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Greetings,

Let's talk about history and battles. Some of us have probably read Creasy's famous "15 Most Decisive Battles" . He wrote his book in 1851 or so, therefore, his discussion stopped at 1850 or so. His focus was on how those battles changed the course of history, and less on casualty figures, territorial swaps, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifteen_Decisive_Battles_of_the_World

Here is his list:
1. Battle of Marathon
2. Battle of Syracuse
3. Arbela
4. Battle of Mataurus
5. Tuetenborg Forest
6. Battle of Chalons
7. Battle of Tours
8. Hastings
9. Orleans
10. Spanish Armada
11. Blenheim
12. Poltava
13. Saratoga
14. Valmy
15. Waterloo

This list has two major flaws in my mind. First, it is incredibly Euorcentric. Secondly, it ends in 180. Creasey couldn't do much about that last one. However, now we can. If you were making a list of the 10 or 15 most Decisive Battles, what battles would you consider and why?

No Stalingrad?

Creasy?

Melissia wrote:No Stalingrad?

the list ended in 1850, but i could see the arguement for putting that one on there if the list went on to a later date

Battle of Saarbrücken (kicked off the Franco-Prussian War, which would then indirectly lead to...)
Austria-Hungary's occupation of the Sanjak of Novibazar (which would then directly lead to about a hundred years of horror in the Balkans, including WWI, which was the cause of WWII and just about everything else)

Then the obvious ones:

Normandy D-Day invasion
Stalingrad
Nagasake <-- but is that really a 'battle'?

So no love for Armageddon or Macragge?


Or even Tsuhima?

From the top of my head (before anybody corrects my mistakes )

1598 The Battle of Okehazama. Oda Nobunaga defeats Toyatomi Imagawa, thus paving the way for the unification of Japan.

300 AD or thereabout? Was it Cao Cao's campaign in China that paved the way to Chinese unification. It's been a few years since I played Dynasty Warriors

1314 The battle of Bannockburn. Scotland re-gains its independance, much to Matty's annoyance

401BC The battle of Cunaxa. Without this battle, no Walter Hill and the great film that is The Warriors.

Trafalgar?
I mean after that the French fleet was essentially non-existent and Britain had a free hand to build an empire...
I'm always unsure about Eurocentricism...
I mean i'm sure there were notable world changing events in other countries on other continents but i wouldn't be able to tell you what they are...

Where's Agincourt? Or does that come under Massacre rather than Battle.

Bloody hell! Trafalgar! Somebody kick this ass!

How many times have I been through Trafalgar square...

Probably a massacre considering...
Also in the long run it wasn't massively important.

Purplefood, Agincourt is important for no other reason than it inspired one of the finest plays in English literature:


This day is called the Feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day and live t' old age
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours
And say, "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words —
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester —
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.

It gets better every time you read it

No Horns of Hattin, eh?

Nice to see Sweden getting a nod though, although the Russians would probably have smashed us sooner or later anyway.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Purplefood, Agincourt is important for no other reason than it inspired one of the finest plays in English literature:


This day is called the Feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day and live t' old age
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours
And say, "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words —
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester —
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.

It gets better every time you read it

Quite right. Once more to the breach bitches.

...anyway, how on earth is Agincourt not important? Because the French recovered a decade and a half later?

"Can we go in procession to boast of this victory?"
"Oh sorry Henry, unfortunately due to your idiot son losing france to some teenage girl who thinks she spoke to god this victory has been deemed unimportant."

Yeah but France still existed...
AFAIK Britain (England i guess) didn't really do anything they wouldn't have been able to do anyway in the intervening time.
It's not exactly a world changing battle... definitely memorable though...

No Trafalgar?!

The bloke knew feth all.

It's Eurocentric because at the time, Europe was the dominant world power and the concept of multiculturalism wasn't exactly developed.

You could add major battles from ancient Mesopotamia to the list.

Japan's defeat of Russia solidified Imperial Japan as a major power and arguably the most powerful nation outside of Europe and America at the time.

Stalingrad and Midway were both turning points in WW2 in each respective front.

The Tet Offensive, while a failure in someways, was a massive success in that it led to increased anti war sentiment in America and was a major factor in America's withdrawal.

I think Vietnam was the last major war in the term of impact it had on global society.

Hoth?

10. Spanish Armada

Yes. A decisive victory for the weather. If this is here why aren't either divine winds? This list is ridiculously eurocentric and follows revisionist historical retellings (such as no one faulting the armada sinking due to weather for their loss).

ShumaGorath wrote:

10. Spanish Armada

Yes. A decisive victory for the weather. If this is here why aren't either divine winds? This list is ridiculously eurocentric and follows revisionist historical retellings (such as no one faulting the armada sinking due to weather for their loss).

The British ships did force them away from any safe ports and their rendezvous. That ultimately got them sunk because of the weather...

ShumaGorath wrote:

10. Spanish Armada

Yes. A decisive victory for the weather. If this is here why aren't either divine winds? This list is ridiculously eurocentric and follows revisionist historical retellings (such as no one faulting the armada sinking due to weather for their loss).

Erm? That's just one contributing part to a very long and complex battle. The armada had already given up on invasion anyway and were on their way back to Spain.

Yeah, its euro-centric, but you know, it was 1850, what else would anyone expect?

I think it's more weird that there is no decisive battle from the Crusades mentioned, surely Hattin ought to make the list?

Glorioski wrote:Where's Agincourt? Or does that come under Massacre rather than Battle.

