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Worst battle to be in for a soldier?

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  • #61
    Originally posted by Bulgaroctonus
    The fighting was said to have been extremely brutal, even for hoplite combat. As their numbers diminished the Greeks retreated to a small hill in the narrowest part of the pass. The Thebans took this opportunity to surrender to the Persians[1]. After their spears broke, the Spartans and Thespians kept fighting with their xiphos short swords, and after those broke, they were said to have fought with their bare hands and teeth. Although the Greeks killed many Persians, including two of Xerxes' brothers, Leonidas was eventually killed, but rather than surrender the Spartans fought fanatically to defend his body. To avoid losing any more men the Persians killed the last of the Spartans with flights of arrows.
    That is the exact history of events i have always seen put forth(your entire last post actually, word for word).

    The stuff they were telling Sparten sounds completely alien.

    Odd.

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    • #62
      Originally posted by M21Sniper
      That is the exact history of events i have always seen put forth(your entire last post actually, word for word).

      The stuff they were telling Sparten sounds completely alien.

      Odd.
      Maybe it was a new example of Historical Revisionism.
      "Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

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      • #63
        The worst battle for a soldier I say was the last battle of the british rebels in 60AD by the romans. They were beatin by an army 30 times smaller then theirs, they had 300,000 soldiers.
        Last edited by Great Lencucha; 27 Feb 06,, 07:38.

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        • #64
          Originally posted by Great Lencucha
          The worst battle for a soldier I say was the last battle of the british rebels in 40AD by the romans. They were beatin by an army 30 times smaller then theirs, they had 300,000 soldiers.
          hmmm, really? I had heard that Togodumnus and Caratacus had 'several thousand' but 300,000? What's your source? I am of course assuming your refering to Claudius's invasion in 43ad?
          In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

          Leibniz

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          • #65
            Originally posted by parihaka
            hmmm, really? I had heard that Togodumnus and Caratacus had 'several thousand' but 300,000? What's your source? I am of course assuming your refering to Claudius's invasion in 43ad?
            I was refering to the last battle of queen Boadicea against the roman occupiers.

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            • #66
              Great Lencucha is referring to the Battle of Watling Street in 61 AD. A Wikipedia account of Boudicca's rebellion follows.

              The Battle of Watling Street took place in AD 61 between an alliance of Briton tribes and the Romans. Though outnumbered by more than 5 to 1, the Romans held their ground against the Briton hordes and gained victory. The revolt had shaken Rome's hold on its new province, but victory secured Roman rule in Britain.


              Background
              In AD 43, Rome invaded south-eastern Britain. The conquest was gradual. While some kingdoms were defeated militarily and occupied, others were for the time being allowed to remain nominally independent as allies of the Roman empire. One such tribe was the Iceni in what is now Norfolk. Their king, Prasutagus, secured his independence by leaving his lands jointly to his daughters and to the Roman emperor in his will. But when he died, in 61 or shortly before, his will was ignored. The Romans seized his lands and violently humiliated his family: his widow, Boudica, was flogged, and their daughters raped. Roman financiers called in their loans, which must have placed an increased burden of taxation of the Iceni.

              While the Roman Governor of Britain, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was campaigning in Wales, the Iceni revolted, allied with the neighbouring Trinovantes, whose former Capital, Camulodunum (Colchester) was now a colony for Roman veterans, with a temple to the former emperor Claudius, built at local expense. They descended on Camulodunum and destroyed it. Verulamium (St. Albans) followed. Suetonius raced to Londinium (London), but, concluding he did not have the numbers to defend it, evacuated the city. It, too, was burnt to the ground.

              While Boudica's army engaged in an orgy of destruction, Paulinus marched north along the main Roman road of Britain, Watling Street, and regrouped his forces. According to Tacitus, he amassed a force including his own Legio XIV Gemina, parts of the XX Valeria Victrix, and any available auxiliaries, a total of 10,000 men. A third legion, II Augusta, failed to join him; a fourth, IX Hispana, had been routed trying to relieve Camulodunum. The size of Boudica's army is estimated at a quarter of a million by Cassius Dio, one hundred thousand by Tacitus.


              Battle

              Paulinus chose his battleground carefully. Traveling north along Watling Street with Boudica and her army close behind, Paulinus chose an open field along the road surrounded by forest on three sides. The forest provided protection for the Roman flanks and rear against attack. The field also narrowed at the end Paullinus had deployed his troops, which meant Boudica could not outflank the Romans, thus removing her advantage of numbers. He placed his legionaries in close order, with lightly-armed auxiliaries on the flanks and cavalry on the wings.

              As their armies arranged, the commanders sought to motivate their soldiers. The Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote of the battle no more than fifty years later, recorded Boudica's speech to her followers: "Nothing is safe from Roman pride and arrogance. They will deface the sacred and will deflower our virgins. Win the battle or perish, that is what I, a woman, will do."

              The Britons placed their wagon train in a crescent at the large end of the field, from which point their wives and children could watch what they expected to be an overwhelming victory. The German king, Ariovistus, is reported to have done the same thing in his battle against Julius Caesar a century before.

              Tacitus also wrote of Paulinus addressing his legionaries, "Ignore the racket made by these savages. There are more women than men in their ranks. They are not soldiers - they're not even properly equipped. We've beaten them before and when they see our weapons and feel our spirit, they'll crack. Stick together. Throw the javelins, then push forward: knock them down with your shields and finish them off with your swords. Forget about booty. Just win and you'll have the lot." Although Tacitus, like many historians of his day, was given to invent stirring speeches for such occasions, Paulinus's speech here is unusually blunt and practical. Tacitus's father-in-law, the future governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, was on Suetonius's staff at the time and may have reported it fairly accurately.

