Losers in history - Historum

**M.E.T.H.O.D.** · May 7th, 2012, 01:54 PM

Who do you think are the greatest losers in history...and you favourite?
Who do you think deserves the "historical facepalm award" for his failures?

Perdiccas: one of Alexander's "tier one" generals,Perdicca decided to assert himself after the death of the King of Makedon, but failed to unite most of the Diadochi and was soon despised by his own officers, who decided to have him assassinated in 321.

Crassus(115-53 BCE): despite his enormous wealth, he is mostly remembered for being the least talented of the triumvirs and for his disastrous campaign against the Parthians that led to his violent death.

Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta(1517-69): one of the most sought-after condottieri of his time and lord of important cities like Rimini,Fano and Senigallia. Due to an "unfortunate" twist of events, he was left out of the Peace of Lodi and found himself against most of the Italian powers(the Pope, the King of Naples,Venice the Duke of Urbino).At the end he lost everything,save a small strip of land around Rimini(where the construction of the Malatesta Temple was stopped due to a lack of fundings). He died from malaric fever after a difficult campaign against the Ottoman Empire,started in order to "re-establish" his reputation.
He is considered the "best loser in history" by Ezra Pound.

Charles of Burgundy(1433-77)(my favourite

): the man who wanted to create an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to the North Sea and with the best army of his time simply ended up repeatedly beaten by the Swiss Confederation(nothin' more than a bunch of mountain men) until he was himself killed at Nancy

Imagawa Yoshimoto(1519-60: the daimyo who wanted to assert his authority over Kyoto an beyond, was caught with his fundoshi down by Oda Nobunaga, who destroyed his ambitions in just a moment, when he ambushed Yoshimoto's 30 thousand strong army with just 300 hundred warriors and gave a terrible headache to the Imagawa daimyo.

Takeda Katsuyori(1546-82): the heir of Takeda Shingen, one of the greatest daimyo of Japanese history, decided to honour the memory of his late father with an in style offensive against the province of Mikawa,the military operations obviously ended in a failure: Katsuyori lost most of his army and his veteran generals during the battle of Nagashino(1575) against Oda Nobunaga, who permanently cancelled him from the political map of Japan in 1582, after years of somewhat miserable resistance.
Moreover, Katsuyori never proved to be a good administrator of the lands inherited by Shingen.

One of my favourite "facepalm" events in history is undoubtedly the Imperial Election of 1519: the king of France Francis I decided to bribe the electors before the vote in order to get their support, while Charles said to them "i will simply pay you after my election"; so the electors doubled the profit, at the expenses of the "unwise" Francis

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Major Wilson · May 7th, 2012, 02:07 PM

Cornwallis is my favourite.

As for biggest facepalm, wasn't there a naval battle off Italy in the late 19th century where the Italian ships forgot to load shells, only gunpowder? Perhaps someone knows more about the event.

**irishcrusader95** · May 7th, 2012, 02:33 PM

for facepalm moments the october revolution in which the bolsheviks seized power must rank pretty high.

the original plan for the storming of the winter palace was that it would be signaled by the cannons firing from the Peter and Paul fortress but in the final moment it was discovered that they were rusty old pieces that couldn't be used so soldiers were sent out to drag up alternative guns, when they were in place it was discovered that there was no suitable shells to fire from them. even more surreal is the panic caused by the seemingly simple task of raising a red lantern on a flag pole to signal the assault on the palace. when the moment for action arrived no red lantern could be found, a commissar was sent out to look for one but he got lost in the dark and fell into a muddy bog. when he finally returned the lamp he brought could not be properly fixed to the flagpole and was never seen by those who took part in the assault, in any case it wasn't red.

**M.E.T.H.O.D.** · May 7th, 2012, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Major Wilson

Cornwallis is my favourite.

As for biggest facepalm, wasn't there a naval battle off Italy in the late 19th century where the Italian ships forgot to load shells, only gunpowder? Perhaps someone knows more about the event.

Ah yes, the infamous battle of Lissa, where the Italian navy got utterly defeated by a less numerous Austrian ships due to a combination of poor leadership, stupid tactics and failed communications

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Thanks for the addition Major Wilson and Irishcrusader!

Brunel · May 8th, 2012, 03:29 AM

Napoleon: he once got defeated by some rabbits who chased him away.

It's been described as his most humiliating defeat, and that's saying something.

In 1807, France's "brave, heroic, galliant" emperor was defeated by some harmless fluffy bunnies

In 1807, Napoleon was in high spirits having signed the Peace of Tilsit, a landmark treaty between France, Russia and Prussia. To celebrate, he suggested that the Imperial Court should enjoy an afternoon’s rabbit-shooting.

It was organised by his trusted chief-of-staff, Louis Alexandre Berthier, who was so keen to impress Napoleon that he bought thousands of rabbits to ensure that the Imperial Court had plenty of game to keep them occupied (excuse the pun).

The party arrived, the shoot commenced, and the game keepers released the quarry. But disaster struck. Berthier had bought tame, not wild, rabbits, who mistakenly thought they were about to be fed rather than killed.

Rather than fleeing for their life, they spotted a tiny little man in a big hat and mistook him for their keeper bringing them food. The hungry rabbits stormed towards Napoleon at their top speed of 35 mph (56 kph).

The shooting party – now in shambolic disarray – could do nothing to stop them. Napoleon was left with no other option but to run, beating the starving animals off with his bare hands. But the rabbits did not relent and drove the Emperor back to his carriage while his underlings thrashed vainly at them with horsewhips.

According to contemporary accounts of the fiasco, the Emperor of France sped off in his coach, comprehensively beaten and covered in shame.

http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2...iating-defeat/