Most Epic Screwups in History?
- Thread starter carmen510
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What was so screw-up about the Spanish-American War? It went well for the US, notwithstanding it was just imperialist chest thumping. If that is a criteria for something being a screwup, what war isn't?
Pearl Harbor:
No, they had no better, realistic, option. The screw-up was getting themselves into that position.
Barbarossa:
Pretty bad, but you can look at the war is Russia and see plenty of possibilities for victory lost do to other strategic blunders.
Spanish American War went well for the US. Kicked the Spanish out of Cuba and established a bit of an overseas empire.
Attacking the Alamo:
No. The battle wasn't very important, sure it provided a rallying cry, but nothing of great importance, it wasn't like it crippled Santa Anna's army, and it needed to be taken. Though I don't know much about it, I have to assumed someone royally effed something up for the disaster of San Jacinto
No, they had no better, realistic, option. The screw-up was getting themselves into that position.
Barbarossa:
Pretty bad, but you can look at the war is Russia and see plenty of possibilities for victory lost do to other strategic blunders.
Spanish American War went well for the US. Kicked the Spanish out of Cuba and established a bit of an overseas empire.
Attacking the Alamo:
No. The battle wasn't very important, sure it provided a rallying cry, but nothing of great importance, it wasn't like it crippled Santa Anna's army, and it needed to be taken. Though I don't know much about it, I have to assumed someone royally effed something up for the disaster of San Jacinto
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
Japan invaded Manchuria on several occasions. They also invaded Korea when it was under Chinese control many times. It never worked out for them.
And? You did note where I said all things considered, right? Ethiopia did a decent job against Italy too, all things considered.
At least a few Australian analysts were positively orgasmic when Japan invaded China, because they were certain it guaranteed Australian safety. They're probably the closest you can come to an objective analyst in the '30s. Everyone had an agenda at that time, pretty much every major nation was on a racial superiority kick, and Japan was among the worst. But I notice you didn't contradict my point about the Japanese mindset sure as hell not being able to look at the situation with anything even approaching objectivity.
Awesome? No, and please point out where I said that. I said it was great, because it is. Anything that leads to there not being a large-scale nuclear war is great by me, and MAD does that. Sure, if things get out of hand, were screwed, but they're a lot less likely to get out of hand with MAD than without.
And that has exactly how much to do with balance of power? You know, that thing that keeps one nation from dominating all the others?
Spain. Said dictator established a constitutional monarchy. But, regardless of that, I've said on these boards many times that succession is the only problem with benevolent dictatorships.
Give me a democracy that hasn't royally effed itself in the a on several occasions.
Everyone is posting some war or messed up invasion.
What about human presumption, arrogance with lack of insight, wisdom, knowledge, and realization of facts.
Greed, corruption, pride, gulliblity, single-mindedness, self-righteouness or importance. Although these concepts can serve to be good they tend to find themselves in excess.
What about human presumption, arrogance with lack of insight, wisdom, knowledge, and realization of facts.
Greed, corruption, pride, gulliblity, single-mindedness, self-righteouness or importance. Although these concepts can serve to be good they tend to find themselves in excess.
Mirc
Not mIRC!!!
That's not "a screwup" though. I'm sure the OP was only referring to one-time events. 
Events that were such a big blunder to have costed their makers an amazing cost.
Events that were such a big blunder to have costed their makers an amazing cost.
Human nature itself hardly counts as a screwup, in my view. It's not like we as a species chose to have those tendencies.
I thought hatred was a 'learned' experience. You can, unfortunately, teach someone to hate. It's probably the cause of gang membership and all kinds of wars.
The most epic screw up in history will be not doing anything to ebb hatred before it's too late.
The most epic screw up in history will be not doing anything to ebb hatred before it's too late.
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
You can also teach someone to love. Human nature isn't a screw-up, unless you're saying God screwed up worse than anyone.
It goes to human nature. So you might say human nature's history's biggest screw up - the examples listed on this thread all being a case in point, to which might be added the number of species extinct through human action.
I'd say the other way around: Napoleon's army got virtually annihilated on the way back and the "Christian" Russians took no prisoners from "the Antichrist", whereas in WW II it was more a question of which terror regime was the most effective (in several regions the German invader was actually seen as a liberator from the Soviets, but they messed that up big time).
I'd say the other way around: Napoleon's army got virtually annihilated on the way back and the "Christian" Russians took no prisoners from "the Antichrist", whereas in WW II it was more a question of which terror regime was the most effective (in several regions the German invader was actually seen as a liberator from the Soviets, but they messed that up big time).
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
Human nature can't possibly be history's biggest screw-up, since it's involuntary. It's simply part of who we are. We're born with emotions and other drives we can't control. Now, there's nothing in human nature that says we can't do things rationally and reasonably, so when we don't do this, then we are screwing up. Our nature is not.
Eh? I was just claiming that his invasion, since the only precedent was the basically incomparable Poltava (as well as several successful Polish-Lithuanian expeditions during the Smuta and before), was more excusable in its failure. Von Clausewitz said that it was a reasonable plan as well. Made no judgment as to the palatability of Napoleon to the Russian peasants.
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
Yeah, Napoleon was pretty unpalatable to everyone outside of France, Italy and Poland. Even many Frenchmen hated him. Funnily enough the British intelligentsia, on average, were probably more fond of him than the French. But he was a much better strategist than Hitler, of that everyone can agree.
The recent thread by Winner in OT prompted me to look up whether my bizarre recollection of Rozhdestvensky's Escadre taking British trawlers off Dogger Bank for Japanese torpedo boats was actually true. Thus I came about this account of the entire voyage. Epic. Truly epic. Don't miss it. What happened to those poor British fishermen was just a tip of the iceberg.
http://www.hullwebs.co.uk/content/l-20c/disaster/dogger-bank/voyage-of-dammed.htm
http://www.hullwebs.co.uk/content/l-20c/disaster/dogger-bank/voyage-of-dammed.htm
Winner
Diverse in Unity
I am surprised that nobody mentioned the pre-WW2 policy of appeasement.
The Munich Agreement was surely on of the most idiotic decisions by Western powers in their modern history.
The Munich Agreement was surely on of the most idiotic decisions by Western powers in their modern history.
RedRalph
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there really was very little they could have done by the time Czechoslovakia was dismembered. Had the French chased the Germans out of the Rhineland however, history might have been so different
Winner
Diverse in Unity
Actually, there was a lot the Western powers could have done. Caving to Hitler like a bunch of silly cowards they were only convinced him that he could do whatever he wanted. If he had started a war over Sudetenland, his chances of winning it would have been much lower.
Do I have to remind people of the fact that half of Nazi Germany's heavy artillery came from Czechoslovakia, as well as lot of other military stuff? Liddel Hart was right when he said that by giving up on Czechoslovakia, the Allies had lost dozens of divisions and insane amount of military equipment in one moment. Worse, they had not only lost it, they handed it over to their enemy in one piece.
If that doesn't count as a screwup, I don't know what does.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
Yeah, but in order to crush Czechoslovakia, Nazi Germany would have to commit about 2/3 of its military to the East. In fact, they'd have to leave the western border only lightly defended.
Also, the dissent in Germany still existed when Hitler escalated the crisis. His victory when he exposed the British and French as cowards only helped him to silence his opponents, who then started to believe that his strategy was working.
In the end, the fall of Czechoslovakia helped Germany immensely (all the industry it got, all the military equipment, shorter borders to defend, elimination of a strong potential adversary on the eastern flank...), while the Western powers only got a year or so to prepare - and they wasted most of this time anyway. An extremely idiotic deal if you ask me.
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