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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 15, 2019 21:39:17 GMT
There is the standard list of decisive battles. Some unquestionably are. But are some of the ones on the list truly "decisive"? I'll throw out three...
1. Battle of Tours (Poitiers, 732) Where Charles Martel saved Europe for Christianity. Or did he? There was another Umayyad incursion the following year and they stayed in Francia for four years. That ended in failure but there wasn't the heroic battle at the end. And some historians wonder if the invasion was for conquest or plunder. Yet you never see the 717 Siege of Constantinople on any list. THAT was the fight that saved Europe for Christianity.
2. Battle of Waterloo (1815). Decisive, yeah. Bonaparte fell apart. But if Napoleon and mopped the florr with Wellington and Blucher, he would have been home free, right? Wrong. Schwarzenburg was coming with 225,000 Austrians and Barclay de Tolly with 168,000 Russians The weary, bloodied French army would have had to beat both of those. The Hundred Days Campaign was a fool's errand. Napoleon never could have beaten the entirety of Europe. Waterloo was decisive but the game was over before it started.
3. Battle of Gettysburg (1863). The Army of Northern Virginia invaded and the Army of the Potomac followed (Dark Tower reference). George Mead whupps Robert Lee at Gettysburg, the decisive battle of the American Civil War, But, when the campaign was over, the armies were right back where they started. Nothing had changed except for the 50,000+ poor bastards that bled in Pennsylvania. You'll read "If Lee had annihilated the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg, the war would have been won." If Lee had annihilated the AoP at Chancellorsville, the war was over. At Fredericksburg, Antietam Creek, 2nd Bull Run, the Seven Days. ACW battles were not battles of annihilation.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2019 21:58:40 GMT
The Battle of Tsushima
And even the voyage of the Russian fleet to get to the battle is the stuff of legend
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Post by sadsaak on Nov 16, 2019 18:08:59 GMT
The Battle of Tsushima And even the voyage of the Russian fleet to get to the battle is the stuff of legend That really was a sad business. The voyage of the Russian fleet was, as you say, truly the stuff of legend. But Port Arthur had already fallen, the war was as good as lost and the best ending would have been for the two fleets to have met, shared a few bottles of vodka and Suntory whiskey and then both gone home. But they did not.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 16, 2019 19:02:59 GMT
The Battle of Tsushima And even the voyage of the Russian fleet to get to the battle is the stuff of legend That really was a sad business. The voyage of the Russian fleet was, as you say, truly the stuff of legend. But Port Arthur had already fallen, the war was as good as lost and the best ending would have been for the two fleets to have met, shared a few bottles of vodka and Suntory whiskey and then both gone home. But they did not. Almost like the Battle of New Orleans. The War of 1812 WAS over. Even if Pakenham routed Andrew Jackson and taken New Orleans, he would have had to give in back.
The the Russian Fleet had sunk Togo's fleet and started shelling Japanese cities, would that have changed the war?
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Post by sadsaak on Nov 16, 2019 23:42:09 GMT
Agincourt.
The french were very brave and undisciplined and a bit dim. The English were sick and hungry with little choice but to either surrender or to continue their march to Calais. So all the French generals needed to do was refuse combat and wait until Henry V's army either left the shelter of the flanking forests or raised the white flag.
But they did not. They charged the English lines and died in the arrow storm or drowned in the mud. It was a great English victory that gave birth to a great play and possibly even the Agincourt Salute. But all it really did was thin out the ranks of France's dimmer soldiers and leave the English in possession of no more ground than they stood on.
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Post by politicidal on Nov 17, 2019 1:26:53 GMT
So many from World War 2. Stalingrad? Battle of Britain? Kursk? Midway?
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Post by The Herald Erjen on Nov 17, 2019 2:20:25 GMT
From a strategic POV, Grant's victory at the siege of Vicksburg was the decisive battle, but Gettysburg was the battle which telegraphed to Britain and France that the Confederacy was going to lose the war. If Lee had disengaged before the third day I doubt it would have made much of a difference, but we'll never know.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 17, 2019 2:45:43 GMT
From a strategic POV, Grant's victory at the siege of Vicksburg was the decisive battle, but Gettysburg was the battle which telegraphed to Britain and France that the Confederacy was going to lose the war. If Lee had disengaged before the third day I doubt it would have made much of a difference, but we'll never know. Antietam was the battle that decided things as far as Europe went. The “victory “ gave Lincoln the political clout the issue the Emancipation Proclamation. That cooked the Confederacy goose. Britain and France might think about interfering as long as the North said the war wasn’t about slavery. The EP made it about slavery
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Post by yougotastewgoinbaby on Nov 17, 2019 6:38:50 GMT
The Battle of Manzikert, AD 1071. Not only did the Byzantines lose, but their emperor was captured by the Seljuk Turks. The battle marked the end of Greek rule over Anatolia, the beginning of Turkish influence, and set the stage for the Crusades.
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Post by Morgana on Nov 17, 2019 9:33:01 GMT
Alexander the Great's win against a much larger Persian force at the battle of Gaugamela.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Nov 17, 2019 17:33:35 GMT
There is the standard list of decisive battles. Some unquestionably are. But are some of the ones on the list truly "decisive"? I'll throw out three...
