Von Kluck's turn
On September 2nd, 1914, after having mobilized over 500 km and destroying everything in its wake, General Alexander von Kluck's army was running out of steam and decided to make a left turn outside of Paris. This fatal mistake allowed the French army under General Joffre to attack the German flank—ending its momentum and producing a deadlock that would prolong Word War I until 1918
Source: Tuchman, Barbara W. The Guns of August. New York: Macmillan, 1962.
Image by Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin CC BY-SA 3.0 license
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!