Battles the result of which is disputed by historians

[Domen]

Do you know examples of battles about which some historians say that army A won, some others that army B won, finally some say it was a draw?

 

[Kyriakos]

First attempt to colonize the Earth with intelligent life, circa -2 million BC.



For a more serious answer: hm, not sure what you are looking for, but if the battle was somewhat important then the outcome would be set and known. Vietnam was argued to be a loss for the US, or a draw, but still the local vietnamese died in massive numbers. It was not so much a "loss" regarding the forces, as it was a horrible barbarism from the US government, like many since.

 

[Domen]

Vietnam was argued to be a loss for the US, or a draw, but still the local vietnamese died in massive numbers.

So how do you determine if a battle was won or lost? Casualties (Vietnam)? Control of the battlefield after the end of the battle?

If bigger casualties is what means defeat, then indeed North Vietnam lost the Vietnam War, but also the Soviet Union lost World War 2, etc.

but if the battle was somewhat important then the outcome would be set and known.

There are battles in which both sides claimed victory, for example.

There are also battles in which both sides really achieved all or some of their goals.

The outcome is set and known if one army was totally annihilated and the other one survived, but what if both survived?

In fact most battles in history did not end with total annihilation of either side. Such massacres were relatively rare.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, a good example is Napoleon's campaign in Russia. He pretty much marched to Moscow, and the city had been (?) burned so as to negate the possibility he stays there. He did not lose any battle in Russia. The war was still obviously lost and neither did he get Russia to stop trading with Britain.

The campaign ended his aspirations, by and large.

 

[Domen]

BTW - quite interesting question is why he marched to Moscow, when capital city of Russia in 1812 was St. Petersburg.

He did not lose any battle in Russia.

But did he win any battle in Russia?

For example I can't see much difference between the outcome of Borodino in September and Berezina in November (except for the fact that at Borodino Russians successfully retreated after the battle without getting annihilated, and later at Berezina Napoleon did the same - also avoiding annihilation).

Also at Borodino Russians were outnumbered, and at Berezina Napoleon was outnumbered.

So why both Borodino and Berezina are considered Napoleon's victories?

He pretty much marched to Moscow

During the Seven Years' War Russians marched to Berlin - and occupied it in 1761.

Capturing enemy capital city is apparently not the best way to win wars.

 

[Kyriakos]

Iirc he won a battle (with the Russian army retreating in part) shortly after passing the Polish territory he met the Russian Czar/Prince in.

I suspect (?) that St. Petersburg would not be easy to reach without enabling Russian forces to march to the border of the areas controlled by or allied to Napoleon. At any rate from what i read he did not expect at all to not be met with even an emissary when he reached Moscow. The winter devoured his dreams and upon his return to France it was pretty clear that the momentum never would be gained again.

 

[gay_Aleks]

During the Seven Years' War Russians marched to Berlin - and occupied it.

And some century and a half later, they did march into Berlin. The war didn't last for 7 years, but it was rather bloodier, as compared to the Seven Years War.

Anyway, what about WWI for Russia? Did the Germans win the campaign, or was it the Russians who won in the end?

 

[Domen]

Napoleon lost his entire army in Russia. What managed to return were miserable remnants.

And some century and a half later, they did march into Berlin.

Again. But this time they won the war.

In 1761 they captured Berlin, but in 1762 - after the change of Tsar - they signed a ceasefire, because the new Tsar had a more friendly attitude.

So Prussia won the Seven Years' War thanks to luck. It was called "The Miracle of the House of Brandenburg".

Anyway - there are still many other examples which show, that capturing enemy capital cities is not what wins wars.

 

[Kyriakos]

The Russians lost in WW1, by the red army :/

Re capitals and wars: well, it helps if your country is larger than the rest of the continent... I mean i would not see England holding much if London was taken. France collapsed in WW2 for a similar reason.

The Persian empire, as well, did not fall after one battle and it took three main battles (along with independently conquering cities with fortified positions) for Alexander to win that campaign.

 

[Domen]

What about such cases:

First example

Army A invades country B. A has a larger army, but it marches divided for 3 parts - the vanguard, the main force and the rear guard. B organizes an ambush and destroys totally the rear guard of A. After that the main force and the advance guard of A arrive, and beat back B in a day-long battle, which ends in the evening. Both sides suffer very heavy losses - A suffer more losses in actual numbers (2300 dead vs. 1900 dead) but in terms of % of forces involved losses of B are bigger. In the end B retreat, and the battlefield is controlled by A after sunfall. But A have lost many troops and are not willing to continue their invasion so they come back to their country. B are also not able to chase the withdrawing enemy, because they suffered even bigger losses in terms of percentage.

Who won this?

