Original source : http://www.toptenz.net
Posted : December 2011
Author : Dustin Koski
Posted : December 2011
Author : Dustin Koski
Now imagine being
one of the soldiers under the commanders who ordered things this stupid:
The Leader: General
Gideon Pillow
Pillow was
appointed general because he was a friend with the then President James Polk from
when they practiced law together, so the likelihood he would do something
really embarrassing was pretty high from square one. During the war, his most
notorious mistake took place when he was stationed at a Mexican village called
Camargo. There, he ordered entrenchments built, but had them built so awkwardly
that the defenses were backwards, leaving his troops exposed to the enemy. The incident would
have been the most embarrassing incident of his career, but he seemed
determined to top it. In 1847, Pillow wrote letters to Washington crediting himself with winning
the war, rather than commanding General Winfield Scott; something so blatantly
treacherous and false he was arrested for it. He was called back to active
service during the American Civil War (luckily for the Union,
he fought for the South). There, the most significant thing he did was lose a
fortress with 12,000 soldiers to General Grant in 1862. In 1863, he managed to
top even that by his actions at the Battle of Stony Creek: one of his
subordinate generals found him hiding behind a tree instead of leading his
soldiers.
9. Machine Guns?!
No Thanks!
The Leader: Colonel
George Custer
Everyone knows how
Custer led the 7th U.S. Cavalry into an attack on a Sioux tribe that ended with
him and every soldier under his direct command being killed at the Battle of
Little Big Horn. He was outnumbered 9-to-1, just about the only advantage he
possessed being that he had the element of surprise. Another advantage he COULD
have had was to possess three machine guns. Specifically, Gatling guns that had
the capacity to fire several hundred extra rounds a minute. Custer turned down
these relatively lightweight, very dependable weapons personally. While it’s
quite likely they wouldn’t have automatically have won Custer the battle, it
seems very likely that they would have been extremely useful to Custer in
covering a retreat or intimidating the Sioux into believing they were being attacked
by a much larger force than Custer had actually brought. But then there
wouldn’t be a “last stand” and he wouldn’t be so famous.
8. No Wading the
River!
The Leader: General
Ambrose Burnside
The Battle of
Antietam is often mentioned in even general history classes because it resulted
in Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Less well known, and,
we dare say, a little less inspiring was this event that happened during the
battle. More than 12,000 troops under the command of Ambrose Burnside were
opposite less than 400 troops for the Southern army- separated by Antietam creek, which was spanned by a stone bridge.
Burnside’s troops were told to stay in position as Burnside looked for another ford,
and when one wasn’t found after three hours, they started across the bridge. In
a narrow, extremely easily shot column, the Southern soldiers picked them off
so well that they held back a group of soldiers thirty times their number for
another three hours, which gave time for thousands of extra Southern soldiers
to arrive. This prevented the battle from becoming such a victory that it could
have ended the Civil War two years early. But what was ridiculous about this
was that the stream was actually fordable. One Southerner, a native local to
the area, said of the stream “…(they) could have crossed the stream without
getting their belts wet.”
7. No Running On
The Battlefield!
The Leader: Field
Marshal Douglas Haig
It was the first
day of the Battle of the Somme, which ultimately
became the bloodiest battle of Great
Britain’s history, with 630,000 casualties.
After a week-long bombardment that primarily served to let the Germans know
they were coming, July 1 found a massive attack by the British army beginning.
However, because many of the soldiers were new to the front, Haig told them
that they were to march across the treacherous terrain known as “No Man’s Land”
in neat, ordered lines of battle. As a result, the British army suffered 60,000
casualties that day, presenting targets that were ridiculously easy against
entrenched machine gun positions, which were barely touched by the attack. Not
only was this after two years of battles that demonstrated how stupid this was,
but on the very same day, down the line of trenches, the French army was
attacking. Spacing their soldiers out, they actually broke the German lines.
It’s things like this that lead to Haig being viciously parodied in British
programs like Black Adder
6. After Those
Horsemen, Footmen!
The Leader: Crassus
Crassus, known for
defeating the slave army led by the legendary Spartacus and for being the
richest man in Rome,
wanted to perform a big, showy invasion to get his name out. He chose to invade
the Parthian Empire. He had forty thousand soldiers, but the overwhelming
number of them were infantrymen heavily burdened with heavy shields, armor, and
weapons. The enemy army was ten thousand archers on horses, armed with arrows
that would penetrate Roman shields and armor. Nevertheless, Crassus ordered an
attack, doggedly pursuing an enemy that constantly fell back and kept turning
and firing at them the whole way. The Roman cavalry managed at least to reach
the enemy, but with Crassus brought less than two thousand cavalrymen, all
carrying spears, so they were quickly overwhelmed. After that happened, Crassus
ordered one last charge, confident the enemy was running out of arrows. They were
not, and broke the last of the Roman army and sent it running. Thus, the Roman
army suffered thirty thousand casualties and hardly inflicted any casualties.
