What is the greatest underdog battle in history?

Question

Thermapolye? Agincourt? Watling Street? Conquest of Mexico? Allesium?

Answer 1

OOOh what a great question. I would have to say Agincourt. Sure Thermopylae was great but the Spartans didn't really win that battle. Not only that the '1 million Persians' is probably an exaggeration. At Agincourt, the English kicked some serious French tale for being outnumbered 3 to 1.

Answer 2

Dunkirk WW2

The Germans let 350,000 men return to Britain in small ships because they thought we were a defeated nation that would never recover and would be a walkover for Hitler to invade.

The rest of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had been killed or captured.

How wrong could anyone be? This was the basis for the Army after a very long struggle both at home (strict food/fuel rationing, the Blitzkrieg and on battlfields), that would eventually take on Germany and beat them.

When the US entered the War Dec 1941, it made things a bit easier as we were no longer fighting the Germany on our own.

Answer 3

Just a few for consideration

The painfully small, dysentry-laden English army who thumped the French at Harfleur and Agincourt against odds of 3 to 1. (1415)

Rorke's Drift where 150 British troops successfully defended a hospital/missionary outpost against 4,000 well armed Zulu warriors. The most Victoria Crosses in one engagement were awarded here, 11. (1879)

The Battle of Britain in which the vastly superior Luftwaffe got it's face slapped by the more determined RAF who had to fight without any spare pilots on a scale of over 2 to 1 whilst Britain stood alone against the might of Nazi Germany. (1940)

The Kokoda Trail where 480 raw Australian troops, pretty much in their late teens or early twenties, fought off 2,500 front line Japanese troops in New Guinea with nothing but Bren light machine guns whilst the Japanese had mortars, infantry support guns, heavy machine guns and mountain guns. Plus the joy of jungle warfare to deal with. This prevented the invasion of Australia. (1942)

Battle of Kohimar or more precisely what was known as The Battle of the Tennis Courts where a few small regiments of British and Indian troops held off the might of the Japanese Army at what quite literally was a tennis court with ground being lost and retaken over a period of 3 weeks with a final retreat from the Japanese leaving behind thousands of their dead. (1944)

Answer 4

The Exodus, The Cinco De Mayo battle (France vs. Mexico), The American Revolution, WW2 when the first years (Didn't look too good for the Brits)

When saying underdog I hope you mean the winners were the expected loser, right?

Answer 5

Lemme see the candidates:

-Thermapolye....5000 vs about 300,000 (tops)
-Agincourt 3 to 1 odds
-Alamo: 180 vs 4,000
-Chosin Reservoir: 25,000 of 1st Marine Division who faced the 120,000 Chinese
-Wake Island, where a Marine battalion kept the Japanese Navy at bay.
-Cassino, where German paratroopers changed the course of the Italian Campaign in WWII by warding off the entire Allied 5th Army.
-Roarke's Drift, where a small British detachment valiantly held off thousands of Zulus
-British regiments that held their positions on Garrison hill during the battle of Kohima, in India, in April, 1944. Their
positions were overwhelmed continuously by waves of Japanese troops, the dead fell in piles on both sides of their hastily dug trenches, but by morning the handful of troops of the Royal West Kents, Royal Berkshires, and Durham Light Infantry had killed thousands of determined Japanese, and the to that point unstoppable advance of the Japanese armies in Southeast Asia came to an end.


My pick:
3rd Battle of Kharkov, where the II SS Panzer Corps beat a Red Army 7 times its size, thus stablizing the sagging front after the debacle at Stalingrad.

Answer 6

The American Revolution comes to mind, considering the English empire was huge, and America was 13 small colonies. The Native Americans, because we came in with superior weapons and pretty much committed genocide on them.

Answer 7

Thermoplae definately. Agincourt was underdog because of weapons whereas leonidas and his 300 spartans/greeks wooped some.

Answer 8

The Alamo definitely comes to mind.

Answer 9

Boston Red Sox...