The greatest battles in history according to the readers of Defense Online

(To David Rossi)
18/05/19

There are many great battles that have marked history, but only very few have really determined the destiny of peoples for centuries to come, until today.

What makes the difference between marking widely and determining the future of humanity? Meanwhile, the battle must have so-called "systemic" consequences: it does not concern a single people or a single empire (even a gigantic one), but relates to the development - in one sense or another - of a region or a cultural movement and dominant politician (for example, Europe, Christianity or Islam) and does so not immediately, but for several generations. In short, the great battles fought by the pre-Columbian peoples in the Americas or those for the liberation from colonialism in Africa or even those of the Roman Empire against the Jews are important, but without systemic consequences.

Then, the situation of the loser counts: Napoleon could also have won at Waterloo and Hitler on the Ardennes, but they would have done nothing but delay the defeat, because in any case the last anti-Napoleonic coalition and the anti-Nazi allies had other fresh forces ready to take the field , while Bonaparte and Hitler, at best, could have dealt with a less devastating surrender.

Then, we must exclude, let me pass the term, the "butterfly effect in Tokyo", because it is obvious that the first stone of a hominid has determined the prevalence of its DNA instead of that of the victim and ultimately has had an impact on massive waterfall on mankind. No, the great battles are, in fact, those that have also enjoyed greater historical visibility: to understand the consequences, chains of consequences are not needed because they work a bit as if they were "the last battle of the last war". In short, it is obvious that if the English had defeated the Thirteen Colonies, those for a while would have been subjected to British rule or if the Mohammedans had been defeated in Badr there would have been no Islam: in great battles what collapses is not an embryo of empire, but an adult and mature one. Finally, the loser is not only beaten, but loses the ability to change the future course of events in his favor.

Given this premise, we pass to you, who have sent a huge number of e-mails: for this reason, I have tried to give visibility to almost everyone, trying to reward the effort, even at the cost of shredding the texts here and there. I reserved two spaces apart, one at the beginning and one at the end: the first for a personal comment, as questionable as yours and without pretending to be better, and the other on a specific case: Teutoburgo. Apparently, many see you as one of the most important battles or even the only one that really changed the course of history.

Let's start with the writer's judgment.

The spread of Greek culture had already begun before the victories of the Hellenics and Alexander. Personally, I believe that Azio is decisive for the ancient era: he not only inaugurates the Empire but creates the conditions for the Roman Pax, for the birth of Christianity and for the triumph of law over Slavic-Germanic barbarism and Asian despotism.

Likewise, amidst the victories of Charlemagne over the Saxons and the Lombards, the arrest of the Arabs in Tours and the Spanish conquest of the pre-Columbian empires in Latin America, I believe that for the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age , the siege and the fall of Constantinople (1453) with the Ottoman Turks, led by Muhammad II, which strongly challenge the entire Res Publica Christiana and the trafficking with Asia that are interrupted, forcing Europeans to emerge look for the Indies in other ways. With all this, the Eastern political bastion of Christianity disappears from history, with the West failing, despite the efforts of the Pope and Venice, to gather forces and Russia to inherit the role that was from Byzantium.

Between Waterloo and Stalingrad, Midway and Moscow, Verdun and the Masurian lakes, the Normandy landing and the Tet offensive, I finally believe that for the contemporary age the decisive battle palm goes to an American offensive lasting three days and with the employing just two bombs, but cost nearly two hundred thousand direct victims and the end of an ancient way of understanding war. I speak of course of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, between the 6 and the 9 August 1945.

Now, so as not to bore you further, let us move on to your comments. Let's start with Franco Goods, which indicates the only one "Gettysburg. If Lee had broken through to Washington, giving a Confederate victory, maybe the way would be different ... Ne best; worse: just different !!!! ".

Alessandro Rocca he recognizes that we have “posed a very difficult question. However, the choice is:

Salamis - Siege of Vienna by the Turks - Operation Citadel (Kursk)

All three stopped an expansionism and their defeated empires started a more or less rapid decline.

