Was watching a show on the History Channel tonight where they discussed the top 5 battles that changed the course of modern Western History (I think they chose a post-Roman time frame, though nearly every battle was ‘modern’). I was wondering if the folks here would come up with a similar list. I have to admit that for myself I wouldn’t have chosen the battles that the panel chose…but then I’m not a historian.
So…what are your top 5 battles that changed the course of Western History? Lets stick with the same time frame as the panel…just so I can see how the SD folks compare. I can list the battles chosen later in the thread if anyone is interested (or if someone else doesn’t do it for me).
The Battle of Tours, in which Charles Martel stopped what HAD seemed like an unstoppable Islamic juggernaut. If Martel had lost, Europe might be a Moslem continent today.
Stalingrad, the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.
The British Navy’s annihilation of the Spanish Armada (that may not count as one “battle,” but I’m treating it as such), marking the emergence of England as ruler of the waves and Europe’s leading power.
Saratoga. Some may think I overestimate the importance of the U.S., but I think the success of the American Revolution was an extremely important moment in world history. Without the American victory at Saratoga, the French wouldn’t have come to our aid, the Revolution would have been lost, and the world would be a much different place.
I admit that I have a bias toward European history. I’ve tried to pick the battles that I think have had the greatest long-term impact on world affairs because they represent major and enduring political shifts.
1. Manzikert – The nail in the coffin of the Byzantine empire. The loss at Manzikert led to the Ottoman occupation of Anatolia and the Balkins, setting the stage for 800 years of conflict between east and west.
2. Teutoberger Wald – The annihilation of three Roman legions by German barbarians marked the end of major Roman expansion. The failure of the Romans to incorporate Germany into their empire established a division between southern and northern Europe that persisted until the 20th century.
3. Stalingrad – The rock upon which Hitler’s war machine smashed itself. If the Nazis had broken through at Stalingrad they would have gained access to the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus and might never have been defeated.
4. Trafalgar – Destroyed Napoleon’s dreams of invading England and established Great Britain as the world’s dominant sea power for 100 years. Paved the way for Napoleon’s ultimate defeat and the globe-spanning British Empire.
5. Yorktown – The decisive battle in the American Revolution. Led to the founding of the United States and it’s subsequent huge impact on world affairs.
(Honorable Mention – Alexander the Great’s campaign into Asia. It had a truly massive impact on the course of history, but lacks a single dominant defining battle.)
Oh, I’d forgotten Saratoga! I’d replace my number 5 (Yorktown) with it. It’s a better choice for “battle most responsible for existence of the United States”.
Whichever battle soured Asoka on war and convinced him to devote his life and power to spreading Buddhism. Without that moment, Buddhism would have likely remained a fairly local and relatively unimportant phenomenon (like, say, Jainism) and the entire history and culture of Asia would be different.
Tsushima Strait - For the first time in modern history, an Asian power takes down a European power. Japan steps onto the world stage as a major player, and the Road to Pearl Harbor begins.
Trafalgar - Pax Brittanica rested on sea power, and Nelson’s triumph established Britain as the Ultimate Sea Power for the next 130 years.
Tours - For the reasons listed above
First Battle of the Marne - If the Germans wern’t stopped here, Paris would have fallen and World War One would have been over in a year. The Russian Revolution would have been avoided, or at least delayed, as Germany could have followed the Schlieffen Plan and crushed Russia.
Hastings - Modern England was a result of Norman and Anglo-Saxon influences. Remove the Norman and the English are nothing.
Okay folks, for the last time let’s put this persistent myth to rest. Tours/Poitiers was NOT significant in halting the Muslim advance. That had already petered out in the 720’s and even a crushing victory would not have revived it in the west. The army defeated at Tours was not an overwhelming invading juggernaut, but rather a punitive razzia aimed at the duke of Aquitaine. At best a Muslim victory at Tours would have meant the loss of Aquitaine, likely temporarily. Why? Because it was 732 and the Umayyads were decaying and heading into a period of extreme stress ( including bad losses to the Byzantines in Anatolia, the Khazars in the Caucasus and schismatic Kharijite Berbers in North Africa ) and in 741 the Muslim world exploded in the Third Fitna ( or third Islamic Civil War ) which displaced the Umayyad dynasty, causing the one surviving branch to flee to Spain/Morocco, sundering it from the rest of the Muslim world. The Spanish Muslims were not decisively weakened by Tours ( they continued to raid in southern France, taking Arles in 735 for example ) and a victory wouldn’t have decisively strengthened them, either. The juggernaut had just run out of steam for further advances in the west by that point.
