TTC Video - History's Great Military Blunders and the Lessons They Teach

Course No. 3761 | .MP4, AVC, 899 kbps, 856x480 | English, AAC, 150 kbps, 2 Ch | 24x30 mins | + PDF Guidebook | 5.44 GB

Lecturer: Gregory S. Aldrete, Ph.D.

“All battles are in some degree…disasters.” These words by military historian John Keegan are true in that military conflicts inevitably involve death and destruction. Yet despite their tragic cost, many battles are regarded as great triumphs, while others are nearly universally declared blunders. What qualifies such battles for special condemnation—or inquiry, for that matter? Why focus on failure at all?

Perhaps above all else, it is the element of avoidability that makes these catastrophes so worthy of exploration. Military history often highlights success and suggests a sense of inevitability about victory, but there is so much that can be learned from studying failure, particularly when it’s unexpected. From how the arc of history was altered by the outcome of these battles to how such mistakes could have been avoided to how they might be circumvented in the future, there are numerous important lessons to be gleaned. You even consider how the world might be different if these egregious errors had not occurred.

Losing a battle due to being outnumbered, outmatched, or suffering a random misfortune is not enough to be deemed a blunder. For a military defeat to qualify as a true blunder, it must:

be avoidable;

involve a decision or action that common sense, training, or circumstance suggested was unwise, which dramatically altered the outcome for the worse;

involve someone who failed to take an obvious action; and/or

include an element of identifiable blame for the critical mistake.