The World's Most Important Battles

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Azazel

would you summarize, since I don't have the book at my disposal?

You really have to read the book to understand the points it's trying to make. The book was written for the Western audience and is available at amazon.com.

[Shi Huangdi]

Stalingrad seems to have gotten alot of votes, but it doesn't deserve them. Even had the Germans won, they would have still been doomed due to nuclear weapons.

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless Do you want the short version or the whole story?

The short version will do for now...enough to help me dig for the whole story. Thanks in advance.

[Sprayber]

Re: World's Most Important Battles

Originally posted by 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.

Most important battle ever.

hmmm, maybe the first time one group succeeded in taking over another group's cave and hunting grounds. I'll call it the battle of grunt grunt cave. Everthing else is just repettion

[CyberGnu]

Sagacious Dolphin, it might very well have been a phyric victory as well.. We've all heard about greek fire, right?

[CyberGnu]

Hmm, what about the battle of Lutzen, 1632? Broke the power of the papacy.

[DinoDoc]

What about Thermopylae 480 B.C.?

[Kramerman]

C'mon, where is the Battle of the Alamo?
I voted Tours. IIRC, it was Charlamaignes father that fought that one (it might of been Charlemaigne - i dont remember) and he kept the Moores from pushing further into Europe from the Iberian peninsula. All the influence that culturally Christian (both Protestant and Catholic) Europe has had on the world would have been non-exsistant had Europe been conquered by the Islamic Moores. The world as we know it would be entirely different, though I could only even begin to fathom how. Perhaps for the better, but more probably for the worse, I think, because America most likely would exsist, meaning my mixed European blood probably would never of happened. Incredible that my very exsistance depended on events that happened so long ago....

Kman

[orange]

I agree with Sagacious Dolphin.

Dismissing the importance of Hastings is ignorant at best.

[SnowFire]

Hmph. I voted for Salamis, Hastings, & the Spanish Armada only. After all, the pen is mightier than the sword, and even when the sword is important, generally it's the whole war not the battle that's important, so the battle really has to turn the tide or be otherwise important.

Some comments:
Saratoga- Eh, made American Independence come faster certainly, but does anybody really think we'd still be living under the British king today without it? Worst comes to worst, we would have had a Canada style exit. More likely we wear down the British in 10 years instead of 6 years.

Lepanto- From what I understand, irrelevant in the long run. The Turks gained even more ground in the next 10 years, this was a temporary meaningless victory (although the Turks did eventually collapse, but for other reaons).

Badr- Nah. By all accounts this was a teensy battle. In fact, some claim it was nothing more than Mohammed raiding defenseless traders (probably false, but who knows?). A better choice would have been the Battle of the Trench- if the Meccans had won that one, Mohammed's head may well have been on a pike and Islam would be this tiny sect in Ethiopia (where some refugees were already hiding). If Badr was Trenton, then the Trench was Yorktown.

[Urban Ranger]

In my view the decline of Imperial China is a consequence of the progessive petrification of the Confucian system of thinking.

[LDiCesare]

My dismissal of Hastings may be ignorant, but I'd like to point out that thinking it may have been Charlemagne who fought the Moors at Tours while it was his grandfather Charles Martel at Poitiers is ignorant too.
My point was that I consider things that matter historically are more the people ethnicity than the rulers, and religious/philosophical consequences. Language to some extent. Norsemen didn't replace Saxons as the main population. Even though they influenced the language a lot, and changed the political system, I think the political system would have evolved anyway. Battles which drive whole populations like Huns or the original conquest of England by the Angles and Saxons (who kind of slaughtered the resident celts) have had much more impact than replacing a monarchy by a foreign nobility. Also note that Hastings followed Stanford Bridge. Had Harald beat Harold, would William have conquered him? Hadn't Stanford bridge occurred, the battle of Hastings might have been won by the fresher Saxon troops.

No Hastings: Change to England history in the Middle Ages. Probably very localized. Long term, the country would probably have reached the same kind of medieval system as existed in the rest of Europe. So this battle changes the fate of a country, but doesn't change much geopolitically (although I agree that Hastings probably caused England have more relationships with France).

No Poitiers: France and Germany wouldn't exist. They all would have been conquered by Moors, thus no Charlemagne and no division of his empire in France, Lotharingy and Germany. Also, who would have defended Rome and the Pope had Arabs conquered France? The christian religion would probably have been extinguished. This makes a much bigger difference in my opinion. From that point of view, I would also rate all battles of Byzantium against Arabs and Turks more important than Hastings.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by LDiCesare


No Hastings: Change to England history in the Middle Ages. Probably very localized. Long term, the country would probably have reached the same kind of medieval system as existed in the rest of Europe. So this battle changes the fate of a country, but doesn't change much geopolitically (although I agree that Hastings probably caused England have more relationships with France).

Just a tiny bit more. The One Hundred Years War wouldn't have occured.

[Saras]

Originally posted by Sten Sture


iirc you owe the Poles a bit of a thank you on that one!

Or so they say

[moomin]

I'm amazed Stalingrad puts in such a great showing here. Surely, in the large scale of things, it was pretty insignificant?