Don Michelagelo Tondo believes that "The farther back you go in time the more importance a battle has. So that of Azio is the most important. Instead, as the cultural turning point, the most important is that of Poitier. The Nazi-fascists would have come out defeated anyway. It is impossible to conquer the whole world. "

Perilli Fabrizio He believes "That the battle that changed history was a war: the six-day war that saw a small state like Israel that had existed for less than 20 years succeed in establishing itself on the Arab world that Nasser had managed to reunify since the time of Saladin. An unexpected victory that could cause the cancellation of a state from the maps with a second diaspora of the Jewish people and not a simple loss of territories. Even today at 50 years this victory and the following ones still do not allow Israel to be universally recognized as a sovereign state ". 

Giovanni Angioletti he writes that "many are battles that have marked and changed the flow of human history. What I believe was fundamental for the whole of Europe and which saved entire peoples from extinction was the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields. The Huns had as a strategy to massacre the conquered peoples or gradually to kill, using them on the front line, the males and rape the women. As they approached many peoples fled and overwhelmed everyone and everything, the cold blood of the great Roman generals of the West was to welcome such masses of fleeing Germans and if possible not to fight them, rather to make alliances and as expected the Huns to attack him thinking of having weakened everyone, attacked or to exterminate, but the Romans with their Visigoth allies faced them in the open field with skilful maneuver, the Huns had terrible losses, the Visigoths were reduced to less than 20000 warriors and even the Romans. The Huns returned to Pannonia and had the strength to destroy Aquileia fearing an attack from behind, but it was too late all the subjugated peoples rebelled and exterminated them ”.

Enrico Roson cites only two battles: "Lepanto and above all the 1941 fly battle. If the Typhoon offensive had started earlier and the frost had not arrived the Germans would have occupied Moscow and would have forced the Russians to peace with the consequent closure of a war front and victory in World War II ".

Fabio De Ninno, instead, is the only one to mention the battle of Jutland (31 May - 1 June 1916), which "It was a decisive battle for the progress of the First World War because it confirmed that the strategic balance between the Entente and the central Empires on a global level could not be altered". From the 1914, Germany and its allies were tightened in a naval and economic blockade that was strangling their economies and that was due to the British control of the oceans, from which the limited German naval presence was quickly wiped out. To get out of the impasse, Germany had two options: the counterblock with the use of the unlimited submarine war, attempted in the 1915 and interrupted to avoid provocations against the United States, or seek a surface confrontation against a part of the British Grand Fleet, hoping to reduce enemy superiority and therefore the blockade's stability. The battle derived from this second option. The result, despite the British losses had been higher, was a clear German strategic defeat, also because Jellicoe showed that he could put Scheer in a very disadvantageous tactical position, threatening the annihilation of the German team. The retreat of the Hochseeflotte not only reaffirmed British superiority but had decisive strategic consequences: the Royal Navy remained master of the oceans and in the German navy the supporters of the unlimited submarine war made their way. This choice, then implemented during the 1917, would have undermined the allied maritime communications, but it would also have caused the entry of the United States into the war, in fact accelerating the defeat of imperial Germany. Meanwhile, the blockade of the Entente continued to tighten, leading to the gradual collapse of the central front of the central empires: the Battle of Jutland confirming the British maritime dominance and allowing the maintenance of the block decided in large part the fate of the Great War ".

Mario Gensini, for its part, indicates "The 12 September 1863 battle in which the Polish army breaks the siege of Vienna by the Ottoman army led by the Vizier Kara Mustafa. The charge of the Winged Hussars, in fact, made the Ottoman army lose the battle and then the war avoiding the fall of Vienna, blocking the Ottoman advance in Europe and eliminating the end of the expansionist aims in Europe ".

Adelchi Massara quotes arguing "The three battles that have most influenced the course of history:

1 - Battle of Pidna (168 BC): Roman forces definitively defeat the kingdom of Macedonia and divide Greece into client states. From the conquest will take place the fusion between Greek culture and Roman law, giving to the Roman empire the cultural predominance over the Mediterranean, as well as the political and military.

2 - Battle of al-Qadissiya (636 AD): Arab forces defeat the Persian Sassanid empire and open the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia. The Persian empire was no longer able to overthrow the fortunes of the war and from Mesopotamia the Arab expansion would have started first towards the Persian empire itself, then towards the whole Middle East, North Africa and Asia.

