Good picks. I think I'd argue with Lepanto through, was it really that decisive? At the end of the day I think it was more famous than decisive to be honest, the Holy League fell apart quite quickly after it, the Ottomans rebuilt their fleet quite quickly, and both the Spanish and the Ottomans declined into second rate naval powers within a century, where the role of the Mediterranean also diminished quite rapidly in the next decades already.
I’d say the Miracle on the Vistula of 1920 was one of the most important ones in the 20th century: basically stopped the Soviets from taking over all of Europe.
These lists are fun but I'm not sure they amount to much. All those battles were historically important but there were plenty more, as has already been noted, that were as, or even more, pivotal.
I also feel the need to pick you up on your depiction of Trafalgar as astonishing. Everyone involved new it was a foregone conclusion before it happened. The French admiral had to be forced out of port under the threat of execution by Napoleon. The real work had been done at the Glorious 1st of June and Nile and the by the relentless and gruelling blockading work done over the intervening years. Not glamorous work but the key to the French and Spanish fleet, impressive as it was, being hopelessly unnderprepared for Trafalgar.
I enjoy these lists and will say that, while awesome, Cannae did not change Rome's trajectory. They were resilient and stubborn before the battle and remained so for centuries after. Myriads of generals steeped in military history have continued to aspire to their own Cannae, so in that sense it continues to be important...
Was Cannae decisive? It was a catastrophic defeat but did not break Roman will. In fact it should have demonstrated to Carthage that within the limits of 3 century BCE war and statecraft, that they needed a different approach.
I would add that Cannae has had an insidious effect on military thinking through the quest for decisive battle. It polluted Imperial German thinking through the Schlieffen Plan employed in 1914, and possibly again in Russia in 1941. One could even say the post WW2 US approach to war ran aground against North Vietnam.
Seeking decisive battle(s) may not be the path to attainment of one’s war aims. Unfortunately for some, it’s more “fun”.
1. I doubt any single battle changed the course of history in any grand sense (though obviously any event at all that occurred in the past can be said to have changed history a bit). The power of states doesn’t generally turn on individual battles. The battles are a symptom rather than a cause. The fact Rome didn’t fall after Cannae is one example of this.
2. This is a list of such battles that seems to be limited to an English public school view of history where England’s glory transitions seamlessly from Rome and classical Greece. Other people have history too: Issus, Plassey, Yorktown, battle of the Yellow River, Horns of Hattin, Las Navas de Tolosa, the siege of Haarlem, Poitiers, Bannockburn, Austerlitz, Borodino, Bílá hora, Grunwald, Kosovo Pole, Mohacs, al-Harra, Chaldiran, Marj Dabiq, Manzikert, Panipat …
1. I think you are correct in the general sense, of course, especially with your excellent point about Cannae. Generally, events do not turn on individual battles, and counterfactual speculation, although entertaining, is a fool’s errand. Still, there are a few battles that do seem pivotal, and not only because of their long-term significance on global history, but also because they could have plausibly (without expending too much effort in terms of one’s counterfactual imagination) gone the other way. Salamis is one of those instances, Tours/Poitiers another, and the 1529 failure of Suleiman the Magnificent to take Vienna with overwhelming force still yet another. (The reason I would not ultimately include the 1683 invasion is precisely because in that instance it seems the Ottoman defeat was more or less inevitable, despite John Sobieski’s last minute heroics. Within a decade the Ottomans were in full retreat, and within a decade and a half or so they were signing a capitulation treaty to the Hapsburgs.)
2. Obviously, all battles are significant to those who fight them. And presentism should be avoided in history. However, history is not really about the past. As the great American historian Frederick Jackson Turner pointed out, if you’re in it for that you are not a historian but an antiquarian. History is about us, right now. And although a medieval battle between the Khmer and the kingdom of Siam had significant repercussions on the history of that region it did not have global historical implications. If Ain Jalut had gone the other way, one could speculate no one could have stopped the Mongols after that.
