The most decisive battles of world history

[Mott the Hoople]

My contribution to the internets today is to acknowledge the totally excellent Korean turtle ships.
It basically does not get any more bad-ass than 17th century war ships equipped with flame throwers, and covered in armored spikes to impale enemies attempting to board.

Koreans often don't get their historical due. They were one of the few nations in the path of the Mongol Hordes in the 13th century that suceeded, though at a steep cost, at repelling them. A remarkable achievement considering they crushed everyone else.

[Mott the Hoople]

So I did some cursory research, and the only significant military engagement after Liepzig, was when the coalition led by Prussia invaded France in 1814, and defeated Napolean on his home turf. Although Napolean launched a counter offensive, he was defeated and Paris was occupied.

Transitioning to the 20th century, there is no question that Stalingrad was the lethal injury to Nazi Germany that thwarted Hitler's dreams of world domination. And probably my favorite world war 2 movie is Enemy at the Gates, a story about Russian sniper Vasily Zaytsev with the Battle of Stalingrad as the back drop. Gripping stuff, man!

You haven't read the book have you? It was another case, for me, where the movie didn't live up to expectations after having read the book first. The movie glosses over more than 75% of the book.

[Cypress]

Koreans often don't get their historical due. They were one of the few nations in the path of the Mongol Hordes in the 13th century that suceeded, though at a steep cost, at repelling them. A remarkable achievement considering they crushed everyone else.

Good insight.

Western military history buffs tend to neglect the martial history of east and south Asia.

I recently saw a very good Korean movie, about a naval engagement between the South Korean navy and the North Korean navy in 2002 - during the World Cup in Seoul no less! It is referred to as Second Battle of Yeonpyeong. I do not even remember hearing about it, which goes to show you how news from east Asia tends to get neglected here.

It was really interesting seeing a movie about the South Korean Navy and I recommend it - it was on Netflix, and the movie is callned "Northern Line Limit"

[Cypress]

You haven't read the book have you? It was another case, for me, where the movie didn't live up to expectations after having read the book first. The movie glosses over more than 75% of the book.

I totally forgot there was a book, thanks for reminding me!

[Mott the Hoople]

I totally forgot there was a book, thanks for reminding me!

As a book, it's not a pleasant read. You kind of wonder how the author kept his mind and emotions centered when researching such slaughter on an unprecedented scale. After a while of reading page after page of death and destruction it starts to grate on your nerves. The story on the snipers doesn't even take up a chapter of the book. Some real sick shit went on there.

Like when the German Pilots on the first day of the battle strafed a park filled with civilians and killed over 40,000 innocent people.

[Cypress]

As a book, it's not a pleasant read. You kind of wonder how the author kept his mind and emotions centered when researching such slaughter on an unprecedented scale. After a while of reading page after page of death and destruction it starts to grate on your nerves. The story on the snipers doesn't even take up a chapter of the book. Some real sick shit went on there.

Like when the German Pilots on the first day of the battle strafed a park filled with civilians and killed over 40,000 innocent people.

I hear you.

The Nazis considered the Slavic people to be subhuman - Untermensch- - and utterly expendable. That is, in part, why the Nazis had no moral restraint in treating Russian soldiers, civilians, and prisoners of war with sheer barbarity and callous disregard for life. The Nazis never engaged in barbarity against western Armies at the scale they did against Slavic armies the eastern front.

[Mott the Hoople]

I hear you.

The Nazis considered the Slavic people to be subhuman - Untermensch- - and utterly expendable. That is, in part, why the Nazis had no moral restraint in treating Russian soldiers, civilians, and prisoners of war with sheer barbarity and callous disregard for life. The Nazis never engaged in barbarity against western Armies at the scale they did against Slavic armies the eastern front.

No they didn't. On the Western Front, for the most part, the German soldiers were disciplined about not shooting medics as they didn't want their medics shot.

[Cypress]

No they didn't. On the Western Front, for the most part, the German soldiers were disciplined about not shooting medics as they didn't want their medics shot.

