Most Epic Self-Defeats In Military History

They Didn't Need an Enemy. They Had Themselves. In 1788, one hundred thousand Austrian soldiers defeated themselves in the dark. No enemy fired a single shot. They heard a shout, panicked, shot each other, and left ten thousand casualties on a battlefield the Ottomans simply walked onto the next morning. That's not even the most embarrassing one. Today: four armies, four centuries, four ways to lose a war without the enemy's help. An entire army defeated by schnapps and darkness. An emperor who marched back to power and then immediately threw it away. The most effective Confederate general, shot by his own troops after his greatest victory. And an admiral who sailed into a battle he knew he would lose because he was more afraid of his own emperor than of the Royal Navy. The enemy didn't beat these people. They beat themselves. Sources: Ramsay Weston Phipps, "The Armies of the First French Republic" (1926) James McPherson, "Battle Cry of Freedom" (1988) Andrew Roberts, "Napoleon: A Life" (2014) Robert Harvey, "The War of Wars" (2006) John Keegan, "The Face of Battle" (1976) #MilitaryHistory #HistoryFails #AnimatedHistory