Battle of annihilation A battle of annihilation is a military strategy in which an attacking army seeks to destroy the military capacity of the opposing army in a single planned pivotal battle . This is achieved through the use of tactical surprise , application of overwhelming force at a key point , or other tactics performed immediately before or during the battle . The intention is that the opposing government will then be forced to sue for peace to prevent the unopposed capture of its capital or other core areas . It is not necessary to kill or capture all , or even most , of an opposing army ' s soldiers to annihilate it in the sense used here . Rather , the destruction of the enemy army as a cohesive military force able to offer further meaningful resistance , even if temporarily , is the objective . Significance of the term . In ancient and classical times , many battles ended with the annihilation of one of the forces , the battles of Cannae , Zama and Adrianople being famous examples . From the Renaissance onward , however , the battle of annihilation became rare , at least in Europe . The greatest exception is seen in the battles of Napoleon Bonaparte , and it is with Napoleon that the battle of annihilation in the modern sense is most closely associated , so that term " Napoleonic battle of annihilation " is sometimes used , and the Battle of Austerlitz is often cited as the apotheosis of the modern battle of annihilation . Alternatives to the battle of annihilation . At first blush , it might seem that annihilation of the opposing army is the obvious object of any military campaign . This is not true , however . Many battles have been fought to cause an enemy army simply to retreat , or to suffer attrition ; and many campaigns have been waged to avoid rather than seek such a battle . Reasons for not seeking a battle of annihilation include : Risk and cost . A successful battle of annihilation usually requires exposing one ' s own army to loss in a way that more conservative tactics do not . For example , attempting to turn an enemy ' s flank generally requires one to separate the flanking force from one ' s main body . This exposes the attacking force to defeat in detail . Attempting to pierce the enemy ' s center is usually costly in itself , and also exposes the vanguard force to a destructive counterstroke . This was an especially important consideration during the pre - Napoleonic era , when armies were relatively small forces composed of professional career soldiers and losses were difficult to replace . Lack of means . From the Renaissance until the advent of military mechanization , armies were slow " on the battlefield " ( not necessarily slow operationally ) . This was due to the declining efficacy of cavalry and to the advent of artillery , which is difficult to move . This made it difficult to move quickly enough to prevent an enemy from countering a battle stratagem , or , failing that , to withdraw safely . Using other means . If the object of war is to destroy the enemy ' s ability to resist politically , this may be achieved by other , less expensive , methods . For example , one may attempt to maneuver one ' s army in such a way as to cut off the enemy from its base of supplies . If this is done successfully , the enemy may be forced to seek terms with its army intact . This sort of campaign was typical of Enlightenment armies , and is especially associated with the campaigns of Frederick the Great . The French Campaign of 1940 offers an example . After the Germans broke into the French rear at Sedan , they were able to surround the main Allied armies and render their position untenable . No great battle of annihilation was required . ( Alternatively , the Germans considered instead striking toward Paris . Capture of the French capital might have broken the French morale and " political " will to resist ) . Accepted practice . In warfare , as in many avenues of human endeavor , the optimal application of material means is sometimes limited by the failure of imagination . A successful battle of annihilation generally requires great skill and daring on the part of the attacking commander . If a commander ' s training , experience , and peer relationships have not prepared him to expect a battle of annihilation , this alone may prevent him envisioning such a battle . For example , during the American Civil War , several Union Army generals were not able to imagine a battle of annihilation even during opportunities when the Union Army of the Potomac had sufficient strength in forces and the material means to conduct such a battle . Political considerations . If a war has limited political objectives , this may require the adoption of limited military strategy , including the disinclination to pursue a battle of annihilation . In the Gulf War , the Allied forces could have sought and won a battle of annihilation against the Iraqi Republican Guard . It was decided , however , that the annihilation of the Republican Guard might have led to the dissolution of the Iraqi state , which was not a desired political objective . Some historians have speculated that Hitler declined to seek the destruction of the British army at Dunkirk in 1940 for political reasons : to show magnanimity by allowing the British to withdraw , facilitating a political end to the war . ( This is , however , disputed — other historians feel that Hitler simply wanted to avoid the risk to his armored formations that a battle of annihilation would have required , and Alexander Procofieff de Seversky in " Victory Through Air Power " implied that the cover