Vanquished: Crushing Defeats from Ancient Rome to the 21st Century

by Mir Bahmanyar

Throughout time, violent battles and bloody clashes have changed the course of history and shaped nations or empires. Battles of annihilation are rare, but ever since antiquity a stunning victory on the battlefield, even if it has failed to win the war, has captured the imagination of many. The battle of Cannae in 216BC, where Hannibal destroyed an entire Roman army, has become legend, inspiring generations of military thinkers to discuss and imitate this feat. Usually written off as incidents of luck, some argue that it is not possible to completely destroy the enemy, although historic engagements have proved that annihilating the opponent can be achieved, at least on a tactical level. In this book Mir Bahmanyar examines battles of annihilation throughout history, some well known, others less so, but all equally extraordinary, to discover what sets these engagements apart, whether they achieve a decisive strategic advantage in war, and why there are fewer battles of annihilation in modern times.

Genres: History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Ethan S · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an ok book. It's a collection of short overviews of battles through history that were crushing defeats for one side. There's a bit of an attempt to tie it together in the conclusion and pull some lessons out of it, but really it's just a selection of battles, some more interesting than others. It also leans heavily on tactics rather than history. Possibly would be more interesting to someone with a deep love of military tactics but I would have preferred more historical context and fallout, more geographical maps placing the battles in greater context than squad level maps of the battles.

Maybe it just wasn't what I wanted it to be, others might enjoy it more. The author does cover some battles I was unfamiliar with and that's always interesting.

[Michael Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

In most books that are collections of important military engagements, the attention is on the winners -- key battles almost have a clear winner -- and how they got there. This one is different; the focus is on not only the losers, but on those armies and commanders whose loss of a fight was so dramatic and all-encompassing, it changed things completely for the losing side. Some of these, the reader with an interest in military history will have heard of before: Cannae, where the outnumbered Hannibal completely destroyed the Roman Republic’s war machine. And Adrianople, where the underrated Gothic army creamed Emperor Valen’s legions, setting the stage firmly for the (eventually) complete replacement of the Roman world by the Germanic one. And Nördlingen, where the Catholic forces crushed the Protestant armies, putting the Church back in control of Europe for several more generations and establishing France as the preeminent power on the Continent. But there are several others among Bahmanyar’s selections that seem badly out of place. Neither the Alamo and the Little Big Horn was really a “battle,” in the sense that in neither case was the outcome ever in doubt in the slightest degree. Both were massacres of a tiny group of defenders by overwhelming forces. And neither really had any significant effect on larger events, their propaganda value notwithstanding. Moreover, Qala-i-Jangi, which took place in Afghanistan late in 2001, and which most people haven’t even heard of (or have completely forgotten), was essentially a riot among foreign POWs against a small number of arrogantly misguided U.S. Special Forces. (I suspect that one’s in here because the author himself, an Iranian educated in Germany and at Berkeley, himself served in a U.S. Ranger regiment.) Even with these misgivings, I have to say that his treatment of at least the earlier engagements is generally well done. When he gets to the modern period, however, some of his own biases begin to show. In his treatment of Operation Dingo during the war of independence in Zimbabwe in 1976, for instance, the European colonial forces are always described as “Rhodesians” and their mercenary allies are regarded as heroic, while all African troops -- especially those under Mugabe -- are labeled “terrorists.” A similar tendency to take sides for the Europeans and against the non-Whites appears throughout the articles on Isandlwana (in the Zulu wars), and the one on Qala-i-Jangi. If he could have controlled his apparent prejudices, this could have been a far better book.

[jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A study of “battles of annihilation” where one army crushes another, offers intriguing potential for comparative analysis. Are there commonalities between the victorious forces? What about the defeated? Sadly, Mir Bahmanyar’s “Vanquished” while a handsome volume, isn’t that book. Bahmanyar offers a series of case studies, without any serious effort to forge a thesis or common understanding of these events.

As for the case studies, each includes maps, descriptions of the particular milieu, generals, and order of battle, all in a handsome oversized volume. Some much examined battles like Hannibal’s victory at Cannae can be forgiven for their inclusion as iconic. Others are pleasant surprises, like Tannenburg. Yet some choices defy understanding: Carthage’s much outclassed force loosing at Zama, 250 Texans falling to 2,000 Mexicans at the Alamo, or the massacre of Chechens at Grozny, the latter two hardly battles at all. Bahmanyar strangely neglects important candidates for inclusion that would have had much to teach, such as German 6th Army’s destruction at Stalingrad or Egypt’s defeat in ’67.

While there is nothing exactly wrong with this work, its lack of insight and thoughtful analysis unfortunately prevent it from living up to its full potential.

[E.R. Yatscoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting read on battles won and lost.