A bit underwhelming, imo.
After their allies retreated in disarray, the Filipinos—numbering a mere 900— found themselves surrounded on all sides by 40,000 enemy soldiers. Yet they stood their ground and repulsed wave after wave of enemy assaults which continued well throughout the night.
The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement fought by the British Royal Navy against the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies, during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1796–1815).[3]
Twenty-seven British ships of the line led by Admiral Lord Nelson aboard HMS Victory defeated thirty-three French and Spanish ships of the line under the French Admiral Villeneuve in the Atlantic Ocean off the southwest coast of Spain, just west of Cape Trafalgar, near the town of Los Caños de Meca. The Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two ships, without a single British vessel being lost. It was the most decisive naval battle of the war.
The British victory spectacularly confirmed the naval supremacy that Britain had established during the eighteenth century and was achieved in part through Nelson's departure from the prevailing naval tactical orthodoxy.[4] Conventional practice, at the time, was to engage an enemy fleet in a single line of battle parallel to the enemy, to facilitate signalling in battle and disengagement, and to maximise fields of fire and target areas. Nelson instead divided his smaller force into two columns directed perpendicularly against the enemy fleet, with decisive results.
During the battle, Nelson was shot by a French musketeer; he died shortly thereafter, becoming one of Britain's greatest war heroes. Villeneuve was captured along with his ship Bucentaure. Admiral Federico Gravina, the senior Spanish flag officer, escaped with the remnant of the fleet and succumbed months later to wounds sustained during the battle. Villeneuve attended Nelson's funeral while a captive on parole in Britain.
Credit to Lord Nelson, but I read that it was just a series of unfortunate events for the Spanish Armada towards and during the battle. Maybe they're just trying to discredit the Brits, like some salty mma fighter who got ktfo and saying he can beat his opponent 9/10.I like reading about famous naval battles. Being British I guess the Battle of Trafalgar's gotta be my fav
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar
They lost but their sacrifice bought time for the rest of the Greeks
It's funny how in the "Braveheart" movie they portrayed Robert the Bruce as pussy, the guy was a serious badass and deserved better than he was portrayed in that movie.View attachment 382073
Bannockburn, 1314. 3,000 Scots defeated around 15,000 English in the decisive battle of the Scottish Wars of Independence.
The Scottish King, Robert de Bruce, was challenged to single combat on the first day of the battle by Sir Henry de Bohun. Bruce was riding an unarmoured horse, wearing chain mail and carried only a small axe. Bohun was riding a war horse, wore full plate armour and carried a lance. Bruce avoided his charge and killed Bohun with a single blow of his axe so powerful it split his helm, skull and face. And snapped the axe shaft.
The English heavy cavalry were unable to break the Scottish infantry, and suffered heavy losses. According to legend, a small group of Knights Templar had pledged to fight for Bruce in return for his protection from the Pope, who had outlawed the Order, and mounted a charge that broke the English cavalry. Most historians however agree that this was almost certainly propaganda started by the English themselves to excuse their defeat to a Scots army they outnumbered almost 5 to 1.
The English heavy cavalry tried to retreat, and trampled many of their own infantry. The retreat quickly became a rout, and then a massacre. Hundreds of English soldiers were dragged down by their armour and drowned trying to forge the Bannockburn itself. After the battle, a man could walk across the Burn using the corpses of Englishmen as a bridge.
Neither side kept an accurate record of infantry casualties. Only knights were considered important. The Scots lost two knights in the battle. The English? A Monk who was present at the battle recorded,
Two hundred pairs of spurs all red,
Were taken from the knight there dead.
It's funny how in the "Braveheart" movie they portrayed Robert the Bruce as pussy, the guy was a serious badass and deserved better than he was portrayed in that movie.
Imagine the look on the face of the Moore that opened that box. I'd be "what the hell?!?! Did this guy really just thrown mummified body parts at me?"Agreed. But then Braveheart was about as historically accurate as 300
Oh, and the term brave heart itself was taken from Bruce. On his deathbed, he made his greatest Knight, Sir James,"the Black"Douglas promise to take his heart on Crusade. Douglas wore Bruce's heart in a small casket around his neck while fighting against the Moors in Spain. In his last battle, Douglas was cut off from the other Scottish knights, and threw the casket at the Moors, shouting,
"Lead on, Brave Heart. And where thou leads, a Douglas follows!"