Are there examples of battles fought under the influence (of alcohol)?

score:9

Accepted answer

One example, which I heard about in Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast (disclaimer, he's not a historian and sometimes prefers good story telling to historical accuracy and uncertainty), is from the siege of Münster (Germany, not Ireland) in 1534.

The story goes that the Prince-Bishop leading the siege planned to attack at sunrise on the morning of the 26th May. But the previous afternoon some of the soldiers were drinking heavily, and as the sun was going down they mistook the sunset for the sunrise, and thought they were going to miss out on their share of the loot in the pillaging of the city. So they charged the city walls. This precipitated a chain reaction that dragged the rest of the attacking army in to the fray in the darkness add the sun went down. The disorganised, impromptu (and accidental) attack, with the added confusion of darkness, was a total failure.

Consequently, rather than successfully storming the city on the 26th May, the siege dragged on for another few months.

(Spoiler alert: it didn't end well for the Münster Anabaptist rebellion).

A source for this can be found in "A History of the Münster Anabaptist" by Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, although there are probably earlier sources that he uses if you speak German (very little in English on this). See page 62, which you can find online at google book

Upvote:2

There is a (pejorative) French expression saoul comme un Polonais (drunk like a Pole).

This expression comes from the Somosierra battle in 1808 where Polish light cavalry won for the French, after what the survivors were presented to Napoleon. French generals were quite jealous and mentioned that the Poles were drunk.

To what Napoleon responded

  • version 1: So gentlemen, learn to be drunk like Poles
  • version 2: One must have been drunk like a Pole to accomplish this

Sourced from Wiktionary, see also Mediapart

Upvote:5

Liquor (sake) was an important ingredient of preparing Japanese soldiers for suicidal Banzai Attacks.

The most important of these took place in June 1944 on Saipan, which contained supplies, including liquor, for Japan's Pacific islands.

Upvote:7

It is rumoured that on the evening of June 15, 1815, Marechal Ney may have enjoyed too much of M. Dumont's Burgundy in Gosselies, and that his late start to Quatre Bras the following morning may be in consequence:

According to local tradition Ney's first care was to have a bed prepared 'with two or three mattresses'. Then he proceeded to do honour to his host's cuisine and fine Burgundy. During this time Napoleon had sent several messages to le Marechal enjoining him to advance at once. But Ney liked M. Dumont's wine, and as the bottles were emptied lined them up before him on the table. He resumed is march the next morning, but it was then too late, ....

Lest we judge le Marechal too harshly, note that Ney had spent most of the two preceding days in a goat cart catching up to le Grand Armee, finally doing so at Charleroi only a few hours earlier. At that point he had been rewarded by Napoleon with command of the left wing and an escort of the Imperial Guard Red Lancers. Undoubtedly Generals D'Erlon and Reille, Ney's divisional commanders, would have joined him for dinner that night along with their senior officers.

Upvote:8

It is well known that Russian front line troops were given 100 gram of vodka daily. Sometimes this norm was doubled. This was introduced by Stalin's personal order during the Finnish war 1940, and the order remained in force for the Soviet-German war. This resulted in many cases of alcoholism among the Soviet soldiers. The details can be found in Russian Wikipedia, for example Наркомовские 100 грамм in Russian.

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