During the reign of Elizabeth I in the late 16th century, the British Empire began to take shape. Although the 1707 Act of Union brought Scotland into the fold, strictly speaking, it was the English Empire. That aside, by 1913, the Empire encompassed some 400 million subjects at a time when the actual British population was just 36 million. So, for three centuries, this imperial endeavor was almost unstoppable. Almost, but not quite, as these 10 examples of times that the British Empire suffered defeat in battle show.
Related: Top 10 Poorly Planned Battles
10 Battle of Minorca (1756)
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Minorca, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Spain, was the location of a naval engagement of the Seven Years’ War, which two opposing sets of European allies fought in 1756. Two of the main protagonists—the British and the French—clashed at the Battle of Minorca. Before the battle, a 13-strong British fleet, commanded by Admiral John Byng, sailed to blockade the French Navy at the Mediterranean port of Toulon. However, a French force of 12 warships had already left the harbor and had seized the strategically important British base on Minorca.
Arriving in Minorcan waters in May, Byng attacked the French fleet, but his ships failed to engage the enemy effectively. After an inconclusive battle, Byng turned tail and headed to the British base at Gibraltar, thus gifting victory to the French. The Admiral was subsequently court-martialed and found guilty of failing to do his “utmost against the enemy, either in battle or pursuit.”
The mandatory penalty was death, and the sentence was carried out on the quarterdeck of the Monarch. A terse entry in the ship’s log recorded that, “At 12 Mr Byng was shot dead by 6 Marines, and put into his coffin.”[1]
9 Battle of Saratoga (1777)
The Battle of Saratoga took place at a site some 25 miles (40 km) north of Albany, New York, and was a key engagement in the Revolutionary War. British commander General John Burgoyne had marched with his force of some 7,500 southward from Canada into New York, intending to control the Hudson Valley. The Patriot commander was General Horatio Gates, with 8,500 men at his disposal. Reaching the hamlet of Saratoga in September 1777, Gates set his troops to build substantial defense works on the high ground of Bemis Heights above the Hudson River.
The first skirmish came on September 19 when a British column, including 500 Hessian mercenaries, advanced toward the Patriot forces but were halted by fierce defense. Now pinned down, the British troops began to run short of supplies. On October 7, in another engagement, a desperate Burgoyne mounted an attack on Bemis Heights, but the Patriots conclusively repelled the assault. Hungry and exhausted, the British retreated and were forced to surrender. It was a complete victory for the Patriots, and crucially, it encouraged the French to increase their support for the Americans.[2]
8 Siege of Yorktown (1781)
It’s 1781, four years after the Battle of Saratoga, and the time has now come for the final and conclusive battle that will bring the Revolutionary War to an end, leading to full independence for America. The Siege of Yorktown involved a joint land and naval operation by combined American and French forces.
In the spring and summer of 1781, a 7,500-strong British force under General Lord Cornwallis was forced to retreat eastward across America until it reached Yorktown on the Atlantic coast of Virginia. The Patriot commander-in-chief, George Washington, quickly recognized that the British had effectively trapped themselves and ordered the French commander, Marquis de Lafayette, to lay siege to the British.
To complete the encirclement of the British, a French fleet of 24 ships blockaded Yorktown. In early October, the French and Americans partially overwhelmed the Yorktown defenses, and running low on supplies, Cornwallis surrendered on October 19. It was the final victory in America’s fight for freedom.[3]
7 Battle of Grand Port (1810)
This defeat of a British fleet by the French particularly irked imperial patriots at a time when the Empire liked to boast that it ruled the waves. The loss was all the more bitter since the man in charge of France was none other than Britain’s arch-enemy, Napoleon Bonaparte. The scene for this Napoleonic War maritime beating was the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, used by the French as a safe haven for French privateers who mercilessly harassed British merchant shipping.
A British flotilla of five frigates commanded by Captain Samuel Pym attacked the Mauritius harbor of Grand Port. However, led by Commodore Guy-Victor Duperré, the French mounted a spirited defense. The HMS Nereid, a 36 gunner, was forced to surrender after the French onslaught killed 96 of the 281-strong crew and wounded another 137. The crews of two other British frigates actually set their vessels on fire to prevent them from falling into the hands of the French. A fourth grounded on a sandbank, and the fifth also surrendered. As Britannica puts it, the British attack was a “fiasco.”[4]
6 Battle of New Orleans (1815)
For this imperial defeat, we move on to the War of 1812, fought between Imperial Britain and America. In fact, by the time of this engagement, the war had officially ended, but neither of the two sides in New Orleans knew about it. In fact, a peace treaty had already been signed in the Belgian city of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1824, a couple of weeks before the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815.
In the fall of 1814, some 50 Royal Navy ships sailed through the Gulf of Mexico, intent on an attack on New Orleans. Getting wind of the British plans, General Andrew Jackson hastened to defend the city. He mustered a 4,000-strong volunteer army, including Louisiana militia, Choctaw Indians, freed slaves, and frontiersmen.