5. Chain the Ships
Together!
The Leader: General
Cao Cao
Admittedly, this
time the general in question fell for a trick instead of ordering something
stupid that was his own idea, but even the enemy generals must have been
face-palming when they found out it worked. The situation was that two warlords
in Southern China (Zhou Tai and Han Dang) were
rebelling, and prime minister/general Cao Cao was sent with an army now
estimated at 220,000 soldiers to put their rebellion down. While initially
successful, Cao Cao ran into trouble when the enemy retreated to ships. His
army needed to transfer from ground warfare to naval without much training and
the enemy noticed he had moored his ships closely together to decrease pitching
and avoid seasickness. They sent a pretend traitor named Pang Tong over to
advise Cao Cao that he tie his ships together to avoid seasickness. When he
fell for it, ships on fire were sailed into his fleet, a disaster that lost the
Han Dynasty the war.
4. Abandon the High
Ground!
The Leader: General
Joseph Hooker
It was the day
before the Battle of Chancellorsville. The Northern army had 134,000 men, the
Southern army 60,000 men. The Southerners were effectively surrounded, with
75,000 behind them and the rest in front of their army. Not only that, but the
Northern army in the rear had the high ground and effectively control of the
field. But, just before they could attack and completely destroy the Southern
army, Hooker apparently completely lost his nerve and ordered his army to fall
back. Most ridiculously, he ordered soldiers off the high ground. General
George Meade whose soldiers had been stationed there (and who would be the next
commander of the army, in time for the famous battle of Gettysburg) said of the order “My god, if we
cannot hold the top of the hill, certainly, we will not be able to hold the
bottom of it!” As a result, when the Southerners attacked instead, they were
able to get their cannons onto the high ground, and even though they were badly
outnumbered, they managed to partially route Hooker’s army and win a battle they
had absolutely no right to.
3. We’re Within
Firing Range? HALT!
The Leader: General
Edward Pakenham
The battle of New Orleans became famous
for both happening two weeks after the end of the war and for making Andrew
Jackson the reputation that would get him elected president. The battle itself
was mostly British soldiers attacking American entrenchments and being
repulsed, with ridiculously disproportionate casualties being suffered. The
most ridiculous example of this was when the 93rd Sutherland Highlander’s
resident was about to attack some breastworks, but then a halt was called.
While the regiment was within range of the enemy‘s rifles. So, the regiment was
mowed down, without so much as being given orders to fire. One of the Americans
claimed that watching the enemy just stand there while being shot down drove
him to tears.
2. Into the Crater!
The Leader: General
Ambrose Burnside
Hey, Burnside’s
back! Hi Burnside!
Burnside’s second
dumbest order in the Civil War took place at the Battle of the Crater. It was very near the
end of the Civil War, when the main Northern and Southern armies were dug into
trenches outside the city of Richmond, Virginia. They
ultimately would be entrenched for ten months. In an effort to shorten that
amount a spell, ingenious engineers suggested building a long tunnel to under
the Southern positions, and loading it with dynamite. This went off perfectly
well, and a large hole was blown in the Southern defenses. But then, true to
form, Burnside bungled it by ordering his soldiers into the huge crater, so the
soldiers jumped into a hole too deep for them to climb back out of as Southern
reinforcements were rushed to the crater. The commanding general, Ulysses
Grant, said “a greater opportunity to take an enemy position I have never
seen.” Burnside was permanently stripped of his rank, and by this point; even
he must have breathed a sigh of relief.
1. Nap Time!
The Leader:
Dictator Santa Anna
We return to Mexico, to a time before Texas
was part of the United
States of America. On April 19, a Mexican
army of several thousand under Santa Anna in a village called San
Jacinto had just been cut off from reinforcements by the Texan
army destroying a bridge in its rear. The army then moved to surround the
Mexicans. Despite being cut off, Anna had ordered his army to take its usual
3:30 siesta. This allowed the Texans, despite being outnumbered, to completely
encircle them, and then take them by surprise, Anna having forgotten to even
post sentries. This allowed the Texans to inflict over 600 casualties while
suffering only 39, so low they must have started to feel sorry for the Mexicans
half way through. Among the Mexicans captured was Santa Anna himself (despite
shedding his uniform, he was identified by being saluted by his soldiers and
his silk underwear. Honest.), from signing a humiliating treaty where he agreed
that all Mexican armies would retreat, thus allowing Texas to become a sovereign nation. Still,
no reason to skip a good siesta.
~Admin~
~Admin~
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