What was the single most important battle in history? which one had the most lasting impact on the world as we know it?

Literally the Punic war

WW2? We got Jet planes and nukes.

THE BATTLE OF WORLD WAR 2

I hate this board.

The Marne. Had it ended differently it could've completely altered the course of 20th century history and as a consequence the world we live in now would look a lot different.

Tours (732)

Salamis

Battle of Hastings

meme

Myriokephalon

...

You know england is responsible for the world we live in right?

You mean French and Scandi mutts?

Pic related

Haploshits don't matter in the real world.

Whatever Jew

Go back to /pol/ dumb idiot

waterloo

opinions i agree with
opinion i disagree with

What?

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Thermopylae
Waterloo
Hastings
Milvian Bridge
Fall of Constantinople

You're not wrong

Moscow.

Battle of Mohi, where the Hungarians got buttfucked by the Mongols

If Genghis never died, the mongols probably would have just kept pushing into Europe.

In what way?? Its little more than an irrelevent foot note, and even if the norse won they'd still have to deal with a huge invasion in the south.
There are three of those, and more or less none of the battles in them were conclusive to the war.
Even Zama was more or less a battle fought after Carthage had already lost.

Waterloo doesn't belong in this list. Napoleon was doomed whether or not the Prussians and the English got defeated. Leipzig was way more critical. One could even argue that the most important battle deciding the downfall of the Emperor was Borodino. Had the guard been sent forward to finish off the Russians, it may have changed the issue of the war.

vietnam since it caused such a cultural revolution here in the us

>Had the guard been sent forward to finish off the Russians, it may have changed the issue of the war.
The war was lost either way by that point, I'd argue Trafalgar since without a fleet Napoleon couldn't seriously threaten Britain.He could've just sat on his arse and let time and habit kick in and peace to come but he'd rather invade Russia and lose his army.

Ogedei, Gengis was long dead by the time of Mongol invasion of Europe.

Borodino

Well as you said yourself, he could have done many things but invade Britain, which wasn't that much of a big deal. The failure in Russia was the end of the war, but Leipzig was the nail in the coffin on a personnal level for Napoleon. You can't really say the war was lost either way at Borodino though, he could have turned back, opted for scorched earth against the russians to sue for peace himself, retreated then gone straight for St Petersburg come Spring, taking advantage of the Winter to deal with the Spanish situation in person, etc.

After Leipzig though, there was no saving his regime, not a chance.

Even winning Leipzig wouldn't have won him the war, he had a numerical inferior force holed up in a city with enemies on all fronts. The war was lost diplomatically after Russia.
But maybe if he lost Borodino he'd return quicker and with no winter to speak of a larger part of his army would still be intact. It's all conjecture of course.

user he said "Milvian bridge" not "Stamford bridge"

Yarmouk

>without a fleet
Holy shit people still believe this? France was rapidly rebuilding her navy and with Russia defeated, they'd have all the economic and military might of Europe behind them. Not to mention Britain's economy was in tatters before the Russian disaster.

Only correct answer ITT

Creasy, go back to your grave. You're dead and good riddance

I'm gonna go on a limb here and not accuse you of baiting.
Since you're going against established academia, please provide proof. Britain was doing very well, Napoleons army was smashed and his navy was unprofessional, inexperienced and in no way shape or form ready to battle for naval supremacy.
I'm a Napoleonboo but I'm not unrealistic

I know, which is why I wrote

>The failure in Russia was the end of the war, but Leipzig was the nail in the coffin on a personnal level for Napoleon.

He was offered peace by Alexander before Leipzig, allowing France to retain the Revolutionary war borders (basically the French borders at the Rhine), and Napoleon keeping his throne. Once he refused and lost his leverage (being able to win decisive pitched battles), it was over for him, as an individual ruler.

>Once he refused and lost his leverage (being able to win decisive pitched battles), it was over for him, as an individual ruler.
Agree fully. But I see why he turned the offer down, it really didn't seem like France would accept an emperor of his caliber that didn't win big.

underrated, also Manzikert

>his army was smashed
I'm speaking about before the Russian invasion. Hell, he could have recovered before Liepzig. He'd done more with less before.
>britain was doing very well
The continental system while damaging in the short term for France had much more negative consequences for Britain after it could be enforced properly post 1810. Lack of competition helped French industry, especially in the low countries. By this point, time was on Napoleon's side for once in his career. Most of this is from Roberts.
>Navy was unprofessional, inexperienced and in no way shape or form ready to battle for naval supremacy
I'm purely speaking about the ships themselves, the fleet was being rebuilt and the lessons from Trafalgar were being taken into account. Having Russia pacified would also allow for relatively safe seas to train sailors in.

Yarmouk

Battle of Gettysburg

>largest battle to ever take place in North America
>reverses Confederate fortunates and dooms the South to a war of attrition it has no possible hope of winning
>United States emerges from the conflict with the question of slavery resolved and rapidly industrializing, guaranteeing it will be a world power in the 20th Century

You've misread Roberts and should reread it.

The confederates can win Gettysburg and still lose. Maybe if they totally smashed them and destroyed their army while taking minimal losses. But that would be fantasy to the point of insanity

That was the problem throughout the war - Lee could beat a the AOP, but it took every man he had, so there were no reserves to push forward and destroy it completely.