3 - Attack on Petrograd (October-November 1919): also called "Operation White Sword", it was the last attack of the white armies of General Judenic against the city of Petrograd, in the hands of the Bolsheviks led by Trotsky. A previous attack in the summer had failed by a whisker and this was the last chance to conquer the former Russian capital, as well as one of the very few remaining Russian industrial centers. The attack, favored by the bad situation of the Bolsheviks (few supplies and rampant desertions), failed by a whisker due to the lack of cooperation between the anti-communist forces and the invasion of the Baltic by the Western Russian volunteer army, controlled by Germany. The defeat of Judenic was the last serious internal threat to the revolution that the Bolsheviks suffered, guaranteeing their victory in Russia ".

Cesare Bertuzzi, "considering only the Italian perspective " indicates "The battle of Legnano where the victory of the Lombard League has resulted in the development of the typically Italian, political parochialism, so only what is developed in my yard is good and one must always be wary of what is done in the other bell towers . Other battles certainly influential were the battle of KURSK which definitively annulled the possibilities of initiative of the Wehrmacht and therefore led to the defeat of the III Reich. Finally, Hastings who indirectly decreed the rise of papal power as the adventure of William the Bastard was endorsed by Pope Alexander II ".

Giorgio Resca Cacciari offers us an interesting piece that I report in full:

There are many battles that have been turning points in history. As I see it, I consider all those battles that are faults or that contrast substantially different civilizations 'fatal', while I consider the battles within a homogeneous system to be less important. So I put in first place the clash that saw on one side the city states of Greece and on the other the Persian empire (490 BC Marathon, 481 BC Thermopylae, 480 BC Salamina, 479 BC Platea and Micale and the subsequent Greek levy). Another turning point the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage, the battles are known but in particular Canne (215 BC) a defeat for Rome but that brought out the Roman determination as a fundamental aspect of its future greatness. Following the campaign of Caesar in Gaul and after the death of Caesar the Battle of Actium (31 BC). Important for the destiny of Europe the battle of Teutoburg (9. BC) put a limit to the possible conquest of central Europe. I agree with the weight of the Poitiers battle (732 BC) between the Christian and Islamic fault, always in the wake that saw the Christian and Islamic world confront each other both the battle of Lepanto (1571) and the battle of Vienna (1683) deserve to be remembered.

The conquest of the Americas changed, the world perspective and therefore the clash between the European powers on the sea had a considerable weight but they never questioned the Western predominance as it was an inter-Christian conflict. Same goes for the Napoleonic campaigns. From the seventeenth century, world history, until the end of the Great War, was a substantially European and therefore Christian 'thing'. The turning point was the Russian Revolution and the battles between whites and reds and the victory of the latter and as a consequence the birth of fascism first and Nazism later. The battles of the Second World War are a beautiful dilemma from a historical point of view. In my opinion there are three battles that have led to the conflict. The first, the battle of England between the Luftwaffe and the RAF, the second diluted in three years the battle of the Atlantic between the German submarines and the Anglo-Americans the third on the eastern front, the Battle of Moscow (1941) with the substantial failure of the Operation Barbarossa. The clash between Japan and the United States was decided as early as 1941 with the strategic failure of the attack on Pearl Harbor missing the destruction of both the aircraft carriers and the fuel depots and dry docks of Hawaii, which would have paralyzed the Pacific fleet for at least 6 / 12 months, all having to depart from California and giving Japan more time to consolidate its hold on the Pacific. Yet regarding the Second World War it was not the battles won or lost the most important thing but a letter. A letter or rather The Letter written by Einstein and Szilard and sent to the American President on the danger that Germany would be the first to produce the nuclear weapon, letters written in August 1939, before the start of the conflict. This letter has changed history much more than many battles.

