-day Germany) to reassert its dominance on the continent, despite the disasters of 1812 in Russia and Spain. However, the allied armies converged to cut his supply and communications lines to France, and Napoleon was forced to concentrate his forces at Leipzig. On October 16, when the battle began, Napoleon had 198 000 soldiers and 700 guns, the largest force he had ever commanded in a single battle. However, he was opposed by the combined armies of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, numbering almost 400,000 men and 1,500 pieces of artillery.
Napoleon's only hope was his classic "divide and conquer" ploy, and on the first day the French exploited it with counter-attacks against the Austrian and Prussian armies, but the approach of other troops divided Napoleon's attention and he was unable to neutralize either army. From there it was only a matter of time before the Allies overwhelmed Le Grand Armee from all sides, neutralizing all French cavalry counter-attacks with their mounted troops. On October 18, the French began to retreat across the Elster River bridge, and unfortunately the bridge was destroyed long before the last troops had crossed, leaving tens of thousands cut to pieces or drowned. In total, the French lost 73,000 people against 54,000 enemy and lost half their artillery pieces. It was a battle that destroyed Napoleon's ability to wage war, and even before Waterloo, the French were strategically so hopelessly outnumbered that Napoleon's days as Emperor of the French would inevitably end in exile rather than death or retirement.
9. Harry's Outpost
By 1953, the Korean War had reached a stalemate, including at the UN coalition outpost of Harry in the heart of Korea, 60 miles north of Seoul. June 10 74th Division The People's Volunteer Army began the bombardment, firing 88,000 shells at the defenders, then, supported by howitzers, launched an attack on Company K, one of five companies assigned to defend Outpost Harry (four were American, one Greek). While Outpost Harry, at 1,280 feet, had a significant advantage in altitude, it also had a disadvantage, making it difficult to supply and forcing the UN forces to deploy only one company at a time. once .
The battle would last eight days, with the defenders forced to risk dropping flaming 55-gallon drums of napalm on the attackers. Despite heavy losses, the Chinese troops showed considerable courage, and the defenders were forced to resort to hand-to-hand fight. Only Sergeant Ole Mieses The 74th Division was credited with killing 65 of the attackers. On June 18, 1953, the 74th Division ceased its attacks, having lost 4,000 men and been declared inactive. The defenders lost 200 men killed or missing. It may have all been in vain, as the ceasefire agreement generally considered to have ended the Korean War was not signed until 15 days later.
8. Battle of Fraustadt
In 1706, the Swedish army numbered about 9,400 people faced a Polish-Russian army of about 20,000 men in what is now western Poland. In addition to being numerically superior, the allied army under Johann Schulenberg had 32 artillery pieces, while the Swedes had none. Nevertheless, the Swedish commander, Karl Rehnskiöld, decided that fortune favored the bold and positioned his troops for a pincer attack.
Rehnskiöld was in the unusual position of having a mistrust of new technology that worked to his advantage. While conventional wisdom held that guns and cannons would be the key to victory, in 1706 they had not yet fully developed to the point where they could chew up enemy armies the way they would in the 19th century. Firearms at the time were often so inaccurate that nervous ranks of troops could fire a volley and hardly hit anyone. At Fraustadt, Swedish troops were ordered to aggressively charge the enemy instead of stopping to reload, many without even having a chance to fire a shot. This gave the Poles and Russians only time to fire a volley before the enemy would pounce on them with bayonets and, in many cases, pikes. In the end, the battle was over in a very short time, with the Swedes losing only about 1,500 men to the enemy's 15,000. And yet In 1721 The Russian coalition nevertheless won the war, marking the decline of the Swedish Empire in the Baltics and the rise of the Russian Empire.
7. Battle of Dibbol
We don't have to go far from the previous entry to visit the site of this battle between the newly united German Empire and its northern neighbor, Denmark. In March 1864, the Prussian army entered the Jutland peninsula and broke through the Daneverk fortifications that the Danes had relied heavily on to defend the country. Then 40 000 The Prussians advanced on the fortresses protecting Diobbol with 11,000 Danish troops. The Danes had an armoured ship "Rolf Krake" to support their fortifications , which, in an era when ironclads were a novelty, was a legitimate intimidation.
Unfortunately for the Danes, the Prussians also brought with them modern artillery. They spent weeks battering the Danish defenses and even inflicted losses on the Rolf "Krake" , and this happened just two years after the famous " Merrimack " And "Monitor" withstood dozens of artillery bombardments with virtually no dent during the American Civil War. On April 18, the Prussians went on the attack and in just 13 minutes broke through the Danish trenches , and the counterattack of the enemy reserves did not take long. In total, the Danes lost about 3,600 men, and the Prussians - about 1,300 men.
