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Announcements Mar 30, 2026 at 6:51 AM

Historians of Listnook, what event is widely taught as a heroic victory but was actually a complete disaster covered up by good PR?

Posted by HomeworkLoose4091

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Avon_gent Mar 30, 2026 +47
The Alamo - it didn't really serve any useful tactical or strategic role, and I'd question whether "remember the Alamo" was really needed as additional motivation for the Texians at that point.
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Ampallang80 Mar 30, 2026 +19
That’s exactly how it was taught in my Texas school. They were actually told to abandon it and disobeyed orders.
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Peeterwetwipe Mar 30, 2026 +13
When I saw the film I was confused as it didn’t make any sense. I thought I had missed some major plot point. So I read the Wikipedia and other history pages on the internet. Turns out, it didn’t make any sense at all.
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xRowdeyx Mar 30, 2026 +21
It is also the fact that the Texans were fighting for Slavery and going against Mexican laws
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jedrekk Mar 30, 2026 +1
The 1944 Warsaw Uprising in Warsaw, Poland. Taught as a moral victory to the point that in a 2010s poll of middle school students, over 50% believed the Polish side won. In reality, it lead to 1/4 of Warsaw's population killed and 97% of the city's western half razed to the ground.
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Specific-Delivery-31 Mar 30, 2026 +49
the charge of the light brigade comes to mind - taught as this brave cavalry charge but it was basically a massive communication fuckup that got 600 men killed for absolutely nothing 💀 just good old fashioned military incompetence dressed up as heroism later on 😂
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Flocculencio Mar 30, 2026 +18
Having said that even at the time it was reported as a heroic act that was caused by incompetent commanders. There was quite a bit of recrimination in the papers about it IIRC. Also there weren't 600 casualties but around 270 killed and wounded. Something that close to 50% casualties is a horrendous enough fuckup.
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ueegul Mar 30, 2026 +10
I learned about the charge of the Light Brigade through the poem, and that makes it clear it was a horrible mistake. It can also still be heroic, because those men went to their deaths knowing they were probably going to die, but went because they'd been ordered. The incompetence was from their commanders, not the troops charging.
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HomeworkLoose4091 Mar 30, 2026 +3
DUDE, that shit was fucknig messed up!
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AdAffectionate2418 Mar 30, 2026 +1
I've never heard it described as anything other than an awful blunder and horrific loss of life. You must have had history teacher full of *Dulce et Decorum est* - was WW1 taught as a jolly exeat?
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Wonderful_Discount59 Mar 30, 2026 +1
_C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c'est de la folie_ ("It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness"). - General Pierre Bosquet
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LittleKitty235 Mar 30, 2026 -1
Only 600? I thought it was a lot more
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icwiener25 Mar 30, 2026 +7
The strength of the entire Light Brigade that made the charge was 600+ men. They suffered about 120 killed, a similar number wounded, and 60 captured. So the unit lost just under 50% of its strength as casualties, along with over half its horses. Which is terrible enough, but certainly not 600 dead, and the brigade was far from being wiped out.
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Flocculencio Mar 30, 2026 +2
110 killed, 161 wounded.
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DisciplineProper9441 Mar 30, 2026 +9
one that comes to mind is the charge of the light brigade in the crimean war. taught as this brave, valiant act, but it was a total mess and resulted in heavy losses for the cavalry. the narrative really glosses over how disastrous it actually was.
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Redditing_aimlessly Mar 30, 2026 +22
The USA and how they view the Vietnam War. Not that it was spectacularly good PR, per se, but the number of people from the USA who don't know that they....y'know....lost?
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njsullyalex Mar 30, 2026 +23
Allied strategic bombings of Europe in WWII. Taught as destroying critical German infrastructure, in reality the bombings tended to be very inaccurate and just ended up killing thousands of civilians on the ground while German air defenses would make mincemeat of the U.S. and British bombers resulting in horrific loss rates for bomber crews.
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Avon_gent Mar 30, 2026 +16
IIRC most armaments production of the Wehrmacht peaked in 1944 - long after the bombing campaign has begun. The impact on oil production and refining was probably more important given the chronic fuel shortages they suffered. 
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firelock_ny Mar 30, 2026 +14
>IIRC most armaments production of the Wehrmacht peaked in 1944 - long after the bombing campaign has begun. Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production, struggled to get the German economy fully into wartime production mode even late in the war. In his memoir *Inside the Third Reich* he claimed that he started relying on Allied bombing to do the job for him. A city would be devastated, and he'd rebuild just the armaments factories rather than the beer gardens, cinemas, or factories making civilian goods.
