What is the most amazing military victory in history?

[Zachriel]

Nominations

Napoleon at Austerlitz
Lee at Chancellorsville
Japan at Pearl Harbor
British at Rourke's Drift

Battle of Britain
Battle of Dien Bien Phu

[Urban Ranger]

The battle of Feishui, where 80,000 troops of Eastern Jin defeated an enemy of 1,000,000 troops.

[Buck Birdseed]

I think Israeli "independence" war supporters are overestimating the maount of support given to the small arab force by surrounding countries... Most of them supplied meagre arms, but did little else. I personally think 73 and even 67 were more impressive victories.

Anyway, as for the main topic: In sweden we're always taught it's the battle of Narva.

[JCG]

WWII has too many possible candidates, and not that I particularily know about Soviet victories, but Operation Bagration 1944 so utterly whipped the German Army (esp. Army Group Center) that it practically left the gates open for their final invasion of Germany in 1945.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Edan
Nonesense.

Not gonna argue with you here because I don't want to turn this into an ME thread.

Simple facts: at no point did the Arabs ever outnumber the Israelis in Palestine, and by the end of the fighting, the Israelis outnumbers Arab forces in Palestine massively. Despite the arms embargo from the West, the Israelis got quite a bit of arms from the Soviet block, which was far more modern. At the begining it was a bit more iffy, since the Israelis only outnumbered the Arabs 25,000 to 23,000 and didn't have a lot of equipment. However, since they had a non-agression pact with the Jordanians (which they violated), they could concentrate their forces elsewhere.

That's my last word on this in this thread. I've writeen and rewritten this too many damn times in the alst two years to do it again for your personal benefit.

[Odin]

The Ottomans loosing the siege of Vienna, those Austrians were freaking lucky, and was the begining of the end of Ottoman dominance in eastern Europe. After than goofup the turks would never be as powerful again.

[Dinner]

Of course the Austrians benifeted from the timely arrival of the entire Polish Army.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Odin
The Ottomans loosing the siege of Vienna, those Austrians were freaking lucky, and was the begining of the end of Ottoman dominance in eastern Europe. After than goofup the turks would never be as powerful again.

The loss at the seige of Vienna was totally Kara Mustafa's fault. He neglected to fortify his camp and he refused to storm Vienna. If the city fell by seige, then all inside belonged to him, but if they stormed it, then the soldiers got to loot the city. Frankly, if he'd bothered to move to oppose the Germans and Poles, he could have held on, and then if they'd dug trenches around their camp (the size of the camp was bigger than the city of Vienna), put up some barricades, and had repositioned their troops and artillery to face the threat, things might have been very, very different.

[Edan]

Simple facts: at no point did the Arabs ever outnumber the Israelis in Palestine, and by the end of the fighting, the Israelis outnumbers Arab forces in Palestine massively.

Source? (for that matter, you didn't cite your source of American documents, either, so I don't seriously expect a source)

Despite the arms embargo from the West, the Israelis got quite a bit of arms from the Soviet block, which was far more modern.

Months after the fighting began. Before then, the Arab armies had armor, artillary and an air force where Israel had none by May 1948. ""the heaviest equipment of any consequence in the Israeli Forces was the 3-inch mortar, of which there were 195, while the "artillery" units had acquired some Hispano-Suiza 20 mm guns and some French 65mm howitzers without sights dating from the beginning of the century. A few Messerschmitt aircraft had been acquired, but were still abroad." _The Arab-Israeli Wars_

At the begining it was a bit more iffy, since the Israelis only outnumbered the Arabs 25,000 to 23,000 and didn't have a lot of equipment.

Again, source? They had armor, artillary and an air force, with 30,000+ well equipped troops and an additional 50,000+ palestinian irregulars in may of 1948. Egypt, Iraq and Syria had air forces, egypt and Syria had tanks, Jordan, Lebenon and Iraq had armored cars, and all had modern artillery.

However, since they had a non-agression pact with the Jordanians (which they violated), they could concentrate their forces elsewhere.

King abbdullah was put as commander in chief of both the invading Arab Legion, but also the forces already within palestine (indeed, the other arab legions suspected that he wanted to take over as much land as he could - and since he annexed the west bank, it appears to be with some merit.). And on May 14th, after several abortive attacks, they captured an Israeli Power station in Neharayim.

That's my last word on this in this thread. I've writeen and rewritten this too many damn times

You've rewritten it enough times so that it has very little simmilarity with history.

[Felch]

It's in poor taste to demand sources unless you supply them yourself. Besides, this isn't a Middle East thread.

I'd go with the First Crusade's capture of Jerusalem as the most amazing victory ever. A poorly organized rabble of hungry and thirsty soldiers and camp followers from Western Europe managed to take a heavily fortified Eastern city after a lucky shipment of timber for building siege engines arrived. Not astonishing in the military sense, but certainly amazing in terms of the background.

[Caesar the Great]

Mongols conquering China

Lepanto?
Tours?

most amazing military defeat would probably be the 2nd Punic War

[Edan]

Originally posted by Felch X
It's in poor taste to demand sources unless you supply them yourself.

I did cite a source.

[Jon Shafer]

As far as the greatest victories as far as making the enemy do exactly what they wanted them to do and then thoroughly crushing them afterwards, my vote goes to the Germans in 1940 against France, and Napoleon at Austerlitz in 1805. Just beautifully planned and tactically enacted battles that met with spactacular success.

[GeneralTacticus]

I think that better than either of those would have to be Hannibal's victory at Cannae. He was outnumbered more than two to one, on pen ground, facing some of the best soldiers in the world, and he managed to annihilate them completely.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Miracle on Ice 1980, US over USSR for the Gold in men's Olympic Hockey.