After an easy march through Turkey, a third front would have been established to Germany’s south, seriously weakening the Western Front. Attrition didn’t work, by the way. The war was a stalemate for a very long time, and Germany was making noises about a peace through third parties. Russia was rapidly losing interest in the war, and Lenin abandoned it after seizing power. Until Pershing came into the picture and refused to allow his army (inexperienced as they were) to merely become replacements for those dying in the trenches, neither side was going anywhere.
Thanks all for the contributions to this thread. Very interesting all around… a great read, therefore allowing Google and Wikipedia to bring me to even more information I would’ve never found on my own.
Meh. More of a siege than a battle, and I’d choose Manzikert in any case…
And the Third Front would have done precisely nothing. Like the Italian front. Even if it had siphoned German troops off, it would also have siphoned Allied troops off. It wouldn’t have shifted the calculations at all, except for being a logistics nightmare for the Allies. Arguably it would have led to German shortening their Western lines earlier and so been an advantage…
Attrition absolutely did work, by the way. By 1918, Germany had been bled white. That’s why it’s army broke. It had no more reserves. germany had been willing to seek peace earlier, but a peace where it kept the gains of its aggression. Personally I think that might not have been a bad settlement; I also am not certain Britain should have fought at all. But you have to remember that the Allies were required to fight an offensive war because it was Allied territory that was occupied. Germany could afford to remain in a more defensive position (at least until the blockade really took effect); Germany also had the massive advantage of chosing where to draw its front lines. Hence the high land at Ypres, and the right side of the water table along most of the line.
British generals were faced with, generally, undertrained troops, a critical shortage of NCOs, facing an enemy with superior position, that enemy better entrenched, the entire balance of warfare at the time being pro-defensive, and an ally that was on the repeated verge of collapse. Hence offensives being launched to relieve pressure on the French at times against the advice of British generals, and the British army through the war taking on more and more of a lead role.
Given those situations, it was going to be bloody murder to win. And it was only by bleeding the Germans it could happen.
The Battle of Manzikert marked the beginning of the end of the Byzantine Empire, and the subsequent expansion of a succession of Islamic empires into Asia Minor.
The first Siege of Vienna marked the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire, and checked the expansion of an Islamic empire into central Europe.
Does Genghis Khan kicking ass all across Asia count as a war?
It should count as multiple discrete wars, really. It’s probably kind of cheating to lump them all together.
I think a lot of the suggestions above are good candidates. I’d argue against:
Alexander’s Conquest of Persia - I think the results of this one were profound in the short run ( being defined by a few centuries ), but ephemeral in the long run. It did not permanently remove Persia from the world stage or permanently entrench Hellenism west of the Euphrates. It’s a really curious example, because the effects were really significant at the time, but become diluted more and more with the passage of history. Frankly I think the establishment of Achaemenid Persia ( multiple wars, no one of which is probably worth singling out ) probably had a greater impact on world history writ large than Alexander’s conquest of that state.
The Siege(s) of Vienna - My opinion is that that an Ottoman capture of Vienna would have had a minimal impact on world history, because it probably wouldn’t have gone much farther. Vienna was at the end of a logistic chain that wouldn’t have been extended much by its acquisition. Witness the fact that the Ottomans continued to rule by proxy in a number of regions such as Eastern Hungary/Transylvania.
The historical tendency has been to pitch battles like Chalons, Poitiers or Vienna as dramatic events that “saved Europe” from conquering hordes. The revisionist tendency is to regard them as checks on forces that were for various reasons nearing the limits of their expansion anyway. I tend to fall into the revisionist camp.
I think the Ottoman conquests were a strategic dead end. Even if the Turks had taken Vienna, they weren’t going to conquer Europe by this point. The loss of Vienna wouldn’t have been any more important in the long run than the loss of Constantinople had been. The Turks were not a serious danger to the Western world - they menaced Europe from the fringe but whenever they looked too threatening, Europeans would band together and knock them back down a bit.
Well when you take a look at the magnitude of certain wars, WWII would almost un-debatedly come in first. However, when you come from the approach that many wars would have had to have been fought to even get to WWII, then it becomes a little more debatable which wars were the most “World-changing.” Furthermore you would need to look at which wars are most important pertinent to what actually has taken place, and not so much would could have or should have. Because of this little problem, I’ll start at the beggining of recorded history and list the most important, or “world changing” almost backwords in sense.
1.The conquests of Sargon of Akkad really seem to kick off the way we humans would come to view a war. He is, to our knowledge, the first to not simply attack one foe on the field of battle and maybe capture his city, but to systematically take out opponents and city-states in an effort to conquer.
I had considered putting this as two, but decided to just throw it in with Sargon.
And that would be the Hittite and Eygption war, one that mutually establish two massive kingdoms and spheres of influence. Theres alot on this war, but not much that I feel like going into. Loot it up if at all interested.
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Now we really get into it. By this time, the Persion Empire was established over most of the middle east, not counting asia minor, which was controlled by Croesus of Lydia. In an effort to stunt the startling growth of the Perisan empire, Croesus luanched a massive Invasion of Persia, which eventually backfired, leading to the takeover of the entirety of Asia minor(with exception to the greek Ionian city states on the far left of asia minor). With this new conquest, the persian empire went from the mountains of Afghanistan, to Eygpt, all of the middle east, and now to Asia Minor. With the magnitude of the empire of Perisa, this somewhat uniformed culture dictated the direction the region would head in the future.
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The Persian wars I feel absolutely must come next. If Xerxes, or his father before him, had managed to conquer Greece, then the little band of city-states would have more then likely never had the impact on the small republic of Rome that it would eventually come to. In turn, the Romans may not have become the universal cultural predecessors to almost all of Europe.
