Most Epic Screwups in History?

[privatehudson]

Generally speaking the Germans were as weak in 1938 as the British and French. The fact that the British had no radar and a weak RAF in 1938 for example is a moot point since the Luftwaffe was hardly in the position to launch a concerted assault until it could secure airfields in France or the Low countries anyway, and the Luftwaffe itself came on in leaps and bounds between 1938 and 1940.

That said I can understand why Chamberlin didn't go to war over Czechslovakia for the reasons outlined, but I would still consider it a blunder.

 

[sydhe]

I think it is being cocky and thinking "I am so great I will win no matter what I do."

While yes, the French could have dominated Europe for some time, the only people who liked them were the Poles, Italians, and a few German states. There was so much animosity that with British money supporting them, someone would fight the French, and eventually win.

Make no mistake, I believe his stupid invasion of Russia deserves a place in this thread, it just isn't to the extent that the one poster said.

I think it was a case of Napoleon using finesse when he needed it, but resorting to brute force when he had a strong enough military force. Ulysses S. Grant is another one who turned to brute force when he got enough troops.

 

[JBGUSA]

I think it was a case of Napoleon using finesse when he needed it, but resorting to brute force when he had a strong enough military force. Ulysses S. Grant is another one who turned to brute force when he got enough troops.

And he was successful.

 

[Leifmk]

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.

I believe I already mentioned that earlier in this thread. But yeah, it bears mentioning more than once. Truly a screwup (or series of screwups, or compound screwup if you will) of epic proportions.

 

[Verbose]

On the other hand, I think Napoleon could have been successful fighting Russia. By the time this invasion occurs, France is losing its edge in military organization and discipline (or, I should say, the rest of Europe is catching up), and Napoleon's tactics went from brilliant to mediocre towards the 1810's. Fewer and fewer clever maneuvers just straightforward, frontal assaults turned into bloodly slaughters. I've read theories that he had bad medical conditions that were distracting him, but I don't know if there is a significant consensus as to why his skills diminished.

You know, the irony is that all Napoleon wanted was for the Russians to show up in force somewhere along the Polish border, where he could confront and beat them in a series of short, sharp engagements.

This would force the Russian emperor back to the negotating table, where the Franco-Russian alliance would then be reinvigorated, and the UK again left out in the cold. With the eastern border secure, the new in-laws in Vienna eventually getting used to their new son-in-law etc., perhaps Napoleon would have had the time to eventually build enough of a navy to seriously challenge the UK? The continental system was after all hurting it, causing massive unemployment.

Problem being, as Napoleon had amassed a 600 000 man army, there was no hope in hell the Russian generals would just march their troops in convinient range of such a beast. And while the Russian generals were absolutely shame-faced about it, they very reasonably retreated instead, forcing Napoleon to go after them into Russia, just to get the opportunity to defeat them. And then a war supposed to be quick turned into a bitter meat-grinder, devastating large tracts of Russia, making future peace between Russia and France more or less unthinkable.

Sometimes it really doesn't pay to be too superior in strength.

(And no, there's no consensus about the causes of Napoleons late career track record. The "pathological school of history" tends not to be the favoured one though.)

 

[privatehudson]

perhaps Napoleon would have had the time to eventually build enough of a navy to seriously challenge the UK? The continental system was after all hurting it, causing massive unemployment.

As I understand it he was already undertaking a large scale rebuilding programme after Traflagar. The problem for the French navy (or to be more exact the Ships of the Line since Frigates, sloops etc were another story) is that whilst France built very good ships the crews had major gaps in their training and experience due to having to spend so long in blockaded ports. Whilst it was possible for individual ships to specialise in some actions (such as Redoutable in musketry and boarding) and many of the captains were brave and skilfull the overall effect was often clumsy and ineffective in comparison to the Royal Navy.

Therefore whilst a rebuilt fleet could numerically challenge British control of the seas it would still have to overcome the sizable tactical disadvantages it laboured under.

Having said that Russia dropping out of the war would have left Britain in a very tight spot and possibly force some form of negotiated settlement at some point. Do you have any links for the unemployment figures in the UK during the wars though? I know that it was pretty bad when they ended but I've never seen any figures for what it was whilst the war was still going.

 

[Antilogic]

Only more proof that Napoleon was more effective with fewer troops than many. His strategy at Borodino was an utter disappointment. I suspect he was just too aggravated with the Russian retreats and wanted a quick bloodbath...and it turns out that is exactly what happened, although he might have wanted a different outcome. Patience might not have been his strong suit.

The French were always building ships, even these somewhat lighter gunboats just to cross the channel with troops. They just had skittish commanders (like Villeneuve, although I might be mispelling his name).

