These military blunders had shocking and long-lasting consequences. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for military campaigns, expeditions, and decisions, mostly American, that went deeply awry.
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00:00 "There is a pandemonium of voices as well as the perfect roar of musketry and a storm
00:04 of bullets."
00:06 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for military campaigns, expeditions,
00:10 and decisions – mostly American – that went deeply awry.
00:13 "All of these men and women fight for a common cause.
00:18 The identity of an emerging nation."
00:20 10.
00:23 Pancho Villa Expedition – Mexican Border War
00:26 Modern-day Americans sometimes forget that before America entered World War I, it was
00:30 already fighting in Mexico.
00:32 After Mexican folk hero and revolutionary General Pancho Villa attacked U.S. mining
00:36 executives in 1913, President Wilson ordered a punitive expedition.
00:41 General John J. Pershing took 10,000 soldiers into Mexico.
00:44 While Pershing achieved some victories against Villa's forces, they were unwelcome by Mexico
00:49 and never captured the general himself.
00:50 Pershing claimed to have been outwitted and outbluffed at every turn.
00:53 Ultimately, the U.S. military tried to spin the expedition as a learning experience for
00:57 the inexperienced U.S. forces.
00:59 Pershing disagreed.
01:00 He described their return to America as "sneaking home undercover like a whipped cur with its
01:04 tail between its legs."
01:05 9.
01:07 Battle of Kasserine Pass – World War II
01:10 In 1942, the Allied forces led by American troops successfully launched Operation Torch,
01:15 an invasion of North Africa.
01:16 French and British troops provided support.
01:19 Unfortunately for the Allies, they quickly learned why Hitler trusted the region to Field
01:22 Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox.
01:25 The Americans were led by a relatively green commander, General Lloyd Friedendahl.
01:29 Friedendahl positioned himself well behind the front, making timely communication with
01:33 his more seasoned Allies difficult.
01:35 This left the Americans exposed to attack, and Rommel pressed his advantage.
01:39 Allied forces took 10,000 casualties and lost hundreds of tanks and other vehicles in the
01:43 Tunisian mountain pass.
01:44 Rommel lost less than 1,000 men.
01:46 Suffice it to say, Friedendahl immediately lost his job and subsequently replaced by
01:50 George Patton.
01:52 8.
01:53 Battle of Paoli – American Revolutionary War
01:56 Americans sometimes look at the Revolutionary War through rose-colored glasses.
01:59 In truth, it was a war filled with military setbacks and defeat.
02:02 After Washington was trounced at the Battle of Brandywine, he desperately tried to protect
02:06 Philadelphia from the British.
02:07 He sent Mad Anthony Wayne to go after British supply lines.
02:10 Wayne set up camp for his 1,500 men at Paoli, a mile away from a camp of 2,000 Maryland
02:15 militia troops.
02:16 Thanks to superior spies, the Brits knew exactly where Wayne was ensconced.
02:20 They launched a surprise bayonet attack on his camp, massacring the Americans while they
02:24 slept.
02:25 They routed both camps with a smaller force, losing only four men.
02:27 The attack demoralized American troops and led to their withdrawal from Philadelphia.
02:31 7.
02:32 Battle of Wabash – Northwest Indian War
02:35 Various indigenous nations took different sides in wars against European colonizers.
02:40 Some fought with the French, some fought with the British and Americans, some fought them
02:43 all.
02:44 In 1791, the Western Confederacy of Native Peoples achieved the greatest victory in Native
02:48 history against the United States.
02:50 The Shawnee, Miami, Huron, and Delaware nations occupied what was then the Northwest Territories.
02:55 American forces out of modern-day Cincinnati marched to what is now Fort Wayne, Indiana.
02:59 The force suffered from disease and desertions, all the while Native forces bled them dry.
03:03 Little Turtle of the Miami people drew General St. Clair's forces into a guerrilla forest
03:08 fight.
03:09 By the end of the fight, St. Clair suffered a 97% casualty rate, a worse defeat than Little
03:13 Big Horn.
03:14 6.
03:15 Invasion of Canada – War of 1812
03:23 Territorial expansion and anger towards British naval blockades lay at the heart of the calamitous
03:27 War of 1812.
03:28 James Madison, spurred on by Congressional war hawks, declared war on the British in
03:32 June.
03:33 By October, the Americans realized they had bitten off more than they could chew with
03:35 their Canadian invasion.
03:37 America only had a meager 12,000-man strong army at the breakout of the war.
03:41 State militias refused to participate.
03:43 As a result, American forces were woefully unprepared.
