Most Macrohistorical Battle

[Pantagathus]

Maybe the phoenicians themselves, who knew a thing or two about the Assyrian warfare, could pass informations and goods.

Perhaps but one important question is how would they benefit in doing so? What would be the motivation?

 

The role of phoenicians in Arhaic Greece it's often neglected

One of the current pervasive debates is who took the initiative in the early cultural & economic exchanges between the Greeks & the Phoenicians. The arguments on either side are very enlightening.

 

One thing is for certain, these cultures of course did not operate in vacuums. I've seen it argued convincingly that one of the most Greek of Greek societal features, the Polis can be found to have precedence in the independent city state model of Phoenicia.

[Vibius Tiberius Costa]

How about the mini battle of the beserker on stamford bridge 1 man versus a few. Or the political battle between Alexander and Philotas (does that count). Otherwise Id say the battle of thermopylae was pretty small and unimagianbly important. 3000ish (300 + 2000 + 1000) is a pretty small number considering this wasn't a garrisonning force.

 

vtc

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve!

 

Probably the archetypical list of battles that had a significant impact on world history were the famous Victorian book of Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: from Marathon to Waterloo (1851).

The original list is:

 

The Battle of Marathon, 490 BC

Defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse, 413 BC, known as the Battle of Syracuse.

The Battle of Gaugamela or Arbela, 331 BC

The Battle of the Metaurus, 207 BC

Victory of Arminius over the Roman Legions under Varus, 9 AD Known as the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

The Battle of Chalons, 451 AD Also called the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields or the Battle of the Catalun.

The Battle of Tours or Poitiers, 732 AD

The Battle of Hastings, 1066 AD

Joan of Arc's Victory over the English at Orl

[Vibius Tiberius Costa]

Fantastic list ASCLEPIADES, no World War battles though, I would have put D-day or Dunkerque. Arminius is a surprise, i would think Trasimene or Trebia is a more world changing battle. Nothing from the crusades. Otherwise great!

 

vtc

Edited August 22, 2007 by Vibius Tiberius Costa

[ASCLEPIADES]

Fantastic list ASCLEPIADES, no World War battles though, I would have put D-day or Dunkerque. Arminius is a surprise, i would think Trasimene or Trebia is a more world changing battle. Nothing from the crusades. Otherwise great!

 

vtc

Salve, VTC.

 

That's because this list comes from 1851, 63 years before the beginning of WWI and 88 years before WWII.

[Kosmo]

This list has been frequently criticized for its euro(anglo)centric conception.

 

It is anglocentric. Got to love these victorian historians and their political corectness... The logic is flawless: if Britain it's the most important country (and those rebel cousins) then what influenced her it's the most important. It's hard to argue against this.

 

The mere concept of "Macro-Historical battle" is extremely controversial, because it is difficult to establish objective parameters to compare the battles and their consequences, because it inevitably introduces a subjective element of the "what if" kind to evaluate the alternative scenarios and because it explains mainly (or completely) by military factors a lot of complex and presumably multi-factorial transitions in History.

 

I fully agree. This concept reminds me the historians who look in history for a decisive event or person. Tolstoy knew better.

[Vibius Tiberius Costa]

Fantastic list ASCLEPIADES, no World War battles though, I would have put D-day or Dunkerque. Arminius is a surprise, i would think Trasimene or Trebia is a more world changing battle. Nothing from the crusades. Otherwise great!

 

vtc

Salve, VTC.

 

That's because this list comes from 1851, 63 years before the beginning of WWI and 88 years before WWII.

 

Oh yeah, maybe you should start a new topic on this.

 

vtc

[Urbs Aedificator]

My two denarii worth...IMO the siege of Constantinople in 717 A.D. The forces of Islam were surging. The left point of the Muslim cresent was to be stopped at Tours, the right point of the cresent was aimed at Constantinople. If the siege by the Muslim forces had been successful, theres a good chance we'd all be speaking Arabic now...

Alex

Edited September 1, 2007 by Urbs Aedificator

[Marcus_Aurelius]

The siege of Toulon by the British..Without it Napoleon would have never become Napoleon.I don't know anything about this siege of Toulon..but one of its consequences was Napoleon becoming brigade general...

[necromaniac]

The Battle of the Bosnian Highlands May 27th, 927

 

King Tomislav of the Kingdom of Croatia completely annihilated the invading army of Simeon I of Bulgaria.

 

The significance of the battle was this: The Bulgarians were a major power on the early 900's, receiving tribute from Byzantium, expanding their borders, and even having Simeon recognized by the Catholic Church as " Emperor of all Romans", a title equal to that of emperor of Byzantine. The defeat at the hands of the Croats halted the spread of Orthodoxy into Western Europe, weakened Bulgaria to the point where Byzantine could regain a foothold, administering crushing defeats agians tthe Bulgarians, eventually making them a province, and freed the Byzantines of much needed manpower to fight the onslaught of ever advancing Muslims.

[Julius Ratus]

The defeat at the hands of the Croats halted the spread of Orthodoxy into Western Europe,

 

How exactly did this battle halt the spread of Orthodoxy into Western Europe, when the two churches were still unified for a century more? The Bishop of Rome didn't split off until 1054.

 

 

On topic now, in ASCLEPIADES' list of battles he mentions the Battle of Poltava. I put my vote in on this battle, where Peter I ended the century of Sweedish military dominance in Europe, from Gustavus Adolphus to Charles XII.

 

To this I would like to add the Battle of Kulikovo Pole since there was a bit of 'Mongol Bashing' going on earlier. Here the Russians under Dmitri Donskoy whalloped the Golden Hoarde.

[G-Manicus]

I'll offer up "The Battle of the Cowpens" in the American Revolution. American General Nathaniel Greene, being pursued by a vastly superior British force lead by Lord Cornwallis, goes against conventional wisdom and splits his army in two, with the other half given to the command of General Daniel Morgan. The idea was to try and split Cornwallis' army in two as well in order to avoid an all out confrontation. Greene is pursued north by Cornwallis while Morgan is pursued by notorious British Cavalry office Banastre Tarleton.

 

Morgan then decides to make a stand at a place called The Cowpens in South Carolina, backed up against a river so that his men would have to stand and fight. Saddled with a high number of inexperienced infantrymen, Morgan knows they will panic when the British cavalry charges. He comes up with a brilliant plan (ala Hannibal at Cannae) and puts these inexperienced troops front and center of his line, in front of two full lines of experienced militia types, and tells them after they fire their 2 shots that it is okay to turn and withdraw to the rear. Greene correctly banks on Tarleton's aggressive tendencies and sure enough Tarleton charges straight for the center line upon arriving at The Cowpens. After watching the Americans fire their two volleys and turning to withdraw to the rear, Tarleton incorrectly believes he has them in a panic retreat and heads straight into the brunt of two full lines of colonials who annihilate his forces in a double envelopment. A devastating defeat for the British.

 

Morgan then proceeds back after Cornwallis, who has been desperately trying to catch up to Greene's forces. The hunter then becomes the hunted and Cornwallis is forced to head to Virginia and holes himself up at a little place called ... Yorktown.

 

And the rest as they say ... is history.

[necromaniac]

The defeat at the hands of the Croats halted the spread of Orthodoxy into Western Europe,

 

How exactly did this battle halt the spread of Orthodoxy into Western Europe, when the two churches were still unified for a century more? The Bishop of Rome didn't split off until 1054.

 

 

 

I left the word "potentially" out.