Interesting choices. I would put Salamis over Marathon, however, if I had to pick one from the Persian Wars. For sure Tours, but the Battle of Constantinople(717) was just as significant and for the same reason. I would for sure include the 1529 Siege of Vienna and maybe also the 1683 one too. An argument could be made for Ain Jalut. Personally, I think the Battle of Britain was the real turning point of WWII (at a time when the Americans were still neutral and the Soviets could be seen as nominal allies of the Axis - especially if you were Polish).
It's not that I don't appreciate a good yarn any less than the next man, woman, child, or whatever else is purported to be floating around out there these days (and come to think of it, you can cross child off that list as they no longer seem to have either the attention span or literacy to appreciate more than a 10 second tic toc flick), but these kinds of unquestioning repetitions of wiki-level high school history are beginning to piss me off.
Battles do not change history.
Those who write history do.
Or rather, those who commission talented liars to create the deceptions that naive academics then perpetuate and teach the gullible masses as history, change it.
History has been changed so often and so completely, that nothing we are told happened in the past, or when or where it happened, or even who it happened to, can be relied on to be true.
So, one might as well ask;
What fictional events are important inflection points in the interminably tedious tall tale that is erroneously termed and taught as history?
Great list… for a “b” I vote for: Stalingrad, Yarmuk/al-Qadisiyyah, The Mongol invasion of Bagdad, Potlava, and The Burning of the Imperial palace in China
From a completely historical impact perspective I’d argue the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem under Hezekiah by Sennacharib as one of the most significant historical events of our world. Think about how different our entire history and world would look today had Sennacharib not retreated from Jerusalem that day and put everyone to the sword like he did in Lachish. The Judeo-Christian faith could have been snuffed out forever if not for the events of that battle unfolding the way they did.
Great List CC! I would also add that the Battle of Tours in 732 AD was perhaps the most important Battle in medieval Europe.
It was fought between the Frankish forces led by Charles Martel and the Umayyad Caliphate’s army.
The victory of the Franks halted the Muslim expansion into Western Europe and secured Christianity as the dominant faith in the region.
This battle was a turning point that preserved the foundations of Western European culture and political structures.
Had Charles Martel succumbed at the battle, the world would not have heard of his grandson Charlemagne.
Great list. The next 5 would be Gettysburg, D-Day, Thermopylae, Vienna, and Stalingrad.
Interesting choices & great summaries. I would have included Tours, Yorktown & D-Day.
And possibly Bosworth.
Great summaries.
Good picks. I think I'd argue with Lepanto through, was it really that decisive? At the end of the day I think it was more famous than decisive to be honest, the Holy League fell apart quite quickly after it, the Ottomans rebuilt their fleet quite quickly, and both the Spanish and the Ottomans declined into second rate naval powers within a century, where the role of the Mediterranean also diminished quite rapidly in the next decades already.
Excellent choice! I had completely forgotten Cannae. And as another of your readers wrote, the Battle of Tours stopped the Maur expansion.
I’d say the Miracle on the Vistula of 1920 was one of the most important ones in the 20th century: basically stopped the Soviets from taking over all of Europe.
These lists are fun but I'm not sure they amount to much. All those battles were historically important but there were plenty more, as has already been noted, that were as, or even more, pivotal.
I also feel the need to pick you up on your depiction of Trafalgar as astonishing. Everyone involved new it was a foregone conclusion before it happened. The French admiral had to be forced out of port under the threat of execution by Napoleon. The real work had been done at the Glorious 1st of June and Nile and the by the relentless and gruelling blockading work done over the intervening years. Not glamorous work but the key to the French and Spanish fleet, impressive as it was, being hopelessly unnderprepared for Trafalgar.
I enjoy these lists and will say that, while awesome, Cannae did not change Rome's trajectory. They were resilient and stubborn before the battle and remained so for centuries after. Myriads of generals steeped in military history have continued to aspire to their own Cannae, so in that sense it continues to be important...
Interesting list.
Was Cannae decisive? It was a catastrophic defeat but did not break Roman will. In fact it should have demonstrated to Carthage that within the limits of 3 century BCE war and statecraft, that they needed a different approach.
