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The worst armies in history |
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 Topic: The worst armies in historyPosted: 27-Sep-2007 at 23:20 |
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You are right, but Europeans also have many defeats. Just remember how the Brits were crashed by the Zulus, something that happened many times all over the world.
The dominancy of Europeans changed when Japan defeated Russia at the begining of the 20th century.
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AndronicusRex
Immortal Guard 
Joined: 27-Sep-2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 0 |
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Posted: 27-Sep-2007 at 17:42 |
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Non-European armies facing European/Colonial armies. Bad track record
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Andronicus Rex, Noble of the Republic
http://angryamericanaristocrat.blogspot.com/ |
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Posted: 19-Sep-2007 at 10:51 |
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It was really lack of money... or lack of vision?
I have the idea that Spain could perfectly had invested in a float of, let's say, twenty subs, without much problem, but they lacked the vision and the decission to doing so. I bet signals of the comming events of 1898 were seeing long time before they actually happened. Spain just didn't have the vision to act. By the way, the effect of 1898 were devasting for Spain, and one can easily see it pushed that country into the events that later degenerated into the Civil War.
On the other hand, why Spain insisted to have colonies and slaves 90 years after its time is a mistery for me.
Pinguin
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Ikki
Chieftain 
Guanarteme Joined: 31-Dec-2004 Location: Spain Online Status: Offline Posts: 1378 |
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Posted: 17-Sep-2007 at 19:26 |
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That is true Ponce but changing your point of view: poor soldiers who fought under those incompetents!! Althought after 1860 the level of the spanish armies grew lightly his situation was equally horrible, the war on the Rif was a madness and only after the disaster of Annual the things changed, in all those years the army was without discussion in the group of the crapy armies. But after 1925, and over certain basis of the past because all in all the war gave experience, the spanish army that was fighting in North frica quickly became a trully monster and i haven't doubts was one of the betters of the world. This army will win the Civil War in vastly inferiority of numbers and resources (at the beginning) and was who provided the men for the formidable Blue Division.
Edited by Ikki - 17-Sep-2007 at 19:31 |
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Ponce de Leon
Caliph 
Lonce De Peon Joined: 11-Jan-2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2967 |
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Posted: 17-Sep-2007 at 19:06 |
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The Spainish troops in the Rif wars were pretty bad as well. I feel sorry for the commanders of the army who had to fight those terrible wars in northern africa
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Ikki
Chieftain
Guanarteme Joined: 31-Dec-2004 Location: Spain Online Status: Offline Posts: 1378 |
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Posted: 17-Sep-2007 at 18:28 |
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The spanish army of Cuba after years of war was well equiped, fierce and veteran althought very tired, this is clear when anybody study the battles against the americans wich wasn't a walk by the garden; the problems there was the navy and after the defeat of the navy the impossibility of aid the army in the island, so althought the army wanted fight and could do it for many time was a lost war since the beginning, without the fleet the resistance was impossible. And of course without money Spain can't rebuild the fleet or build submarines, one of the options was not fight open naval battle but only travel between the Peninsula and the Caribe fighting only in superiority, this was possible but the admiral Cervera was stupid.
But i must admit, the army of the spaniards from 1815 to 1860 was totally crapy, absolutelly pathetic, probably one of the worst of the history.
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Posted: 16-Sep-2007 at 22:13 |
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Yes!
You may be right on that. It is amazing how the economic situation usually is more important to keep a military power than anything else. Just remember what happened with the Soviet Union when the economy fall down.
The Spanish Empire was too much expensive for Spain to keep it. That's all, and I agree.
