At times, evolution takes a wrong turn. When it does, all we can do is stare in fascination at what it produces for us. Sometimes, it gives us something wonderful like the octopus. Other times, we get something terrible like the bobbit worm.

But every now and then, we get an animal that’s just so poorly thought out that it makes us wonder if evolution itself might have been drunk during the design phase. These animals have no right to exist in the state they do. Yet they continue on, not knowing that their bodies, brains, or both are ridiculous.

10 Horse

When we think about horse attributes, one of the first things that comes to mind is speed. Horses are built for it, bred for it, and even used as a measurement of how fast and powerful a car is. We as a species chose, bonded with, and selectively bred these animals to be fast and strong. So you would think that they would be physically well suited to running, jumping, and pulling.

Unfortunately for the horse, they got the short straw when it comes to their physicality. Horses can reach speeds of up to 80–89 kilometers per hour (50–55 mph), roughly twice the top speed of a human being. But it comes at a cost: A horse that runs at that speed for more than a few minutes experiences bleeding in its lungs and throat.^[1]

Their bodies are built for speed and power, and yet they are incredibly fragile. When horses exercise too hard or for too long, they develop an “exercise intolerance” that causes their very breath to hurt them. The pressure on their lungs from gasping for air while running breaks blood vessels and causes them to cough up blood.

Once it starts, the only fix for this problem is to stop them from running.

9 Koala

Herbivores are a special class of animal. To eat nothing but vegetation that wears down the teeth, they have to have special adaptations. Some—like rats, hamsters, and other such rodents—have teeth that just grow forever. Others, like the horse, have incredibly tall teeth that take years to wear down.

On the other hand, koalas . . . have nothing. In addition to having small, smooth brains (which rob them of the ability to accomplish complex tasks) and being incredibly picky eaters who only consume poison (the toxic and extremely low-nutrient leaves of the eucalyptus plant), koalas have a single, rooted set of small, jagged teeth.

Over time, the tough, fibrous leaves of the eucalyptus plants wear down those teeth—all the way to the gumline. Unable to eat the leaves and unwilling to consume anything else, the koala starves to death.^[2]

8 Sunfish

The ocean sunfish (aka mola) is one of those rare animals that serves no purpose on this Earth. They are strange-looking with their large eyes and lips and their inability to close their mouths due to their strange teeth.

In addition, they are exceptionally vulnerable to parasites and predators. Not that they have many, of course. The 4.3-meter (14 ft), 2,300-kilogram (5,000 lb) fish exists on a diet of algae, plankton, and jellyfish. All these foods are low in nutrition, which makes them the fish equivalent of lettuce.

This unfortunate creature also lacks a swim bladder, an important organ that nearly all fish possess to help them float. The sunfish has to compensate for this missing organ with every inch of its body, specifically with a layer of jelly under its skin that makes it neutrally buoyant.

In fact, the only reason the sunfish continues to exist is because it lays up to 300 million eggs at a time. This would be impressive except that their strategy is to dump all 300 million into the water near a male and hope that the eggs are fertilized and survive to hatch.^[3]

7 Cheetah

The cheetah is one of our favorite predators. We imagine them snarling and pouncing on prey as they roam the African plains. We see them as powerful, speedy hunters that are always ready to take on a challenge.

Even though we love them, we are a little afraid of cheetahs because we equate them to lions. With the cheetahs’ sharp claws, sharp teeth, and incredible speed, you’d assume that they are fearless hunters that could stare death in the eye and chirp before swallowing a village whole.

Fortunately for us, we don’t have to worry too much about them because cheetahs are known for another trait as well: severe anxiety. Especially in captivity, cheetahs are so horribly stressed out just by existing that they have trouble socializing and breeding. It’s gotten to the point that zoos around the world have started giving cheetahs their own support dogs to help them stay calm enough to breed and socialize.^[4]

Luckily for the cheetahs, the dogs are happy to be their support buddies and neither seems to be a threat to the other.

6 Sea Snakes

Water all around and not a drop to drink!

