Worst ever navy disasters – the bungled orders that killed 1000’s of troops
It’s 150 years this week since one of the world’s most notorious military disasters, popularly known as Custer’s Last Stand.
The Battle of Little Bighorn, in 1876, saw Native American warriors wipe out a professional force of the US Army’s 7th Cavalry, in a surprise defeat that shocked the nation. Here we reveal what happened – and some other terrible defeats in the history of warfare…
Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer has often been portrayed as a dashing tragic hero, especially by Errol Flynn in the 1941 movie They Died With Their Boots On. But modern historians believe the US 7 th Cavalry commander made a series of blunders which led to a sickening slaughter.
The Battle of Little Bighorn took place on June 25, 1876, during the Great Sioux War, in which the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes tribes had united under the charismatic chief Sitting Bull to oppose attempts by the US government to displace them.
Custer, 36, led his 600 men into the valley of the Little Bighorn River in Montana, aiming to find and attack the Native Americans. Instead of waiting for reinforcements as planned, he launched an immediate assault, splitting his force into three.
He had also underestimated the size of the enemy numbers. Custer’s 210-strong unit were opposed by 2000 warriors, including the legendary Crazy Horse. His men were forced to retreat, surrounded and wiped out. Custer himself received a fatal shot to the head. Interestingly, more than 60 of those of killed with the US cavalry were born in Britain or Ireland.
Lost legions
We’re used to thinking of the Roman armies as invincible, especially those led by Russell Crowe playing general Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 film Gladiator.
But in a reversal of the fictional action at the start of that movie, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9AD saw the Romans lose three legions – and incredible ten per cent of their whole army.
Commanded by a general called Quintilius Varus, the Romans aimed to put down rebellious Germanic tribes, but were deceived by Arminius, a double-crossing local chief turned Roman citizen and adviser.
He led them into a trap in dense woodland in Lower Saxony, where the Germans were waiting to spring an ambush. The terrain meant the Romans were out of formation and ended up being annihilated.
Some 20,000 died, with only a handful of survivors. Many of the dead’s heads were nailed to tree trunks and Varus himself committed suicide. On hearing the news, a distraught Emperor Augustus cried: “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!”. After the debacle, the Romans never did complete their conquest of Germania.
Nightmare in Nam
The US famously had to withdraw from South-East Asia in the 1970s after losing the Vietnam War and 58,000 troops. But until 1954, the French had been the colonial power in the country and it was the disastrous Battle of Dien Bien Phu that saw them quit.
The French had established a base in the remote northern city of Dien Bien Phu in order to try and cut off the supply lines of the communist revolutionary Viet Minh forces led by Ho Chi Minh.
But the move backfired for the French, led by General Henri Navarre. Rather than engaging the French in open battle, the Viet Minh surrounded the city and laid siege with 50,000 men, bombarding the enemy with artillery from the mountains.
After two months the French garrison was overrun, with the loss of 3000 soldiers and 10,000 more taken prisoner. The defeat was a major blow to French morale. They soon agreed a treaty and left Vietnam.
Zulu massacre
The 1964 movie Zulu, starring Michael Caine, tells the true story of how a British force of just 150 held off an attack by 4000 Zulu warriors on an outpost in South Africa in 1879.
This brave action saw a host of VCs awarded, but was, in reality, a sideshow to the calamitous Battle of Isandlwana which took place earlier that same day, January 22. It was sparked when a rogue Brit, Lord Chelmsford, decided to invaded Zululand after its leader, King Cetshwayo, refused to disband his army.
Chelmsford unwisely split his red-coated force into two and 20,000 Zulus – armed with spears – made a surprise attacked on the segment of British – armed with rifles – camped at Isandlwana.
Nearly all 1300 of the British force died, with over 2000 Zulu losing their lives. The episode was made into a 1979 movie called Zulu Dawn, starring Peter O’Toole as Chelmsford.
Friendly fire
Some armies are defeated by overwhelming odds, others by poor tactics or bad weather, but in 1788 an Austrian force was routed by…itself. The Austrians commanded by Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II were at war with the Ottoman Empire at the time.
On the night of September 21-22, a large part of their army set up camp near Karansebes in modern day Romania. A group of scouting Austrian cavalry ended up drinking local schnapps, but when some of their infantry arrived refused to give any to them, a row broke out and shots were fired.
Suddenly, in the confusion, someone shouted ‘Turks! Turks!’ The cavalrymen bolted back to camp, but miscommunication meant that the artillery thought that they were Ottoman cavalry advancing and opened fire.
Some reports say that 1000 Austrians were killed in the ensuing melee. Joseph ordered a withdrawal and Turkish forces arrived two days later, taking the town without resistance.
Gun-believable
“Into the valley of death rode the six hundred,” wrote Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson in a highly romanticised ditty about the Charge of the Light Brigade.
It was based on the suicidal blunder that saw a force of British cavalry armed only with swords charge into enemy cannons during the Crimean War, fought by Britain, France and Turkey against Russia.
On October 25, 1854, during the Battle of Balaclava, orders from commander Lord Raglan were misinterpreted thanks to vague instructions given by his messenger, an officer named Louis Nolan.
Instead of attacking a group of Russians who were taking away British guns from a fortification as intended, Lord Cardigan led his 600-strong Light Brigade head-on into the massed ranks of Russian artillery nearby.
The vain attack saw 278 killed or wounded and nearly 400 horses perish. Nolan was one of the dead. In the 1968 film The Charge of the Light Brigade, Trevor Howard played Cardigan, who managed to survive the fray.
