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quantdave t1_j8hr8tu wrote

Napoleon's 1815 return springs to mind, expanding his realm from little Elba to the whole of France before meeting his Waterloo. I'd say though that the greatest or at least most lasting comebacks from defeat or conquest haven't been military at all, they've involved the subject population absorbing its conquerors and largely continuing as if nothing had happened (an exaggeration, of course) - I'm thinking Mongol or Manchu-ruled China, western Europe's Romano-Celtic peoples after the 5th century, etc.: make love, not war, perhaps.

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