Good point.
I also think the German Army, while keen to kill and defeat allied soliders, had a nominal level of respect for - or at least restraint towards - French, British, Canadian, Americans that they simply did not have for Russians, Poles, or Ukrainians - whom they considered Untermensch, unworthy, beneath contempt, and completely expendable.

[Mott the Hoople]

Good point.
I also think the German Army, while keen to kill and defeat allied soliders, had a nominal level of respect for - or at least restraint towards - French, British, Canadian, Americans that they simply did not have for Russians, Poles, or Ukrainians - whom they considered Untermensch, unworthy, beneath contempt, and completely expendable.

What I don’t understand is why they considered Eastern Europeans subhuman with all the Irish around.

[Cypress]

What I don’t understand is why they considered Eastern Europeans subhuman with all the Irish around.

Poor Irish, they get no respect.
They probably will never live down the fact they stayed neutral in WW2, while the rest of us were killing Nazis in the defence of western democracy! What the hell??

[Mott the Hoople]

Poor Irish, they get no respect.
They probably will never live down the fact they stayed neutral in WW2, while the rest of us were killing Nazis in the defence of western democracy! What the hell??

Well I’m of Scotch Irish descent and I’ve never forgotten the line about the Irish in Blazing Saddles. So I like to make fun of the Irish on that score.

[Cypress]

This is Professor Aldrete's criteria for what constitutes a decisive battle.

My current submission is the Battle of Chinkiang, purportedly the last battle of the First Opium War. This strategic victory for the British brought to China a century of foreign, colonial domination - and I believe the argument could be made that 20th century Chinese nationalism, anti-foreign sentiment, even the Chinese civil war and the victory of Mao Tse Tung can be traced back to roots in the Opium War.

What makes a battle decisive?

First, it was one that was militarily decisive in that the defeat of one military force by another resulted in an immediate and obvious transfer of political power.

Second, perhaps the most common type of decisive battle is one that subsequently had important social, political, or religious effects. In many cases, these battles may not have seemed pivotal at the time but have been recognized only in retrospect as demarcating a turning point

Other Considerations

My list tends to favor battles that curbed or ended the growth of various expansionist empires because without such key defeats, those empires might well have extended their political and cultural domination yet further.

Finally, some battles were selected as decisive because they represent the introduction of a key technological advance or the triumph of one type of military force over another. In the technology category could be considered the Battle of Midway, which set the pattern for future naval clashes being decided by air power rather than big guns.

Examining decisive battles can be a useful analytical tool because it encourages us to view history not as a boring and immutable timeline but, instead, as a series of constantly branching pathways whose outcomes and effects are frequently unpredictable and whose real significance only emerges with the passage of time.

source credit: Professor Gregory S. Aldrete, University of Wisconsin

[Cypress]

Having watched a lecture on the Battle of Plataea, it is hard to imagine there even would have been a western civilization as we know it, had the Persian prevailed. That arguably make Plataea the most consequential military event by a country mile, from the perspective of western civilization.

The Greeks commitment to liberty, democratic institutions, intellectual freedom, and artistic expression would never have been transmitted to Rome, and then to western European civilization had Spartan King Pausanias failed to crush the Persian onslaught.

You have to wonder about the hand of fate too. I have never put much stock in fate, but maybe there is more to it than I imagine. The hubris of Xerxes, the tactical genius of Spartan King Pausania, and many fortunate coincidences led to a resounding and seemingly unlikely Greek victory.

[Mott the Hoople]

This is Professor Aldrete's criteria for what constitutes a decisive battle.

My current submission is the Battle of Chinkiang, purportedly the last battle of the First Opium War. This strategic victory for the British brought to China a century of foreign, colonial domination - and I believe the argument could be made that 20th century Chinese nationalism, anti-foreign sentiment, even the Chinese civil war and the victory of Mao Tse Tung can be traced back to roots in the Opium War.

My list tends to favor battles that curbed or ended the growth of various expansionist empires because without such key defeats, those empires might well have extended their political and cultural domination yet further.


