The siege of Lille — Vauban's masterpiece of fortification and France's second city — was the most technically demanding operation of the war. Eugene conducted the siege while Marlborough covered against French relief attempts. The garrison under Marshal Boufflers conducted a heroic defense of both the town (surrendered October 22) and the citadel (surrendered December 9). Allied casualties in the operation exceeded 15,000.
The fall of Lille was a devastating blow to French prestige and morale. Vauban's greatest fortress, thought impregnable, had fallen. The operation demonstrated Allied superiority in siege engineering and logistics, and it cost France irreplaceable veteran troops.
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The worst day of Frederick the Great's life. Facing a combined Russian-Austrian army of 59,000 near Frankfurt an der Oder, Frederick attacked with 51,000 men. Initial Prussian success collapsed into catastrophe as Russian troops refused to break, absorbed devastating artillery fire, and then counterattacked. The Prussian army disintegrated. Frederick had three horses shot under him; his coat was pierced by bullets. He left the field with 3,000 men of the 48,000 he had brought. 'I believe all is lost,' he wrote to a minister. 'Save the court; the enemy will be in Berlin in a few days.'
The most catastrophic Prussian defeat of the war — and the moment that should have ended it. Only the mutual distrust between Russian General Saltykov and Austrian Field Marshal Daun prevented them from pursuing Frederick and finishing Prussia. They failed to advance on Berlin. Frederick called this delay a miracle and recovered within weeks, but Prussia's manpower reserve was nearly exhausted. The war could only continue because Russia's Empress Elizabeth fell mortally ill and the miracle of the House of Brandenburg awaited.
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The naval engagement at Manzanillo on Cuba's southern coast was one of several small actions fought as American naval forces systematically destroyed Spanish gunboats and coastal defenses around Cuba. American warships and converted yachts attacked the harbor at Manzanillo, engaging Spanish gunboats and shore batteries. The action took place on the same day the armistice protocol was signed in Washington, making it among the final combat actions of the war — though word of the ceasefire had not yet reached the combatants. Several Spanish gunboats were sunk or damaged.
Manzanillo illustrated how thoroughly American naval power had come to dominate Cuban waters by war's end. The destruction of Spain's remaining coastal naval forces left no avenue for resupply or reinforcement of Spanish forces anywhere on the island.
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Three days of pitched street fighting erupted in the Catholic Bogside district of Derry when residents, fearing loyalist and police incursions after a contentious Apprentice Boys parade, barricaded their neighbourhood and battled the Royal Ulster Constabulary with stones and petrol bombs behind 'Free Derry' walls. Unable to retake the area, the exhausted police were withdrawn and the British Army was deployed onto the streets of Northern Ireland.
The Battle of the Bogside is often taken as the moment the Troubles began in earnest. It triggered the deployment of British troops — initially welcomed by Catholics — and set in motion the spiral of violence that would consume the province for a generation.
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