The Battle of Jutland. The British lost more ships than the Germans, but remained firmly in control of the seas for the rest of WWI.
How about this: If a leap forward in military technology can be considered a tactical victory, then the development by the Germans of the Me163 Komet rocket fighter should count. At 600+ mph it vastly outperformed any other aircraft in WWII, but since it brought down so few Allied planes (7 or 12, depending), it was a huge waste of stratec resources. (The same could be said for the Me262 jet fighter, but to less stark a degree).
Or how about the Kamikazes? They inflicted huge casualties on thre US Navy, but help persuade the US to use the atomic bomb on Japan. Or how about the atomic bomb? Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a “strategic victory” for Japan in that their entire country was not destroyed.
More than the casualties, it made the British very gun shy about prusuing rebel forces later in the war, or to attack even the smallest of fortifications without long preperation. This allowed Washington to escape more than once after he lost a battle where a more vigorous pursuit might well have ended the Rebellion.
The only assualts on American forts after Breed’s Hill were done by Hessian troops (Fort Washington, Fort Mercer). This despite the fact that Breed’s Hill was only lightly fortified.
I’m not sure this counts as a strategic disaster for the Germans, since the result of Jutland basically confirmed the status quo - that the Germans would not be able to use their surface forces to lure the British into destruction and ease the blockade of German ports.
Jutland could be viewed as a disaster if seen as a significant factor in the German decision to promote all-out U-boat war, a major reason for U.S. entry into the war.
However, Valcour Island was not a smashing victory that resulted in defeat. Arnold’s fleet was whittled down to nothing in a running battle, but he probably had no hope of victory and his goal was to do pretty much what he did–inflict sufficient casulties to cause the British to postpone their invasion. Had they tried to take Ticonderoga and the South end of the lake with their remaining forces, they might have lost even more and been overextended for the next round.
On August 30, 1813, the Red Stick faction of Creeks crushed the militia and settlers gathered at Ft. Mims near Mobile, Alabama. The bloody massacre so outraged the citizens of Tennessee and Georgia that they mobilized their militias and (under Andrew Jackson) roundly defeated the warring Creeks, ultimately resulting in the cession of Creek land and removal of the Creeks to Oklahoma.
True. I had a (bad) memory that while their casualties (personnel losses) had been light, they had lost or had had to scuttle more ships than the three gunboats recorded.
Apparently, the actual loss was in the time required to build the fleet and fight the battle, causing them to lose the good early fall marching weather.
Not sure it qualifies as a battle, but Napoleon’s semi-annexation of Spain was commenced with such confidence that he had his brother named as king. (If I need a battle, I’ll use the conquest of Lisbon on December 1, 1807.) The ensuing revolt, supported by Wellington’s troops, developed into a morass which many have argued was what really took Napoleon under. For more info, see here, here, here and here.
As previously posted, it was both a failure for the Vietcong and NVA forces and a tactical success for the US and Allied forces - these two outcomes are not one and the same.
The VC and NVA launched assaults against upto 30 US held cities in South Vietnam - a move that was unprecidented in the asymettric style of war which had preceded it. In the initial 24h, utilising the confusion caused by the sounds of the assault being confused with the Tet fesitival’s fireworks and other celebrations, the VC and NVA forces took many of the targeted cities. The US had not expected an attack during this time due to the defacto ceasefire during the Tet Festival during the previous years. The North Vietnamese hoped that this would be the trigger for a widespread movement among South Vietnamese civilians against US forces, this did not occur on a large scale.
The US got their act together and took all the cities back over the next 24h. There was approx. 100,000 casulaties - 70% VC/NVA, 23% Civilians (South Vietnamese), 5% ARVN (South Vietnamese Army), 2% US. The ratio between US/ARVN casualties and VC/NVA casualties varies between 1:10 and 1:15 between sources.
Int he short term it was a huge tactical victory for the US forces, the VC and NVA were crushed, having put a lot of men and resources into the failed campaign and the US suffered relatively few casualties. However, in the long term there was a huge outcry by the US public. They were under the impression that the VC and NVA forces were unable to mount an attack on this scale and felt decieved by the US military. This lead to disillusion about the war.
I’d say the classic example would be Pearl Harbor. Complete tactical surprise, crushing tactical victory for Japan…and essentially signed the death certificate for Imperial Japan.
Yeh, I’ve got to say that Pearl Harbour is probably the best example. I’m sure there are others which are more so but because of the relative contemporariness (SP?) of the event, I would imagine that would be the most popular one for most people and it was, as you say, a crushing victory which lead to an overwhelming longterm defeat.
I’ve heard it said that the Japanese needed to destroy the US’s aircraft carriers in order for Pearl Harbor to have been succesful for them. They apparently failed in that key ellement to their attack, so I am not sure Pearl Harbor was even a tactical victory. Is there any truth in what I heard?
At the time of Pearl Harbour, the true imprtance of carriers was not fully recognised, and there were plenty in senior positions who still doubted their power.
I don’t even think the Japanese realised just how crucial it was that they never got those carriers, not the full value of it, and in any case, it certainly foced the US into centering thier battle groups around them.
Pearl Harbor isn’t really a good example, though. The victory at Pearl Harbor did not have an unfortunate strategic consequence that led to eventual defeat; Japan’s defeat was written up in the Coral Sea, signed at Midway, and sealed at Guadalcanal.
Jutland isn’t a good example - it was NOT a tactical victory for Germany in any sense that matters; there’s more to victory and defeat than casualties.
I’m also not sure Tet qualifies. It’s true that the VC took terrible casualties, but it wasn’t really a “victory” for the USA; they gained nothing tactically, possessed nothing afterwards that they had not possessed before. The rstrategic esult of the battle was not good, but
That would have happened irrespective of the battle’s result; in effect, the cost came before the battle was decided,
The war did, after all, not end in 1968, and
It is not actually the case that Tet marked a suden shift in American attitudes towards the war.
I think John Mace was wise to link to the definition of “Pyrrhic victory,” e.g. the battled of Heraclea and Asculum. In those cases what you have are situations where the cost of winning the battle is directly related to losing the war.
I think Tet counts as a Pyrrhic victory than a true strategic loss. Strategically, the U.S. lost nothing of import. It gained so much relative to its loss that it can’t be considered a strategic failure. I think political failure (and that’s what happened: the North Vietnamese politically defeated the government). is more what happened.
It has been argued by some ( John Keegan perhaps most prominently ) that there was a measure of strategic defeat for the U.S. even beyond the political. The unexpected heavy fighting in urban areas ended up pulling all of the U.S. divisions not tied to the DMZ and 150 South Vietnamese battalions out of the countryside and into the cities. Subsequent to Tet the U.S./South Vietnam were never able to reestablish the level of control in the rural countryside that they had worked to build up before.
Meanwhile, while the VietCong was permanently crippled by the staggering losses they suffered, the NVA was easily able to rebuild to take up the slack and then some. So long run the strategic situation shifted overall in North Vietnam’s favor even in purely military terms.
Didn’t the “success” at Breeds Hill also make life more difficult for Washington? He wanted a stand-up army, where others thought mere militia could handle the British.
I think Pearl Harbor is an excellent example of what the OP was asking for. It had the most unfortunate strategic consequence of getting the US into the war…something that ultimately destroyed the US. Brilliant tactical victory that ultimately led to strategic defeat and destruction of Imperial Japan.
Coral Sea was a tactical draw for Japan. Midway was a tactical defeat for Japan. So was Guadalcanal. So they don’t really go with the OP at all. I think you are confusing strategic with tactical here. Ultimately bringing the US into the war in the way they did was a disaster for the Japanese.