Creasy's criteria was battles that changed the course of history, and Agincourt didn't do that. The English still lost the war.

It's why Orleans is in there instead, that changed the course of the 100 years war.

purplefood wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

10. Spanish Armada

Yes. A decisive victory for the weather. If this is here why aren't either divine winds? This list is ridiculously eurocentric and follows revisionist historical retellings (such as no one faulting the armada sinking due to weather for their loss).

The British ships did force them away from any safe ports and their rendezvous. That ultimately got them sunk because of the weather...

The British sunk five ships to the skies sixty one. I doubt British meteorology was good enough in 1588 to really plan on that. The land invasion had already failed and without that there was no point to the armada at all. They wen't home because half of their plan was defunct and the armada lost ships because they didn't sacrifice anything to Poseidon. The most decisive part of the battle appears to be the part the water and smallpox played.

rubiksnoob wrote:Hoth?

Hahaha, that's what I was going to say, lucky I kept reading!

My List:

1. Battle of Issus
2. Battle of Cannae/Zama
3. Battle of Tours
4. Battle of Kursk
5. Waterloo
6. Spanish Armada
7. Battle of Chalons
8. Midway
9. Battle of Red Cliffs
10. Siege of Yorktown

Even now, the world is still somewhat Eurocentric. Europe dominated global politics for upwards of three hundred years. The battles that created that situation are naturally going to end up being more influencial than those won by the civilizations eventually subjugated to European rule.

LordofHats wrote:My List:

1. Battle of Issus
2. Battle of Cannae/Zama
3. Battle of Tours
4. Battle of Kursk
5. Waterloo
6. Spanish Armada
7. Battle of Chalons
8. Midway
9. Battle of Red Cliffs
10. Siege of Yorktown

Even now, the world is still somewhat Eurocentric. Europe dominated global politics for upwards of three hundred years. The battles that created that situation are naturally going to end up being more influencial than those won by the civilizations eventually subjugated to European rule.

Given that the book was written in 1851 it's eurocentrism is a bit more striking than it could have been (though honestly, global historical knowledge was pretty shallow those days). China had been the dominant market force in global trade for nearly a millennium and had several intensively decisive military conflicts shaping its public and foreign policy. The list makes no mention of Mongolians at all, nor the federation and consolidation of the Russian states, nor the decisive conflicts that shaped japanese, korean, or indian influences around the world.

Seriously, any list on military conflicts that doesn't mention the Mongolions is just pandering to white dudes. They mention alexander, but they don't mention the khans who basically did the same thing but bigger, larger, and better.

Alexander has a major thing going for him in that debate, that he led that campaign from the front line as a remarkable soldier, while Khan lead from the back.

LordofHats wrote:My List:

1. Battle of Issus
2. Battle of Cannae/Zama
3. Battle of Tours
4. Battle of Kursk
5. Waterloo
6. Spanish Armada
7. Battle of Chalons
8. Midway
9. Battle of Red Cliffs
10. Siege of Yorktown

No Gettysburg?

Even now, the world is still somewhat Eurocentric. Europe dominated global politics for upwards of three hundred years. The battles that created that situation are naturally going to end up being more influencial than those won by the civilizations eventually subjugated to European rule.

Sort of but not really. I honestly think its hard to draw any kind of line between Marathon, Syracuse and all the other various dicking around in Greece that made Creasy's list, and the modern world dominated by Europe. And even then, Greece is beyond irrelevant, outside of its ability to be the first and most minor part of a debt crisis.

Red Cliffs, which made your list, being a major factor in the unification of China, still has an importance to the modern world, whereas its pretty hard to imagine anything being meaningfully different had Syracuse gone the other way.

sebster wrote:

LordofHats wrote:My List:

1. Battle of Issus
2. Battle of Cannae/Zama
3. Battle of Tours
4. Battle of Kursk
5. Waterloo
6. Spanish Armada
7. Battle of Chalons
8. Midway
9. Battle of Red Cliffs
10. Siege of Yorktown

No Gettysburg?

Even now, the world is still somewhat Eurocentric. Europe dominated global politics for upwards of three hundred years. The battles that created that situation are naturally going to end up being more influencial than those won by the civilizations eventually subjugated to European rule.

Sort of but not really. I honestly think its hard to draw any kind of line between Marathon, Syracuse and all the other various dicking around in Greece that made Creasy's list, and the modern world dominated by Europe. And even then, Greece is beyond irrelevant, outside of its ability to be the first and most minor part of a debt crisis.

Red Cliffs, which made your list, being a major factor in the unification of China, still has an importance to the modern world, whereas its pretty hard to imagine anything being meaningfully different had Syracuse gone the other way.

No individual battle of the Civil War really changed anything. If the South had won 'em all, then yeah, different world... but really, the enormous advantage the North had made any temporary advantage the South gained irrelevant, especially once they got the silver to kill the vampires.

sebster wrote:Yeah, its euro-centric, but you know, it was 1850, what else would anyone expect?

I think it's more weird that there is no decisive battle from the Crusades mentioned, surely Hattin ought to make the list?

Glorioski wrote:Where's Agincourt? Or does that come under Massacre rather than Battle.

Creasy's criteria was battles that changed the course of history, and Agincourt didn't do that. The English still lost the war.

It's why Orleans is in there instead, that changed the course of the 100 years war.

Agincourt had a massive influence on how warfare was conducted but had little long term impact on the course of history, in the same vein that that the first use of tanks altered warfare.