History's greatest flops

The US invasion of Grenada in 1983 was complete fail.

The decision by the 9th Legion to go a-wandering north of Hadrian's Wall.

They were never heard from again; surely a victim of the rampaging ginger hordes of Caledonia.

FREEDOM!!!

This remembers me of a campaign where the romans went on a offensive on the rhine river.

Result: Complete fail for the romans plus they lost an entire legion, as they were ambushed by some germans, I don't remember the name of the general though.

The Romans against Hannibal. Granit Hannibal was a super-general that no one could beat, but the Romans never caught on. They just kept throwing more, and more men at him until there were what, like 50,000+ dead? Maybe more.

They even came up with the plan of killing his foregers so he couldn't get food but they abandoned it for the throwing men at him stratagy. Eventually they came back to it and, suprise suprise, it worked.

Battle of Teutoburg forest, general was named Varus, Augustus was quoted later saying "Varus, give me back my legions!" that's as much as I know about it.

I do have to say I find the way they dealt with him in the end very impressive. Hannibal was an exceptionally skilled general, and to starve him and avoid contact, and make Carthage order his return by attacking them on their own soil worked perfectly.

Battle of Teutoburg forest, general was named Varus, Augustus was quoted later saying "Varus, give me back my legions!" that's as much as I know about it.[/quote:31ppmr6b]

thanks for the input, yeah that's the battle

Well you know what they say, "The Greatest Defence is a Strong Offense".

They resolved the situation in the end, but it was sheer manpower that did it.

What about when Napoleon escaped from Elbe to France, then when the French King sent division after division after Napoleon all the divisions simply joined up with him and became part of his new army. Napoleon leasurly walked his way up to Paris and overthrew the King.

Pretty epic fail on the King's part.

That one is really funny. A less funny one I can think of would be the Saxons vs. Vikings. They fought and fought and fought, then suddenly NORMANS!?

The Romans failed really hard in Parthia. Crassus got smashed by the Parthians and after that they poured molten gold in his throat. Marc Anthony's invasion of Parthia was over before he even reached Parthia. The only one who was succesful was Trajan.

Charge of Light Brigade.

Battle of Agincourt and the Battle of Crécy (where they repeated the same trick).

Italian invasion of Greece and the Italian invasion of Egypt.

Those come to mind... for now.

how Alexander (the great) tried to connect east and west in marriages.

He should of done forced migration. It works out quite well.

Just move some unloyal people in Iran to your loyal places in Greece and they'll get themselves in shape quite quickly or else they'll be treated like trash by everyone else.

Ancient Chinese Dynastites. You could be executed for being late to a meeting. And they used to slaughter all there servants to be buried with them, as well as alot of heads... and the odd few animals. Yep, pretty sadistic bastards. Wait, did I mention the armies consisting of hundreds of thousands of men that got lost trying to fight barbarians. That happened quite alot.

They were very good at spending money.

Really when China was united under those Empires they should of been so rich they could of invaded huge swaths of land. Instead they just ended up pissing it all away on temples or something.

I think the inefficeincy of the Soviets during the Winter War was pretty bad even though they eventually won.

wait sorry what? american invasions of canada? when did this take place i would love to learn.