"Lost the battle, but won the war." Topic

What are your favorite examples?

My two favorites are from the American Revolution.

The first has to be Benedict Arnold at Valcour Island. The mere fact that a battle was fought delayed the British so they could not early do what Burgoyne failed to do a year later.

The second is the career of Greene in the South. His campaign won the war in the South, although he did not win a single batle.

What are your favorite examples?

The Alamo.

I realize that it is pointless to try to guide or steer this, but I am thinking in terms of the results of a lost battle being so favorable to the loser, that it helped to win the war.

Thus Pearl Harbor for the Americans would not be a good example.
Nor would Bull Run be a good example for the Union.

I would also like to "require"* that any respondents justify their choice. I don't see how losing at the Alamo directly helped the Texicans acheive victory. Santa Ana at San Jacinto had a lot more to do with that than the Alamo did.
I don't mean to offend any Texan nationalists here, but I really do think that the Alamo was a more of a disaster, magnified by myth, than any real help.

* "Require". v. A futile attempt by the OP of a TMP thread to steer the discussion in a desired direction. This is usually considered a frivolous attempt at best.

Getting divorced from my ex, lost every battle and lived happily ever after…..

Jutland. The day after the battle, the British Navy was ready to resume the contest and still supreme while the German High Seas fleet wouldn't be fit to sail for months. In terms of casualties and tonnage lost, the Brits lost the tactical fight but emerged the strategic victor.

My favourite is Thermopylae. Sure the Greeks lost but the casualties sustained by the Persians during the encounter discouraged them to some degree. Sure it wasn't decisive, Salamis was decisive, but it certainly was not a grand victory.

Battle of the Bulge….sort of. The Germans could have won the campaign simply by attacking Bastogne on more than one side. That thorn in the side made them lose precious time and that was a commodity they could not afford to waste.

Any of the battles the Red Army 'lost' after July 1943

:)

The Tet Offensive.

Isandhlwana.

Zulu casualties. "An assegai has been thrust into the belly of the Nation."

what Brent27511 said…only in my case it was THREE ex-wives (with four marriages involved, but not all at the same time), which led to my current marriage….technically marriage #5, but only Wife #4…(she's a keeper!)

is that a good explanation?

The Battle of Wake Island. The Marine Corps sank the first Jap surface ships of the war killed hundreds of Jap marines, shot down over 20 Jap planes. Leathernecks lost but we won in the end.

Battle of the Big Hole in the Nez Pierce war. Really more of an armed race than a war, the Nez Pierce victory changed the attitudes of the locals. Prior to the battle the Nez Pierce were able to buy supplies for a fraction of what the army was charged (and made to pay in gold instead of trade), afterwards the public rushed supplies to the army on credit while denying supplies to the indians.

Likewise after the Little Big Horn local support for the army blossomed while the hostiles found their support from allies and even their own families evaporated.

In both cases the fear triggered by victory galvanized largely indifferent populations in to more than just vocal support for the army.

Pearl Harbor.

They got us mad at them.

I can give an example of someone who lost both the battles and the wars, that would be JtOFM and his campaign that games have no relevance to war/life/sex etc…

Lost the vattles but won the war, Hundred years war, or better the War of Spanish Sucession, where the French war aims were acheived despite their battlefield performances.

Or the Carrier battles before Midway.

"Thus Pearl Harbor for the Americans would not be a good example."

For the Americans

How about the British?

I think we need to give at least an honorable mention to Heraclea and Asculum since they are the two battles that gave us the term Pyrrhic victory. That seems to be what we are talking about here, albeit looking at it from the other side of the equation.

As a Texan Nationalist, I have to point out that the Alamo bought time for Houston to train the army and evacuate the population (The Runaway Scrape)as well as bleeding the Mexican army. The real disaster was Goliad, which did neither. Also,would our men at San Jacinto been as motivated if there were no battle cries of "Remember the Alamo"?

Bunker Hill.

Though probably of minor strategic importance, the results of the battle shocked the British command, making them hesitant to act and unable to press a more significant victory, while providing the American forces with the confidence to know they could indeed bloody the vaunted British Regulars. In effect, it was a victory for the Americans despite being a loss on the field.

I should add that the story of the battle I believe provided a morale boost to American forces that kept them in the war at the early stages, with important long term consequences.

Agree with Repique. Tet destroyed the VC. By June of 68, 80% of the troops we were fighting were NVA Regulars.

First and second Gulf wars and the current war in Afghanistan, the battles are being won, but the war is not.

Tet, indeed. But the North Viet-Namese didn't lose
Tet, Mr.Charlie and his cohorts lost it, which was
one of the objectives of the folks in Hanoi who
planned the gig.

Increase US civilian unrest with the offensive – check

Demonstrate an offensive capability after the US
population has been told that Mr. Charlie is
incapable of it, thus undermining faith in US
military forecasts – check.

Get most of the real revolutionaries killed-off (first
rule to avoid the counter-revolution, right ?)
to make assimilation much easier after winning the
war – check.

Yep, Tet, hands-down.

Any of the battles in the Winter War –
I think if it hadn't been for how bad the Russians fared there – they would have been just as ill prepared for the first Winter of the German invasion as the Germans were.

world trade center…….

I still don't think they know how mad they made some people.
because they still want to just drop bombs on them and all there cities.

Maybe a little of OP intent, but 1916 rising. It was a miserable failure, but british reaction changed opinion from Pro-british to anti-britsh and led to the war of independence.

Phil

First Battle of Savo Island

2nd Punic War? Hannibal seemed to mop the floor with Rome and all but defeated them…and then didn't.

Borodino. Russian army left the field, so technically the French won. While Russia could absorb the losses, Napoleon wasn't getting the third of his army back that were casualties that day.

Perhaps Gazala, 1942. As a result of the victory Malta didn't get invaded, which I believe would have succeeded, the Axis got a supply line that was unsupportable, and when the line was inevitibly breached it meant all the non-mechanized infantry would be lost. One could argue that if the Axis had gotten a fraction of what was later poured into Tunisia that they would have taken Alexandria, but they didn't.

The Battle of the Capes is an interesting example of a battle that was a tactical draw but a strategic disaster.

Grelber

Battle of Dunkirk 1940
wake up call on tactics.