Top Ten Medieval Battles

So you're saying that they happened to come from England, but could have been replaced by Germans without anybody really noticing?
 
So you're saying that they happened to come from England, but could have been replaced by Germans without anybody really noticing?

Pretty much, the English contingent was majority Knights, which the HRE is in no short supply of, and archers, which the fame of the Welsh archers was not that wide spread yet (don't let Robin Hood fool you).

Plus the right flank was led by Renaud de Dammartin, not an Englishman.
 
I have two, I don't know the name of this battle but it was when the Spanish Moors invaded France and I think Charlamagne annihilated them. Why was this important? Well, it could have meant the Islamification of another part of Europe and the end of Christendom. Massive implications.

You mean Poitiers. Modern historians usually write that this battle had been overrated for long time. In fact what the Franks stoppped at Poitiers was not any "full scale Muslim invasion", but just some minor plundering raid aimed at capturing loot, burning some villages and towns, and then coming back to Muslim Spain. There was no intention of Islamification of another part of Europe. So this battle was by no means decisive, just overrated.

Second battle was when the Ottomans were also stopped at the gates of..Vienna - again if they succeeded we may all be living in a European caliphate.

We are talking about Medieval battles - not about 1683.

And by the way - you are indeed all living in a Western European caliphate out there (at least that's what my cousin who emigrated to Germany and see how many Turks live in Hanover told me when we last met), so Vienna didn't really help you, as it appears. :p

If the Persians had defeated the Greek states and conquered them, they would've probably been western outposts of the empire for a while, their culture preserved like in any other provinces, and I think Greek influence on whatever the "West" is is massively overblown.

But it seems that I must remind about this again - we are talking about Medieval battles here.

Off-handedly - Persians did defeat and occupy some of the Greek states (those located in Asia Minor - Ionian Greeks).
 
And by the way - you are indeed all living in a Western European caliphate out there (at least that's what my cousin who emigrated to Germany and see how many Turks live in Hanover told me when we last met), so Vienna didn't really help you, as it appears.
Not that Poles a load of backwards racists, or anything.
 
Did I say that I don't like Turks?

I like them. Ottoman Empire was one of a few states that didn't recognize the partitions of PLC.

And I have nothing against Islam at all.

I don't know why the hell you always try to find appraising expressions in factual expressions / statements. :confused:

I didn't write: "how, damn it, numerous those stupid Turks are in Hanover"

I only wrote: "how numerous Turks are in Hanover" :p

And what is wrong about Western Europe being an Islamic Caliphate? :confused: For me it is OK.

I think you must be backward racists if you think that there is something wrong about high number of Turks in Germany.

Turks are very nice people - why would it be wrong?
 
So you remark that Turkish immigrants to Germany have turned it into a 'caliphate'?
 
Did I say that I don't like Turks?

I like them. Ottoman Empire was one of a few states that didn't recognize the partitions of PLC.

And I have nothing against Islam at all.

I don't know why the hell you always search for appraising expressions in factual expressions. :confused:

I didn't write: "how, damn it, numerous those stupid Turks are in Hanover"

I only wrote: "how numerous Turks are in Hanover" :p

And what is wrong about Western Europe being an Islamic Caliphate? :confused: For me it is OK.
the lady doth protest too much, methinks
 
So you remark that Turkish immigrants to Germany have turned it into a 'caliphate'?

The part about the "caliphate" was ironic.

And it wasn't me who started talking about battles allegedly preventing Europe from becoming a "caliphate".

Actually Western Europe implements discriminatory laws against Islam and Islamic immigrants - France for example does it.

And they still dare to claim thay they respect the rights of minorities - despite having these discriminatory laws.
 
And as for the battle of Vienna in 1683:

It was one of the most shamefully useless and politically wasted outstanding victories in Polish history, IMO.

Poland broke its non-aggresion pact with the Ottoman Empire while attacking them at Vienna in 1683.

Moreover - this battle brought Poland no profits at all.

King Sobieski was convinced (or even forced) into helping Austria by the Pope and by pro-Habsburg nobility.

Once again religious matters took the upper hand in confrontation with Realpolitik and Poland's actual raison d'Etat.

We should have left the Habsburgs on their own - and Vienna should have been left for the sake and mercy of the Ottoman Empire. King Sobieski started the war against the Ottoman Empire in defence of Austria against his own will - Catholic and pro-Habsburg nobility forced him to do this.

What Sobieski wanted to do was to invade and incorporate Prussia-Brandenburg into Poland (which - as you probably know - was a Polish fiefdom from 1460 until 1657, when it bought its indepenendence from Poland in exchange for changing sides during the Second Northern War).

And it would be much more profitable for Poland than waging a war against a not-so-hostile state in order to rescue the ass of a state which would partition Poland 100 years later (of course I'm judging those events from historical perspective, at that time nobody knew what would happen in the next 100 years).

Polish military effort from 1683 was wasted in a campaign which did not and could not be profitable for Poland, instead that military effort - and that substantial army which was mobilized by Poland in 1683 - could be exploited by Sobieski for his planned campaign against Prussia.
 
well, the only reason it didn't profit sobieski is because his subsequent campaign to conquer liberate the danubian principalities failed

this act of imperialism was soon forgotten because reasons
 
well, the only reason it didn't profit sobieski is because his subsequent campaign to conquer liberate the danubian principalities failed

this act of imperialism was soon forgotten because reasons

Before Vienna Sobieski had no intention to fight there. The victory at Vienna encouraged him to further campaigns in that area - if someone successfully engaged most of his military potential on a certain front, it is logical to continue there, instead of suddenly moving to a completely different area.

