Pyrrhic victory

This article is part of the series on: Military of ancient Rome (portal) 800 BC–AD 476

Structural history

Roman army (unit types and ranks, legions, auxiliaries, generals)

Roman navy (fleets, admirals)

Campaign history

Lists of wars and battles

Decorations and punishments

Technological history

Military engineering (castra, siege engines, arches, roads)

Personal equipment

Political history

Strategy and tactics

Infantry tactics

Frontiers and fortifications (limes, Hadrian's Wall)

A Pyrrhic victory (IPA: /'pɪr ɪk/ -) is a victory with devastating cost to the victor. The phrase is an allusion to King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties when he defeated the Romans during the Pyrrhic War at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC. After the latter battle, Plutarch relates in a report by Dionysius:

In both of Pyrrhus's victories, the Romans lost more men than Pyrrhus did. However, the Romans had a much larger supply of men from which to draw soldiers, so their losses did less damage to their war effort than Pyrrhus's losses did to his. The report is often quoted as "Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone." While it is most closely associated with a military battle, the term is used by analogy in fields such as business, politics, law, literature, and sport to describe any similar struggle which is ruinous for the victor, such as the USFL v. NFL lawsuit or the Conservative Party's victory in the 1992 General Election in the United Kingdom. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez also used the words "Pyrrhic victory" to describe the rejection of a series of Socialistic reforms in December 2007 by his country's voters. The term was used as he explained that the rejection of the reforms may have been democracy in action, but may very well be the nation's downfall.

Examples

• Battle of Kadesh (1274 BC)
• Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC)
• Battle of the Hydaspes River (326 BC)
• Pyrrhic War (280-275 BC)
• Battle of Malplaquet (1709) - War of the Spanish Succession
• Battle of Lake George (1755) - French and Indian War
• Battle of Bushy Run (1763) - Pontiac's Rebellion
• Battle of Bunker Hill (1775) - American Revolutionary War
• Battle of Oriskany (1777) - American Revolutionary War
• Battle of Guilford Court House (1781) - American Revolutionary War
• Battle of Tippecanoe (1811) - War of 1812
• Battle of York (1813) - War of 1812
• Battle of Olszynka Grochowska (1831) - November uprising, Poland
• Battle of the Alamo (1836) - Texas Revolution
• Battle of Vuelta de Obligado (1845) - Between the Argentine Confederation and the Anglo-French alliance.
• Battle of Camarón (1863) - French intervention in Mexico
• Battle of Chancellorsville (1863) - American Civil War
• Battle of Franklin II (1864) - American Civil War
• Battle of Isandlwana (1879) - Anglo-Zulu War
• Second Boer War (1899-1902)
• World War I (1914-1918)
• Battle of Muar (1942) - World War II, Malayan Campaign
• Battle of Bir Hakeim (1942) - World War II, North African Campaign
• Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (1942) - World War II, Pacific Theater
• Battle of Krasny Bor (1943) - World War II, Eastern Front
• Battle of the Hürtgen Forest (winter 1944-45) - World War II, European Theater
• Battle of Chosin Reservoir (1950) - Korean War
• Battle of the Marshes (1984) - Iran-Iraq war
• Battle of Vukovar (1991) - Croatian War of Independence

See also

• Winner's curse
• Heroic failure
• No-win situation
• Win-win situation
• Mexican standoff
• Poison pill
• Cadmus

References and notes

Further reading

• Denson, John, The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Victories. Transaction Publishers (1997). ISBN 1-560-00319-7.