The ancient reader Sergio Pession cites Teutoburg, of which we will speak more closely, e Grunwald (or Tannenberg), 15 July 1410.Tututonic Order heavily beaten by alliance between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This puts an end to German expansionism under the screen of the Cross. Consequences: 12 years later the Melno Treaty will arrive, which will order borders with Prussia and Lithuania for the following 500 years. Borders still valid today with the highly modern Kaliningrad oblast. Ucronia: if the Teutonic had passed Poland, they would have channeled attention and resources of the Grand Duchy of Moscow before it could become a kingdom and then an empire. The battle of Tsushima (May 1905), swept by the Japanese fleet against the Russian one in the Strait of Korea. Consequences: Korea passes from the Russians to the Japanese with the Portsmouth Treaty. And the US impose itself as great peacemakers. Decline Russian Empire and domination of a Japan far from full.

Ucronia: with a different outcome the FORSE Russian Empire would have approached differently in the Balkans. There situation in Korea would have been different and Japan would not have immediately developed the force exploded from there little. The USA would have gloated ...

Avv. Bendini ha "Reminiscences of the classical studies: I point out the marathon battle of the 490 AC. I consider this battle decisive because it was the first in which the Greeks became aware of the possibility of defeating, damming and repelling the Persian Empire: and this awareness will lead to the definitive removal of the Persians from Greece years later. And perhaps, if the old Europe revisited this battle, it could discover that, even without surrendering sovereignty, it could maintain its configuration of nation states which, if necessary, unite to defend themselves from empires and, I stress, from all empires then from whom it already is and from those who aspire to become one.

Andrea Bologna deserves a wide quotation:

If we are to measure the battle on the geopolitical scale I would indicate at least three events from three epochs very far apart. The oldest is the Parthian campaign of Trajan (114-117 AD), which marks at the same time the apogee and the end of the expansionist campaign, which lasted several centuries, due first to the Roman republic and then to the Roman Empire. With this campaign, Rome reaches its geographical and political limit. This was followed by the siege of Vienna in 1689, which effectively ended the Muslim expansion in Europe, marking the beginning of a retreat that ended in 1918 with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It is one of the most significant clashes in the century of the wars of religion: after this clash, the era of nation states concretely opens. The third event is the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, in which for the first time in several centuries an Asian power defeats the powerful armies of a European country. It is the very first sign of a change in world geopolitics that we are still experiencing today. In each case an imperial entity, developed progressively over the previous centuries, is defeated or stopped by an enemy previously underestimated or variously classified as "inferior", "unfaithful" or "barbarian". And in all three cases the war events will not in themselves be decisive: however, they will be the key moment in which cracks open to break up the system from within, perhaps after long or very long agonies.

Roberto Paltrinieri report these battles:

"Salamina 480 AC (a Persian victory would have actually rewritten the whole history of the world, with a Greece under the dominion of Xerxes in which the concept of democracy would have disappeared perhaps forever)

Badr 624 DC (the eventual defeat of the followers of Mohammed would have in all probability annihilated the Islamic movement by changing history altogether)

New York August 1776 (if the British had chased and annihilated and the army of Washington after the two defeats on Long Island and in Brooklyn the American rebellion would have been effectively eradicated and the United States would never have been born) ”.

Piero Pessa 'seg the battle of Marathon (490 AC) with the victory of the Athenians. Had they lost Athens it would have fallen under Persian rule and Greek civilization and culture probably would not have developed.

Without that cultural background, today's Europe would be different ”.

Michele Carrera indicates instead, "The battle of Salamis of the 306 AC, noteworthy not only for the strictly military events but also and above all for its socio-political implications. They have always fascinated me the capabilities of Themistocles to gather around themselves not only Athens, something already in itself to the limits of the incredible, but almost all of the Greek polis and the capacity of the latter to unite for a higher purpose overcoming every kind of hostility. Second conflict: war in Afghanistan, 2001 in progress. It marked a turning point in the new world order, the US debacle has two great interpretations, that is, from one point the hyperpower overestimated its capabilities and on the other it underestimated those of its, more or less, enemies (read Iran and China ). Honorable mention: conflict of the Falklands 1982 for two reasons: it was the first truly modern conflict with a massive and non-experimental use of the new weapons (jets, missiles, satellites, etc.) and second because, at least on paper, it was intended as a naval battle between two forces equipped with modern ships and armaments as they had not been since the second post-war period ”.