Sea snakes are exactly what their name suggests: snakes that live in the sea. These odd little creatures swim on top of the waves. They slither across the ocean as if it were sand, eat fish, and have babies. Given that they live in salt water, you’d think they could drink it.

Nope. In fact, sea snakes are almost always in a state of moderate dehydration. They can’t drink salt water at all and have to wait for it to rain. When it rains on the ocean, the less dense fresh water sits on top, floating over the more dense salt water of the sea.^[5]

When this happens, the snakes are free to drink as much as they can. However, as rains happen infrequently out there on the waves, the poor snakes spend much of their time thirsty to the point of dehydration.

They also can’t go on land and either can’t or won’t swim into freshwater streams and rivers.

5 Giant Squid

The giant squid is one of the only true sea monsters in the ocean. With eyes the size of basketballs and top speeds of up to 32 kilometers per hour (20 mph), the giant squid is massive, fast, and terrifying to encounter. It eats up to 227 kilograms (500 lb) of food a day in the form of fish, sharks, and even smaller squid.

Don’t think for a second that it’s all good for this huge cephalopod. This creature also has a fatal design flaw: Its throat runs directly through its own brain. Should this massive tentacled beast eat something too big, swallowing the prey will give the giant squid brain damage as the bulge passes through the brain and presses hard against the tissues. The big gulp will bruise and possibly mash the ring of brain pressed against the esophagus.^[6]

For this animal, biting off more than you can handle can be a death sentence.

4 Kakapo Bird

Imagine for a minute that you could only hook up with someone based on how many berries were ripe on the bushes around your house. Not only that, but there was a very low chance of anything actually coming of it even if the berries were plentiful. That’s life as a kakapo parrot, the world’s only flightless parrot and resident idiot bird of New Zealand.

Considered a sacred bird by local Maori populations, the kakapo is an absolute mystery of evolution. Flightless, nocturnal, and with massive thighs for climbing trees, these birds have no defense against predators such as weasels, cats, and feral dogs. But the real kicker is their mating habits.

Once every two or three years (and sometimes as long as five years), a certain berry (the rimu fruit) comes into bloom on the islands where these birds live. Only during a good blooming season for these fruits will the kakapo mate.

The males build large, acoustic bowls and make loud, booming “BOW” noises to attract a female. But if he isn’t loud enough or if insufficient rimu fruit is in bloom, the females will ignore him. Their infertility rates are so high that this only hurts them. As of now, there are just over 150 wild kakapo.^[7]

3 Great White Sharks

Nothing captures the imagination of ocean lovers quite like the great white shark. With its huge jaws, rows upon rows of teeth, and powerful musculature, the shark has been a staple of many horror and action films and stories through the decades. It is also a well-known fact that sharks have to keep moving to breathe.

What you may not have known, however, is that this applies even when the great white is sleeping. Thanks to being obligate ram ventilators, great white sharks have to keep water moving through and over their gills at all times.

To make up for this, they have a unique way of sleeping. They lie in a current with their mouths open, sleeping while the current pushes through their gills and breathes for them.^[8] That’s like if you had to go on a ventilator every time you needed a nap.

2 Whales

In general, it’s an accepted fact that life started in the sea. Creatures were born, evolved, crawled up on land, and became mammals. Although these critters may have liked being mammals, some of them missed the ocean. Enter: the whale.

The oldest-known ancestor of the whale is the Indohyus, a creature that looked a bit like a spotted anteater. Along the way, this animal returned to the water, evolving new and interesting aquatic traits.^[9]

However, it did not shed its mammalian characteristics. The new fishlike creature, which would eventually become the whale and the dolphin, still needed to breathe air and have lungs instead of gills, both terrible traits to have when you live like a fish.

1 Humans

Ah, humanity. We’re pretty proud of ourselves as a species. Speaking intellectually, we’re fairly solid. Our brains aren’t perfect, but we’re intelligent. After all, we’ve managed to build computers and spacefaring vessels. Our physical form, however, is not good.

For one thing, our feet are made of 26 separate bones—a leftover from our primate days. This makes our feet incredibly fragile and unnervingly easy to damage as they were originally meant for gripping and had the help of our hands in supporting our weight.

