The Swedish general Lennart Torstenson, so crippled by gout he had to be carried on a litter, nonetheless directed a masterful battle near Jankau in Bohemia. He lured the Imperial army into terrain it could not use, then destroyed it — killing, wounding, or capturing virtually the entire force including its commander. Vienna itself was momentarily threatened.
Jankau demonstrated that Swedish military effectiveness persisted even after the death of Gustavus Adolphus. The victory opened Bohemia to Swedish invasion and brought the Habsburgs to the brink of total defeat, greatly accelerating the peace negotiations at Münster and Osnabrück that were already underway.
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After a 13-day siege, Mexican forces under General Santa Anna stormed the Alamo mission and killed all of its approximately 189 Texan defenders, including Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and William Barret Travis. The battle lasted only 90 minutes.
'Remember the Alamo!' became the battle cry that rallied Texans to defeat Santa Anna at San Jacinto six weeks later and secure Texas independence.
Outcome
Mexican victory; all 189 Texan defenders killed
On March 6, 2025, armed groups loyal to the deposed government launched coordinated attacks on security posts across the coastal governorates of Latakia and Tartous, killing and capturing hundreds of the new government's forces. The counteroffensive that followed became the worst atrocity of Syria's transition. Government-aligned militias swept Alawite towns and villages — Banias among the worst hit — going house to house and, by the account of survivors and human rights investigators, asking residents whether they were Alawite or Sunni before deciding whether to shoot. A national commission of inquiry put the toll at at least 1,426 dead, most of them civilians; other estimates run to 2,000. A UN commission later found the violence 'widespread and systematic,' and Syria opened its first public trials over the killings in November 2025.
The defining test of whether the new government could hold its own factions to the pluralism it had promised — and it failed. The massacres set the pattern of sectarian reprisal that has shadowed the transition ever since.
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