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Ponce de Leon
Caliph
Lonce De Peon Joined: 11-Jan-2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2967 |
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Posted: 16-Sep-2007 at 19:36 |
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Probably the logical reason for that was Spain did not have the resources to commision the submarine project and was having trouble enough of feeding her own citizens |
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Easternknight
Samurai 
Joined: 18-Sep-2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 109 |
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Posted: 04-Sep-2007 at 17:15 |
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Late Joseon era military. |
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Temujin
King 
Sirdar Bahadur Joined: 02-Aug-2004 Location: Eurasia Online Status: Offline Posts: 5221 |
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Posted: 04-Sep-2007 at 16:28 |
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no that was not the reason, the reason why Germans fought on the Alpien frotn was the fact that the Dual Monarchies frontline was the largest of all major war participants while Italy had to cover the least frontage and never made any significant progress at all. compare that to what the Italians had to protect, all of their African colonies for example.
well of course, but you were boasting with Italy sendign expedition corps here and there and how tough the Alpine front was, here we see how K.K. forces triumphed against Italians on even grounds.
Caporetto was the only sucessfull major offensive of the war, Vittorio Veneto was justa reversal of the offensives achievemnts, Italians didn't made much progress beyond the frontlines before Caporetto. and as is said before, Italy only achieved that because they heavily outnubmered the Central Powers forces and because of the general collapse of the Dual Monarchy.
as ic an see Foch was in Italy, i think that qualifies for major help if one of France's most popular comamdner is beign sent to the Alpine front...and it says much about the quality of the Italian command.
thats ridiculous, even modern Alpine forces of the 21st century still have mules simply because mules are the best means of transport in mountainous terrain with bad or no infrastructure. go and try that with "early trucks"...
why you always try to make a point with industry? how much industry did Chinggis Khaan posses? you make it sound like Italian factories were assaulting the Austro-Hungarian factories in their trenches...  in ww1 industry only becomes important when it comes to artillery and ammunitions, and neither side lacked much of it, and it was the Dual Monarchy that was not supplied throughout the war, unlike Italian factories. planes and tanks didn't played a significant role as in ww2 and artillery wasn't lacking either, so you really waste your time on me with industry.
this is not about the Alpine front but quality of the Italian troops, if the Italians can't stand their ground and if Albania was not important then why did they sent their troops there in the first place??
yes OK but Italy was only able to invade Albania because the attention of the world was directed on Germanys effort to dissolve Czechoslovakia, and because it was virtually fought with the same armies as later on (in that context, i also want to mention the sucessfull invasion of Abissynia).
no it was almost EXACTLY what they achieved in ww1, but this time they were first sucessful and then lost, in ww1 it was vice versa.
yes and after this crushing defeat they were still able to push forward again (with German support) and reverse their fortune significantly for some time, which reminds one of the Soviet Army on the eastern front.
what exactly did they do alone? holding their ground, making no progress despite numerical superiority...
nonsense. Italians didn't do any of what you said. Italians never fought against two superpowers, Italy only fought Austria-Hungary, and only a section of it. ignore the Germans there, Austria could have sent those Germans on other fronts and reinforce with native troops but since those German troops were trained for mountain warfare they were sent there and not on other fronts. Arditi were not a native invention but copy of German invented stromtrooper tactics. tanks were also not native Italian developments obviously. don't know what you're trying to say by making an effetcive chain of command. if italy didn't had an efficient chain of comamdn than thats a serious minus point for the Italian army again. also, the increasing industrial output has nothign to do with the army, as i already said. besides during the war the German and Austro-Hungarian ports were closed for international trade, so guess where those ressources went instead... Italians weren't able to penetrate the Austrian border (except for the 6. Isonzo) until 1918, while the Central Powers had two sucessful offensives (first only called off because of the Brusilov offensive) themselves against superior Italian numbers, and the cause of this sucess was overextention of Central Powers forces due to too far too fast advances into enemy territory. so what do we have for ww1 Italy? an Alpine war for three years without much progress with almost all of Italies military might and a failed offensive on the Balkans, as opposed to ww2 italy, who was able to conduct invasions to 4 different countries in the same timeframe, 2 of them sucessfull with the aid of their allies. |
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Mumbloid
Knight 
Joined: 04-Jun-2007 Location: Denmark Online Status: Offline Posts: 97 |
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Posted: 03-Sep-2007 at 16:14 |
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and it seems to me you keep not understanding that the Alpine front was one of toughest front of the great war. Even the Austrian was unable to keep the stalemate and needed German help to win.
Albania was a secundary front, the enemy was at the italian border, and that was the hotspot for italy.