Second example:

War is being fought in territory of D between C and D. C ravage the land of D and decide to march forward to another part of this territory to besiege another city. Army D decide to block their advance and to attack them. Battle takes place, D attack and inflict heavy losses upon the enemy - losses of C are 7 times higher than losses of D. But C decide to retreat into a well-defended, fortified position and wait there. C has more firepower, so D decide not to attack that fortified position. After several hours D go away and leave C alone. C suffered 7 times higher casualties - which is 25% of their entire army dead or wounded - but their advance forward was not definitely interrupted by C. D suffered minimal casualties (less than 3% of their total strength, because they not only suffered 7 times smaller losses, but also their army was more numerous) but did not manage to definitely interrupt the enemy advance forward.

Who won this?

 

[gay_Aleks]

What about such cases:

First example

Army A invades country B. A has a larger army, but it marches divided for three part - the vanguard guard, main part and rear guard. B organizes an ambush and destroys tottally the rear guard of A. After that the main forces and advance guard of A comes, and beats back B in a day-long battle, which ends in the evening. Both sides suffer heavy losses - A suffers slightly more losses in actual numbers (2300 dead vs. 1900 dead) but in terms of % of forces involved losses of B are bigger. B in the end retreats, and the battlefield is controlled by A after sunfall. But A have suffered big losses and are not willing to continue their invasion so they come back to their country. B are also not able to chase the withdrawing enemy, because they suffered even bigger losses in terms of percentage.

Who won this?

Second example:

War is being fought in territory of B between A and B. A ravages the land of B and decides to march forward to another part of this territory to besiege another city. B decides to block their advance and to attack them. A battle takes place, B suddenly attacks and inflicts heavy casualties upon the enemy - casualties of A are 7 times bigger than casualties of B. But A decides to retreat into a well-defended, fortified position and waits there. A has bigger firepower, so B decides not to attack that fortified position. After several hours the battle has ended. A has suffered 7 times higher casualties - which is 25% of their entire army dead or wounded - but it's advance forward was not definitely interrupted by A. B have suffered minimal casualties (less than 3% of their total strength, because they not only suffered 7 times smaller losses, but also their army was more numerous) but did not manage to definitely interrupt the enemy advance forward.

Who won this?

Is it about Poland?

 

[Domen]

There are four different countries involved in these two examples.

BTW - I have edited this a bit, check the descriptions again.

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Ok, let's replace A and B in the second battle by C and D (cuz these are different countries).

BTW - A v. B battle is pre-gunpowder era, C v. D. is gunpowder era (if this is meaningful for determining who won).

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And I'm not going to tell you between whom these two battles were fought, because it is irrelevant to answer my questions.

Actually if I told you that - for example - one of them was the USA, your answer may be biased because of this (if you are from the USA).

You don't even know, if these are real battles or fictional ones invented by me.

But if you want you can start another thread titled "Guess what battle it is".

In such thread we would need to post about 1) real and 2) well-known battles because otherwise noone would ever guess correctly, perhaps.

France collapsed in WW2 for a similar reason.

I can't agree here. France actually did not even defend Paris - French army decided to gave it up undefended to avoid its destruction.

But it did not end French resistance, because the campaign lasted for the next 1 - 2 weeks after Paris was already captured.

And I think that the outcome of the invasion of France was decided already long before Paris was taken by Germans.

 

[Dachs]

Yes, a good example is Napoleon's campaign in Russia. He pretty much marched to Moscow, and the city had been (?) burned so as to negate the possibility he stays there. He did not lose any battle in Russia. The war was still obviously lost and neither did he get Russia to stop trading with Britain.

The campaign ended his aspirations, by and large.

Napoleon's forces did lose individual battles during the 1812 campaign. Many of them were fought by subordinate forces, in which the French were commanded by one or another of the marshals instead of the emperor himself. Some examples would be the Battles of Smol'yani, Chashniki, and Second Polotsk. The Battle of Vyazma was a fairly overwhelming Russian victory over several parts of Napoleon's army, although again the emperor did not exercise battlefield command there.

Even when the French enjoyed tactical successes, those successes effectively led nowhere, because Napoleon and his generals failed to set the operational and strategic conditions for their success. The Russians' overall strategy (well, after they abandoned the plan of fighting in the fortified position at Drissa, but that's another story) was precisely to allow the sort of rearguard actions that they repeatedly fought. Yielding ground while inflicting casualties on an opponent that cannot sustain them does not constitute a 'defeat' by any reasonable definition of the term.

David Chandler has argued, persuasively, that Napoleon's forces were decisively defeated by the time he reached Moscow. Various forms of wastage were the chief culprits, but Napoleon consistently failed to fight the sort of battle that he wanted, and the Russians consistently succeeded at denying it to him. He had captured Moscow, but he was no nearer to victory in the war than he had been in June.

I don't think there's any serious disputation that Napoleon decisively lost the campaign of 1812. In fact, it is one of the most salient and universally held examples of one of the most important military truisms: tactical success means nothing if operational implementation is lacking. Military writers have hammered that point home by using this campaign ever since Clausewitz, Mahan, Karl, and Jomini.

