The World's Most Important Battles

[moomin]

It took a moment for me to realise that Tours 732 is actually the Battle of Poitiers. That has to be a major biggie as far as European history is concerned.

[Andrew1999]

Can you give a little background on some of these? Waterloo, Stalingrad, Midway are obvious but I don't recognize some of the older ones right off.

Edit: Badr, Talas River, and Ayn Jalut in particular.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

One that should certainly be on the list is Brunnanburh- 937AD. It was the battle that established the Wessex/Mercian axis as the dominant force in the British Isles. Scotland, Wales, Viking Ireland and Northumbria never really threatened dominance again.

[Imran Siddiqui]

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.

Saratoga convinced the French and Spanish to back the fledgling states. Without that help the revolt would have been doomed.

[orange]

Tours has got to be #1...i didn't vote Zama really, because I don't think much would have changed if it didn't happen...well, it would have happened eventually anyway...not like Carthage had anything left at that point

[monkspider]

How about Borodino for another good one that's not on the poll? I consider that to be Napoleon's truly decisive defeat, rather than Waterloo.

Lepanto is another good one Ethy.

[rah]

Ok, I've merged the old thread to this one. I hope I did it right, since I've never done it before. It looks like it worked. Let me know if it didn't

Rich
Just another service provided free of charge by your helpful moderators

[monkspider]

Here are a few more good ones that I don't think have been mentioned

-Marathon
-Syracuse (Peloponessian war)
-Orleans 1429 (Joan D'Arc)

[Lord Merciless]

I disagree with Stalingrad being the most important battle in WW2. Speaking of decisiveness, Battle of Britain and Battle of Moskva were far more important. Had Germans taken Moskva in 1941, they had a real chance of winning the war and would never have to fight at Stalingrad.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Saratoga convinced the French and Spanish to back the fledgling states. Without that help the revolt would have been doomed.

Yes to a large extent.

What I am saying is that if the Brits had won the Americans might have been able to get the help in a later battle. Maybe even against Bourgoyne by pecking at his troops as they continued on their way. An American success is what did the trick there but an American failure, if not too extreme, would not have obviated a later success that got the same results.

Such a success would however have had to come soon. A disastor for the Americans at Saratoga would have made that difficult if not impossible but if the Brits had pulled out a phyric victory success could still come another day at least if the day came soon.

[Sten Sture]

I am surprised no one else picked the Talas River. A bunch of the other results looked inevitable, however, the surprise stopping of Chinese western expansion in the 8th century probably kept the west western.

Undoubtably, the result aided the 13th? century Chinese fleet decision to turn around at (what is now) Cape Town, thinking that they had covered the world.

[Az]

Talas river?

[monkspider]

Talas River is where the Arabs halted Chinese invaders. If the Arabs were defeated. and China gained the middle-east, it would have been perhaps the greatest empire in history. It is one of those interesting what-ifs about history, like what if the Chinese decieded to colonized the Americas rather than the Euros.

[Adam Smith]

Badr: Mohammed & Co. get their act together against the locals. Without this win they never get off the ground. Also convinces his followers of the value of the Moslem moral strictures.

Talas River: See Sten's and Monkspider's posts. Even though the Chinese lost, this battle also stopped the eastward expansion of Islam along Asian land routes, and may have hastened the (edit: demise) of the Tang dynasty.

Ayn Jalut: Egyptians defeat Mongols, preserving what remains of Islam

Rich:
Looks like you passed your moderator test.

[monkspider]

Something else interesting about the battle of Talas river is that during the battle the Arabs captured some of the Chinese papermakers, so it is this battle that allowed this technology to come ot the west.