No after Caporetto, the AustrioGerman didn made any serious progress. After the retreat at the Piave front, the German advance halted...and then they were pushed back (home).
economically, not military....they only started to fight the last day of war.
It was, when somebody claims the italian army in WWI sucked so badly. The espeditionary corps, did a good performance everywere were they ended.
Just look at the Italian forces in Macedonia, well equiped, with early trucks and modern weapon, in contrast to the forces of WWII equiped manly with mules!!!!
after tough battles against two (that time) superpowers. (Ok Austria was weak, but it still had much more economic, industrial and military power than Italy).
secundary front, the enemy was at the gate to home. What teater do you think was priorited?
stilla secundary front, the Italians dealed with them later.
but for ww2 italy:
that was before WWII.
No, they conquered only few small forts and a coastal location (Menton) after heavy losses. IMO that's not a archivement. Not even close to what they managed to do in WWI.
yep, and keep that in mind...10 division destroyed by a few of British.
so since Italians managed to do almust everything alone in WWI we can clearly see how bad the IT army of WWII was.
excuse me, but that must be your joke, the italian archivements of WWII you mention, are only utter defeats.
Here are the archivements of WWI
-Managing to fight against two superpowers (compared to italy they were) and bind they forces for a year in Italy, before defeating them once for all (the Austrogermans were never agin able to build a effective defense line on the IT. front).
-Managing to build a effective fighting force, including also special ops (arditi who were responsable for the slaughter of plenty austrian-german soldiers).
-Managin to place a effective chain of comand (gen. A. Diaz and his staff)
-Increasing effectively the industrial out put.
-Including in the italian arsenal new and innovative weapons (tanks)
-Increase the fleet activity (MAS operation).
My point is the WWI army was a much more flexible one, capable to react better in time of need, the IT army of WWII could do nothing else than watch the empire falling apart with their hands in their poket.
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Temujin
King
Sirdar Bahadur Joined: 02-Aug-2004 Location: Eurasia Online Status: Offline Posts: 5221 |
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Posted: 03-Sep-2007 at 13:47 |
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it seems you all not understand. the K.u.K. Wehrmacht (as it was called officially) fought on three fronts, and Italy fought on only one significant front. Italian occupied Albania was conquered for 2/3 by Austria-Hungary. and Italians on land and sea were onyl sucessfull in the last months of the year, which coincides with the collapse of the K.u.K. Wehrmacht...before that, Italy made no significant progress whatsoever and in the end it was helped by Americans. if you think its a great point to make by saying Italians send around their troops everywhere, well thats nothing special. the Danube Monarchy had a cruiser in the German port Qingdao and had send the Ottomans an Orient Korps in the form of artillery batteries, despite being hard pressed on THREE fronts.
and if we compare the achievements of both armies, then we have for ww1 Italy: - years of stalemate, then some small land gains in south Tyrolia - conquering, then losing, most of Albania - Senussi movement in Lybia, but mostly put down by Britain but for ww2 italy: - conquering AND keeping Albania (they have already won the contest) - conquering then losing French Alpes - attacking then losing against Egypt - (with German help) initially sucessfully invading Egypt but ultimately forced to retreat - attacking then losing against Yugoslavia - attacking then losing against Greece, being invaded by Greece in Albania but eventually conquering both countries with help of Germany, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria - losing both major African colonies after stiff ressistance as you can see, the list and achievemnts for ww2 Italy is much longer, thus ww2 Italy was better than ww1 Italy. |
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Mumbloid
Knight
Joined: 04-Jun-2007 Location: Denmark Online Status: Offline Posts: 97 |
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Posted: 03-Sep-2007 at 11:58 |
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First, let me say, the post you are answering to, is not mine but my elder brother, who were surfing on the web with MINE computer. I told him to open his own account if he want to partecipate on this forum (as you can see my English is not so good as my brother Martin.)
But enough of this, back to the topik.
Temujin, what you said wrong was the statement the italian army in WWI were worser than the WWII army. Witch is not true.
In WWII the Italians hardly did any progress alone, witch was not true in WWI. In the great war, the italians even managed to send contingent to France and Macedonia, a guarrison in Libanon and a contingent (a brigade) was in training for the invasion of Turkey .
