09-08-2002 22:46									#1
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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.

	09-08-2002 22:52									#2
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Where was that list?

Well I will start with battle for Stalingrad.

	09-08-2002 22:52									#3
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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

	09-08-2002 22:53									#4
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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.

	09-08-2002 22:54									#5
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Whooo.. I guessed one right

maybe Ming can help you turn this in a poll?

	09-08-2002 22:56									#6
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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.

	09-08-2002 23:15									#7
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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.

	09-08-2002 23:17									#8
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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.

Last edited by Adam Smith on 09-08-2002 at 23:23

	09-08-2002 23:20									#9
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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.

	09-08-2002 23:26									#10
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Rich:

Thanks for the help.

Last edited by Adam Smith on 10-08-2002 at 00:03

	09-08-2002 23:29									#11
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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.

	09-08-2002 23:30									#12
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what was that battle that the Catholics managed to stop the Mongols? IIRC, in the area of the Chechia today.

	09-08-2002 23:32									#13
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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.

	09-08-2002 23:32									#14
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oh, and DanS is very correct. I remember reading about this battle in my Roman history readings. It was quite typical of Hannibal, btw.

	09-08-2002 23:35									#15
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Zama is another big one in terms of Carthaginian/Roman history.

	09-08-2002 23:37									#16
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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.

	09-08-2002 23:39									#17
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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.

Last edited by Andrew1999 on 09-08-2002 at 23:47

	09-08-2002 23:39									#18
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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.

	09-08-2002 23:40									#19
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quote: 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.

	09-08-2002 23:40									#20
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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

	09-08-2002 23:41									#21
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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.

	09-08-2002 23:43									#22
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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

	09-08-2002 23:50									#23
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Here are a few more good ones that I don't think have been mentioned

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

	09-08-2002 23:56									#24
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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.

	10-08-2002 00:00									#25
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quote: 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.

	10-08-2002 00:03									#26
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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.

	10-08-2002 00:11									#27
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Talas river?

	10-08-2002 00:19									#28
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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.

	10-08-2002 00:21									#29
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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.

Last edited by Adam Smith on 10-08-2002 at 01:18

	10-08-2002 00:25									#30
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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.