The battle was fought just outside the city at the Chalmette Plantation. After some inconclusive skirmishes, the British commander, General Sir Edward Pakenham, ordered an all-out attack by his 8,000 troops. Despite being seriously outnumbered, the Americans inflicted heavy casualties, including Pakenham. They repelled the assault, ending the British attempt to seize New Orleans. It was the last pitched battle fought by the British and the Americans.[5]
5 Retreat from Kabul (1842)
Afghanistan has famously waved off the armies of two world powers in recent times—Russia in 1989 and America in 2021—but it was in the 19th century that the British Empire suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Afghanis. Fear of a possible Russian invasion of Afghanistan, threatening the imperial crown jewel of India, had motivated Britain’s 1839 seizure of the country.
The British imposed an Afghan leader, Shah Shuja, and stationed a garrison of two brigades in Kabul. As well as the soldiers, there was a motley crew of civilians, including wives, children, and other camp followers, a total British presence of some 16,000. Shah Shuja proved to have little control over his own people, who rose against the British, besieging the Kabul garrison. The British commander, General Sir William Elphinstone, had no choice but to negotiate a withdrawal.
In January 1842, a long caravan of troops, baggage, and civilians trudged through the snow along the rugged and unforgiving terrain of the Khyber Pass toward Jalalabad in India. Afghani warriors now took their opportunity to ambush, kidnap, and slaughter these imperial refugees. In the end, just one Briton, Dr. William Brydon, made it to Jalalabad.[6]
4 Battle of Isandlwana (1879)
Isandlwana is located in what is today eastern South Africa. Back in the 19th century, it was in the Zulu realm ruled by King Cetshwayo. In 1878, Sir Bartle Frere, British High Commissioner of South Africa, ordered Cetshwayo to decommission his formidable warrior army. This demand was entirely unacceptable to the proud Zulu ruler, so the Anglo-Zulu War started in January 1879. The first engagement was the Battle of Isandlwana, which “stunned the world,” BritishBattles.com tells us.
Some 20,000 Zulus attacked a British force of around 2,000. Although the numbers were grossly unequal, the British force was a well-trained body armed with modern weaponry, while most Africans carried spears and shields.
Appearing over a ridge overlooking the British encampment, the Zulus swept down in a massed charge with a central body and two “horns” designed to outflank the enemy to the left and right. Cetshwayo’s men soon overwhelmed and massacred many of the British soldiers, while numbers of those who escaped the initial engagement were hunted down and killed. The British lost around 800 troops, plus some 500 African auxiliary troops.[7]
3 Battle of Coronel (1914)
Proving that World War I really was a global conflict, this naval battle between Imperial Britain and Germany was fought in waters off the coast of Chile. When WWI broke out in July 1914, the Germans had a significant naval force based in the Pacific under the command of Vice Admiral Reichsgraf Maximilian von Spee. This fleet spent its time harassing British vessels. Royal Navy ships under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock were in the Pacific to protect merchant shipping and troopships sailing to Europe from Australia and New Zealand.
German and British squadrons, each with four warships, met not far from the Chilean port of Coronel on November 1. Although he knew that the Germans had more firepower at their disposal, Cradock decided to meet the enemy in battle, which turned out to be a disastrous decision. Von Spee’s ships fired on the British, sinking the Monmouth and the Good Hope with the loss of all hands, more than 1,600 men, including Rear Admiral Cradock. Not one German sailor was killed.[8]
2 Battle of Crete (1941)
By April 1941, the Nazis had succeeded in crushing Greek resistance and had occupied the country. At the time, the British had a substantial garrison on the Greek island of Crete, which lies in the Mediterranean between southern Greece and Egypt. Many of the 40,000 British and Greek troops on the island had been evacuated from the Greek mainland in the face of the German advance. Hitler decided that the next step for the Third Reich would be to seize Crete.
The Germans had decisive air superiority, but the British commander, New Zealander Major-General Bernard Freyberg, could count on strong support from the Royal Navy. Even so, defending Crete’s mountainous terrain from airborne invasion would be no easy task. The German paratroopers succeeded in seizing the Maleme airfield, allowing them to fly in more troops and supplies. This was enough to give them victory after several days of fierce fighting against a badly organized British force.
Some 18,000 British and New Zealand troops managed to escape the island, while 4,000 were killed and 11,000 were taken prisoner.[9]
1 Fall of Singapore (1942)
Certainly, one of the worst military disasters ever to befall the British Empire, the Japanese conquest of Singapore saw the surrender of some 85,000 soldiers. They faced years of forced labor in POW camps notorious for the cruel brutality of the guards. Many prisoners did not survive the ordeal.
In December 1941, the Japanese swept through Malaya, a British colony, forcing the defenders to withdraw south across the causeway to the island of Singapore, separated from the mainland by the narrow Strait of Johor. Unfortunately, the British strategy for the defense of Singapore had always assumed that the attack would come from the seaward side of the island rather than from Malaya across the Strait of Johor.
The British believed that nobody in their right mind would attempt an attack on Singapore through the seemingly impenetrable jungles and swamps of Malaya. However, the Japanese entirely contradicted this assumption. They were able to exploit the poorly deployed defensive line on the north of Singapore, quickly overrunning the island and forcing an ignominious British surrender.[10]