Our ankles are also fragile and turn outward at the slightest provocation—to the point that even stepping wrong can sprain or break them. Likewise, our spines are not built for the burden they carry. A myriad of curves and strange proportions lead to back problems as early as our twenties and almost inevitably by our forties or fifties.

We also have the misfortune of giving birth to live young whose heads and torsos are larger than our birth canals are normally equipped to handle and twice as big by proportion as most other animal young. Nearly a full third of human births are now performed via C-sections.^[10]

Deana lives with her girlfriend and a roommate in Small Town, USA. She one day hopes to own a big enough tank for 20 goldfish. Her favorite soup is cream of mushroom.

Education is important—there’s no denying that fact. For the most part, the more schooling you receive, the more successful you will be in your chosen path. In general, people who drop out or receive minimal education are probably headed toward a long, torturous career slinging burgers at a fast food joint. That’s the common perception, at least. But here are ten famously successful people who stand as exceptions to the rule:

Before becoming possibly the richest man in history (taking inflation into account), John Rockefeller was the lowly son of a dodgy con artist and high-school student in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. Although he had some education, by the time he was sixteen, Rockefeller decided it was time to shirk school and begin a career—with the goal of earning $100,000 in his lifetime.

It’s pretty safe to say that he accomplished that mission and then some. Rockefeller made his mark in the oil industry, starting Standard Oil and ultimately creating a monopoly on the entire industry. By 1902, Rockefeller was worth $200 million, and before his death he would amass a fortune of more than one billion dollars. And high school was supposed to be important. . . .

Unless you’re a big fan of journalism history, there’s a pretty solid chance you’ve never heard of Horace Greeley, except maybe a fleeting mention here or there. Born in New Hampshire in the early nineteenth century, Greeley would go on to become one of the most influential newspaper men in American history. He also became a Congressman and—I nearly forgot to mention—one of the founding members of the Republican Party.

Greeley did this all without any formal education to speak of. By the age of fifteen, he had already left home to take an apprenticeship with a printer in Vermont. By the time he was twenty he had moved to New York City and begun working for The New Yorker and the New York Tribune. It was his work with the Tribune that made him famous, and he would actually go on to help found a town in Colorado that bears his name. To this day, he is thought of as one of the most influential journalists in history.

During the tense space race of the 1950s and 1960s, one man emerged as the face of the American attempt to beat the Soviets into space and, ultimately, to the moon. That man was John Glenn: he became a war hero and one of the most famous astronauts in history, despite being a college dropout. Glenn attended Muskingum College, where he studied science, but when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he dropped out in order to fight in World War II.

There have been many great thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and some of them have done incredible things without ever having finished college. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg spring to mind. But perhaps the most influential technological mind of the past century has been Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple.

Jobs and Steve Wozniak created the first successful personal computers, and over the years helped introduce numerous revolutionary products such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. And Jobs did this after attending college for only six months. 

Incidentally, Jobs was adopted, and the stipulation set forth by his birth mother only agreed to give him up to Paul and Clara Jobs when they agreed that they would make sure he attended college. Well, mission partly accomplished.

Arguably the most beloved American writer and humorist in history, Mark Twain gained fame after creating the classic characters of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. In fact, his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered by many to be “the great American novel.” Not bad for a guy who had only a minimal formal education, and who was already in the midst of an apprenticeship at the age of eleven.

When Twain was eighteen, he worked as a printer in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, while spending his evenings in the public libraries. That’s as close to a formal education as Twain would come, as he read everything he could get his hands on before becoming, of all things, a steamboat pilot. He continued working in that capacity until the Civil War broke out, and after a brief stint in the Confederate army, he began to travel across the country, writing all the while. Twain serves as clear proof that wit simply cannot be taught.

In American history, few people have embodied the notion of the self-made man more than Henry Ford—the man who is best-remembered for almost single-handedly creating the US automobile industry. Ford had a limited formal education, having been born on a farm outside of Detroit, where he worked with a father who believed his son would someday take to running the farm himself.