The blockaded Franco-Spanish fleet didn't have good gunnery training...and to this, I can only attribute poor planning. Why couldn't the crews practice gunnery drills in the harbors, with their guns pointed out to sea? For a nation that supposedly had the most advanced artillery of the era, this is a little bit of an oversight. Were they afraid of angering their neighbors?

Napoleon had the resources to continue a naval fight after Trafalgar, even soon after (remember, he didn't lose all his ships--Ganteaume still had a smaller fleet that was in port at the time). He just decided it wasn't worth the effort and instead focused on the continent.

 

[privatehudson]

The blockaded Franco-Spanish fleet didn't have good gunnery training...and to this, I can only attribute poor planning. Why couldn't the crews practice gunnery drills in the harbors, with their guns pointed out to sea? For a nation that supposedly had the most advanced artillery of the era, this is a little bit of an oversight. Were they afraid of angering their neighbors?

One explanation is a lack of ammunition, during the voyage across the Atlantic he was unable to practice gunnery because of this.

As for other reasons (much of this from Howarth's book on Trafalgar):

Firing naval cannons when a ship is at sea and firing them when in harbour are not comparable really. When at sea you had to compensate for the ships roll as this would impact on the elevation of the gun being fired. Since the French used slow-matches to fire naval cannon which involved a delay that couldn't be exactly predicted the elevation and range were often a matter of chance. The French and Spanish also tended to shoot at rigging with bar and chain shot. Should this type of ammunition go too high it missed entirely and if it went too low it didn't often penetrate the hull and seldom ricocheted.

The British tended to use round shot and fire at the hull. This had the advantage of if it went low it might ricochet off the water into the target and still do some damage, or if it went high it sometimes hit the rigging instead. We also used flintlocks to fire the guns, a method that was nearly instantaneous.

The problems in gunnery were just one aspect of the problems Villeneuve faced though. Seamanship is something you need the open sea to train, and experience of that was sadly lacking in the Franco-Spanish crews that fought at Trafalgar. According to Howarth the Spanish drafted large numbers of ex-convicts to serve on their ships, and some of them hadn't even been to sea before, let alone seen a naval battle. You simply can't turn that kind of person into an efficient crewman in harbour, it takes time at sea.

The Franco-Spanish fleet were badly outclassed by the far more experienced Royal Navy and although Trafalgar wasn't a foregone conclusion it isn't hard to see why the result was so one-sided or why Nelson was so confident of victory.

I have a lot of sympathy for Villeneuve because he had to deal with an Emperor who only had a limited grasp of Naval affairs and high expectations. Contrary to what his critics said he was a brave man and quite a skilful commander. Even normally francophobic Royal Navy men like Freemantle and Collingwood liked him.

 

[Antilogic]

Lack of ammunition and powder is a good reason, but I figured the French would be able to supply their ships. After all, they could supply their land artillery with enough ammo. I know it's not the same stuff, but it shows they had the capacity to produce munitions. Why wasn't it loaded while they were spending months in harbor? Oversight?

The tactic of firing at riggings was foolish to start with...I am at a loss to explain why they continued with this tactic after the British trumped every naval engagement, sans one, in the American Revolution. If the goal was to eliminate, not capture, the British fleet to make a landing in England, then it makes sense you would use the most direct and brutal tactic--firing directly into the deck with round shot--to take out the British ships. It seems to me the French had all the resources required to make this a success, but used faulty tactics to their own demise (and should have realized such).

To my understanding (and, I should say, the professor I had for my French Revolution class when I was an undergrad), Villeneuve was a little skittish and afraid to engage Nelson directly after the Battle of the Nile (another failure on the French side). Although, this professor was enamored of sorts with the Spanish and thought Gravina to be a far superior commander.

 

[say1988]

For tactics, the rigging was the most vulnerable par of a ship, and the easiest way to cripple a vessel, if you could hit it.

Overall the French were playing catch-up, and Napoleon had little experience, skill, or likely desire for naval warfare, he only cared about getting to Britain, and when that wasn't viable in the short term he found other uses for his resources.

While the French Empire could have remained in control of the continent for quite a while (perhaps until Napoleon's reign ended) and perhaps survived in France with different results from Russia, I don't see long-term French dominance outside Western Europe.
The Austrians, Russians, and Prussians would have rose up any chance they got, not to mentioned various other smaller states and people. The British would have taken a long time before giving up and jumped at any opportunity to take down France, and the French were not going to get Portugal (insane defensive positions and an inability of the land to support any large army). And Napoleon lacked any inclination to actually make a large fleet (and had little chance to make it effective)to threaten Britain and its qualities.
For an empire built on warfare, it would need to find a new enemy or it would likely fall apart fighting itself, napoleon doesn't seem to prevent that.