BTW - quite interesting question is why he marched to Moscow, when capital city of Russia in 1812 was St. Petersburg.

Oh my God yes nobody ever brings this up.

Hell, shortly after he became Aleksandr's chief of staff in 1810, Barclay de Tolly wrote a memorandum that hypothesized a French attack toward Petersburg or Kiev; he assigned the latter the highest likelihood, with Petersburg being possible but not as likely. Barclay rated a French attack toward Moscow as being of vanishingly small probability; he proposed to place the smallest army on that axis, which would withdraw in the face of a French attack while larger armies descended on Napoleon's rear from north and south.

Which isn't quite what happened, but it's a reasonably close facsimile.

Part of it was that Napoleon was trying to come to grips with the Russians' First Army, which withdrew in the direction of Moscow. But he also marched toward Moscow to try to bring the First Army to battle, and could reasonably have expected to do the same with Petersburg. Petersburg was on the coast, so the Royal Navy - and Russia's ally Sweden lol - would become factors there.

Ultimately, I guess it doesn't really matter; losing neither Moscow nor Petersburg would have forced the tsar to the table.

Anyway, what about WWI for Russia? Did the Germans win the campaign, or was it the Russians who won in the end?

The Germans won the First World War against Russia/the USSR so comprehensively that I'm incapable of determining how there can be any argument about it.

The Russians lost in WW1, by the red army :/

No, it took three years of hard fighting. A Russian Dolchstoßlegende is just as valid as a German one would be, namely: not at all.

 

[Domen]

Very interesting points Dachs, thanks for contribution. By the way - wasn't Napoleon's army large enough to advance simultaneously both toward Moscow and toward St. Petersburg? Probably that would also cause less problems with supplies, because his forces would be supplied from a larger area.

The only disadvantage would be, that he would not be able to personally command both detachments of the Great Army.

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When it comes to more ancient times - both sides claimed victory in the battle of Kadesh:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kadesh

 

[sydhe]

On Battle 1, all three outcomes can be claimed (and were).

Sometimes one side can win a tactical victory while the other side wins a strategic victory. Malplauquet, which was a Pyrrhic victory won by the Anglo-Dutch Alliance was so bloody that the British withdrew from the war in a short while.

 

[Kyriakos]

If we win another battle against the romans we will be entirely ruined, as Pyrros claimed. :/

Naturally his plea for help by the larger Greek empires was not answered positively. Much like what happened later on with Hannibal. Thus they ensured their own fall in later aeons.

Then again the same happened in Sicily, by the local Greek cities which had asked him for help, only to regard him as worse than the enemies later on.

 

[brasswire]

When remembering the War of 1812 in North America, both Canadians and Americans often claim that their side was victorious. The treaty of Ghent after the war reset the boundary back to where it was before the conflict began.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Do you know examples of battles about which some historians say that army A won, some others that army B won, finally some say it was a draw?

The Glorious First of June, during the French Revolutionary Wars.

The ancient Battle of Kadesh was basically a draw which both sides claimed to win.

At Buena Vista, during the Mexican-American War, the Mexicans retreated during the night, but Santa Anna claimed it was a victory nonetheless. It was of course, the Mexicans blowing their last big chance at a victorious outcome in the conflict...

The Battle of Hubbarton, during the American War in Independence, had a somewhat similar outcome. The British scattered the Americans, who retreated in good order and later participated in the decisive victory at Bennington, but had taken such losses that they were unable to pursue their enemy, and were later set up for a defeat in the campaign at Saratoga a few months later. At the time, though, both sides considered Hubbarton a success.

 

[Traitorfish]

You could probably count a lot of the encounters between Europeans and indigenous North Americans like this, not simply because of a lack of certainty about what happened or even over the results of the encounter (although this, obviously, is always a problem in frontier histories), but because Europeans and indigenous North Americans often had deeply divergent ideas of what actually constituted a "victory" in any given instance. Sieges, in particular, are prone to this, because what Europeans considered a failed attempt to take a fort could be seen by indigenous peoples as the successful humiliation of an opponent (especially if they took away substantial booty), and what Europeans saw as a successful defence could appear to indigenous peoples an embarrassing concession of inferior martial prowess.

From our point of view, neither of these attitudes can be considered "wrong", but it can get confusing. Which I guess re-enforces Dachs point that any given engagement derives its meaning from the broader strategic context and the long-term aspirations of its participants, rather than just from which side was able to strut around the field afterwards.

 

[GoodGame]

Why not accept the concept of 'stalemates'? That is, no side achieved a significant victory. Some objectives might have been met, but the cost, or value of the objectives achieved was too small. And then there are the 'Pyrrhic victories'

But historians might be in special positions where the accuracy and precision of accounts/evidence are in question, so that declaring a victor is mostly hypothesizing.