Instead, Ford left home at the age of seventeen and became an apprentice with a machinist in Detroit—a career path he would ultimately take to another level on his way to becoming a wildly rich and successful industrialist. Despite having next to no real education, Ford created the mechanized assembly line—and it wasn’t long before Detroit gained the nickname of the Motor City because of his incredible work.

Now one of the most famous names in history, William Shakespeare produced some of the best-loved works the world has ever known, from Romeo and Juliet to Macbeth. But not much is known about Shakespeare’s early life; in fact, there are not even any records that suggest he ever received much by way of a formal education.

Scholars have suggested that he may have attended the King’s New School, but they also believe—based on some of his writings—that he did not attend school past the age of thirteen. It’s pretty astonishing that a man credited with inventing more than 1700 words was, by all accounts, a middle school drop out.

One of the most towering political figures of the twentieth century, a famous wit—and, frankly, a quote machine—Winston Churchill was born into aristocracy. It should therefore come as no surprise that he rose through the ranks to eventually lead the United Kingdom to victory during World War II. What probably does come as a surprise—or at least would, if he wasn’t included on a list with this title—is that he achieved this with a limited education.

Churchill, coming from such a good family, was given access to the best education available. That didn’t mean he was any good at it, of course. Churchill found education difficult and did very poorly in school, often being punished for his dismal academic record. His military service was also hindered by his poor performance. He had to apply three times to the Royal Military College, and was only accepted after applying for the cavalry rather than infantry because the grade requirements were lower and it didn’t involve math. In fairness, though, no one likes math.

Perhaps the most popular US president in history, and a guy who, contrary to popular belief, did not fight vampires, Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth man to lead the USA. He guided the nation through perhaps its most troubling time. But the man who made the Gettysburg Address and effectively ended slavery in the USA—though not through his crippled Emancipation Proclamation—was not even well-educated.

Honest Abe was more or less entirely self-educated, though at an early age he actually had a reputation of being lazy. This did not stop him from starting down a career in politics in his early twenties, and being admitted to the bar after teaching himself the law in his free time. It seems that Lincoln was a political prodigy. And if the stories about him are true, he basically pulled this off through reading by candlelight in his little wood cabin.

Yes: the man whose name now equates to “genius”; who published more than 300 scientific papers; the man behind E=MC2; the man who came up with the theory of relativity; and the man who won a Nobel prize—was in fact a high school dropout. He attempted to get into university, but initially failed the entrance exams.

Einstein eventually made it into college and earned a degree, of course, because men of his staggering intellect always find a way in the end. But the simple fact of the matter is that the greatest mind of the twentieth century was in fact a high school dropout.

In Ken Burns’ nine-part World War 2 documentary, the aptly named fifth episode, “FUBAR,” describes the powerlessness of Allied soldiers fighting Germany and Japan. “On both sides of the world,” the narrator says, “a generation of young men will learn a lesson as old as war itself — that generals make plans, plans go wrong and soldiers die.”

In World War 1, the Brits coined a more colorful phrase to describe the lethal mix of brave soldiers and poor generalship: “Lions led by donkeys.” Luckily, the vast majority of military leaders in those crucial conflicts were far more capable than the following ten examples.

10 Oddities That Interrupted Military Battles

10 Battle of Fredericksburg (American Civil War)

Spoiler alert: This list’s #2 is so ranked because it was preceded by the Battle of Fredericksburg. Why? Because Fredericksburg’s victors saw the deadly result of a large force charging an extended distance at an entrenched position… yet still attempted it just seven months later.

Before they found Ulysses Grant, the Union Army was badly outgeneraled in the Civil War. One also-ran was Ambrose Burnside – he of the bushy-eared hairstyle now known as sideburns. The Battle of Fredericksburg (Virginia) commenced December 11, with two days of the Union Army gaining a foothold on the same side of the Rappahannock River as Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewell Jackson and James Longstreet.

The action’s epicenter was Marye’s Heights, a hilly slope rising 50 feet above the plain. At the peak, rebels dug in behind a stone wall. Even now, surveying the ground leaves visitors wondering what the hell Burnside was thinking when he sent wave after fruitless, bloody wave up the slope. By mid-afternoon subordinates, including the audacious “Fighting Joe” Hooker, pleaded with Burnside to relent.

