Sometimes you just can't be sure of the outcome of a battle. It is true that you might outnumber the enemy 10 to 1 and still either lose or be so delayed that it effects the rest of your battle plans. We have seen examples of this throughout history. One of the most lopsided examples of this was when the 300 Spartans held off the Persian Army of nearly 1,000,000 men at the pass at Themopile The Persians eventually broke through but by then the Greeks had time to organize and their fleet soundly beat the Persian fleet while their soldiers drove the invaders back. There was no way that the Persians should have lost their battle with the Greeks. They had planned to just sweep over the land. Terrain had been a great help to the Spartans and the fact that they were not scared to die defending their land. They wedged themselves into the small pass and the enemy couldn't come at them with more than a few men across. The Spartans who were trained from childhood as soldiers chopped the Persians to pieces.

Enough of ancient times. Lets move on to relatively modern day battles in World War I. In 1914 the Belgian army was forced to fall back to Antwerp. They were hoping to get help from Great Britain or France. They needed it because their entire army was only 180,000 men strong. They were faced by Germany, Austria-Hungry and Italy who had formed the Triple Alliance. By 1910 the population of Germany alone had increased to 65,000,000. When the war started in 1914 the German army had over 700,000 men and was rated as the most efficient army in the world. Every man had to serve for a short period of time and then remain in the reserve for a few years. Germany had the world's second largest navy, Great Britain had the first, and 246 aircraft and 11 airships. Little Belgium didn't stand a chance.

Antwerp had a triple ring of fortifications that ranged for over 65 miles. Belgium had a treaty with the Dutch that gave them discretion to close the waterway leading to Antwerp in time of war. The Dutch did just that and this prevented the British from reinforcing the city. The British were only able to get 8,000 troops to Antwerp and that was totally insufficient. To the surprise of the Germans, the Belgians began to attack the Germans. They had to send precious troops that were being used to defend against the French and British to the line facing the Belgians. The Germans decided to offer the Belgians a deal. The Belgian king refused and continued to fight. The Germans moved up their artillery and it was joined by the Austrian artillery The Germans had decided to decimate the Belgian army thus removing it as a threat and this would allow them to concentrate on the British and French armies.

It took two weeks to get the last Belgian fort to surrender, allowing the Belgian army and British forces to escape.

Finland and Russia try to reach an agreement in 1939. Finland was apportioned to the Soviets as part of a non aggression pact with Germany. The talks drag on but Stalin will not be satisfied with anything less than control of the islands in the Gulf of Finland and the port city of Hanko. The Fins do not agree to this and war is declared on them. Their forces number only 9 divisions and the Soviets throw 26 divisions at them initially thinking that they will just overrun them. It isn't just men that the Soviets have a huge advantage in, it is also tanks and planes.

In Camp

The Fins decide to allow the tanks to penetrate their territory during the day time but they stop the infantry. When night time falls the Fins would attack the tanks with explosives and gasoline bombs and destroy them. The Fins send out their ski units and surround entire Soviet divisions and destroy them. The Soviets can't believe this. What was supposed to be a romp has turned out to be a life and death struggle for them. The struggle began on November 30, 1939 and the Fins manage to hold out until March 13, 1940. The Finish Army was finally crushed under the weight of 1.2 million Soviet troops, 1,500 tanks and 3,000 aircraft. The Soviets suffered 158,000 wounded and 45,000 killed with totals up to more than the size of the Finish Army. The Fins suffer 25,000 dead and 45,000 wounded. Did the holdout by the Fins convince Hitler that the Soviets would be easy pickings? It could be, I am sure that he was an interested observer.

I guess no talk about beating the odds in wartime could take place with talking about the people of England and how they endured the German raids. The raids took place in both wars and started in World War I on December 21, 1914. It is interesting to note that that the first country to use the tactic of bombing cities was Germany. When the war first started they used their blimp and zepplin fleet as bombers. They even had huge guns that could reach some English cities. As the war progressed so did technology and bombers were used on England. The British bravely held out. During World War II the German weapons were much more fearsome. Not only were there bombers but ballistic missiles and crude cruise missiles. Imagine living in a city and not knowing when a missile was going to fall on your head. It took extraordinary courage to get on with one's life under these circumstances. The British people were never broken and terror bombing never really worked from a psychological point of view.