What about battles that have the opposite affect? What about Battles which were a turning point where an expansionist empire expanded dramatically after a victory?

I would provide as an example the frontier Battle of Fallen Timbers, where General Mad Anthony Wayne defeated the last successful Native American Coalition to stand against the United States Government (and the British Colonial government prior to that).

in the late 18th Native American Coalitions centered in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region had blocked American expansionism at the Appalachian Mountains. Trickles of settlers emigrated into the vast American interior but most were thwarted by these Native American Coalitions of Shawnee, Miami, Wyandote, Mingo, Ottawa, Delaware, etc,.

After the American Revolutionary War ended and our new Constitutional Government was in place President Washington put his focus on the settlement of the vast American interior. His first attempt to displace the Native Americans, so that settlers could enter the interior, ended in catastrophe with the first battle ever by the US Army ending in a defeat known as St. Clair's Massacre at the headwaters of the Wabash river (at present day Ft. Recovery, OH).

Washington's next attempt proved spectacularly successful as he chose the right man for the job in Gen. Mad Anthony Wayne. Wayne properly trained and supplied a small army that routed the Native American coalition that culminated in the battle of Fallen Timbers near current day Toledo, OH.

After Fallen Timbers the Native Americans who had waged war against American encursions, fairly successfully for nearly 200 hundred years were spent as a military force and what had been a trickle of settlers into the interior held back by this Native American coalition became a flood and within two generations the entire interior of the United States had become settled.

So though Fallen Timbers was a small frontier battle in which there was a small number of combatants the long term consequences were profound. It was an unmitigated catastrophe for Native Americans for whom to this day they have never recovered and it opened an entire continent open to settlement by European settlers that was a turning point for America becoming the great continental empire that it is today.

[Cypress]

My list tends to favor battles that curbed or ended the growth of various expansionist empires because without such key defeats, those empires might well have extended their political and cultural domination yet further.


What about battles that have the opposite affect? What about Battles which were a turning point where an expansionist empire expanded dramatically after a victory?

I would provide as an example the frontier Battle of Fallen Timbers, where General Mad Anthony Wayne defeated the last successful Native American Coalition to stand against the United States Government (and the British Colonial government prior to that).

in the late 18th Native American Coalitions centered in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region had blocked American expansionism at the Appalachian Mountains. Trickles of settlers emigrated into the vast American interior but most were thwarted by these Native American Coalitions of Shawnee, Miami, Wyandote, Mingo, Ottawa, Delaware, etc,.

After the American Revolutionary War ended and our new Constitutional Government was in place President Washington put his focus on the settlement of the vast American interior. His first attempt to displace the Native Americans, so that settlers could enter the interior, ended in catastrophe with the first battle ever by the US Army ending in a defeat known as St. Clair's Massacre at the headwaters of the Wabash river (at present day Ft. Recovery, OH).

Washington's next attempt proved spectacularly successful as he chose the right man for the job in Gen. Mad Anthony Wayne. Wayne properly trained and supplied a small army that routed the Native American coalition that culminated in the battle of Fallen Timbers near current day Toledo, OH.

After Fallen Timbers the Native Americans who had waged war against American encursions, fairly successfully for nearly 200 hundred years were spent as a military force and what had been a trickle of settlers into the interior held back by this Native American coalition became a flood and within two generations the entire interior of the United States had become settled.

So though Fallen Timbers was a small frontier battle in which there was a small number of combatants the long term consequences were profound. It was an unmitigated catastrophe for Native Americans for whom to this day they have never recovered and it opened an entire continent open to settlement by European settlers that was a turning point for America becoming the great continental empire that it is today.

"General Mad Anthony Wayne" -- that totally sounds like a made up name in a crappy Hollywood movie!

Concerning your post, that is precisely the beauty of human curiosity and scholarly inquiry. You can take the best of your historical knowledge and make a case for it.

I never heard of this battle, but I think you have sold me on it using your logic and rhetoric in the best Aristotelian tradition!