of land - based Royal Air Force aircraft allowed the army at Dunkirk to escape ) . After Napoleon . Napoleon ' s victories at Austerlitz ( 1805 ) and Jena ( 1806 ) are often cited as the classic battles of annihilation . Napoleon himself was unable to again achieve such decisive results , partly because his enemies subsequently adjusted to his tactics . For example , Borodino , while a victory , did not result in the desired destruction of the Russian army . Nevertheless , strategists , influenced by those of the Napoleonic era , most notably Antoine - Henri Jomini , held the Napoleonic battle of annihilation to be the proper objective of modern military campaigns . This interpretation was later mis - accredited to the more renowned Carl von Clausewitz , initially by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder who supported arguments for strategies of annihilation with quotes from Clausewitz . Clausewitz , who disliked Jomini personally , as well as his concepts , instead emphasized the primacy of the political in warfare , and remained indifferent to theories arguing for any absolute solutions via the application of military force . Nevertheless , this set the stage for mass confusion down the line of strategic thinkers . Clausewitz ' s trilogies ( albeit used out of context ) are contested by Liddell Hart , who claims in " Strategy " that a poor choice of words by Clausewitz led his interpreters to overestimate the value of annihilation battles . Consequently , at the beginning of the American Civil War , many top military commanders expected a battle of annihilation to quickly end the war . This did not occur . Already , the size and firepower of armies were making the battle of annihilation harder to achieve . A contrast may be seen between the Confederate general Robert E . Lee and the Union general Ulysses S . Grant . Lee , when on the offensive , usually maneuvered with the intent of forcing a battle of annihilation . His archetypal attempt was at the Battle of Chancellorsville , where a classic Napoleonic flanking maneuver defeated but was not able to destroy the Union Army under Joseph Hooker . Lee may be faulted for attempting to achieve a battle of annihilation , particularly at Gettysburg , in an age when this strategy was becoming obsolete . In contrast , Grant was noted for waging campaigns of maneuver . In the Vicksburg campaign , he forced Pemberton ' s army into a siege position where it was forced to surrender without a battle . In the Virginia campaign of 1864 against Lee , he continually maneuvered around Lee , forcing him to withdraw further and further south until he had to choose between abandoning the Confederate capital of Richmond or withdrawing into siege lines . William Tecumseh Sherman may also be cited . Rather than pursuing the chimera of destroying Hood ' s army , he chose to operate directly against the Confederate economy . His famous march through Georgia , directly " away " from Hood , was basically the opposite of a Napoleonic strategy . The Napoleonic ideal was still alive at the beginning of World War I . In fact , the Germans were able to execute a battle of annihilation against the Russian 2nd Army at the Battle of Tannenberg in the war ' s opening weeks . But attempts to create such a result on the Western Front resulted in great slaughter to no effect . Armies were now too large to have flanks to turn , and had too much firepower and too much defensive depth to be broken by assault . During Operation Uranus , Soviet forces launched a counter - attack on Axis forces at Stalingrad . The Soviets enveloped the Axis forces in a double pincer , then began a battle of annihilation that resulted in the destruction and subsequent surrender of the German Sixth Army of 250 , 000 soldiers . During the Pacific War , the Imperial Japanese Navy ' s strategy was fixated on the goal of luring the numerically superior United States Pacific Fleet into a single decisive battle of annihilation , which would force the United States to sue for peace . This was at least partially the motivation behind the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway , but was loosely followed for as long as the IJN was capable of offensive operations . This goal was never achieved for several reasons . First , the US Navy was wary of committing all of its forces to one major battle . Further , the IJN concentrated so much of its efforts on preparing for a single massive showdown ( which never truly occurred ) that it neglected devoting resources towards protecting its naval supply lines , which soon fell prey to a Fabian strategy when they were extensively targeted by US submarines . Finally , IJN strategic thought was still heavily based on Mahan ' s outdated theory of naval supremacy which was based on battleships , failing to realize that aircraft carriers were growing into a position of dominance in naval warfare . Even Japanese victories such as the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands failed to utterly annihilate their opponents . The hoped - for " decisive battle " against the US Navy never came , and the IJN was gradually ground down through attrition . Since World War I , the paradigm of armies maneuvering in the empty countryside for weeks and then meeting in a battle lasting ( usually ) a single day no longer applies ( at least to wars between major powers ) . Instead , armies are deployed in more - or - less continuous lines stretching perhaps hundreds of miles . Thus , the battle of annihilation may be considered to be mainly of historical interest , except for secondary campaigns .