Greatest Battles

[allhailIndia]

Our world is what it is because of so many events that have happened over the last 4000 years. Being Civfanatics, (with control of the destiny of a people and the course of history) i want to know what would be the 5 most important batlles in the history of the world. A battle which has made the world what it is, in which a slight change in outcome could have altered history radically

 

[Lucky]

Well, from today backwards in time my list would be:

• Battle of Britain,
  if Germany would have won and successfully captured Britain, the course of WW2 would have been totally altered.
  
• Pearl Harbor,
  if Japan would have been totally successful as planned, sinking the US carriers, too, the Pacific War could have turned out otherwise.
  Combine with the first one mentioned!
  
• Sea Battle of Trafalgar, sinking of the Spanish Armada,
  if the Spanish would have successfully conquered Britain, the Empire would have never really existed.
  Combine this event with several other successful and failed invasions of England.
  
• The Crusades,
  not a single battle but most important nonetheless. If the Crusades and the fight Christianity-Islam would have never even started, we could see a much more peaceful world today.
  The Crusades brought the warfare and slaughtering to the muslim people in Arabia. They were peaceful traders at that time but had to become fierce warriors to counter the Europeans.
  Maybe islamic fundamentalists wouldn´t even exist today without the crusades.
  
• The discovery of the New World,
  ok, not a real battle, but some native Americans did fight against Columbus and other explorers from the beginning.
  So if they could have successfully repelled every explorer so that no news of a new continent would reach Europe, we could have a totally different world today.
  This wasn´t a single battle, I know, but imagine the world of today without the discovery of America!

This is my list, some events can be changed against others but I chose these.
There are a lot of battles in the ancient era, but I don´t think a single battle would have changed history drastically.
So here a small list of important ancient wars:
- Punian wars
- Greek-Persian wars
- Roman expansion wars
These wars are important from an European point of view, Egyptian wars, Indian and Chinese wars also chaped the world, of course, as did the Mayan and Incan wars.
Singular most important ancient battles are hard to sort out, I could name some important ones, but simply another outcome in one of them wouldn´t totally have changed anything.

 

[DingBat]

Heh, great topic.

Hmm, 5 greatest battles.... How about:

5) The defeat of the Spanish Armada
Set Britain on the road to Empire.

4) Borodino
Ok, Napolean won but it marks the high tide of his efforts.

3) Sedan
The unification of Germany and the seeds of the trouble to come.

2) France, 1940
Changed the way war would be waged forever.

1) Fulda Gap, 1985
Mainly because it was never fought.

/bruce

You know what would be a cool set of topics? If we picked one battle and examined it's historical impact. What if the Romans had won Cannae? What if Napolean had won at Waterloo?

 

[Kennelly]

Very difficult,there have been many important battles,but 5 of the probably most important ones are

1)Battle of Actium
If Augustus had lost (and died),Antonius could have risen to power together with Cleopatra,but they were relatively weak,I think,so the Republic could have been restored.

2)Battle of Tours and Poitiers
If Charles Martell had lost,nobody could have stopped the Muslims.Rhine is as crossable as Nile is.

3)Battle of Agincourt
Ended the era of knights and in a way the middle ages

4)Battle of Trafalgar
No English Navy-Bienvenue a London.

5)Battle of Britain
I still think,if Hitler had won the Battle and invaded Britain,he would have won the war.

Originally posted by Lucky


[*] The Crusades,
not a single battle but most important nonetheless. the Crusades and the fight Christianity-Islam would have never even started, we could see a much more peaceful world today.
The Crusades brought the warfare and slaughtering to the muslim people in Arabia. They were peaceful traders at that time but had to become fierce warriors to counter the Europeans.
Maybe islamic fundamentalists wouldn´t even exist todIf ay without the crusades.

The Muslims were anything but peaceful traders.Mohammed is not only admired because of his wisdom,but because he was a great warlord.Even before him the Arabian tribes were fierce warriors.One reason for the crusades was,tha the Muslims had conquered Jerusalem,the near east,North Africa and Spain.They had even tried to push into western Europe (see above).

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

Wow, this topic takes me back, it was my first thread at CFC, almost exactly one year ago!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4629

I'll repost my answer again, just for old times sake.

What were some the great battles that changed history? I'll list seven of mine(Seven, for the number of tribes in civ)...
Salamis 480 B.C. Greek comander Themistocles' trick ends Persian King Xerxes attempt to conquer Greece forever...
Gaugamela 331 B.C. Alexander the Great crushes the Persian army of Darius, and thus wins for himself the largest empire the world had ever seen up to that time...
Zama 202 B.C. Scipio Africaus defeats the great Carthaginian general Hannibal, and thus teaches Rome the lesson of conquest...
Ain Jalut 1260 A.D. The one most people never heard of. Baybars and his Mamluks hand the Mongols their most severe defeat ever, and thus end the Mongol Conquest in the middle east...
Trafalgar 1805 A.D. British Admiral Nelson defeats the numerically larger Franc-Spanish fleet of Villeneuve, ending any hope of Napoleon ever defeating Britain, and thus of winning the Napoleonic wars...
The Kaiser's Battle 1918 A.D. Imperial Germany comes withen a hair's breath of breaking the British lines in Flanders, and thus of winning World War One...
Kursk 1943 A.D. Hitler's last large offensive in Russia ends in disaster because the Soviets know when and where the Nazis will strike, and so prepare massive defences to stop them...
Lets hear some of yours!

