Fatal Victories

This is a very well written and entertaining book for those who like history, particularly military history. The theme of this book is that sometimes a victory can have ultimately fatal consequences for the victor. This story is told through the military history of 14 events, ranging in time from Hannibal's victory at Cannae in 216 B.C., to the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam in 1968. While different types of fatal victories are discussed, there is unfortunately no summary chapter to tie them all together. Also, some of the fatal consequences occurred long after the victory (in one case centuries), so many factors in addition to the effects of the victory played a role in the ultimately fatal outcome. One type of fatal victory is well understood - that of the pyrrhic victory, where the losses incurred by the victor lead to an ultimate defeat. (While the victory of Pyrrhus at Asculum is mentioned, it did not merit a chapter.) Other types of fatal victories are often not considered as such and indeed some might argue that the ultimate defeat was not due to the "fatal victory" at all. For instance, Weir considered Hannibal's victory at Cannae to be fatal because, contrary to his expectation, the victory did not result in the Roman vassals flocking to him, thereby largely negating the effect of the victory. It could be argued, however, that his ultimate defeat was not the result of this victory but was rather due to the fact that he underestimated the Roman's determination to fight-on to their ultimate victory. Hannibal's mistake lay therefore not in the victory, but in attacking Rome in the first place. The victory of the Japanese at Pearl Harbor is considered in the same vein. (Again I think that the victory was not the problem, it was thinking that a single victory, no matter how great, would induce the US to sue for peace.) Weir argues that another type of "fatal victory" occurs when the victor assumes that his victorious military approach did have to be modified to account for the development of new technology and tactics. The victory of Muslim forces at Hattin was used to illustrate this, but if this was a "fatal victory" the fatality did not occur for centuries. Many of these "fatal victories" were thus fatal not because of the victory but because of fatal assumptions regarding the capabilities and determination of the enemy. Another class of "fatal victories" is the victory that leads to a public relations disaster. The British victory over the Irish rebels in the 1916 Dublin uprising and the American victory in the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam are both examples of this type of "fatal victory". Again, it can be argued, however, that these victories were not fatal in and of themselves, but merely highlighted failures in the approaches to handling both conflicts. While I may quibble, as above, with some of Weir's choices for "fatal victories" or if they even satisfy any logical criteria for their actually being fatal, I noneth

This is one of those composite books, dealing with a group of battles, campaigns, or events, with the idea here being that the author will discuss victories that led to defeat in various times in history. The examples themselves are interesting at times, but somewhat uneven, and the narrative itself is generally well-done. There are a few shortcomings of this book. I particularly didn't think that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand qualified for as a battlefield victory, though he does a competent job of recounting the event itself. Several of the other battles contained minor errors (nothing major, though) that marred the narrative a bit. Given all of the above, the author has a breezy writing style that's interesting to read without being too unintellectual, and he presents his case for each battle's inclusion in the collection intelligently. I would recommend this book to everyone who's interested in warfare in general, or history.