Biggest military blunder ever.

[rommelrommel]

... my point was they would have been able to *attack* moscow, much the same as they were able to *attack* stalingrad. but it wouldn't have fallen like you think. you'd just shift what happened at stalingrad over to moscow.

if theres a benefit to attacking moscow, it'd be in sacking the kremlin and the potential disruption that'd cause in russian ranks. but i'm sure russia had fallback command centers. overall, the oil in stalingrad area is worth more to an army.

The Russians were essentially ready to lose Moscow, there would have been no Stalingrad-esque stand there. Anything that could be moved had been moved.

It may not have been fatal, but anything would have been better than driving on all three fronts (Leningrad/Moscow/Stalingrad) and not really succeeding on any of them decisively.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Napoleon's attack on Russia probably takes the cake. Hitler's attempt was horrible too, and I'd give an honorary mention to the sinking of the Lusitania in WW I. The USA did not feel like entering the war at all, and was basically sitting it out. Until a German sub torpedoed a passenger ship containing lots of US civilians, switching the public opinion so much that the government had no choice but to declare war on Germany.

 

[grrl]

Not the biggest in history, but it was a major error for Churchill to assist Greece in 1940. He pulled British troops from North Africa when they were very close to finishing off the Italians there. If he had concentrated on more immediate needs, the rest of the N African campaign could have been averted.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

It's kind of bizarre because it's like Hitler just forgot what made things work in France. Speed and focus. Of course, he also let the Dunkirk escape happen, which was a huge boost to the Allies. That's another massive blunder, ordering the halting of the advance there.

Hitler saw Socialists as 'Untermenschen', just like Jews, gays, handicapped, gypsies, etc. He felt so superior that he simply could not imagine anything going wrong. Many wars have failed or dragged out much longer than expected based on underestimating opponents and not learning from past campaigns against them. Whether it's attacks on Russia or attacking Afghanistan for example. How many US politicians thought that the war in Afghanistan would still be going on over 10 years later? They could have learned from the USSR trying to take control of the country, but many thought that with the superior force of the US army the war against Al Qaida and the Taliban would be over in a matter of days or weeks at most.

Underestimating your opponent and not learning from what went wrong for others is one of the biggest mistakes made in wars.

 

[SagaLore]

The Sepoy Rebellion.

 

[postmortemIA]

How about December 11, 1941:

"It has often been said that Hitler's greatest mistakes were his decisions to go to war against the Soviet Union and the United States . Whatever the truth may be, it's worth noting his own detailed justifications for these fateful decisions. On Thursday afternoon, December 11, 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler spoke to the Reichstag in Berlin. The 88-minute address, which he had written himself, was broadcast to the nation. In it the German leader recounted the reasons for the outbreak of war in September 1939, explained why he decided to strike against the Soviet Union in June 1941, reviewed the dramatic course of the war thus far, and dealt at length with President Franklin Roosevelt's hostile policies toward Germany. Hitler detailed the increasingly belligerent actions of Roosevelt's government, and then dramatically announced that Germany was now joining Japan in war against the United States."



http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p389_Hitler.html

Very good read - thanks for the link.