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Good list. I have a couple of quibbles, just for discussion sake. I think your general point is right and something I struggled with when crafting my list. My perspective was that those critical foundational moments meant that the future moments were possible, hence making them better candidates for being the "most important". However, western civilization as we know it was shaped by the events you listed. I really don't think we can pick a single battle out of all of them and say that is the one that was most important. A list would be a much better approach and could easily contain 10-15 battles that shaped western civilization from its roots until today. Basically put my list and your list together, maybe add a couple in the middle and we have a pretty comprehensive group of western civilization defining battles.
This is the one I would question the most. While Trafalgar was a brilliant victory for the British in proving their naval supremacy it had virtually zero impact on the War of the Third Coalition. Within two months of Trafalgar Napoleon would maul the Austrian and Russian armies at Austerlitz. The result of that battle was the collapse of the Third Coalition and the Holy Roman Empire and the formation of Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine. While the defeat meant that Napoleon could no longer even attempt to defeat the British on the seas he was able to establish the Continental System and the Napoleonic Wars would rage for another 10 years.
I would put up the Battle of Leipzig as the most important of the Napoleonic Wars. The Sixth Coalition with an army composed of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden defeated Napoleon's Grande Armee just recently reconsituted from his disaster in Russia. The battle resulted in Napoleon losing all of his influence east of the Rhine and would culminate in the Sixth Coalition invading France and forcing Napoleon to abdicate.
Well, I understand your reservations about Trafalgar. I am an anglophile, after all, not to mention a Mahanian. However, I would offer that Trafalgar really kept the British in the game. Without the British Navy being supreme at sea, not only did the British risk an invasion, but it meant that the British could not show the leadership and resolve against Napoleon over the long haul. After all the Continental System he developed in response to the loss at Trafalgar caused long-term economic problems on the continent, ultimately undermining his war efforts.
I certainly don't claim that Trafalgar was the only decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars. However, it laid the strategic and economic framework for which Napoleon's defeat would ultimately be possible.
I also think we could argue about Saratoga vs. Yorktown all day long. It's worth mentioning that, prior to Yorktown, the British had dealt the Americans a series of devastating blows in the South. The success of the Revolution was, at that point, anything but a foregone conclusion. The support for the Revolution was waning and the new republic was on its heels. So while the outcome was very much in doubt before Yorktown, it was never in doubt after Yorktown.
That being said, it's kind of a fun list to assemble on a boring Friday morning in July.
Very difficult question to answer, just too many logical choices. Even the ten most important would be tough, top 100 battles would be more like it. Howerver, at this time, without giving the question more thought, if forced to choose, my choice would be Tours 732. Had the forces of Charles Martel lost, the entire Christian world, and perhaps the entire civilized world, would have existed under the banner of Islam, and might have done so forever, making today's world a very, very different place.
I can see that I am out of my league here, especially vis à vis such posters as NJGoat and cpg35223. With great respect, I bow to their superior grasp of the entire sweep of western history. My thinking about World War II being so important was influenced and distorted by its incredible destructiveness and scope. However, the ancient and Middle Ages battles that have been proposed here as most important were indeed so critical for all of subsequent history, probably moreso than WWII.
However, I would still propose that it's an arguable call. It has already been mentioned what the horrific consequences would have been had Hitler not been stopped. And for the Asian peoples, the consequences of Japanese domination would have been only slightly less horrific.
Indeed, a list of ten or 12 most important battles (as already mentioned) might be much easier to defend. In that case, three or four from the ancient world would begin the list, then on to the Battle of Tours (Martel), and so on.
As for the American Revolution, we are bound to think of that especially if we were raised and educated in the United States, as I was. But suppose the American Revolution had failed and the British had retained governance of their 13 colonies. Wouldn't European dominance of the North American continent have simply continued, in all likelihood? I am trying to say that when looked at from the broadest possible view of Western Civilization, the American Revolution may not be quite as critical as certain other battles already named.
As for the American Revolution, we are bound to think of that especially if we were raised and educated in the United States, as I was. But suppose the American Revolution had failed and the British had retained governance of their 13 colonies. Wouldn't European dominance of the North American continent have simply continued, in all likelihood? I am trying to say that when looked at from the broadest possible view of Western Civilization, the American Revolution may not be quite as critical as certain other battles already named.
I think this is one of the most interesting What If questions of all. Had the British put down the rebellion, I don't think there would be any questions that we'd have eventually gained independence. But in what form? Would the United States and Canada been formed as one large country in the British Commonwealth? Because the British outlawed slavery much earlier than America, what would the result have been of not having an American Civil War. In the early 20th Century, does that mean American troops would have fought in the Somme or Passchendale? Or would the Germans, realizing that they would have had to contend with us from the outset in 1914 as part of the British Empire, decided that war simply wasn't worth it? Would the resulting British Commonwealth, with addition of what is the United States and without the enervating effects of World War I, have become an unassailable global empire?
One of the most infuencial battles lost, effecting the rest of European history, was the complete defeat of the Roman first Legion in the forests of what would one day become Germany. This was the last expantionist push of the Roman Empire. What became France was Romanized, and its culture altered forever. What became Germany was not. The same line that seperated offically claimed territory for Rome and for the Germanic barbarians is the line of seperation that came into play in nearly every later European larger war. It was the line by which medieval kings divided their holdings between sons and the cultural divide by which centuries of warfare was driven.
Had the Romans chosen to send others and complete the conquest, the history of Europe would have been very different.
I would personally lean towards number 2 as Xerxes was on a punitive expedition to conquer and destroy Greece to avenge his father's failure. Darius' invasion was more about keeping the Greeks in line. If Xerxes had won, western civilization simply wouldn't exist, at least as anything we would recognize.
Does that necessarily follow?
Over the next century or two, quite a few of Persia's outlying provinces - notably Egypt and the Indus Valley - were to fall away. Any reason why Greece, or a Macedonian Kingdom dominating Greece, couldn't have done likewise?
If Charlemagne didn't stop the Muslim invaders in Tours a thousand years ago Europe would have been part of the Arab world and the US would have ceased exist.
Battle of Britain?? "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few" - Winston Churchill.
The Battle of Britain should be added to the "turning point' battles of World War II in Euope that I listed in another post: Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, Kursk, D-Day invasion. Yes, I am aware there are other candidates, such as stopping the German advance at the gates of Moscow and also at Leningrad, as I suppose any stopping of the enemy at his greatest point of advance is a turning point in a war.
Whether it is THE most important battle would be open to endless debate, but it certainly was important.
If Charlemagne didn't stop the Muslim invaders in Tours a thousand years ago Europe would have been part of the Arab world and the US would have ceased exist.
I think you mean his grandfather Charles Martel.
Again though it may be overrated. In 751, over at the other end of their Empire, the Arabs did win a "Battle of Tours" against the Chinese at Talas. Yet they didn't advance any further because their lines of communication were too long. The same might have been true in Gaul.
However, I do agree that a victory at Tours might have enabled the Arabs to tighten their grip on Spain, which would itself have been pretty important.
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I have a couple of quibbles, just for discussion sake. I think your general point is right and something I struggled with when crafting my list. My perspective was that those critical foundational moments meant that the future moments were possible, hence making them better candidates for being the "most important". However, western civilization as we know it was shaped by the events you listed. I really don't think we can pick a single battle out of all of them and say that is the one that was most important. A list would be a much better approach and could easily contain 10-15 battles that shaped western civilization from its roots until today. Basically put my list and your list together, maybe add a couple in the middle and we have a pretty comprehensive group of western civilization defining battles.