Tours was important in two key respects - 1) It was a huge propaganda victory for Charles Martel and 2) it seriously undermined what had previously been his chief rival, Eudes of Aquitaine ( himself a victor over the Muslims at Toulouse nine years earlier ). So it was very important for setting the stage for the rise to dominasnce of the Carolingian dynasty, a very significant thing in European history to be sure.
But key to stopping the Muslim advance? Nuh-uh.
I’ll also say I wouldn’t overstate the defeat of the Spanish Armada, either. It was rather like Lepanto to the Turks. A nasty, but not crippling blow. Spain continued as a superpower and England did not become the unchallenged mistress of the seas. I agree that Trafalgar is much more significant.
My own list? I’m not crazy about such lists and might give a different one tomorrow, but tonight I guess I’ll go along with 1.) Trafalgar, 2.) Manzikert, 3.) Hastings ( really I think probably the clearest example of a fairly equally weighted single battle with truly profound results ), hmmm…4.) the Marne ( I like that choice - a little less obvious than Stalingrad in WW II ) and…hmmm…I’ll stretch the time limit to the limit by semi-arbitrarily declaring Heraclius the first Byzantine emperor, rather than Roman and say…
5.) Yarmuk, 636 - A somewhat speculative one, but definitely of huge significance. The Arabs had already one two smaller battles that had unhinged the Syrian front and Yarmuk was the last ditch effort to stem their advance in a bone-weary empire, stripped of its local defences nearly everywhere by decades of crushing warfare against the Persians and attendant financial collapse. In the event the near-annhilation of the core mobile Byzantine army led to not only the immediate loss of Syria, rapidly followed by the loss by treaty of northern Mesopotamia ( sacrificed to buy time to rebuild the defences behind the Taurus mts. ), but also de facto the eventual loss of Egypt and North Africa.
There is no guarantee that an Arab defeat would have reversed that, but it just might of. Heraclius was a proven military leader of some ability and with a major victory over the Muslims at Yarmuk and his elite metropolitan army largely intact, he may well have been able to stabilize the Syrian border and deny Islam the chance to spread west. They still would have taken Persia ( or maybe not - caught between a resurging Byzantium and Persia and having suffered substantial losses, they may have lost at Qadisyya in 637 or at least Nihavend in 641 ). But even had they taken Persia, the old balance of power in the east might have just been established with the Caliphs replacing the Sassanids.
I have to say that the only one I can really see is Hastings from their list, though Yorktown would be one I can certainly see…and perhaps Stalingrad (though I think Kursk was more important). The others…well, I’m not sure.
My own list would be something like (in no particular order):
Trafalgar/Waterloo
Hastings
Midway/Coral Sea
Verdun/Jutland
Yorktown (in retrospect)
Gettysburg
That’s an interesting choice, but it really depends on what you think would have happened had the British lost the air war. Would a German invasion of Britain still have been successful? I’m not sure. It might have just brought the U.S. into the war a year earlier, as they rushed men and supplies over to defend Britain. And if it was, how would that have changed the world in the long-term? Would the Nazis have survived as a power? I don’t think so, unless they seriously tried to sue for peace. And I don’t think that was likely.
Here’s a somewhat obscure and contentious choice: the battles of the Russo-Finnish war of 1939-1940, and in particular the battle of Suomussalmi (350 Finns killed vs. 16,000-35,000 Russians killed and wounded).
The Russians went into the conflict with an even heavier hand from political officers than in World War II, and displayed staggering ineptitude at winter warfare and tactics in general. They were not equipped with skis or winter clothing, did not initially use winter camouflage, relied on human wave infantry assaults, and displayed a complete disregard for combined arms tactics. The Russian military had even rejected the use of submachineguns prior to the war, and after witnessing the close-quarters effectiveness of the Suomi submachineguns used by the Finns they copied the design for the ubiquitous PPSh of World War II.