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FatTater420 Mar 30, 2026 +4
That, and to a lesser extent turning the bombers into bait for the Luftwaffe to fight Allied fighters with the intention to attrit its limited pilot corps, especially the experienced core.
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ZedekiahCromwell Mar 30, 2026 +1
Yeah, this was a massive element of the strategy. Bombing sorties were seen as both a way to harm production and force Luftwaffe planes away from the front and force Germany to allocate resources to protection of its interior. >General Carl Spaatz had been insistent—and correct. The enemy would fight for oil, and the enemy would lose his fighters, his crews, and his fuel. USAF historian Herman S. Wolk, June 1974
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AccurateLaugh50 Mar 30, 2026 +3
The production peaked because Germany became fully mobilized and don't forget about the slave labors in conquered territory.
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ActivePeace33 Mar 30, 2026 +3
You are correct. Fighter production kept increasing until the big drop off at the end. Bomber Harris said we won’t know how well it works until we try it. We tried it and it failed in its objectives.
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Avon_gent Mar 30, 2026 +10
The only counterfactual here of course is what production would have looked like without the bombing campaign. Very hard to say.
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Bicentennial_Douche Mar 30, 2026 +7
And there's also the fact that because of the bombing, Germany invested heavily on AA-defences and interceptors. Those resources could have been spent on something else instead.
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firelock_ny Mar 30, 2026 +8
The best counter for massed Soviet armored columns over the long distances of the Russian steppes was medium aircraft in the fighter-bomber role. Nazi Germany had the technology and tactics to do this very well, and every German commander on the Eastern front was begging high command for more strike aircraft. Due to the Allied strategic bombing campaign almost every one of these medium aircraft was fighting and dying over Germany in the bomber destroyer role instead.
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ActivePeace33 Mar 30, 2026 +3
Which is by itself only a minor issue. The delta between the production form bombed facilities, to the bomb proof facilities, was minor. Likely single digit percentage points. Certainly not 50% or anything significant. What is known for a fact is that the delta in the relative lack of tactical support cost lives of troops and would have prevented more civilian loses. Tactical support was highly effective at isolating a given battle space, denying reinforcements access to their sister units being attacked by us, disrupting tactical logistical operations behind the lines and harassing the enemy troops on the roads etc. Strategic bombing has never worked to win a war.
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Avon_gent Mar 30, 2026 +1
Gulf War 1 they basically crippled the Iraqi army before a boot ever set foot in Iraq. Though that might be classed as mass tactical actions for a strategic purpose. 
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Badaxe13 Mar 30, 2026 +3
Today of course, bombing civilians is seen as a bad thing.
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ZedekiahCromwell Mar 30, 2026 +1
It was seen as a bad thing, too, back then (generally). It was just also seen as necessary. For instance, the UK did not have a medal for service in Bomber Command for literally decades, as the feeling was that strategic bombing should not be honored and commemorated.
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FeatherShard Mar 30, 2026 +1
Well, in civilized countries it is. Some places bomb schoolgirls and don't even care.
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LittleKitty235 Mar 30, 2026 +4
Which is why the Allies switched to night bombings. The fact that German civilians would be killed as well was no mistake, they were viewed as contributing to the war effort and thus a fair target. That is what total war looks like. The killing of German civilians was likely viewed as a success
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Bicentennial_Douche Mar 30, 2026 +9
"Which is why the Allies switched to night bombings. " The British did, USA did daylight bombing of Germany all through the war. British thought American were insane to do daylight bombing.
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LittleKitty235 Mar 30, 2026 +8
We are raising the mission count Yossarian.
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ZedekiahCromwell Mar 30, 2026 +1
Yeah, the US bomber doctrine pre- war and during the conflict was precision bombing. The bomb sight developed for the B24 and B17, the Norden bomb sight, was cutting edge (for the time), and the thought was that daylight would allow them to deliver payload on precise industrial targets. Of course, this falls apart when a "hit" in the precise sense (in the 40s) is anywhere within 1000 feet of the target, and bombers are attacking as massive formations covering large amounts of airspace.  However, even with those issues and the demonstrated struggles to execute precision bombing, Allied command was committed to round the clock bombing with the idea that it would stress the German defenses and workforce to have to prepare for attacks 24 hours a day.
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SensitivePotato44 Mar 30, 2026 +1
1000 feet is good. In the early part of the war, bomber commands average bombing error was measured in miles.
