Talk:Pyrrhic victory

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What is thought more appropriate on Wikipedia - using the contents of many sources to massage them into one large page here or to link to an already existing description of the topic if it is as thorough as the third of the links here? I see little use in taking contents from there, re-wording them and mixing them into other facts in order to avoid just copying things from (maybe) copyrighted sources.

I agree. This page needs to be merged into the page with Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. It seems silly to have the description of Pyrrhus' reign under a linguistics heading. I may do so.

You could mention Hitler's "victory" at Stalingrad as an excellent example of a Pyrrhic victory (although I grant that would really be more sarcastic than apropos).

Does anyone want to note the joke that Pyrrhus apparently said this to his aide-de-camp?

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In what way would Pearl Harbor be a Pyrrhic victory? Using that logic, the German invasion of Poland, the German invasion of Belgium (WWI), every single invasion caused by a country that eventually lose would be considered a "Pyrrhic victory". In all senses of the word, Pearl Harbor was a complete victory for the Japanese, as was the German Blitzkrieg attack (although it set off a "complicated chain of events" that eventually led to Germany's downfall)... ugen64 01:34, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed....A much better example would be the German invasion of Crete, in which they won the battle, but lost a great deal of men and never used paratroops again.--Habsfannova 21:07, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Stalingrad 2 Little Bighorn 3 the Fiction section 4 Ill-defined

[edit] Stalingrad

Also classified as a Pyrrhic victory is World War II on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Union triumphed over Nazi Germany but lost more than 25 million people in the war, including 11 million troops killed compared to 4 million German and other Axis battle deaths.

Although the Soviets had large losses, they were sustainable for the amount of time required and did not prevent ultimate Soviet victory. A Pyrrhic victory on the other hand is one achieved at the cost of such enormous losses that ultimate victory cannot be achieved. Thus the Soviet campaign is not an example of a Pyrrhic victory whatever the above statement may claim. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:16, 2004 Oct 2 (UTC)

Yes, but in the grand sweep of history the enormous Soviet WWII death toll can be considered one of the reasons why the Soviet Union lost the Cold War. As it is, the dissolution of the Soviet Union has not only led to Brest-Litovsk-equivalent territorial losses in Europe, but also to the loss of Turkestan. Russia has no desire to reconquer its lost Asian territories due to falling ethnic Russian and rising Muslim populations, which may well mean that in the long term, World War II permanently destroyed Russia's Great Power status. GCarty 13:54, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe, but its hard to argue that Russia would have been better off, had it not fought WWII

Roadrunner 04:13, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Little Bighorn

What about the Battle of the Little Bighorn? Crazy Horse won but the cost was so high that he was eventually forced to surrender.

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Removed Chinese participation from WWII. Can't figure out why this was a pyrrhic victory.

Roadrunner 04:12, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've moved the remaining list here:

• The Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC
• The Byzantine war against the Sassanids 602-629 - both empires were left in ruins, and the Islamic Caliphate would later conquer the Sassanid Empire, and overrun over half of the Byzantine Empire's territory.
• The Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775
• The Battle of Borodino in 1812
• The Battle of York in 1813
• The Battle of the Alamo in 1836
• The Battle of Isandlwana in 1879
• The Battle of Dolores in 1904
• The Battle of Verdun in 1916
• The Battle of Crete in 1941

Thermopylae was not a pyrrhic victory - the Persians stood a good chance of winning the war up until Salamis and Plataea, and they got a chance to devastate one of their main enemies. Since this isn't the first item on this list to be removed, I think someone familiar with the battles should carefully go over them before returning them to this page. Josh

I'm not familiar with the Byzantine war against the Sassandid. I know that the Battle of Bunker hill was one. After reading about the Battle of Borodino it sounds like one. The Battle of York is questionable but the page states it is one. The Battle of the Alamo wasn't one. It was an outright Mexican victory even though the pages has it as one. The only arguement there was that the Mexicans sustanined heavy casualities(not unusual in battles involving a fortress or something similar), and that it became the battle cry for the Texans. The page on the Battle of Isandlwana states that it is one. The Battle of Dolores is also stated that it is one on the page. The Battle of Verdun I consider a stalemate although an arguement for a Frecnh pyrrhic victory could be made. The Battle of Crete is absolutely one. Falphin 8 July 2005 13:33 (UTC)

Josh is perhaps over-restricting the definition of "Pyrrhic victory" here. He proposes that it should be used only for a victory won at a cost so disproportionate that it was a significant factor in the loss of the war. But is that what it really means? The Chambers Dictionary just says "a victory won at too great a cost". For example, Crete definitely falls into the Chambers definition but not into Josh's definition. We ought to be able to cite some justification for the more restrictive definition. Gdr 16:34:07, 2005-08-04 (UTC)

I'm using the standard definition. My understanding was too great a cost meant losses they could not afford, i.e. one that ultimately led to serious problems down the road. Otherwise, what standard are you using for when the cost became too great? Josh

This term is way too overused on Wikipedia anyway. People seem to be on some mission to put the words "Pyrrhic victory" into every page about a costly battle, and it's usually more distracting than informative. I'd never heard it before using Wikipedia. It'd be good to use it less in the bodies of other articles and just put it down in the See also section or when categorizing pages. Tajmahall 05:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the Fiction section

I removed that section tonight. It seems that people are confusing "costs of victory" ("unusually high cost" being the requirement to be considered a PV) with "unforeseen negative consequences of victory". They are not the same thing.

I'm not totally familiar with all of the fictional stuff that was listed (mainly Dr. Who), but all of the things listed appeared to be victories that wound up having unexpected negative consequences rather than actual PV's. The Warhammer 40,000 example I could almost see as one, but it doesn't fit well either- the Imperium was forced to fight (and suffer huge casualties, including the Emperor) or be enslaved; it's more similar to a "no-win situation" than a "pyrrhic victory".

I couldn't think of a good actual example to put in there (although I'm sure there's one out there somewhere). Thus I removed the section, as I didn't see a point to a section that had examples that weren't actually examples. :) --DarthBinky 08:09, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ill-defined

Actually Pyrrus had significantly lower casualties than the Romans in nearly ALL his "Pyrric Victories" (and NEVER higher).