Really, vastly different outcome better results in 1812, but I don't see any greater lasting French influence in the rest of Europe, or dominance even without Britain.

The most interesting difference may have been Poland, if it had survived long enough to become accepted before France fell, if that was possible.

 

[privatehudson]

Lack of ammunition and powder is a good reason, but I figured the French would be able to supply their ships. After all, they could supply their land artillery with enough ammo. I know it's not the same stuff, but it shows they had the capacity to produce munitions. Why wasn't it loaded while they were spending months in harbor? Oversight?

Its usually too dangerous to load a ship with powder (or keep it loaded) during long stays in harbour. I don't know about the French but in Liverpool ships were usually required to offload their powder at magazines sited some distance away prior to entering the docks. One story doing the rounds back then is that someone living near one of the magazines sent a letter to the council asking why if powder was so dangerous they cited the magazines in a residential area, what would happen if there was a fire in the magazine? The reply was "Dear sir... You will all be blown straight to hell. Regards". One ship did blow up in the river, it was quite a sight apparently.

And yes, the rigging was very vulnerable and if hit enough it was easy to leave a ship almost dead in the water. The British on the other hand aimed to capture the enemy ship with as minimal damage to the rigging as possible so it was easier to use after the battle without extensive repairs.

As for Villeneuve's skittishness I doubt he was afraid personally since his personal bravery was shown a number of times during Trafalgar. I think he just had a very health respect for the talents of Nelson and the Royal Navy, and knew that the fleet he commanded simply wasn't up to the tasks alloted to it by Boney.

 

[Masada]

Villeneuve was gifted his sword back in England - as a sign of respect by those who defeated him. From that I guess its possible to say that his peers on the other side of the channel respected him as a commander. Although apparently he was quite a charmer at parties so it might well have been for that reason .

I don't think anyone could rightly blame Villeneuve for being skittish, your facing the premier naval state in its own turf, caution is definitely warranted. He had misgivings to begin with about the whole venture and from memory he expressed those in some letters before he left France.

It also doesn't help that the enemy commander is probably the best going at the time, is willing to try a relatively new tactic and your van keeps sailing and doesn't get back around for the better part of the day. The unfortunate thing is once the battle had started it was already lost irregardless of the bravery of the individual ships of the Spanish and French fleet. You quite simply cannot fight an enemy who has cut your line and is busily cutting it to pieces with significantly more guns than you can bring to bear with the engaged part of your line.

Now if I remember correctly Villeneuve was informed about the possibility of Nelson cutting his line and refused to take measures accordingly [in the lead up to the battle].

 

[Antilogic]

Its usually too dangerous to load a ship with powder (or keep it loaded) during long stays in harbour. I don't know about the French but in Liverpool ships were usually required to offload their powder at magazines sited some distance away prior to entering the docks. One story doing the rounds back then is that someone living near one of the magazines sent a letter to the council asking why if powder was so dangerous they cited the magazines in a residential area, what would happen if there was a fire in the magazine? The reply was "Dear sir... You will all be blown straight to hell. Regards". One ship did blow up in the river, it was quite a sight apparently.

While this is important for the safety of the harbor (nobody likes a blockaded harbor...by your own sunken ships, none-the-less), this really doesn't answer my question. If you were spending months in port and then planned a mission, why didn't you load your ships first? This had to be a spur-of-the-moment decision or based on literally a day's weakness in the British watch over the harbor.

 

[privatehudson]

While this is important for the safety of the harbor (nobody likes a blockaded harbor...by your own sunken ships, none-the-less), this really doesn't answer my question. If you were spending months in port and then planned a mission, why didn't you load your ships first? This had to be a spur-of-the-moment decision or based on literally a day's weakness in the British watch over the harbor.

Ah sorry, misunderstood the context of the question, thought you meant why didn't they keep them loaded constantly in harbour.

If I had to guess why Villeneuve didn't load enough ammunition I would suspect it was lack of available supplies. Certainly the plan itself was not made up on the spare of the moment, and whilst its possible to explot temporary lapses in British crews (e.g. a shortage of blockading ships for a few days) Napoleonic sailing ships aren't ideal for spare of the moment moves. When Villeneuve slipped out of harbour you can be reasonably sure he had been preparing for it for a while.

Its also worth remembering that Villeneuve only initially commanded 11 ships of the line and 6 frigates in his squadron, he'd have little or no control over the loading of the the other ships that joined him prior to Trafalgar. Since the Caribean move was a feint to draw the English out from blockade and away from the channel the chances are that the ships were loaded enough for one major engagement. It didn't help that the Spanish were both short of supplies and reluctant to release what supplies they had.

