The World's Most Important Battles

[Adam Smith]

THe Germanic Tribes thread provides an example of the long-term historical importance of certain battles. What have been the world's most important battles from an historical perspective as opposed to a purely military perspective? Here is an initial list to start this impossibly broad topic. Since I am no historian, feel free to add or argue as you see fit.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Where was that list?

Well I will start with battle for Stalingrad.

[Adam Smith]

Damn. This was supposed to be a poll.
Can some mod help me fix it???

Anyway, here are the entries, in chronological order:

Salamis 480 BC
Zama 202 BC
Teutoburger Wald 9 AD
Adrianople 378
Badr 624
Tours 732
Talas River 751
Hastings 1066
Ayn Jalut 1259
Tenochtitlan 1521
Spanish Armada 1588
Vienna 1683
Saratoga 1777
Waterloo 1815
Stalingrad 1942
Midway 1942

[- Groucho -]

I don't see a list, but how about Thermopylae? Key delaying battle enables Greeks to get their act together. Without it, European history could have been vastly different.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Whooo.. I guessed one right

maybe Ming can help you turn this in a poll?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Saratoga was immensly important in that one battle basically created the United States as a viable thing. The revolt was used by many other colonies in trying to rid their overloards.

I also have to make a case for the Battle of Tannenburg, 1915. It was the only chance for Russia to win on that front, and they almost did it, but the Germans split them and crushed them, and the war, after that, was lost to the Russkies, and it started the long slide to revolution.

[Lord Merciless]

I'll just name a few up to 500AD:

480BC - Salamis: Preservation of the Western Culture

332BC - Gaugamela: Destruction of the Persian Empire and foundation of the Hellenic Empire.

119BC - Fifth Han Offensive against Huns: Firm establishment of Han(Chinese) power in East Asia, Hun
westward migration begun, opening of the Silk Route.

9AD - Teutoburger Forest: Roman conquest of Germany failed.

378AD - Adrianople: Destruction sequence of the Western Roman Empire and onset of Middle Age begun.

451AD - Chalon: Preservation of the West from Hunnish onslaught, Hun migration stopped.


There were several other important battles such as Kadesh 1245BC, Granicus 334BC, Ipsus 301BC, Chang Ping 260BC, Cannae 216BC, Zama and Gai Xia 202BC, Cynocephalae 197BC, Corinth? 168BC, Carraeh 53BC, Alesia 52BC, Actium 31BC, Guan Du 200AD, Chi Bi 208AD, and Rome 410AD, but I would rather consider their effects to be either localized, only part of a long chain of events, or already a foregone conclusion.

[Adam Smith]

The World's Most Important Battles

Trying to get it right this time....

The Germanic Tribes thread provides an example of the long-term historical importance of certain battles. What have been the world's most important battles from an historical perspective as opposed to a purely military perspective? Here is an initial list to start this impossibly broad topic. Since I am no historian, feel free to add or argue as you see fit.

Rich: If you can pull the posts in from the other thread I would appreciate it. Thanks much.

[DanS]

Cannae lost out in importance because Hannibal didn't follow up his victory sufficiently quickly. If he had, then that would have been the most important battle easily and we would have a very different world today.

[Adam Smith]

Rich:

Thanks for the help.

[Ethelred]

Your missing Lepanto where Venice broke the Moslem hold on the Mediteranean.

Not the most important I suppose but one of them. Up there with Saratoga anyway as if the Brits had won the Americans would have retreated as they did so many times before and fought again another day so we can't be certain that the world would be very different with an American victory.

[Az]

what was that battle that the Catholics managed to stop the Mongols? IIRC, in the area of the Chechia today.

[monkspider]

Good thread Smith

1453 Constantinople - Marked a turning point in world history, and paved the way for the Ottoman's brief period as Europe's greatest power.

Tours 732 - Charles Martel prevented Europe from falling to the Arabs. Perhaps if this were an Arab victory we would all be worshipping Allah right now.

Salamis 480 BC - Just imagine where we would be if Xerxes and his boys overran Greece. No Socrates, no Aristotle, no Greece to influence Rome etc. It is hard to imagine what the world would be like if Persia won.

1942 Stalingrad - Allowed the Soviet Union to to turn the tide against the Nazi war machine.

I don't recall the date, or the name of the battle, but the battle where the Japanese resisted the Mongol invasion has to be a fairly important one as well.

[Az]

oh, and DanS is very correct. I remember reading about this battle in my Roman history readings. It was quite typical of Hannibal, btw.

[monkspider]

Zama is another big one in terms of Carthaginian/Roman history.