In WWII the italians got defeated virtually everywere, in WWI they got a heavy smack, but they got back to their feet and knocked down the Austrians with a heavy blow first at mount Grappa and then at Vittorio Veneto (and before Caporetto, they got even a minor victory at the gorizia line, something unthinkable in WWII).
The Austrians (the so powerfull Austrian army) was forced to ask aid to the Germans to fight the italians. So I can postulate the royal italian army in WWI was not THAT underdog as somebody wants us to belive.
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Posted: 03-Sep-2007 at 00:16 |
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The tragic point on that is that the Spanish inventor Isaac Peral presented the most advanced submarine of the time to the Spanish crown. It carried modern torpedos and was ahead its time. It passed the test but was not put into production. I wonder what would had happened if the spanish navy had pushed ahead the project. Isaac Peral (Cartagena, June 1, 1851 May 22, 1895, Berlin), was a Spanish scientist, sailor and inventor of the Peral Submarine (built 1884, launched 1888). Intended for military use, this submarine pioneered new designs in the hull, control systems and air systems, proving a success in two years of trials. Its proven ability to fire torpedoes under water and maintain full propulsive power and control underwater has led it to being described by some as the first U-boat.
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Slick
Knight
Joined: 16-Jan-2007 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 93 |
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Posted: 02-Sep-2007 at 23:51 |
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I'd say the Spanish army in Cuba during the Spanish/American war was pretty bad.
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"Dai Ichi Dai Man Dai Kichi"
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Kapikulu
Arch Duke 
Retired AE Moderator Joined: 07-Aug-2004 Location: Berlin Online Status: Offline Posts: 1914 |
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Posted: 02-Sep-2007 at 21:31 |
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Official date of annexation is 1908, to be exactly correct
Do not forget that the defending side always has the upperhand sitting down at their positions and waiting for other army's positioning and strike. Due to concentration of armies to Russian front, it was impossible for Austria-Hungary to overrun Serbia so easily. After Italy joined, it was even more impossible, but only German aid and Bulgarian intervention made it possible. Though, I believe Austro-Hungarian war effort was quite great in 1915. They fought in 3 fronts and managed to keep tight in all.
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We gave up your happiness
Your hope would be enough; we couldn't find neither; we made up sorrows for ourselves; we couldn't be consoled; A Strange Orhan Veli |
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Kapikulu
Arch Duke
Retired AE Moderator Joined: 07-Aug-2004 Location: Berlin Online Status: Offline Posts: 1914 |
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Posted: 02-Sep-2007 at 21:24 |
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True that it was not a huge war and not really more than "skirmishes" overall.
However;
1- The Italian Navy's supremacy against Turkish navy shall not really be a surprise. Turkish Navy was once better-equipped during the time of Abdulaziz, however it lost all its effectivity as Abdulhamid II did not make ANY investments to the navy.
In any case, there was no significant Ottoman naval power to stop any Italian assault or supremacy. Even if there were some navy to block or at least slow down the things, Ottoman navy was on the Aegean Sea when the war began.
Italy was closer to Libya than Ottoman Empire(keep in mind that Egypt was under British control, and they were in favor of Italy getting Libya). Italy was able to bring in supplies easily, while Libya was a real distant supply area for the Ottoman Empire and all the seas around was blockaded.
Though, Turkish navy retreated inside the Straits to Marmara Sea and never showed up against the Italian navy. Actually they never showed up because they were overpowered. Italian navy attempted to move towards the straits, though backed up under heavy coastal artillery fire. After this, they were free to run over Dodecanese as there wasn't any naval challenge.
All the damage Italian have given was sinking 7 gambots in Port of Confide by getting the intelligence from Idris-i Sanusi that they arrived there, and 1 corvete and 1 torpedo boat sunk in Admiral Thaon di Revel's strike to originally open free port of Beirut.
2- Italian gain of Dodecanese Islands was only agreed as a temporary gain in Treaty of Ouchy. However Italians just kept the control and after the WW I, it became a permament gain; for a while.