2. Battle of Waterloo (1815). Decisive, yeah. Bonaparte fell apart. But if Napoleon and mopped the florr with Wellington and Blucher, he would have been home free, right? Wrong. Schwarzenburg was coming with 225,000 Austrians and Barclay de Tolly with 168,000 Russians The weary, bloodied French army would have had to beat both of those. The Hundred Days Campaign was a fool's errand. Napoleon never could have beaten the entirety of Europe. Waterloo was decisive but the game was over before it started.
Been a while since i read about Waterloo, but if i remember correctly Napoleon was winning and only lost because Blucher and the Prussian army arrived just in time to save Wellington from defeat. And the main reason Napoleon lost Waterloo was not the British but the Prussians.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 17, 2019 17:48:30 GMT
The Battle of Manzikert, AD 1071. Not only did the Byzantines lose, but their emperor was captured by the Seljuk Turks. The battle marked the end of Greek rule over Anatolia, the beginning of Turkish influence, and set the stage for the Crusades. I'm not 100% on Manzikert. If the Byzantines treated Romanos IV as well as Alp Arslan, the battle might have been nothing. The Seljuks didn't want Anatolia, they wanted the Fatimeds and Egypt. The Sulten treated the Emperor like a guest and returned him safe and sound. But the Roman nobility overthrew Romanos and blinded him. Alp Arslan was infuriated and Romanos's successor was weak. It was the destabilization after Romanos' overthrow and the string of weak Emperors since Basil II. At that, Alexis I had nearly reconstructed the Empire. It wasn't until Myriokephalum (sp I'm sure) in 1176, 100 yearl later, that Anatolia was lost for good. Manzikert was a blow, but history paints it as the immediate loss of the eastern half of the Empire.
I always thought the the Eastern Roman Empire died of "old age". It's remarkable that it was still around in 1453.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 17, 2019 17:52:36 GMT
There is the standard list of decisive battles. Some unquestionably are. But are some of the ones on the list truly "decisive"? I'll throw out three...
2. Battle of Waterloo (1815). Decisive, yeah. Bonaparte fell apart. But if Napoleon and mopped the florr with Wellington and Blucher, he would have been home free, right? Wrong. Schwarzenburg was coming with 225,000 Austrians and Barclay de Tolly with 168,000 Russians The weary, bloodied French army would have had to beat both of those. The Hundred Days Campaign was a fool's errand. Napoleon never could have beaten the entirety of Europe. Waterloo was decisive but the game was over before it started.
Been a while since i read about Waterloo, but if i remember correctly Napoleon was winning and only lost because Blucher and the Prussian army arrived just in time to save Wellington from defeat. And the main reason Napoleon lost Waterloo was not the British but the Prussians. True that. But if Wellington hadn't held for hours against the greatest general in European history, Blucher would have marched into a vacuum. It was in military lingo for years. At the First Battle of Bull Run, when Edmund Kirby Smith arrived in time and helped rout the Union Army, the Confederate commander proclaimed "General, you are the blucher of the day!"
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 17, 2019 18:00:40 GMT
So many from World War 2. Stalingrad? Battle of Britain? Kursk? Midway? They were not decisive? I agree in that they never ended the war. WWII was too big to end on one battle. You couldn't have a Hastings, a Salamis, a Zama. The era of the set piece battle was over after the American CW. Armies just got too big. But they were momentum changers. Like First Marne in WWI.
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Post by sadsaak on Nov 17, 2019 18:17:44 GMT
The Battle of Manzikert, AD 1071. Not only did the Byzantines lose, but their emperor was captured by the Seljuk Turks. The battle marked the end of Greek rule over Anatolia, the beginning of Turkish influence, and set the stage for the Crusades. A rider to this was the letter Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) sent to the Pope. All the emperor wanted was a few mercenaries to help him retake Anatola, so he told the Western powers that he had plenty of cash and girls (if he had not been emperor Alexios would have had a great career in advertising) for such European brigandage as were looking for work. Unfortunately, it was a bit too successful and Pope Urban preached the first Crusade, which was not what the Byzantines wanted at all
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Post by hi224 on Nov 17, 2019 19:49:05 GMT
Alexander the Great's win against a much larger Persian force at the battle of Gaugamela. nice choice actually.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Nov 17, 2019 23:47:33 GMT
Alexander the Great's win against a much larger Persian force at the battle of Gaugamela. I would say that Gaugamela was as decisive as it gets. Even though Alexander routes the Persians is Issus and lopped off the richest part of the empire, the Achaemenid Empire was as dead as Dick’s hat band after Gaugamela. That one is indisputable as Hastings, Mohacs or Yorktown.
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Post by Morgana on Nov 18, 2019 9:03:39 GMT
Alexander the Great's win against a much larger Persian force at the battle of Gaugamela. nice choice actually. Thanks.
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Post by Morgana on Nov 18, 2019 9:06:52 GMT
The Roman defeat of the British (Celts) in AD60 or AD61. Though Buddica had a much larger number of men, the Roman army's superior training won. It was the end of the Celtic revolt and basically the end of the Celts.
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Post by koskiewicz on Nov 18, 2019 18:30:41 GMT
Operation "Market Basket" in WWII.
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