Instead, Burnside doubled down. The result was a turkey shoot: Confederate artillery had the landscape completely covered by artillery. No one got closer than 40 yards from the wall. Nearly 1,300 dead and 10,000 wounded later, Union casualties doubled their counterparts. Despite claims he was poorly served by his generals, Burnside was in charge and the buck – and the suicidal charges – stops with him.

9 Battle of Agincourt (Hundred Years War)

For a commanding officer, few mistakes are less forgivable than letting an easy, even bloodless victory slip away – in this case, literally.

In late October 1415, after failed negotiations ended a lull in the protracted Hundred Years War, an English army under King Henry V was marching across northern France. Things weren’t going well, with supplies running short and an atypically high number of deaths due to disease. Leaders decided to retreat to English-held Calais on France’s west coast; unfortunately, they soon encountered an army of 15,000 Frenchmen – roughly double the English total – blocking their escape.

French commander Constable Charles d’Albret had a layup: all he had to do was stop, camp and either siege the English into surrender or force them to charge a line double their strength. But when the English began aggressively advancing with flags flying and soldiers taunting, d’Albret decided this perceived disrespect could not go unpunished.

So he sent thousands of men across a narrow field of sticky clay mud, turned to a mucky quagmire by heavy rain. The soldiers slipped, slid, got up, fell again. English archers had a field day; the French were softened up for wholesale hand-to-hand slaughter. Around 6,000 Frenchmen, including d’Albret, were killed, with about 2,000 more taken prisoner. The English lost approximately 400 men for a casualty ratio of an astounding 20 to 1.

8 Battle of Tora Bora (NATO-Afghan War)

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the US and its NATO allies invaded Afghanistan with two goals. The first, routing the ruling Taliban regime, was quickly accomplished via overwhelming force. The second, capturing or killing al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, would require more stealth. With sympathizers dotting the desolate landscape, catching bin Laden by surprise would be no small feat.

On December 3, 2001, a group of 20 U.S. CIA National Clandestine Service forces landed in the mountainous Tora Bora region. Afghan’s US-friendly Northern Alliance had alerted NATO of an al-Qaeda base there – and of bin Laden’s rumored presence. Together with another 70 US special forces and backed by airstrikes, they made steady advancements, clearing caves and capturing enemies as they went.

Then they inexplicably negotiated a truce. Officially, al-Qaeda fighters were organizing their surrender; unofficially, bin Laden was escaping. A key factor was that the US, having failed to swiftly deploy more troops, had delegated the task of guarding escape routes to untrained, disincentivized allies with inferior equipment – akin to a narcoleptic security guard protecting a vault.

Several days passed, the fighting resumed and the battle was eventually won – but the one-man prize had fled to Pakistan, and would elude justice for another decade. The failure to fully commit more troops sooner – and the farcical, time-buying truce – turned a quick victory into what became the longest war in American history.

7 Battle of Lake Trasimene (Second Punic War)

Hey Romans: Scout much? Assessing the strength of one’s enemy has been Military 101 for millennia. Without reconnaissance, an army is groping blindly.

At the outset of the Second Punic War, in 217 BC the Carthaginian commander Hannibal led an army of 50,000 through northern Italy. For a time, he eluded the pursuit of Roman commander Gaius Flaminius Nepos. But on June 24, an advanced band of Roman troops caught up with Hannibal’s rear guard near Lake Trasimene.

It was a trap. The Carthaginians were waiting to ambush the Romans, who they knew had far fewer soldiers. But instead of dispatching a few mounted men to survey the landscape and the enemy’s strength, Flaminius ordered his entire army to race blindly into battle.

Forgoing recon was inexcusable. Flaminius knew where the enemy was, so pausing to understand their configuration ran no risk or them escaping his reach. And even if they were somewhat scattered – for example, in a convoy formation – did Flaminius really think Hannibal had traversed all this way only to divide his large army on foreign soil? He had to know he’d be dealing with the full Carthaginian army, likely far more than the 30,000 men Rome had on the scene.