The Battle of Dibbola is particularly notable because it was the first time the Red Cross were present at the battle to observe war crimes following the famous Geneva Convention the year before. So they were there to witness the victory that won Prussia the war and signaled the rise of the German Empire that would cause many problems for Europe for the next century.
6. Battle of Iquique
Speaking of armadillos, May 21, 1879 Peruvian armadillo Huacar collided with a Chilean corvette Esmeralda off the coast of Iquique, Peru. While Commander Miguel Seminaro's ship was a completely modern vessel, equipped with artillery that fired 300 pound shells , « Esmeralda "Captain Arturo Prata was one of the oldest ships in the Chilean navy, commissioned only because Chile needed to block the Peruvian-Bolivian alliance.
Almost immediately the crew "Huakara " fired shells that pierced " "Esmeralda" through and through, and the corvette's shells merely bounced harmlessly off the iron armor. Prat then essentially took the city of Iquique hostage, conducting "Esmeralda" between Uakarom and the city to dissuade the Peruvians from firing for fear that they might miss and shell the city. Using the city as a human shield backfired when gun crews in Iquique opened fire on the wooden ship. Seminaro began ram "Esmeralda" , before firing point-blank. The crew "Esmeralda " was daringly unwilling to give up, so " "Wakaru" It was necessary to ram it repeatedly until the ship sank, and the body of Captain Pratt remained on the battleship during the attempted boarding.
While defeat Esmeralda was hopelessly one-sided, Prat's courage became very inspiring to the people of Chile, and the date became a national holiday. In addition, the Chilean Navy as a whole was larger than the Peru-Bolivian Navy and was well placed to take revenge. October 9, 1879 Huacar was shot by the fleet from six Chilean warships , two of which were ironclad, and were subsequently captured. But at least Seminaro had one easy victory on his record.
5. Battle of Rome
While the time when Rome fell to the Visigoths in 410 and 476 to end the Western Roman Empire is covered in most general surveys of human history, the Italian wars of the 16th century are taught much less often. One such example is on May 6, 1527, when the imperial army of the Holy Roman Empire under Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, attacked. They numbered 34,000 people , A Rome had 5,000 defenders. Only 2,000 were professionals; members of the elite Swiss Guard. At least the defenders had the advantage of artillery, since the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V were underfed, and he abandoned his cannons to get to the city faster.
As if the Imperial Army didn't have enough advantages, rolled over fog strip , which allowed them to reach the city walls in the face of inaccurate artillery and small arms fire. By a stroke of luck, one of the shots struck Charles III and killed him. Bad luck, then. Without Charles to offer a restraining force, his hungry anti-papal troops degenerated into unruly mobs of German, Italian, and Spanish troops who showed no mercy to defenders or civilians. Survived only 42 Swiss Guards Pope Clement VII narrowly escaped the sack, the soldiers shooting at him as he fled. Rome was so devastated that its population was reduced from about 55,000 to less than 10,000. As revenge, they had to make do with the fact that there was little food in Rome and considerable disease due to all the bodies left in the streets, which killed many of the invaders. Even today, the Swiss Guard pays tribute to the guardsmen who gave their lives for the papacy that day.
4. Siege of Szigetvar
Imagine being one of the defenders of the Hungarian fortress under the command of Count Nikola Zrinski on August 2, 1566. Szigetvar is defended by 2,300 Croats and Hungarians. The Ottoman army of 100,000 men began to arrive under the command of Sultan Suleiman. In addition, the Ottomans had 300 cannons. Perhaps the only thing the defenders have in their favor is a solidly built wall and a moat. Would you feel brave enough to withstand such difficulties for even a day?
Over the next month, the Ottomans launched three major attacks between heavy bombardments. Stuck in place with so many Ottomans, the Ottomans suffered more casualties from disease than from fighting, most notably Sultan Suleiman himself. The Sultan's death was kept secret, and the following day the Ottomans stormed Szigetvár's defenses once and for all. Even this cost them dearly, as Zrinski had set explosives to effectively destroy the city and kill many more Ottomans. In a very Pyrrhic victory, the Ottomans retreated.
To put the heroic in a more tragic light, the final sacrifice of Zrinski and his army may not have been necessary. While the Ottoman army was formidable, over 80,000 Habsburg troops under Emperor Maxmilian were spread out within striking distance of Szigetvár and had a month to lift the siege. It seems unlikely, therefore, as some have argued, that had Suleiman survived or the fortress fallen a little earlier, the fate of Eastern Europe would have hung in the balance when such a sizable army already existed to confront the Ottomans.