              Boudica led her army forward across the plain and into the narrowing field in a massive frontal attack. As they advanced, they were channeled into a tightly packed mass. At approximately forty yards, their advance was staggered by a volley of Roman pila, the Roman javelin. The pilum was designed to bend when it hit a shield, making it impossible to pull out; the enemy would either be encumbered with a heavy iron spear weighing down his shield, or have to discard it and fight unprotected; very few if any of the Britons would have had any armour. A second volley followed, as each Roman legionary carried two pila. This tactic destroyed any organzied advance by the Britons.

              With the Britons in disarray, Paulinus ordered his legionaries and auxiliaries to push forward in wedge formation, with their superior discipline, tactics and equipment giving them a clear decisive edge in the close quarters fighting against the tightly packed British. The cavalry, lances extended, then entered the fray. As British losses quickly mounted, the Britons tried to retreat, but their flight was blocked by the ring of wagons, and they were massacred. The Romans killed not only the warriors but also the women, children and even pack animals. Tacitus says that, according to one estimate, 80,000 Britons fell compared to only 400 Romans.

              Boudica is said by Tacitus to have poisoned herself; Dio Cassius says she fell ill and died and was given a lavish burial. Poenius Postumus, prefect of the 2nd legion which had failed to join the battle, fell on his sword.

              The site of the battle is not given by either historian, although Tacitus gives a brief description. Legend places it at Battle Bridge Road in King's Cross, London, although from reading Tacitus it is unlikely Suetonius returned to the city. A site along the Roman road of Watling Street, somewhere between Londinium and Viroconium (Wroxeter in Shropshire) is more likely. Plausible suggestions include Atherstone in Warwickshire, or a site just south of Lactodorum (Towcester) in Northamptonshire.

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              • #67
                Thanks Bulgar.
                The Iceni took their women, children and old people to the battle sites with them so the 80,000 would have included them as the Romans, pissed off at their previous defeats and the sack and rape of Londinium, gave no quarter and went on to destroy the Iceni and their lands wherever they could. Nevertheless a definite asswhipping.
                In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                Leibniz

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                • #68
                  Gandamak and the retreat from Kabul, 1842

                  This is the one where a force of 16,500 - including 12,000 servants, women and children with the army (4,500 srrong) were harried for 5 days fighting from Kabul to Gandamak in Afghanistan by day and freezing to death on the mountain passes by night in the winter cold. Also famous for the low survival rate of one.

                  It was also the beginning of the end of the East India Companies reputation as a fighting machine

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by Bluecoat
                    This is the one where a force of 16,500 - including 12,000 servants, women and children with the army (4,500 srrong) were harried for 5 days fighting from Kabul to Gandamak in Afghanistan by day and freezing to death on the mountain passes by night in the winter cold. Also famous for the low survival rate of one.
                    It was also the beginning of the end of the East India Companies reputation as a fighting machine
                    Thats a myth. Two or three others did manage to survive.
                    "Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

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                    • #70
                      Originally posted by sparten
                      Thats a myth. Two or three others did manage to survive.
                      Nonetheless, the Afghanis made as near a clean sweep as makes no difference.

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                      • #71
                        Originally posted by lwarmonger
                        Nonetheless, the Afghanis made as near a clean sweep as makes no difference.
                        I know, I know. I still have a Jezil from that battle. I forgot to put a sign.
                        "Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

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                        • #72
                          survivors

                          I believe it was one survivor from the british army and two from the indian army

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                          • #73
                            The Burma campaign fought by Merrill's Marauders and the Chindits has to rank pretty high on the worst list.

                            When the Marauders began to be pulled out after taking the Myitkina airfield only about 200 of the original 3000 men were deemed fit to remain at Myitkina. General Stilwell wrote in his diary, "Galahad is just shot."

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                            • #74
                              For a Briton there are many places that strike a sense of doom into our hearts, Loos, Mons, Beaumont Hamel, Thiepval, Gommecourt, Messines, Cambrai, Amiens, Arras, Ypres. But it is the battle of Passchendaele, also called 3rd Ypres, which arguably haunts our collective psyche the most. One of the most lethal battlefields in modern history, it officially began on July 21, 1917 with preliminary attacks on the Messines ridge including tunneling and mines. The proper campaign began on July 31, the start of one of the wettest late summers in European history. Everybody told FM Haig not to attack in the Ypres salient in August, the Belgian monsoon. The ground was below sea level, flood defenses had been sabotaged by the Belgians earlier in the war during a failed attempt to stop German advances, and the remaining drainage had been shelled, as Ypres (now known in Flemish as Ieper) had been the scene of 2 other large offensives already.

                              Nevertheless he pressed on with the assault. The British tanks proved useless in the mud, the shells in their rolling barrage often failed to explode in the swamp and their artillery buried itself in the saturated ground when fired. The Germans had constructed a line of concrete blockhouses with interlocking firelines which could withstand heavy shelling, and they used these to house machine guns. The British attackers were sucked into saturated mud, where they were mown down, but through a mixture of persistence and adoption of new tactics involving smaller gains and consolidation, the British eventually managed to get into the German lines where the men on all sides ended up fighting from crater to crater. Stopping at night, exhausted, the men would often find the occupants of the next crater along were enemies. The other occupants of the craters were decomposing bodies, water poisoned with gas and rats. So many died, not only of shelling and small arms wounds, but also of drowning, that the British (and maybe the Germans) actually lost count of the casualties. It is now estimated that over 500,000 Britons became casualties and at least 300,000 Germans. For Britons the Ypres salient is sacrificial ground and although terrible battles involving British and Commonwealth forces have followed in more recent years, El Alamein, Caen, Villers Bocage, Arnhem, Kohima, none evoke the same sentiment as 3rd Ypres.

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                              • #75
                                Battle of Muhi or Mohacs.

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