The result was a massacre. Flaminius was killed and, of his 30,000 men, half were either killed in battle or drowned attempting to swim to safety. Another 10,000 were captured. Carthage lost only 2,500 men.

6 Battle of Brooklyn (American Revolution)

Before the Battle of Brooklyn witnessed one of warfare’s most fortuitous coincidences, it became the stupidest decision George Washington ever made.

Let’s start with the ending: In August 1776, with his back to New York’s East River and his 9,000-strong Army facing certain ruin, Washington ordered his men “to impress every kind of watercraft… and have them all in the east harbor of the city by dark.”

The British, thinking they had ample time for what likely would have been the war’s decisive battle, delayed attack to wait out an unseasonable fog. That night, Washington’s troops silently floated to the safety of Manhattan. The British awoke to capture an army that had vanished into thick air.

All weather-related miracles aside, the obvious question: “Why did Washington need a miracle to avoid complete disaster?” Simply put, he got caught completely by surprise, which isn’t good when you’re fighting a) against a superior force and b) surrounded by water.

With Boston’s Bunker Hill as precedent, Washington expected an assault from sea; instead, British forces discretely came ashore miles away and marched overnight to reach the Continental Army’s rear. It took 400 brave Marylanders slowing the enemy with suicidal charges for the bulk of Washington’s men to escape immediate capture. Even so, they were hemmed in against a deep, wide river. Without the fog that followed, there’d be no Founding Father.

5 Battle of Hattin (Crusades)

Dignity and warfare often don’t mix. Just ask King Guy of Jerusalem.

In 1187, Muslim leader Saladin was looking for a decisive blow to settle the Ayyubid-Crusader War. Assembling the largest army he’d ever commanded, some 40,000 men, he laid siege to the Crusader fortress of Tiberias in modern-day Israel.

Meanwhile, King Guy of Jerusalem – after reconciling with a rival from Tripoli, Raymond III, who the Muslims believed could be installed as a proxy ruler – mustered a force of nearly 20,000. Given the side’s inferior numbers, many of Guy’s subordinates recommended hitting the invaders where it hurt: their supply lines. In particular, it was early July and water was precious in the arid region.

Choosing chivalry over common sense, Guy scorned the advice as cowardly and beneath his royal dignity. Instead, he marched his men across the desert directly toward Tiberias. Saladin, apparently unimpressed with Guy’s dignity, responded by using his superior numbers to block access to fresh water. He then set fire to the dry flora, adding insult to parched injury with acrid smoke.

Men need water more than dignity – especially in a desert. Guy was forced to change course, heading toward the refreshing springs at Hattin. They never made it. Raymond broke through and escaped, and others deserted. The Muslim army slaughtered most of the Crusaders on the field and captured a shard of the True Cross, reputedly wood from the cross on which Christ was crucified.

4 Battle of Monte Cassino (World War 2)

How do you win a battle yet still end up on this list? By blowing up a 1,400-year-old abbey for no reason, then suffering nearly triple the casualties as your opponent.

In early 1944 the Allies were learning the hard way that what Prime Minister Winston Churchill had called the “soft underbelly of the Axis” – Italy – was anything but tender; in fact, US General Mark Clark would soon call it “one tough gut.” Still, Brits and Americans slowly gained ground as they plodded toward Rome. They approached Monte Cassino, at the western end of the Axis’ Winter Line, defended by the Nazi’s 10th Army.

There, progress stalled in a valley below a 6th Century hilltop abbey. Repeated artillery attacks on Allied troops caused leaders to conclude the Germans had occupied the hallowed ancient complex.

They were almost certainly wrong.

On February 15, Allied bombers dropped 1,400 tons of bombs of the abbey… after which German paratroopers promptly occupied the rubble – for real this time – and established even stronger defensive positions. Shooting downward from a ready-made fort on exposed raiders, 140,000 German soldiers stood firm against twice as many men. It took four horrifically bloody assaults over the next three months for the ruins to be taken by a Polish corps operating under British command. The Allies suffered over 55,000 casualties, the Axis approximately 20,000.

3 Battle of Karánsebes (Austro-Turkish War)

The only reason this entry is a stretch is because, one would think, a battle should involve both sides of a war.