Regardless of whether he trained his crews in gunnery on the Atlantic jaunt though it still wouldn't have made up for their inefficiencies in operating the other parts of the ship, and that's just as imortant.

And may I just say that I agree with what Masada said as well.

 

[Ondskan]

Privatization of the Central Banking System.

Privatization of Healthcare and Education.

Nationalization of Farming.

The genocide of jews was pretty bad to. Hitler got more tricked than he could ever imagine. And I'm not talking about the human cost here, that's one thing. But it was a complete . .. .. .. . up. The Jews themselves weren't to blame and the whole process cost Germany many good and smart men. I guess the relocation of jews and the cost of that was at least equalized by the slave labour produce.

Letting Rome become a dictatorship was a bad . .. .. .. .up. With a roman republic and a greek democracy we could've had a lovely world here today.

Stalins guillible and at the same time paranoid nature made what could be a good leader into a monster and fool.

 

[Dachs]

Letting Rome become a dictatorship was a bad . .. .. .. .up. With a roman republic and a greek democracy we could've had a lovely world here today.

Except "Greece" as a single unified state didn't actually exist (the closest they got is probably the Hellenic koinons of Alexandros, Philippos, and Antigonos Doson) and when it was unified it certainly wasn't a democracy; as for the Roman republic, it had its good and bad points. Certainly the end of the intense republican civil strife of the last hundred years and the intermittent open warfare of the last fifty can't have been all bad.

 

[Ondskan]

Except "Greece" as a single unified state didn't actually exist (the closest they got is probably the Hellenic koinons of Alexandros, Philippos, and Antigonos Doson) and when it was unified it certainly wasn't a democracy; as for the Roman republic, it had its good and bad points. Certainly the end of the intense republican civil strife of the last hundred years and the intermittent open warfare of the last fifty can't have been all bad.

I actually wrote "greek-democracy", it was "greek democracy" even though Greece didn't exist. Perhaps, PERHAPS athenian democracy is a better word but fewer people are familiar with that. City-state democracy is the best there is. Ofcourse their democracy wasn't perfect. They had prejudice against women in some city states and there were slaves. But that is a product of the time then.

About the Roman Republic. As the first republic ever there were issues. Issues that led to far less blood spillt than the horror that was to come with absolute monarchs later on.

 

[Dachs]

I actually wrote "greek-democracy", it was "greek democracy" even though Greece didn't exist. Perhaps, PERHAPS athenian democracy is a better word but fewer people are familiar with that. City-state democracy is the best there is. Ofcourse their democracy wasn't perfect. They had prejudice against women in some city states and there were slaves. But that is a product of the time then.

And that democratic system had its inherent, non-temporal-specific problems too, including vicious factionalism and a distinct inability to conclude conflict rapidly. Athenian democracy prolonged the Peloponnesian War to the detriment of all of Greece, for example.

About the Roman Republic. As the first republic ever there were issues. Issues that led to far less blood spillt than the horror that was to come with absolute monarchs later on.

The Roman monarchy was never an absolute monarchy and it did not provide a precedent for absolute monarchy.

 

[Ondskan]

The Roman Empire was first a Monarchy, then a republic then a totalitarian monarchy in which the "dictator" was selected for life and ruled with an iron fist. Stop spreading disinformation.

The war between Athens and Sparta was a war of Democracy against Dictatorship.

Sparta was not a democracy, it was a military junta. A good/just one, but still a military junta.
I am not familiar with the war, but claiming that a democracy by its definition prolongs wars is completely bogus. If that was not the intention of your statement then your statement lacks any value in the debate.

 

[Dachs]

The Roman Empire was first a Monarchy, then a republic then a totalitarian monarchy in which the "dictator" was selected for life and ruled with an iron fist. Stop spreading disinformation.

If you seriously think that the principate or even the dominate was an iron-fisted state you are deluded. The emperor had plenty of elites he had to appease and constituencies he had to play to. He had legal and later religious responsibilities.

The war between Athens and Sparta was a war of Democracy against Dictatorship.

No, it wasn't. Athens and Sparta were not the only states involved in that war, and Athens certainly didn't stay democratic for the entire conflict.

Sparta was not a democracy, it was a military junta. A good/just one, but still a military junta.

Sparta was not a junta. It had a constitution, a citizen assembly, and its kings were virtually powerless.

I am not familiar with the war, but claiming that a democracy by its definition prolongs wars is completely bogus. If that was not the intention of your statement then your statement lacks any value in the debate.

Have you read Thukydides? Several times Sparta made peace overtures to Athens on various terms, and several times the citizen assembly rejected them. The Athenian democracy had been more willing to prolong war even when their fortunes were low because of the personal investment the people had in their institutions.