The Iraqi defenders at Osirak definitely fired back - they just didn’t hit anything. But I get your point.
My choice as well, the Battle of Dieppe. It taught just how important it was to the Allied high command not to underestimate the power German forces actually had and likely the biggest reason for the success of D Day’s operation Overlord.
Another type of influential battle is one where someone important happened to die. A good example is the siege of Chalus-Chabrol in Normandy, in 1199. Richard I of England, hearing of a Roman treasure someone had dug up, took a force to demand that the local lord hand it over to him. I can’t find any documentation on how many troops he took with him, but since the chateau was tiny and barely manned, I doubt it was more than a few hundred, maybe a thousand. A few days into the siege, Richard was shot by a lucky (or actually, considering his fate, and extremely unlucky) crossbowman; the wound festered, and he died.
If Richard had lived, his brother John wouldn’t have ascended to the throne of England as soon as he did, which means no loss of French lands, no Barons’ Wars, and no Magna Carta. That’s quite a big impact from one crossbow bolt.
Thinking outside the box: The Battle of Chapultepec. It was entirely possible that, had things gone differently, casualties could have included Daniel H. Hill, Ulysses Grant, George Pickett, James Longstreet, John C. Pemberton, Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, and Robert E. Lee.
Reading the thread so far, I think this one is going to be hard to beat. Definitely a battle that could have gone different ways, definitely small, and definitely had a direct major lasting impact on civilization extending over a thousand years into the future.
Critical yes, but rather massive and not small.
While they were all part of the American invasion of Mexico, were all of these (or any of these) men at Chapultepec?
No more than any other of the thousands of city bombing by both sides during WW2, including the Blitz, Dresden, Tokyo and many, many more.
Hiroshima was a legit target during total war. The fact that it used atomic rather than conventional bombs doesn’t change it.
All of them were directly involved in the battle. Lee was wounded.
No, it was the previous Spanish Government. And in fact Texas was excluded from the anti-slavery Mexican laws. Santa Anna tore up the Mexican Constitution , which was the primary grievance the Texicans had against him. In fact if you read the Texicans letters, etc from the period, there were two causes, and the texicans were split on these-
- Desire to join the USA
- A demand Santa Anna restore the Mexican Constitution
Slavery is not mentioned. Sanat Anna was a dictator and a despot. Many other Mexican states also rose in revolt, in fact one had a short lived life as a independent nation.
Yes, it gave him a Face Saving excuse. More conventional warfare would not have done that, despite Communist propaganda.
It’s a matter of interpreting the question, but I’m seeing a distinction between the impact of the atomic bomb’s existence and the impact of the bombing of Hiroshima. I feel the post-atomic military and political policies derive from the former not the latter.
I’ll point out that the hydrogen bombs that were developed a few years later have made their impact felt without ever being used in a war. I feel the same would have been true of the atomic bombs even if they hadn’t been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But if you place the Hiroshima bombing in a chain of events that led to Japan’s surrender, you have to also include the battles of Okinawa, Iwo Jima, the Philippine Sea, Guadalcanal, Midway, and the Coral Sea. I don’t feel that the Hiroshima bombing was any more decisive than these other battles.
That’s a tough counter-factual. It relies IMHO a little too much on a traditional view of Richard being super-competent and John being super-incompetent and I don’t think that was quite true. In the immediate moment Richard was doing okayish in his war with Philip Augustus (mostly stalemated), but at very heavy internal cost. Normandy was being bled white and the knock-on effects of that significantly fed into John’s defeat a few years later. Indeed some parts of the Norman border lands like Aumale had already been lost since 1196 and were never regained.
You might be right - Richard’s reputation as a military commander was well-founded. But Philip was no slouch and personal generalship wasn’t everything. The structural improvements in the French position under Philip Augustus, both financially and politically, were mirrored by a weakening on the Norman side. Richard was in a weaker relative position vis-a-vis the French crown compared to his father Henry II and John would end up being in a weaker position yet relative to his brother (and to some sizeable extent due to the actions of his brother).
The problem with the Anglo-Norman realm is that the king-dukes didn’t do any of the things that anyone playing a computer or board game would reasonably be expected to do 
. They were constrained by their own medieval world views and strategy like the careful consolidation and centralization of their heterogeneous realm in the way that you or I might try in Crusader Kings was a little alien to them. Henry I seemed to have had a rather more war-gamey, kinda non-expansionist approach to the Anglo-Norman realm. But he was a slick Machiavelli and his policies, insomuch as you can label them that, were reversed by the Plantagenets. I’m not sure I’d label the collapse as inevitable. Bouvines for example could have easily brought a reversal of fortunes, at least for a time. But I think the odds were stacked against a strong Anglo-Norman state long-term and things were not trending in Richard I’s favor.
And Israel and the middle east.
True, though Israel’s aren’t “officially” acknowledged, and no other Middle East country has them yet, though Iran is obviously seeking to build them.
Okay - let me try again. (Bolding above mine)
What is your definition of “lesser powers” : Most sources rate India’s Military Strength at #4 or #5 in the world, much above than the UK or France
Here is one for example :
I would agree on the Battle of Badr. I was shocked about a year ago when I saw a video on it just how few soldiers participated.
I would put forth the Battle of Fort Sumter. About 1500 total on both sides and it kicked off the Civil War. Of course you would have to believe the war was not inevitable - the Star of the West was fired on earlier and it did not start the war and in fact, there is an argument that the reason it provoked a war was Congress was out of session at the time (returning over 2.5 months) so Lincoln would not have to deal with opposition in Congress over putting down the rebellion.
In my head, I see “super-powers” (in the political entity sense, of course) as being those who other nations seek the economic or military patronage of, and “lesser powers” as those who, no matter what their military strength, are not sought out as such.
Got it. So Saudi Arabia is a super-power, and Israel is not !
Just to complete the story, Norwegian resistance forces were able to sabotage a ferry carrying heavy water before its cargo could be transported to Germany, resulting in its sinking in a deep part of a Norwegian fjord.
This brave act might not have been the decisive factor in Nazi Germany failing to develop a nuclear bomb, but it did make possible The Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.