03:53 By August, lead commander General Hull surrendered Fort Detroit.
03:56 General Henry Dearborn tried to launch another northern invasion, but his forces refused
04:00 to go beyond America's borders.
04:02 In the following year, the British had set Washington, D.C. ablaze.
04:09 5.
04:10 Battle of Bataan – World War II
04:21 The Imperial Japanese military didn't waste time after they attacked Pearl Harbor on December
04:25 7th.
04:26 By Christmas, tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers had landed on Luzon, the main island
04:30 of the Philippines.
04:31 General MacArthur stood his ground with a small force of American soldiers bolstered
04:34 by almost 100,000 Filipino reserves.
04:49 The brutal offensive of the Japanese forced MacArthur to withdraw over half his forces
04:53 from Manila to the Bataan Peninsula.
04:55 Between the soldiers and thousands of refugees, the Allies struggled with hunger, malaria,
04:59 exhaustion, and dysentery.
05:00 On January 9th, the Japanese attacked Bataan.
05:03 The Allied soldiers were overwhelmed in weeks and by May, they surrendered, resulting in
05:06 the horrific Bataan Death March.
05:17 4.
05:20 Disbanding the Iraqi Army – Iraq War
05:31 Due largely to claims of WMDs, the U.S. convinced their coalition allies to invade Iraq in March
05:36 2003.
05:37 Baghdad fell within three weeks.
05:39 Unfortunately, the coalition was woefully unprepared for the significant question, "What
05:43 next?"
05:44 Iraq is a large country filled with disparate and conflicting religious and ethnic groups.
05:54 Saddam Hussein kept order through savage brutality in a large military.
05:57 That military, though, was disbanded by coalition forces.
06:00 Many experts think that the army could have been an asset for preventing insurgencies
06:04 and maintaining peace.
06:05 Instead, many former military commanders formed the backbone of ISIS a decade later.
06:15 3.
06:17 The Chinese Intervention – The Korean War
06:28 These great failures are born from miscalculation in the wake of a great victory.
06:32 The U.S. began its intervention in Korea with the landing at Inchon, one of the greatest
06:36 successes in modern military history.
06:38 But an overconfident U.S. subsequently invaded the North, hoping to take out Pyongyang quickly.
06:43 Dismissing multiple warnings from Beijing, this choice proved to be an utter disaster
06:46 as the Chinese counterattacked in November of 1950.
06:49 It was a horrific war with massive casualties for all involved.
06:52 The U.S. Army and Marines were thrown back and for a brief moment, it looked like the
06:55 Chinese would purge all other forces from Korea.
06:58 While that didn't happen, America's hopes for a speedy end turned into a two-year stalemate.
07:08 2.
07:12 Battle of Antietam – U.S. Civil War
07:20 Abraham Lincoln called Antietam a victory, a dubious claim at best.
07:24 Robert E. Lee beat back Union General McClellan's attacks while waiting for reinforcements.
07:28 McClellan was stunned by the human cost.
07:30 There were over 22,000 casualties and deaths at Antietam.
07:33 He had the chance to potentially end the war then and there, but the human toll was too
07:37 much for him to bear.
07:38 After 12 hours of almost non-stop fighting, America's bloodiest day had ended.
07:43 He allowed Lee to retreat so that he could set up mass burials and field hospitals.
07:47 Instead of ending at Antietam, the war raged on for years with even more blood and death
07:51 to follow.
07:52 Even though McClellan's own colonels described Antietam by writing, "More errors were committed
07:56 by the Union commander than in any other battle of the war."
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08:19 1.
08:21 Operation Barbarossa (WWII)
08:29 Over a century after Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, Adolf Hitler committed
08:33 the same classic blunder of opening an Eastern Front.
08:36 Operation Barbarossa was the Nazis' six-month campaign to conquer the Soviet Union.
08:40 More than 10 million soldiers fought in Barbarossa, making it the largest land invasion in human
08:44 history.
08:53 The Nazis' brutal quest for oil, slave labor, and resources started out well for the Germans
08:57 as Hitler's soldiers pushed deep into the Soviet Union.
09:00 But the harsh winter eventually ground the operation to a halt, just as it had for Napoleon.
09:05 By the time the Wehrmacht lost the Battle of Moscow, the invasion cost Germany more
09:08 than 830,000 men.
09:11 Fighting in the East contributed massively to the outcome of World War II.
09:21 What military operation do you think should be on this list?
09:24 Let us know in the comments!
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09:32 Thanks for watching!
09:43 (electronic music)