I would add that Cannae has had an insidious effect on military thinking through the quest for decisive battle. It polluted Imperial German thinking through the Schlieffen Plan employed in 1914, and possibly again in Russia in 1941. One could even say the post WW2 US approach to war ran aground against North Vietnam.
Seeking decisive battle(s) may not be the path to attainment of one’s war aims. Unfortunately for some, it’s more “fun”.
1. I doubt any single battle changed the course of history in any grand sense (though obviously any event at all that occurred in the past can be said to have changed history a bit). The power of states doesn’t generally turn on individual battles. The battles are a symptom rather than a cause. The fact Rome didn’t fall after Cannae is one example of this.
2. This is a list of such battles that seems to be limited to an English public school view of history where England’s glory transitions seamlessly from Rome and classical Greece. Other people have history too: Issus, Plassey, Yorktown, battle of the Yellow River, Horns of Hattin, Las Navas de Tolosa, the siege of Haarlem, Poitiers, Bannockburn, Austerlitz, Borodino, Bílá hora, Grunwald, Kosovo Pole, Mohacs, al-Harra, Chaldiran, Marj Dabiq, Manzikert, Panipat …
1. I think you are correct in the general sense, of course, especially with your excellent point about Cannae. Generally, events do not turn on individual battles, and counterfactual speculation, although entertaining, is a fool’s errand. Still, there are a few battles that do seem pivotal, and not only because of their long-term significance on global history, but also because they could have plausibly (without expending too much effort in terms of one’s counterfactual imagination) gone the other way. Salamis is one of those instances, Tours/Poitiers another, and the 1529 failure of Suleiman the Magnificent to take Vienna with overwhelming force still yet another. (The reason I would not ultimately include the 1683 invasion is precisely because in that instance it seems the Ottoman defeat was more or less inevitable, despite John Sobieski’s last minute heroics. Within a decade the Ottomans were in full retreat, and within a decade and a half or so they were signing a capitulation treaty to the Hapsburgs.)
2. Obviously, all battles are significant to those who fight them. And presentism should be avoided in history. However, history is not really about the past. As the great American historian Frederick Jackson Turner pointed out, if you’re in it for that you are not a historian but an antiquarian. History is about us, right now. And although a medieval battle between the Khmer and the kingdom of Siam had significant repercussions on the history of that region it did not have global historical implications. If Ain Jalut had gone the other way, one could speculate no one could have stopped the Mongols after that.
Interesting choices. I would put Salamis over Marathon, however, if I had to pick one from the Persian Wars. For sure Tours, but the Battle of Constantinople(717) was just as significant and for the same reason. I would for sure include the 1529 Siege of Vienna and maybe also the 1683 one too. An argument could be made for Ain Jalut. Personally, I think the Battle of Britain was the real turning point of WWII (at a time when the Americans were still neutral and the Soviets could be seen as nominal allies of the Axis - especially if you were Polish).
Guagamela ftw!
It's not that I don't appreciate a good yarn any less than the next man, woman, child, or whatever else is purported to be floating around out there these days (and come to think of it, you can cross child off that list as they no longer seem to have either the attention span or literacy to appreciate more than a 10 second tic toc flick), but these kinds of unquestioning repetitions of wiki-level high school history are beginning to piss me off.
Battles do not change history.
Those who write history do.
Or rather, those who commission talented liars to create the deceptions that naive academics then perpetuate and teach the gullible masses as history, change it.
History has been changed so often and so completely, that nothing we are told happened in the past, or when or where it happened, or even who it happened to, can be relied on to be true.
So, one might as well ask;
What fictional events are important inflection points in the interminably tedious tall tale that is erroneously termed and taught as history?
Who cares.
Great list… for a “b” I vote for: Stalingrad, Yarmuk/al-Qadisiyyah, The Mongol invasion of Bagdad, Potlava, and The Burning of the Imperial palace in China
From a completely historical impact perspective I’d argue the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem under Hezekiah by Sennacharib as one of the most significant historical events of our world. Think about how different our entire history and world would look today had Sennacharib not retreated from Jerusalem that day and put everyone to the sword like he did in Lachish. The Judeo-Christian faith could have been snuffed out forever if not for the events of that battle unfolding the way they did.