Most Important Battle in History

[Mongoloid Cow]

The only way Timur failed was a) he did not have the numbers which Genghis Khan, the Scythians, the Khazars and so forth forth had, and b) he did not create a stable succession (I suppose he didn't think he'd have died when he did)

Stalingrad I reckon was the most important battle in the history of the world.

 

[blindside]

Timur was in some ways more destructive than the Mongols and he was just too rushed to create an empire. The Mongols took their time to enjoy the spoils of war but Timur had a whole issue with making himself god (or something like that). He didn't leave as much of a lasting impression either.

 

[NewWaver]

I reckon the most important battle is one that hasn't come yet...the last one.

 

[sabo]

@longasc: lol

anyway...what was the battle of evermore?

It's a Led Zepplin song, just some typical spam for ya

 

[bombtrack]

1. Greek victory over the Persians @ Marathon
2. French victory over the Muslim invasion @ Tours
3. Alexander's triumph over Darius @ Gaugamela

 

[Fetus4188]

Naming the most important battle would be impossible because if any battle had gone the other way at some point in time it could affect all others that came in its wake; therefore, they are all equally important.

 

[Paradigne]

The WORST battle of all time was in 48bc when Julias Caesar pursued Pompey into Egyptian waters and was quickly blocked by an egyptian fleet. Fearing for his life, he set the harbor at Alexandria ablaze. The fire spread to the library and burned it to the ground. The library is thought to have at one time housed half a million ancient texts from the most advanced nations in the world...

 

[Warman17]

The most important battle of all time was that one guy beat that other guy over the face with the club. It started warfare.

 

[Adler17]

Well some battles like the only REAL Italian victory a few days before armistice in ww1 are not important...

Adler

 

[onejayhawk]

In terms of western society, three eras stand out.
Greek/Persian: Salamis/Marathon, with a nod to the delaying action at Thermopylea.
This allowed the flowering of a society that conquored Rome in all but name. By the end of Rome's first mellenium, the official language was Greek, most of the nobility, merchantile houses, army officers and scholars were Greek, the capital was in Turkey. It was Roman in name only.

Tours has been alluded to several times.

I think that the Reformation and its subsequent ratification on the battle field is the most significant combination of events of the last mellenium. That being the case, I would present Brietenfield, 1631 as the key to the division of Europe into permanent Catholic and Protestant. The synergistic friction between the two has been crucial to the development of modern scientific processes.

Also remember that early battles by many potential leaders have been crucial because they killed the king/chieftain/general before he had time to make his impact. Similarly there were a number of small, otherwise unimportant skirmishes wherein Ghengis Khan could have been killed.

J

 

[Vasileius]

the capital was in Turkey

Today's Turkey . It was Byzantium back then ... Greek (Megarian) colony .

 

[wildWolverine]

I think that the Battle of Stamford Bridge was probably the most important battle in the development of Western Europe. As Adler pointed out, the farther back a battle, the larger the possible ramifications. If Hardraada had won at Stamford Bridge, Britain would have been under control of the Northern Kingdoms. Britain was a power on the rise through the eleventh century. In reality, this process was hastened by the Normans. However, Hardraada would likely have recognized the potential in Britain, and done the same. With a Norwegian Britain, the ensuing centuries of conflict between Britain and France would probably not have occurred. The entire political face of Western Europe would be drastically changed -- leading to an unpredictable (but likely very different) "future" in the 12th - 20th centuries.

 

[thestonesfan]

When a caveman said to his woman "It's not MY fault!", and then was promptly beat down.

Since his failure, everything has always been our fault.

 

[onejayhawk]

from our much beloved Sultan, often of this and other boards, in another time and place. The Battle of Ain Julat

In 1260 AD the Mongol hordes had advanced to the Holy Land, capturing Aleppo in January, Damascus in March, and threatening Egypt shortly thereafter, when Sultan Qutuz’ court received this leter from Hulagu Khan:

From the King of Kings of the East and West, the Great Khan. Qutuz is a mameluke who fled to escape our swords… You should think of what happened to other countries… and submit your fate to us. We are not moved by tears or touched by lamentations. We have conquered vast areas, massacring all the people. You cannot escape from the terror of our armies. Olnly those who beg our protection will be safe. Hasten your reply before the fire of war is kindled… You will suffer the most terrible catastrophes, your countries will become deserts… and we will kill your children and your old men together.

The fastest way to invite Mongol wrath was to kill their envoys, and Qutuz wasted no time ordering the Mongol ambassadors to be cut in half at the waist, nailing their heads to the Zuwila Gate of Cairo.

Not for the first time or the last, the course of history was changed by the death of a Great Khan and the Mongol custom that backed their armies up while leaders were recalled thousands of miles to choose a new Khan. Instead of full force, Hulagu put a general named Kitbuqa in charge of 20,000 mongols ordered to head forward to Egypt while the main body stayed behind in eastern Syria.

Kitbuqa first raided and ravaged the Holy Land, but stayed out of Jerusalem. Kitbuqa was a converted Nestorian Christian who hoped the Crusaders would acknowledge Mongol authority; they might have, except that Count Julian of Sidon and Beaufort decided to raid Muslim towns now under Mongol authority, killing a Mongol police force that included Kitbuqa’s cousin in the process. Kitbuqa sent the full army into Sidon and massacred the town, officially ending chances of a Mongol/Christian alliance vs. the Muslims.

Meanwhile delays at the Mongol leadership conference which would ultimately appoint Kubilai Khan, along with the Christian on Mongol infighting, convinced Qutuz to come forth and smash the Mongols in the Holy Land.