And his campaign in the Danubian Principalities was not aimed at conquering them & incorporating into Poland - but at enthroning Sobieski's son on a throne of one of those Principalities - John Sobieski knew that elective throne of Poland did not guarantee inheritance of royal power to any of his sons.

Moldavia had always been hard to conquer. It had its hard terrain, easy for organizing ambushes, and stubborn, hardy inhabitants.

Local rulers always tried to skilfully maneuver between the 3 powers that surrounded them - the Ottoman Empire, Hungary & Poland - as the result of that policy they managed to secure their existence as a separate state, only to lesser or greater extend dependant on either the Turks, Poles or Hungarians.

The Danubian campaign of Sobieski is often cited by those who try to prove that he was a mediocre commander. But it is forgotten that Poland (and not only Poland) had launched many other campaigns into that area before Sobieski - and no of them was particularly successful.

Some of them had a much worse outcome than that of Sobieski - in 1497 during the campaign of King John I Albert ca. 5,000 Poles (out of an army of 40,000 men in total) perished in a series of ambushes and battles in the forests and ravines of Bukovina, while fighting against an inferior in numbers (28,000), but skilfully exploiting terrain advantages army under command of Stephen III the Great of Moldavia.

Before that, forces of King John I Albert unsuccessfully besieged Suceava.

Polish-Moldavian combats at the outskirts of Suceava in 1497 are portrayed by this painting:

Spoiler :


this act of imperialism was soon forgotten because reasons

Maybe "dynastic imperialism" - as I wrote the main goal of the campaign was to find a throne for one of Sobieski's sons - and thus establish a brand new, "Sobieskite" dynasty (which was impossible in elective Poland). Sobieski was ignorant about raison d'Etat of Poland during that campaign.

But he already waged a war against the Ottomans in 1683 - successfully - and Danubian Principalities were Ottoman dependencies. So invading them was a logical conclusion of the previous "Vienna campaign" - and an opportunity to attain his personal dynastic ambitions at the same time.

Instead his previous planned campaign against Prussia-Brandenburg - if successful - would be profitable for Poland as a state.

The campaign into Vienna of 1683 was profitable neither for Poland, nor for Sobieski and his prospective dynasty.
 
(at least that's what my cousin who emigrated to Germany and see how many Turks live in Hanover told me when we last met),
Hannover doesn't have a large immigrant population. Compared to some Polish cities maybe but not compared to other western German cities of similar size.
And what is wrong about Western Europe being an Islamic Caliphate? :confused: For me it is OK.
Secularism. We like it. A lot.

Most Turks do so, too. Most of the time we are a good fit in terms of political culture.
 
Secularism. We like it. A lot.

Apparently you like it more than tolerance of minorities (including religious minorities).

Good to know. "Secularism" was not among the founding ideas of democracy - "tolerance" was.

And by the way you apparently have a distorted view on what "secularism" is.

Secularism is a feature of a state - not of its inhabitants. Poland is a secular state too (even though majority of inhabitants are religious).

Turkey is a secular state too (it has, for example, secular legal systemy - contrary to other states in the region which have law based on Quran).

Most Turks do so, too.

They like secular state. But I don't think that most Turks are atheists.

Most of the time we are a good fit in terms of political culture.

Yeap. That's what I thought. That's why I don't understand those who don't like Turkey to join the European Union.

But they should stop denying the Armenian Genocide first.
 
Why are Domen's replies always at least seven times as long as the original post?
 
Why are Domen's replies always at least seven times as long as the original post?
Because he's one of the easiest people to troll on CFC.
 
You mean Poitiers. Modern historians usually write that this battle had been overrated for long time. In fact what the Franks stoppped at Poitiers was not any "full scale Muslim invasion", but just some minor plundering raid aimed at capturing loot, burning some villages and towns, and then coming back to Muslim Spain. There was no intention of Islamification of another part of Europe. So this battle was by no means decisive, just overrated.

You rewrote my college Islamic history textbook with that post.;)
Edit: I will confess I do not know if Domen is right on this, just that's not what I was taught 2 years ago. Especially the modern historian line.
 
He's exaggerating, but only slightly. And the battle did have knock-on effects on internal Carolingian politics that were important, as I noted in my earlier post.
 
You rewrote my college Islamic history textbook with that post.;)
Edit: I will confess I do not know if Domen is right on this, just that's not what I was taught 2 years ago. Especially the modern historian line.

Depends on how revisionist your professor wants be. Like if she wants to paint the Islamic invasions as a nice and peachy, entirely natural, occurrence.
 
Depends on how revisionist your professor wants be. Like if she wants to paint the Islamic invasions as a nice and peachy, entirely natural, occurrence.

Oh no he wasn't like that at all. I thought he gave a really balanced look at the rise and history of Islam. I just remember we had a lengthy discusion on Poitiers and why it was A Big F*ing Deal.
 
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