5 of the Most Creative Ways Wars Were Won
Kind of by definition, war is full of death, destruction and a rainbow of different kinds of violence. So it helps to inject some whimsy where you can. If it helps you win, all the better. That’s why, in the throes of hostilities, some armies have turned to…
Ice Skating
When Spain decided to start inquiring in the Netherlands in 1566, the Dutch had to think fast. They didn’t have a lot of advantages, and Spain made it clear there wasn’t much hope for mercy. Then they realized they had one thing Spain didn’t: the ability to ice skate. They flooded the country, effectively turning it into one big ice rink, and literally skated circles around the invading forces. The Spanish soldiers were so bewildered they secreted a pair of skates back to the homeland to explain to the king what they were up against. It was just the beginning of the Eighty Years’ War, which famously lasted a long time, but it did help the Dutch prevail.
Inflatable Tanks
When American forces were planning D-Day, part of the preparations included convincing the Axis powers it was going to take place far away from the real target. To that end, they blew up a fleet of inflatable tanks that looked real from a distance to station at decoy locations, rigged up giant speakers to play the sounds of a large army camp and dropped dummies with parachutes. You’re not living under Nazi rule right now (well, technically), so it worked.
Beef Bombs
The reputations of Canadians have changed somewhat since World War I, when they were known to German forces as “unpredictable savages.” One of the reasons is, on at least one occasion, Canadian troops threw cans of corned beef into the trenches of starving Germans. Once they’d convinced the enemy soldiers of their generosity, they started throwing grenades instead, knowing that the Germans, expecting food, would run right toward them. Man, do not fuck with Canada.
Electric Swamps
Under no circumstances do you “have to hand it to” Saddam Hussein, but you have to admit it showed some pretty forward thinking when Iraqi forces laid electrical cables underneath the swampy surface of the battlefield at the Hawizeh Marshes. When Iranian troops tried to cross it, they were instantly electrocuted. Iraq technically didn’t win that battle or the First Gulf War, but Hussein did get to keep Husseining, so it’s hard to say he lost.
Blazing Birds
When the Drevlians showed up to the court of Olga of Kiev in 945 to announce they’d killed her husband and suggest she marry their own prince, she didn’t quite react the way they’d hoped. First, she seemed to agree and told them she intended to “honor them” the next day, by which she meant “lure them into a trench and bury them alive,” asking them as they suffocated whether they “found the honor to their taste,” which is the 10th-century version of “How do you like them apples?”
Before the rest of the Drevlians could find out, she asked them to send more “distinguished men,” who she lured into a bathhouse and set it on fire. She then asked for a funeral feast in the city where they killed her husband, where she obviously went all Red Wedding on their asses. Finally, she agreed to end the mayhem in exchange for a gift of six birds from each Drevlian house, and they obliged, probably thinking, “Sure, this sounds like a trick, but what can she do with six birds? Send them all back on fire?” Which is exactly what she did. The whole city burned down. The Eastern Orthodox Church made her a saint, probably because they were scared not to.