whether you ever find yourself in command of an invading army,and surrounded by a numerically superior enemy hell-bent on your destruction, it is probably not a good thought to intentionally eliminate your only means of retreat. Yet that is what the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés did in 1519 when he sunk his own naval fleet to keep his men from deserting during his campaign to conquer the Aztec Empire. It was one of the biggest gambles in military history. He conquered the Aztec two years later, and but things could gain easily gone the other way. whether Cortés had been defeated,... Read the rest of this entry »
Source: navalhistory.org