3. Battle at the Gates of Pa
During the colonial era, there were many battles in which the firepower of relatively small European armies allowed them to outnumber the overwhelming numbers of local soldiers with outdated weapons, from the battle on the Bloody River to Rorke's Drift. So the situation on April 29, 1864, when British troops under Lieutenant General David Cameron attacked the Gate Pa fort in New Zealand, was unusual. In addition to heavy artillery, they had 1,700 soldiers against the 250 that the Maori under Rawiri Puhirake manned their defenses. They were rebelling against the British land grab. To add to the disparity, the British shelled the defenses for several days, inflicting 15 casualties.
However, to the surprise of many, the attackers found themselves in the narrow approaches to the Pa gate, causing the attack to become bogged down and confused. The Maori then began picking off officers until a general rout ensued. They left over 110 of the attackers dead or wounded, with casualties amounting to about half that number. Despite their victory, the defenders slipped away that night under cover of darkness.
The British were desperate for revenge and routed the Maori on 20 June 1864 in the subsequent Battle of Te Ranga, although this time the Maori numbers had swelled to over 500. Although a peace treaty was signed shortly afterwards, it was extremely generous by the standards of the time, including provision of food and water to the natives. Gate Pa seemed to have shaken the confidence of the colonialists more than they cared to admit.
2. Battle of Vukovar
Croatia's War of Independence was overshadowed in the eyes of the world by the first Gulf War, the Kosovo War, and so on. Yet within it, one of the most dramatic conflicts of the last few decades took place. Vukovar was an eastern village in the newly independent Croatia that in 1991 stood in the way of the Yugoslav People's Army, a military force composed of Yugoslavs and Serbs determined to crush the independence movement. Vukovar had about 2,000 defenders, of whom only 300 were members of the National Guard, 300 were police, and the rest were civilian volunteers. Only half the civilians had hunting rifle . Luckily for them, they had a decent arsenal of rocket launchers. The occupiers had more than enough 35 thousand people , 400 tanks and air support. After a prolonged artillery barrage, the clash began on August 25.
Despite the overwhelming force of the enemy, the Croats held out for 87 days, despite days when up to 11,000 explosives were fired into the city. Not only did the Croats inflict many casualties on the invaders, losing 1,600 of their own, they also destroyed over 110 tanks. Strategically, the protracted stand was invaluable to the rest of Croatia in terms of cohesion of the armed forces and inspiration of the population, but it also greatly demoralized the Yugoslav armed forces. Despite claiming victory, the People's Army withdrew from Croatia in January 1992 , just like the Ottomans before them.
The damage to the town lasted well beyond the battle. Tens of thousands of non-Serb civilians were expelled from the village in the immediate aftermath. For those who remained, everything they needed was electricity sewerage was damaged and many buildings, including a hospital, were razed to the ground. When Croatia regained control, the Serb villagers (who made up about a third of the population) were subjected to harsh treatment. Even decades later, many houses in Serb neighborhoods remain unrepaired.
1. Zanzibar coup
On August 25, 1896, the Sultan of Zanzibar (an island off the coast of Tanzania in East Africa) died. Since Zanzibar was a British colony and the Sultan was a figurehead, the British, led by Basil Cave, thought they could choose Hamuda ibn Mohammed as the new sultan. Prince Khalid ibn Barghash had other plans, and on August 26 he occupied the royal palace in Stone Town with 1000 soldiers and 2,000 civilian followers. He also brought a Zanzibar ship "Glasgow", which consisted of a yacht on which several cannons were mounted, and a battery of four guns. The British assembled 1,000 troops to dislodge him, but this proved to be a formality, given the fact that five British warships were within range of the Prince's forces. They gave the Zanibari forces a day to surrender, although in reality they were waiting for official permission from London. The Prince dismissed this as a bluff.
The next day the warships finally showed that they were not bluffing. Glasgow demonstrated, Why the yachts are not ordinary warships, and they quickly sank, leaving the palace burned to the ground. 500 casualties were sustained between the land and the Zanzibar fleet, and only one British sailor was wounded. Accounts vary as to how long it was before the prince surrendered, but each version places it at less than an hour. Despite his brief but bloody stand, the prince himself was smuggled to German East Africa, where he remained at large until 1916, when the British invaded the German colony and captured it. He was sent toSaint Helena Island Unlike Napoleon before him, he was allowed to return home and live out the rest of his days until 1927 as perhaps the most quickly defeated national leader in world history.
Dustin Koski co-wrote "Return of the Living" , a strange and hilarious story about the sighting of the first living creature after the Earth had been inhabited only by ghosts for centuries!
Оставить Комментарий