I can hardly believe a year has past since then!
It went so fast...

 

[Eli]

There are plenty of less grandiose battles that had huge impact on history.

A good example from this region is the war of Assyria and Judea, after the fall of Israel. If the siege on Jerusalem had succeded and Judea had fallen, Judea's Jews(like the Israeli ones) would've been exiled and assimilated.
No Judaism, no Christianity, no Islam.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Since the question is "greatest battles", not "most important battles", I think I'll vote for the French Foreign Legions' last stand at Camarone. While my recollection of the battle is a little hazy, I seem to remember that the Legion fought to virtually the last man, outmanned, outgunned, etc.

It is this battle which gave them their esprit de corps. Their battle cry to this day is "Camarone!".

 

[andycapp]

Manzikert! The Seljuk Turk defeat of the Byzantine army at Manzikert (1071). Whilst this defeat did not spell the end of the Byzantines it opened up Anatolia, the heartland of the Byzantine Empire, to the Turks. Byzantium lingered on for a another four hundred years but never recovered the power it had before Manzikert.

The eventual conquest of Byzantium by the Turks in 1453 forced the European powers to look west for a route to India and guess what they found?

 

[Rowan]

The battles of the Great Patriotic War!
[dance] [dance]

 

[Case]

Originally posted by Rowan
The battles of the Great Patriotic War!
[dance] [dance]

I don't recall dancing or beer playing major roles on the Eastern Front.

Are you sure you're not getting it mixed up with a pub fight

 

[animepornstar]

1. tours and poitiers

2. hannibal´s siege of rome

3. breitenfeld 1631 - the most important battle in the swedish history. it did also change the european warfare completly.

4. trafalgar

 

[joespaniel]

Originally posted by Lucky
The Crusades

If the Crusades and the fight Christianity-Islam would have never even started, we could see a much more peaceful world today.
The Crusades brought the warfare and slaughtering to the muslim people in Arabia. They were peaceful traders at that time but had to become fierce warriors to counter the Europeans.
Maybe islamic fundamentalists wouldn´t even exist today without the crusades.

Jeez, what history book are you reading.:crazyeyes

The Muslims were the most agressive people of the era.
Give me a break.

As for my favorite battle, put me down for Mogadishu, Somolia October 3-4, 1993!
( OK, its not really important except to me. )

 

[Rowan]

from Case:
Are you sure you're not getting it mixed up with a pub fight

Yes![dance] [dance]

 

[allhailIndia]

I would have to include the following battles in my list.

1.The Battle of Britain
Easily the turning point in the Second World War

2.Battle Of Midway
If the Jap Fleet ahd not been crushed, America's campaign would have taken a very different turn

3.Battle of Actium
Somebody mentioned earlier about it, but myn reasoning is that Rome would no longer have been ruled by a Roman, (it might have been Cleo's son instead)

4.Battle of Trafalgar Square
The Navy was the only thing that could stop Napoleon from taking the "Nation of Shopkeepers".

5.Battle of Tours and Poitiers
An Islamic Europe would have been very different for world history

 

[Magnus]

Cannae

Because nearly every general ever since has tried (and I can't think of any that were successful) to duplicate it - the double flank envelopment.


Other battles with more direct significance (in no particular order):

Tsushima - Japan had come of age and Russia was no longer a Great Power.

Marathon/Salamis - without which the Western world would never have been.

Adrianople (the single most battled after spot on the planet, so I have read, with 15 of them) - the one I am singling out is 376 AD, when the Goths sent Rome on the downward spiral from which it never really recovered.

Gettysburg - a loss here by the Union may have led to European recognition and perhaps even involvement on the side of the CSA.

Tours/Poitiers - this one saved Christianity

Tannenburg/Masurian Lakes - without which the Germans may well have won the first Battle of the Marne... and WW1

 

[DingBat]

Talk about coincidence, synergy, whatever...

I came across the book "50 Battles that Changed the World" yesterday.

The author lists the following as the 5 most important battles in history:

1) Marathon 490BC - Preservation of the world's first democracy.
2) Nika Rebellion 532AD - If Justinian had fled, he would not have been able to codify Roman law.
3) Bunker Hill 1775AD - The creation of the United States.
4) Arbela 331BC - Preservation of western civilization.
5) Hattin 1187AD - The fight between Christianity and Islam.

Agree/disagree?

/bruce

 

[andycapp]

Originally posted by allhailIndia
4.Battle of Trafalgar Square
The Navy was the only thing that could stop Napoleon from taking the "Nation of Shopkeepers".

At the "Battle of Trafalgar Square" Nelson's biggest threat would have been the pidgeons.

 

[allhailIndia]

I am very very sorry for my little blunder

 

[Flooger]

To go along with the rest, I recently saw on The History Channel a story.

It told of the beginning of the Muslims, about how he would stop caravans on the road, and if they did not convert, they were slaughtered.

Definately not very peaceful.

 

[joespaniel]

The Battle of Britain was deffinately important, and in my humble opinion, it was their "finest hour" in the 20th Century.

I beg to differ that it was the turning point in WWII however. It was one of them.

I tend to think the battle for Moscow in the fall/winter of 1941 was much more crushing for the Germans. The delay caused by the unecessary Kiev offensive, and subsequent failure to take Moscow most likely cost them victory on the Eastern front, and thus the war.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich makes for some good reading on the subject. 2194 Days of War has alot of info on it too.

Or just watch the History Channel.