Here's a chance to ratchet down the nation bashing by having an experiment in humility and learning from past mistakes.

Now there is only 1 rule here, YOU CAN ONLY DISCUSS YOUR OWN COUNTRY IN THIS THREAD.

Now for the question, what do you think is the worst moment in your country's millitary history?



For me I'd have to think about this one, but I think the bloodbath 'morale building' battles of Korea are right up there. The theory was that if the soldiers wern't fighting they'd lose moralle so the generalls would send them into pointless bloodbath battles like Porkchop hill just to supposedly maintan moralle at the cost of thousands of American dead.

For the UK I'd have to say the senseless WW1 British tactics of 'over the top' in the trenches of Flanders and France. The shameful waste of the 'flower of a nation' was truly insane, ordered by men in cosy, warm bunkers and buildings far from the front lines who saw soldiers as mere pawns to be gambled away. The British Army of this period was often quoted as "Lions led by Donkeys".

How apt and how true.

For Canada, I'd say arguably the disastrous raid at Dieppe.

http://users.pandora.be/dave.depickere/Text/dieppe.html

For my "other" country, Newfoundland (independent until 1949, when Canada joined it), it would be the same as Doppelganger's reply, as the Newfoundlanders were attached to the British. In Newfoundland's case, the two most pointed examples would be Gallipoli and Beaumont Hamel (the Somme offensive).

serbs will never forget kosovo battle 1389 and marica river battle 1371 against turks. if we were just united, as we were brave we would keep turks out of europe. instead we had 350 years of otoman rule.

Definitely the Dieppe Raid. However...even though it was a massive botch-up, it still gave a base for the Normandy Invasion.

The firing on Ft. Sumter that kicked off the American Civil War. I can't think of any worse time for our nation though it did finally bring about a resolution to many things. Still, the idea of Americans fighting Americans is apalling.

gallipolli (both the best and worst battle in our history)

but for alot of people our inaction during the indonesian invasion of east timor ranks pretty high

Bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beruit.

My ancestor's country of origin CHINA. The Opium War of 1839-1842. China despite having a million man army lost to Great Britain. We had cannons, but no guns. The British Warships were too strong. In the end, China had to pay $6 million taels of silver and give up Hong Kong. This was more embrassing than the Sino-Japanese War.

For my country it was the Sino-India war. Political inaptitute was what caused a defeat.