Without the lessons learned - or even half-learned - from the Winter War, it’s arguable that the Red Army would have crumbled more rapidly in the face of the German assault in 1941. If Moscow, or Stalingrad, or both, had been lost, would Russia have been able to recover sufficiently? At best, would this have resulted in a prolonged World War II and thousands, if not millions, more deaths?
This is an interesting thread. I’m not enough of a historian to give a confident list of the top five battles, but I will argue against Gettysburg being on it. While it did end the South’s ability to carry out major offensives, and most likely shortened the war by some amount, it seems to me that the North’s effective blockade of southern ports was what made the war’s overall outcome pretty much inevitable.
OTOH, if the South had won Gettysburg, thereby making D.C. vulnerable, then it might have made the list.
I think it is tough to answer because something like Stalingrad* DID* change the course of History – but if the Germans had somehow taken the city would the ultimate end have been different? Probably not – the Russians would have re-grouped and the endgame been played out to the same song different tune…
same I think of Waterloo & the Somme.
How about Pearl Harbor – not because it was decisive militarily but because it caused the U.S. to enter the War and helped create a Post-War nuclear dominated half-century & shaped U.S. political & military thinking from that day to this.
Pearl, Trafalgar, Stalingrad (with my note), & two others I dunno (I guess copy two that Tamerlane says )
Just curious those of you who pick Antietam and not Gettysburg – can you explain your thoughts? (I am OTR thinking it is way overlooked - but I wouldn’t say more significant than Gettysburg
Well, the rational of the folks at Viewpoint (IIRC) was that Antietam was the battle that decisively made sure the Europeans wouldn’t enter the war…and that allowed Lincoln to free the slaves so that it didn’t look like a desparation move by the North. YMMV…though I think the battle was important I wouldn’t have ranked it on the top 5 for world changers.
What was the rationale for including the (apparently First) Somme on the list? All it really accomplished was getting an incredible number of men killed. And huge wastage of lives continued in other offensives long after that.
Or maybe that was the point of inclusion on the list - setting a precedent for death on a vast scale.
More than Gettysburg, one might think about including one of the battles from Grant’s Virginia campaign of 1864 (Spotsylvania, the Wilderness etc.). Before them, when Lee held off Union forces while inflicting major damage, the result was generally stalemate. With Grant in charge, the Union armies kept on the move and there was a sense that the end was becoming inevitable. Without that, maybe Lincoln is not re-elected in 1864 and the new President (McClellan?) settles for a compromise that keeps the Union divided.
I would also include Midway (the end of Japanese expansion in the Pacific in WWII), the Marne and maybe El Alamein (Rommel hits a brick wall in North Africa).
Marathon. Established Greek rather than Persian control of the Mediterranean, and hence the basis of Western civilization that endures to this day.
Actium. It’s not easy to speculate how the Roman Empire would have developed under Antony and his descendents rather than under the Caesars, but I think it’s safe to say that Roman and medieaval Europe would have been radically different if this had been the case.
Manzikert, for reasons given by other posters.
Yorktown. It’s difficult to over-estimate the importance of the United States to world history. Saratoga may have been an important victory, but Yorktown was where American independence was finally established.
Stalingrad - or, rather, Operation Barbaraossa as a whole. By deciding to attack the USSR at the earliest opportunity rather than securing western Europe, consolidating his position, and allowing his nuclear programme to come to development, Hitler sealed his own fate. Pearl Harbor may still have happened and the USA might still have gone to war against Japan, but would FDR have actively intervened, on Stalin’s side, against a comparitively stable Europe that was under Hitler’s control? Would Stalin have taken the initative to invade Germany, rather than being able to fight on his home soil?
Excluding Marathon and Actium:
Waterloo. Trafalgar certainly established Britain’s dominance of the sea, but a continental Europe under Napoleon’s control would still have been a formidable power in the nineteenth century, especially as the industrial revolution developed. France, rather than Germany, would undoubtedly have become the major European power in the twentieth century.
First Battle of the Marne. Difficult to choose any specific battle from the Great War, and it might be argued that the most significant event, from a European perspective, of the period was the Russian Revolution, which was already well in progress by 1914. However, a swift German victory would have led to a siginficantly different, if no less stable, political situation in Europe in the 1920’s.