Ferdinando Fedifinally focuses on "Two battles and the related peace treaties that ensued have led to epochal changes in modern and contemporary history, reconfiguring the relative international context of the time. There Battle of Rocroi, fought the 19 May 1643 between French and Spanish determined the end of the Thirty Years War, born as a war of religion and varied in clash between powers from which the Holy Roman Empire with the House of Habsburg which had dominated the Europe until then. The loss of prestige of Spain and Austria leaves the hegemony to France, Holland and Sweden, the great winners result. With i Treaties of Peace of Westphalia which gave rise to a new world order and, in particular, a clear mutation of European geopolitics. In addition to redrawing territorial boundaries, Westphalia created fundamental principles such as those of sovereignty and non-interference that would have inspired the fundamental laws of international law. Westphalia sanctions the end of the concept of Christian Europe to be identified with the Habsburg monarchy but an even more significant consequence is the creation of that principle of non-interference that will regulate relations between states and will inspire diplomatic culture for future centuries.

La battle of Vittorio Veneto, the last armed clash between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, sanctioned the end of the First World War and led to the beginning of the peace conference that would lead to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles the 28 June 1919. This and the series of agreements that followed (Saint Germain en Lay, Locarno, Sanremo) generated significant territorial changes in Europe especially following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the Treaty of Sèvres the Ottoman Empire was instead reconfigured and the embryos of new states in the Middle East were created: Syria, Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq ”.

AND FINALLY THERE ARE THOSE OF TEUTOBURGO ...

Secondo Ciro Papi "The Romans were stopped in the expansion determining the division of Europe in Latina and not with repercussions that we still carry today".

Andrea Sapori offers us an interesting introduction:

"The list of historical battles runs the same for centuries. What should be analyzed are the common denominators, the hubs of change that occurred in conflicts and battles. It has been and will be the intelligence of some men to know how to use technology, information, the audacity of their men in the right way and at the right time, which has made and is making history change. As Sun Tsu understood, there are men capable of "seeing first" the course of tactical and strategic events of both battles and entire conflicts. The wise statesman uses his best general, who is rarely himself, recognizing this ability. Beyond heroism or wise tactical conduct, the only historically relevant episode that indicates a turning point in the history of war and the politics linked to it is Teutoburg, as the birth of the concept of guerrilla warfare. The rest is a succession of things more or less already seen. What should be done instead, in my opinion also to try to understand future scenarios, is the list of key men, I am talking about those perhaps a little forgotten and / or misunderstood, who during battles and conflicts have made history change using the their and others' intelligence, the application of science and intelligence ”.

Dario Cecchi begins by explaining that "It would be better to say the Teutoburg massacre since this was more than a real battle. The destruction of three legions led by the mediocre Varus actually sanctioned the empire's renouncement to the conquest of Germany, the countryside beyond the Rhine did not actually end, in fact they resumed momentum, but turned out, a few years later, totally inconclusive . The enormous economic expenditure, in the face of a very modest strategic result, convinced Augustus to stop any initiative, setting the boundary of the Roman expansion on the river Rhine. Certainly Tiberius and later his nephew Germanicus could have achieved significant victories, if adequately supported , but unfortunately internal rivalries and above all a theater of extremely insidious operations, made up of highly trained and totally unreliable tribes, made vain any attempt to Romanize the then wild Germany. If in those days of the 9 after Christ, in the Teutoburg forest, the outcome of the battle had been favorable to Rome, many Germanic tribes would have been definitively Romanised, vast territories in fact annexed to the empire and the history of Europe and of Europe. the West would have taken a very different turn ”.

Sergio Pessionfinally, he wants to remember it among those that "In my opinion, even in the world not completely blatant, they have marked the destinies of powerful empires and neighboring areas. Teutoburgo, 9 DC. Massacred 3 legions of the very young Roman Empire by Germanic peoples. Consequences: the imperial policies will be influenced by this event until the end. The Germanic populations out of Roman influence will further strengthen the warrior and independent spirit that will characterize them until today.

Ucronia: if the Germanic peoples had been integrated into the Roman Empire, MAYBE many invasions barbarians would have been dammed and managed differently. The eventual fall of the Empire would have been well different".