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MACEDONIA - It's the name of the sovereign country to the north of Greece
Apr 2000
time: 07:21
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fascinating. I've never heard of it. Thank you people.
Ayn Jalut:  yes that's a very important one. The Mongols are a force of enormous importance, that surpasses that of the Romans, in my opinion. They're the cause of the fall of Islamic civilization, and the reason why this region suffers to this very day, with the destruction of civilization, and cultural monuments, sending the region centuries backward.
Sten: whatever that decision was , by the chinese fleet, it's eclipsed by the stupidity of one of their emperors, that ceased trading altogether, and began a policy of isolationism.
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Lord Merciless
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Talas River was really not decisive at all because the An Lushan rebellion in 755AD, only 4 years later, would utterly devastate the Tang dynasty.
As I said before, the 5th Han offensive against the Huns in 119BC had far greater consequences: it did only establish Han(Chinese)'s dominance over East Asia, but also forced the Hun migration to the West, and opened the Silk Route. Especially the Hun migration would prove devastating for Romans 500 years later.
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Lord Merciless
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quote:
Originally posted by Azazel
Sten: whatever that decision was , by the chinese fleet, it's eclipsed by the stupidity of one of their emperors, that ceased trading altogether, and began a policy of isolationism. |
Try read Ray Huang's "1587-A Year of No Significance". This book fully explained the reason why China went into decline after 14th century and why they stopped oversea tradings all together.
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Adam Smith
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Maryland, USA
Jan 1970
time: 00:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Merciless
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. |
can you elaborate on these? I am especially interested in the Chinese ones. Thanks.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:21
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I am not knowledgeable about all, particularly Eastern history, but here is my opinion from the list and maybe others:
Salamis 480 BC - Not that important. Consider the Greeks just before the rise of Macedonian Philip were paid by the Persians to wage their internal wars and most cities recognized the Persian king as their king of kings. It was more a recognition in speech than anything else, but what differentiated Greece from a satrapy?
Zama 202 BC - Doomed Carthago. Probably quite important, yes.
5th Han offensive against Huns 119 BC - Seems to have had enormous consequences from Asia to Europe.
Teutoburger Wald 9 AD - Again, quite important, as it draw part of the line of current day frontiers between Romance speaking countries and German speaking countries.
Adrianople 378 ?
Badr 624 ?
Tours 732 - Poitiers as stated above. Probably the most important heretofore mentionned imo.
Talas River 751 ?
Hastings 1066 - Nope. The English would have been the same without Norman lords.
Ayn Jalut 1259 ?
Tenochtitlan 1521 - Yes.
Spanish Armada 1588 - Probably quite important too, but I somehow doubt the English would have suffered a setback had they lsot here.
Vienna 1683 - Yes.
Saratoga 1777 - Yes.
Waterloo 1815 - No. I really think the important battle was Valmy. This one allowed the French revolution to survive, and this had much more impact than Napoleon conquests. Without it, it is very probable that France would still be a monarchy. I think Napoleon's empire was doomed from the beginning, as there was no legitimacy to it, and even if he had managed to keep his empire all his life, what would have it become after his death? I think battles like Trafalgar were more important than Waterloo as they key to Napolean's defeat were the Brits, not the allied. I'd also say the absence of battles in Spain was more important, as it was the beginning of guerilla, which changed the way warfare was held and made occupying enemy territory much harder than ever before.
Verdun 1916 - Although a stalemate, it was the greatest skaughter ever. This battle drained France and Germany totally. And people who fought it still made nightmares about it 80 years later.
Stalingrad 1942 - Yes but.
Midway 1942 - Yes but.
You forget the Battle of England. Had the German planes managed to deal more damage to England and London, destroy the fleet, they could have landed in England, and it would have been very hard to dislodge them from the West.
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Lord Merciless
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quote:
Originally posted by Adam Smith
can you elaborate on these? I am especially interested in the Chinese ones. Thanks. |
Do you want the short version or the whole story?
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SnowFire
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New York City, NY
Jan 1970
time: 00:21
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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.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:21
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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.
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Ethelred
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quote:
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).
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Just a tiny bit more. The One Hundred Years War wouldn't have occured.
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10-08-2002 00:28
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