The Most One-sided Battle in History

A bit of a spin-off from "Today in history"

Is it Omdurman?

At the Battle of Omdurmanin 1898, British troops, led by Lord Kitchener, defeat the Sudanese and re-occupy the Sudanese capital , Khartoum. It was a desive victory for the colonial power in the war against the forces of the Madhi Mohammed Ahmed, a religious leader in the Sudan, who had declared a Jihad against the Ottoman-British occupiers. The forces of the Madhi, Sudanese tribesman armed with guns and more traditional weapons like spears and swords, were no match for the British machine guns and artillery. On the British side, out of a force of approximately 8000, 48 were killed and 382 wounded, while the Sudanese casualties were somewhat higher, out a force of 50.000, 10.000 were killed and 15.000 were wounded.

Which makes it a ratio of 1 to 200 casualties.

Any other contenders for the title?


Edited by Komnenos

Hmm, let me see.

In WW2 there was fortres in Belgium that was suposed to be impregnable. It had a strong heavy artilery defence, but it was defenceles against an air assult - something the Germans didn't fail to notice. Nobody expected an attack fro the air, after all. The Germans managed to capture it with just 15 casualties, where as the Belguese lost much more men. I don't rememder exact numbers and which fortres it was, but I'm sure professor Komnenos would gladly enlighten us.

Battle of Yarmuk when 20,000 arab soldiers inflicted heavy losses on Byzantine army of 40,000 men near Yarmuk river.

Battle against nanzhao, Gao Pian uses an army of 30,000 crossbowmen to defeat a Nanzhou army several times the size of his. Taking very few losses.

Battle of Agincourt between England and France in hundred years war, 5,000-9,000 English defeated 12,000-30,000 French the casualties 100 English and 5,000 French with 1,000 prisoners.

  Battle of the little big horn 1750 native Americans defeated 780 Americans with guns,Casualties 42 Indians, 262 Americans.

Originally posted by Ahmed The Fighter  Battle of Adrianople between Romans under empror Valens and Germanic tribes(visigoths and ostrogoths),20,000 Germans defeated 30,000 Romans,Romans casualties 20,000 men.

 The Romans were winning this battle, the massacre occurred when the Gothic cavalry returned, until then it had been looking like a Roman victory, so it cant be considered totally one-sided.

 As for Yarmuk I have to disagree there aswell, have to remember the Byzantine army was pretty shattered after the recent Persian wars the desertions certainly didnt help either.

 A brief look on wikipedia says 465,000 to 600,000 german casualties with over 600,000 allied casualties, so certainly not one sided.

Originally posted by Paul   Pearl Harbour, 2,898 Amercans vs 64 Japanese.

Pearl harbor was not really a battle though...,

The Bismark incident probably provided two of the most one sided battle Hood and Prince of Wales vs Bismark and a few days later Bismark vs Rodney and King George V. Also Duke of York vs Scharnhorst. All were practical no casualties on the victor, so infinity to 1.

heh, I read that as Bismarck vs Rodney King

Edited by Zagros