On July 26, 1260, the Egyptian army headed out with a vanguard headed by future menace to society Rukh-ed-Din Baibars. Baibar’s forces alone liberated Gaza. Kitbuqa marched his army south down the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. Qutuz sent envoys to the Christians to arrange a right of passage and the purchase of supplies and after much infighting they agreed. Qutuz sent the Egyptian army north to camp near Acre, where merchants enjoyed huge profit selling Egyptians food and supplies. While camping there Qutuz leanred the Mongols had rounded the sea of Galilee and were nearing the Jordan River, following Saladin’s old route from 1183. Qutuz rode southeast to meet them…

As Kitbuqa marched his army west across the Jordan and up the rising slope of the Plain of Esdraelon, Qutuz took his position at Ain Jalut, the “Spring of Goliath”, where the plain narrowed to just three miles wide, with the steep slope of Mount Giloa to the south and the hills of Galilee to the north. By now Qutuz was aware that he greatly outnumbered the Mongol invaders, so he hid substantial units of cavalry in the nearby hills. Kitbuqa, apparently believing that the army in front of him was the entire Egyptian force, immediately ordered the charge, which he led himself. Riding to meet him, the Egyptian vanguard was led by Baibars.


After a stalemate clash on the battle plain, Baibars used the very old Muslim tactic of the “retreat”, and the Mongols rode in pursuit into the hills, where they were suddenly and quickly overwhelmed by the Egyptian cavalry reserves. Kitbuqa was brought before Qutuz, and uttered in his last words an insult to the usurper Sultan: “Since I was born I have been the slave of my Khan; I am not, like you, the murderer of my master!” And then his head was chopped off and mailed back to Cairo. Egyptian cavalry pursued the Mongols to their last stand on the west bank of the Jordan, where they were permanently dispersed.

Anybody who plays Civ or Medieval Total War knows what would have happened if the Mongols had managed to subdue Egypt: a quick march through Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, from where they would have circled Europe from Poland to Gibraltar. Islam would have been largely crushed as a historical force and so might Europe. The Battle of Ain Jalut is a big event in Middle East history classes, and one of the PLO’s brigades is named after the battle.

The Egyptians retook Damascus, Aleppo, and the other major cities of Syria. Baibars asked to be made emirate of Aleppo but Qutuz wasn’t having it. Before they returned to Cairo Baibars put a sword through Qutuz and entered the city as the new Sultan. His name would become a bogeyman to the Crusaders’ children in the Holy Land in the decades to come as he waged the bloody warfare that would ultimately drive the Europeans out of the Holy Land for the next millennium.

J

 

[on7green]

Interesting, but I believe Tours is more important.

The Roman Catholic Church resisted, but advances in science, economics, and government were still made - underpinned by the basic principle of equality and fraternity for all (St. Paul). The Muslim world on the other hand has demonstrated that it is exceedingly capable in preventing progress of any sort.

" The events that rescued our ancestors of Britain and our neighbors of Gaul from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran."

-GIBBON.

 

[wurkwurk]

In my honest opinion, the most important single battle was the Battle of Salamis, or the battle that saved the future of Western civilization. Although numerous battles in the Persian incursions into Greece where notable (namely, Thermopolaye and Marathon), the only true descisive battle was Salamis.

You see, for Thermopolaye it was merely a distracting action on the Greek's part against a portion of the Persian army. Although a valiant effort was put forth, it wasn't enought to save Athens and the downfall of the non-Penepolese Greece. The last real chance the Greeks had was at sea, since their land armies where crushed or scattered.

All the supply needs for Xerxes' tens of thousands of men army relied by sea where a Phonecian-built fleet awaited him. The Persians where advancing into the Penepolese, and prepared to finish of the rest of Greece. Now at Salamis, where the two navies met resulting in a catastrophe for the Persian fleet, was the Persian invasion of Greece put to a halt. Unable to feed his men, who could hardly live off the dry Greek countryside, he was forced to withdraw and thus save Western Civilization.

Without the Greek victory of Salamis, there simply would be no Tours, or Stalingrad, or Waterloo, or any of that other good stuff.

 

[Lord_Sidious]

there is alredy a thread about that

 

[D.Durand]

I think such absolute measures for historical battles are worthless.

For the Aztecs:

1.) Subiugation of the Toltecs in 1370-1400
2.) The arrival of Cortez in 1502


I think they would have become a predominant superpower if the Spanish would not have stopped them. Europe might have become a South American colony.

Mmhh... Not sure. No Amerindian civ had the power for definitely dominate the others.
They lacked even compared to Sargon of Akkad too many things for resisting bad situations, and evolved too slowly.
Ask yourself if any Eurasian (or even African) civ can let survive something like Tlaxcala for long...

I think if no Cortez happen, another European will come fore sure before long, and nothing really change. I doubt Amerindian are really able to use the "no cortez event" delay for learn from European before another european attack.

 

[LightSpectra]

The Roman Catholic Church resisted, but advances in science, economics, and government were still made

The Church is more responsible for the scientific, economic and social advances in medieval Europe than any other person or organization by a landslide. This notion (as well as the idea that medieval Islam was as repressive as modern day Iran) is largely a result of atheist historians in the late 19th/early 20th century that had an obvious agenda behind their pen. (Alternatively, from historians that were working off of the notion of the Protestant work ethic, which has since been discredited in every way imaginable.)

 

[D.Durand]

I vote for this "little" unamed battle :

Julius Caesar returned in the Roman Province after some defeats.
Gauls cavalry, against the Vercingetorix orders, attacked him.
... And were defeated by Caesar own cavalry (Romans, others Gauls, Germans...).
Forcing Vercingetorix to flee.
Caesar pursued him.
And besieged him.
At a fortress know as Alesia...