Pyrrhic victory
A Pyrrhic victory is a victory which is only achieved with heavy losses on one's own side, often to the point of offsetting potential benefit.
This alludes to the Battle of Ausculum (Ascoli Satriano, in Apulia). in 279 BCE, when the Epirote King Pyrrhus, aiding the Tarentines, defeated the Romans but with severe casualties of his own. After the battle, Pyrrhus is recorded to have commented: "If we win another such battle against the Romans, we will be completely lost" (Plutarch, Pyrrhus 21,14).
Another example of a Pyrrhic victory would be the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in 1941. While successful in an immediate sense, the action set into motion a sequence of events leading directly to the downfall of the Japanese Empire.
Also classified as a Pyrrhic victory is World War II on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Union triumphed over Nazi Germany but lost more than 25 million people in the war, including 11 million troops killed compared to 4 million German and other Axis battle deaths.
See also