In September 1788, the 100,000-strong Austrian army was making camp near Karánsebes in modern-day Romania. Some cavalrymen crossed the Timis River at night to scout for the opposing Ottoman forces. Instead of hostile Turks, they found locals peddling booze. Infantrymen crossed to partake, but the inebriated horsemen refused. A fight followed – and then a shot.

Other infantrymen showed up, shouting “Turks!” In the confusion, BOTH sides fled believing the Ottomans had ambushed them. Making matters worse, German-speaking officers, attempting to restore order, shouted, “Halt! Halt!” which many non-German-speaking soldiers (including Italians and Croats) misheard as “Allah! Allah!”

Then bad leadership drastically escalated matters. As the cavalrymen fled back to camp, a General named Colloredo thought that, for some reason, a small band of Ottoman cavalry were charging a gigantic enemy encampment in the middle of the night. Regardless how extremely unlikely (and suicidally stupid) that prospect was, he ordered artillery to fire, waking the entire camp… which promptly scattered and fled in fear, shooting at shadows of supposed Turks as they ran. Incredibly, the entire army retreated from the imaginary enemy.

The nonsensical event was as lethal as it was dumb: TEN THOUSAND soldiers were killed or wounded. Two days later, the Ottoman army – the real one – arrived, stepped over dead and wounded Austrian soldiers and easily took Karánsebes. What’s German for “morons?”

2 Pickett’s Charge (Battle of Gettysburg – American Civil War)

Ironically, among the poorest-planned and most costly battles in American history was devised by arguably the most brilliant military genius the country has ever produced: Robert E. Lee.

1863’s Battle of Gettysburg was a multi-day conflict in which the Confederacy had, for the second time, invaded the north. By July 3, Gettyburg’s third day, ample blood had been shed without much ground gained. Both sides were dug in along a series of ridges and hilltops, with Union troops largely playing defense – an especially advantageous position given the era’s weapons and tactics.

According to historian Shelby Foote, Lee “had has blood up.” He’d tried the right and left flanks; now he commanded an all-out assault on the center, which involved hurling thousands of men across an open field against an entrenched line nearly a mile away. Several subordinates begged him to reconsider, deeming it suicidal. Eager for glory, Major General George Pickett wasn’t among them.

Led by Pickett and other generals, nearly a dozen brigades comprising 12,500 troops began marching toward the distant Union lines, fortified with cannon behind a stone wall. Only a handful made it over the wall – an indented parcel now called the Bloody Angle – and were quickly cut down or captured. Over 1,100 rebels died, over 4,000 were captured and only a quarter returned unwounded.

“Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having Robert E. Lee as commander,” said Foote, alluding to the bravado that made Lee’s legend.

1 Little Bighorn (US-Indian Wars)

Custer’s Last Stand – or, rather, the recklessness that necessitated such a futile finale – earns its namesake first place on this list of battlefield buffoonery.

Notably, 13 years earlier Custer was at Gettysburg where, a month after becoming the Union Army’s youngest general, he helped turn back Confederate cavalry in an engagement overshadowed by Pickett’s Charge. Still, evidenced by his graduating dead last in his West Point class, Custer was more bravado than brains. And on June 25, 1876, his brainless bravery would get him and his entourage – 267 other US soldiers – senselessly killed.

So complete was the disaster that details of the battle are unverifiable, because no soldier survived to report on it. What is known is that, after dividing his initial force of 600 into several groups, Custer mounted a full-scale frontal attack on more than 2,000 battle-ready Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors.

Custer charged the center of an enemy at least EIGHT TIMES his strength with no escape route. Like a guppy swimming into a shark’s mouth, the Indian flanks collapsed around Custer, and the US soldiers were simply swallowed and slaughtered.

Worse, Custer did this even after noticing what he admitted was a surprisingly large Indian encampment nearby. In fact, this hastened his attack, under the ludicrous logic that, despite being severely outmanned, he had to strike before the town disbanded and escaped in smaller groups. It was the height of military hubris and a disgraceful dereliction of duty.

10 Forgotten Battles That Changed World History