8 military invasions that failed horribly

John Singleton Copley via Wikimedia Commons

Invasions are risky, costly operations that can cost the aggressor dearly. Here are 8 invasions that may have made some generals wish for a time machine:

1. Napoleon invades Russia

One of history’s finest military minds, Napoleon Bonaparte, broke a strained alliance to invade Russia on his way to India in 1812. Estimates of his army’s size vary between 450,000 and 600,000 men.

The Russian army, numbering only about 200,000, avoided most major battles. Instead, they let disease, weather, and desertion whittle away at the French troops until Napoleon successfully took Moscow Sep. 14. But Moscow had been abandoned and Napoleon was forced to retreat back to France that October with only 20,000 soldiers in fighting shape.

2. The French and Spanish Siege of Gibraltar in 1779

France and Spain attempted to invade England via the English Channel and the Rock of Gibraltar. The English Channel fleet never bothered to attack anything the Gibraltar campaign was an abysmal failure.

Starting in 1779, the Franco-Spanish fleet attacked the Rock of Gibraltar for nearly four years, losing 6,000 lives and 10 ships without taking a bit of ground.

3. Operation Barbarossa

When Nazi Germany sent its finest to conquer Russia in 1941, the plan was a summer invasion that would be complete before the dreaded Russian winter set in or Stalin could call up large numbers of new troops.

But logistical failures and mismanagement slowed the German army’s advance despite a series of battlefield successes. The Soviets capitalized with a series of counterattacks and by raising 200 new divisions, four times what the Germans planned for. The Axis lost nearly a million men of the 4.5 million it sent to Russia and was then stuck in a two-front war.