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ZedekiahCromwell Mar 30, 2026 +1
Relatively good, yes. But when your target is an industrial facility that needs to be significantly destroyed for production to be meaningfully impacted, it does not lead to success.
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Cooldude101013 Mar 30, 2026 +3
Yes, total war specifically involves putting an entire society towards making war and supporting it. It makes civilians into legitimate military targets. Killing factory workers meant less workers producing weapons and other supplies.
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kd8qdz Mar 30, 2026 +1
The "Allies" did not switch to night bombing. The British had been doing it basically from the start, and the Americans never did much of it.
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eques_99 Mar 30, 2026 +8
Thermopylae (as per the film 300) - represented for centuries as Xerxes being "humiliated" by the Greeks. In fact it was more like a tough military problem which he successfully solved, and then ,er, won.
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brechbillc1 Mar 30, 2026 +1
Also the fact that they tend to gloss over other Greeks being there as well. Leonidas and his 300 were absolutely part of it, but the had an additional force of some 10,000 Greeks holding the pass. When it became clear to Leonidas that the Persians had found a way around, he sent the other Greeks home to warn their respective leaders that the pass had fallen and that the Persians would be making their way into the countryside.
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7952 Mar 30, 2026 +1
Falklands war.  A lack of defence allowed Argentina to attack.  The subsequent war was a very close call that put British Troops at huge risk from a second rate power.  The subsequent victory was a PR victory for the British government.  
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SteadfastEnd Mar 30, 2026 +1
The Tet Offensive. It was actually a calamitous defeat for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. But the American media spun it into a victory for the Viet Cong, which then eventually led the USA to pull out of Vietnam.
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Lvcivs2311 Mar 30, 2026 +3
Vietnam War? Well... There is a surprising amount of people that still claim it as a glorious victory for the USA. Actually, the original goal was preventing South Vietnam from becoming communist, for which the USA was fighting the Vietcong. The Vietcong were never beaten. North Vietnam was, in a sense, but only in the sense that after Nixon took over, he bombed the hell out of them, forcing them to the negotiations table. Nixon did this so that it seemed an "honourable peace" instead of admitting that the Americans had been fighting a hopeless war against an invisible and therefore unbeatable enemy for years. But as soon as the Americans pulled out, their allies in the South new their cause was lost and that it was a matter of time before North Vietnam would invade them. Calling that war an American victory is a clear case of stubborn refusal to accept the facts.
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keonyn Mar 30, 2026 +4
Even some of those that recognize it was a loss refuse to accept the situation at the time of that loss. Back in the 2000s I worked with a guy who was a Vietnam vet, and his cube was plastered with all kinds of rhetoric, one of which was a big sign that was a collage of photos from the war, plastered with "We Were Winning When We Left" on it in big, bold, white letters. He simply still refused to accept what the situation really was.
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ActivePeace33 Mar 30, 2026 +2
It was a massive loss for us. The viet cong were not seen as reliable communists by Le Duan (many were just local freedom fighters from the South) and put into the Tet offensive to be used up. Le Duan used the US to destroy the h reliables for him. The VC were destroyed and never formed a viable fighting force after that. The PAVN’s other assets took over from there. The honorable peace was only cover to let Nixon save face and leave, then the PAVN just walked into the South, continued the fight after the US withdrawal and SVN crumbled.
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SteadfastEnd Mar 30, 2026 +1
In a weird sense, in the long run, America actually did end up with a happy ending. The Vietnamese pretty soon had to pivot towards a USA-friendly stance because the threat posed by China was huge, and today Vietnam is actually one of the most pro-USA nations in Asia.
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brechbillc1 Mar 30, 2026 +1
Never seen it framed as a victory by anyone here. Pretty much everyone considers it an embarrassing loss, and that includes several Vietnam vets that I know who fought on the front lines there. The only thing I think could maybe be construed as someone talking about winning that war were the ones that said that politics lost the war, which is true in some degree due to how the US handled negotiations with Vietnam while it was a French colony and who they propped up as the leader in South Vietnam. But I haven’t seen anyone try to claim Vietnam as a victory in any sense.
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Quik_Brown_Fox Mar 30, 2026 +1
The evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk in 1940. The narrative of the “little ships” miraculously coming to the rescue was used to turn a catastrophic defeat into what became known as the defiant Blitz spirit.
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Shadakthehunter Mar 30, 2026
Rorke's drift. The propaganda and amount of Victoria crosses were to try to gloss over a major loss at Isandlwana.
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NotBadSon Mar 30, 2026 -2
Gojo death. He was a fraud.
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