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The Pelopenesion war. I feel many people overlook this war, and the possibilties that would have come from a conclusion of Athenian victory. If the Athenians had managed to take sicily, they would have had the resources to destroy sparta, and expand their emprie even more. It has always seemed to me that, had Athens won, the city would have come to play the role that the Romans would be a couple hundred years later.
5.The Conquests of Alexander the Great, as most have said, changed national bounderies and demographics moreso then ever before in history. It is in fact plausibe that, had Alexander managed to install a more stable government before his passing, His Empire could have continued to rule for hundreds of years thereafter.
6.The Punic wars between Rome and Carthage, and more specifically the second punic war. At that point it was basically an all out brawl for dominance of the mediteranian, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see carthage playing the role of masters of europe and the near east had they been victorious.
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The Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon changed the world more then I care to mention, but even a little history 101 class will show you how much he seriously impacted the world.
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I feel I need to cram two wars into the eigth position. First off the American revolution, which as we all know kicked off the bright future of the eventual world superpower. But just as it was becoming clear that we were the absolute super power in the world, the American Civil war almost dashed all of that aside, had our nation split.
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WWI- I think WWI is essentially riding on the back of WWII, primarily because it set the stage for the most world changing war–WWII. WWI created an enbittered Hitler and Germany, which I would argue are the two key reasons for the next world war. Whether there would have been conflict around the globe is another argument, but the WWII certainly would not have been on the scale that it was were it not for the aforemention reasons.
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I don’t think too many people would argue with the most obvious one–WWII. WWII changed, (or perhaps in most cases prevented attempted change) the most territorial bounderies then ever before, expanded technology the most, created and destroyed the most nations, and vastly messed with demographics.
I also just realized I missed the Muslim and Mongol Invasions/Conquests. Maybe we need more spots.
Nobody wants to include the Cold War?
I think it’s easily the closest mankind has come to severely screwing itself over. The two acknowledged superpowers of the world were in standoff mode for about 40 yrs and had they actually clashed there’s a fair chance half the civilized world would have been vaporized. And at the end, one of the superpowers was attrited into a second rate power.
The arms and political clout race also resulted in space exploration, satellite technology, and the U.S. putting a man on the moon.
Nice list, but too much focus on Western precursors - nothing involving China, for example. Too much focus on the Greek/Persian world.
I’d argue for the following:
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The conquests of the Neo-Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians and Persians - pretty much set the stage for the ME world.
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Conquests of Alexander: spreading Hellenism abroad.
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The unification of China under Shih Huang-Ti. Created the very idea of “China” as a unified empire.
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The Punic Wars: Rome triumphant.
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The wars of Islamic expansion.
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The Mongol conquests: ensuring the future supremacy of Europe, setting back the Rus, the Islamic world, and China.
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The Seven Year’s War: establishing the basis for England’s empire, enabling the US to later revolt.
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The wars of the French revolution/Napoleonic Wars: setting the stage for the concert of Europe and the European century.
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WW1: the self-inflicted end of the Concert and the old order in Europe.
10 WW2: European and Japanese power temporarily smashed; the world split between the two edge powers - US and USSR - locked into 50 years of cold war.
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The Crimean War
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The Pig War
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The 335 Year War
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The Falklands War
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The War of Spanish Succession
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Moldovan-Transdniestrian War
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The Football War
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The Yellow Turban Rebellion
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The Anglo-Zanzibar War
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Lelantine War
Ha yea, I had figured someone would call me on that. To be honest…I just didn’t feel like doing the Asian research.
Were you just picking out the ones with funny names? Some of these, like the Football War and the Pig War, were barely blips in world history. The 335 Year War sounds impressive except nobody ever fired a shot, they just sort of hated each other for 3 centuries.
I think that Vietnam, The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and the current invasion of Afghanistan will, collectively mark an important watershed. They will mark when a country can no longer occupy another no manner how mismatched their forces are.
To make such a sweeping statement as that is a gross miscalculation of the way the world works, based on observations as to how the world has worked. The main reason these occupations didn’t work(I don’t quite know how somalia made it in there…) is because for whatever reason, the occupying forces didn’t go about the best methods of occupying a country. As any Roman could explain to you, its not a complicated task; kill any and all possible resitance, devestate the regions cities, make sure that the populace understands you alone are masters of their fate as their conquerors, and appoint regional natives loyal to you as local magistrates.
Yet, as any modernist can tell you, it would be very difficult to go about such a task today without grinding up against some form of international law, international moral backlash for the actions, or moral backlash from your own nation. These are what prevent us from accomplishing what we set out to do in occupying these nations. That does not, however, mean in any way whatsoever that nations in the future–be it near or far–will not engage in such actions.
Quoth Cohen the Barbarian:
(Interesting Times)
While a funny name was one criteria, I was also going for wars with odd content, like the ones you mentioned.
eta: I also tried to throw in a couple that I thought were important, but less well known
etaa: and, from the point of view of that pig, the Pig War was the most important war in the history of the world, clearly
Heh, not a problem.
What I find difficult is choosing any one ancient ME combat. There are son many and they are all important. I sorta cheated on that.
On that theory the Nazi’s would like to have a word with you. They tried that and it lead to this.
Or the Persians who burnt down the rebelling Greek cities in Asia Minor, that went well…not.
All repression accomplishes is generating further resistance. The Romans kept order in their empire trough a combination of means, an excellent administrative system, local allies, good governance and yes force when needed. The British did the same.
Many of our modern dmeocratic wars/crusades failed because force alone was relied upon.