3- Despite the gains at the end, in terms of military warfare in the land(not in the seas, where Italians definitely got a decisive victory) I don't think this 13-month war was a victory for Italy. Italian army never managed to pass beyond the artillery fire range of their ships. A lot of inaccurate shots were made to the land by the navy and some of them even didn't explode and they were used by Ottoman forces(which included a lot of people from local tribes, organized by Ottoman officers) as their source for ammonution. That was how they were able to keep up with their limited ammo supply. No help was coming from Ottoman mainland to them. And Ottomans stood still in land against Italian forces, which really hardly showed any progress. The only reason Ottoman Empire eventually gave up and signed the Treaty of Ouchy was the beginning of the Balkan Wars. Otherwise, I believe that war would have gone on since the Ottoman troops were totally out of ammo. But thanks to Italian navy sending a lot of them into the mainland from the ships without accuracy and explosion, the source was created
4- Your casualty figures are Wikipedia figures. They might be true, however I assume this 14,000 figure for Ottomans include civilian losses. Because the number of Ottoman garrison and officers was really small.
5- Also true that this war has brought a lot of new stuff into military aviation. It was the first war in world where air bombardment and air reconnaissance(photographing) was used and first military airplane was shot down.
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We gave up your happiness
Your hope would be enough; we couldn't find neither; we made up sorrows for ourselves; we couldn't be consoled; A Strange Orhan Veli |
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Al Jassas
Arch Duke
Joined: 07-Aug-2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1810 |
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Posted: 02-Sep-2007 at 15:02 |
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Remember Leonardo, most of the dead cited by Wikipedia (whcih is not a serious source) were either Arab irregulars allied with the turks that were executed after the Italians formally annexed Libya almost a year before the war ended and the conquest completed (it wasn't completed until the summer of 1912) or were civilians who lost life during the bombardment of costal cities as well as Islands. If the fighting was just a skirmish then why the hell did Italy raise the number of its soldiers from 20 000 men (the invading force) to over 100 000 men after the successful counterattack of Oct 23 1911. The turks never had more than 1 regular division in the war.
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Leonardo
General 
Joined: 13-Jan-2006 Location: Italy Online Status: Offline Posts: 778 |
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Posted: 02-Sep-2007 at 12:57 |
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It seems to me you didn't read with due attention my preceding post. For your benefit I repeat some points:
1. The war on the Libyan soil was little more than a series of skirmishes. The proof of this, if you are not convinced, is in the littlle number of the deads ( < 18.000) for the two parts.
2. Even considering the not huge number of deads in the war, the Turks had more than 4 times deads than the Italians: 14,000 versus 3,380.
3. Italy won the war and gained lots of territories from Ottoman Empire (or from Turkey, as you prefer).
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Al Jassas
Arch Duke
Joined: 07-Aug-2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1810 |
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Posted: 02-Sep-2007 at 12:11 |
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Hello to you all
Well, Sarmat, after returning to the maps I found that the region below the Kuban (which by then considered part of Asia) was still considerable in size since the entire Abkhaz region as well as the steppe above it in the present day Cherkessia, adygea and the lower half of Krasnodar was still under Ottoman rule and that is a considerable area. One of the repercussions of this treaty, which was a remnant of the 1784 treaty, was the complete Islamization of the peoples of these places (except the Alans).
As for our friend leonardo, well, this thread is about the worst armies and I already made it clear in several posts. About the defeats of the Italo-Turkish wars that the Italinas suffered,well, in addition to the first battle, Benghazi repulsed attacks by the Italians. Then they were defeated near Tripoly on Oct 23 1911 by Arabs who only had Winchesters and Martinis. After the defeat, 100 000 more men were sent and the "walk" turned into a bitter 13 month war that only ended when the Balkan Holy league attacked the Ottomans forcing them to abandon any thought of regaining Libya. As for the Turkish navy, the turks ceased to have a real one since Navarino or even before.
By the way, why aren't any of our turkish friends comment about the issue?
Al-Jassas
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) Italians had 3,380 dead 4,220 wounded and Turks 14,000 dead 5,370 wounded.|
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