Issus or Gaugamela were extremely decisive for the future of history. They were not part of an existing 'trend' either, or "x would've happened anyway without the battle" like Napoleon's loss at Waterloo. History hung in the balance at those battles.

Absolutely. And Gettysburg was unnecessary as well, a deep defensive war would've played into their strengths better.

Please. Go look at Xenophon's Anabasis. A force a quarter the size of Alexander's, maybe even 1/5th, without any of the professionalism, combined arms, logistical support, or tactical advancement, rampaged nearly unchecked through the Persian empire. They were a husk, ready to collapse at the first sharp shove. For over a century by that point, Persia's only real recourse to the "Greek world" was to try to pay one group of Greeks to fight other Greeks for them.

Do you have any facts to back this up or just a shitpost?

I don't intend to debate people who are either misremembering, create false cases or are baiting. You are one of them. I do hope you reread it though, it's a good book and it presents a different case than you.

Weak bait

>what was the single most important battle in history?
The Battle of Marathon was the single most important event in history for the fact that it was the birth cry of western civilization.

It was a massively important symbolic victory which showed the Greeks that they could resist Persian despotism by putting aside their petty rivalries and uniting as a people. At that point in history Persia was the largest and most dominant empire the world had ever seen, and the Greek city states were the minor city-states squabbling at the ass-end of civilization. In fact the Persians had conquered the Greeks which had been living on Asia minor, and few expected them to do anything but continue steamrolling over the Greek city states one-by-one. The Greeks did not see themselves living at the birth of a new age, but in a degenerate age of decline. Their victory at Marathon was nothing short of a miracle, and there's a reason why it continues to influence our culture even today.

>almost competent statement
>could you verify that
>hurr durr
>stop hurr durring
>bait
Yes my good sir

Except of course, Persia had been resisted before (Athens only got on Persia's radar because of her help to the Ionian resistance against Persia), and OH YEAH, didn't involve any city-states other than Athens, and was an easy smashing up of troops that were so inferior to the Athenians in equipment that they were essentially unarmed.

If you want to talk about a Greco-Persian battle, say Salamis, or Platea. Marathon and Thermapolaye are meme-tier moron answers.

Lol at the Persians being darker then the Greeks. In reality they would have been the same colour

Battle of Vienna for honorable mention

>Thermopylae
What the fuck did this even do? Greek lands got ransacked by the Persians following that defeat. The only thing it did was create the Spartan myth and the longest and most successful propaganda campaign in history.

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Salamis
Pharsalus
The Milvian Bridge
Lepanto
Vienna
Leipzig

Hastings is the only battle of note on the list.
Every other battle had zero consequence in wars with inevitable endings.

Lomgstreet's suggestion that he be sent to relieve Vicksburg instead of invading the north, Vicksburg being far more important than the outcome at Gettysburg. Even if Lee had won, like every other battle the AOP would still withdraw with enough force to fight again - reinforcements were already in route. You would think at some point after all those battles someone would have realized that the whole strategy of attempting to destroy your opponents army just wasn't possible at that time.

True, of all of Lee's mistakes, invading Pennsylvania was perhaps the deadliest and the one that cost the Confederacy the war. Both sides suffered terrible setbacks in the summer of 1863. Thousands of Union troops (including the 54th Massachusetts, the premiere colored regiment of the Union Army), were slaughtered in the failed efforts to capture Charleston and the Northern home front was shaken by draft riots in their largest city. Likewise the South suffered from bread riots in in major cities mere months before and then the loss of Vicksburg, a stronghold it could ill-afford to lose. The North was losing its will to fight and the South was losing the means. In my opinion, either side could've lost the war at this moment and Gettysburg was the tipping point.

Never again would the Army of Northern Virginia possess the self-confidence and prestige that they had when they departed Winchester for Pennsylvania on June 12, 1863.

not a battle as such but the first time a crusade was called and most of the european kingdoms "united under one banner" against a common enemy..

he said Battle of Britain.

this is the one, this or antium

*actium

Stalingrad

Second Stalingrad

>Implying
Wehrmacht forces were at their paper peak in 1944, and by that point the war was lost for Germany and had been for ages. Stalingrad the battle didn't decide anything, it just happened to be one of several battles going on at a time when Soviet production and recruitment had finally put forces into the field that could eclipse German ones.

WW2 was won in the factories, not on the battlefield.

Manzikert.

The Confederates lost as soon as they left Confederate territory. Their smaller army was suited for a defensive war in home territory their soldiers were familiar with.

What, no. Byzantium would have become a rotting corpse either way

>Hastings
>Milvian Bridge
>Pharsalus
>Metaurus
>Maraton
>Salamina
>Waterloo/Leipzig
>Trafalgar
>Nicopolis/Varna
>Actium(maybe)
>Ipsos/Gaugamela
>Teutoburg Forest(maybe)
>Kulikovo

Carrhae

Explain

Tannenberg is the only good answer.
If the Russians had smashed into Eastern Prussia and shortened the front enough for the great retreat to never happen the war might've gone on for a shorter amount of time.

Battle of Legnano

>someone says something stupid
>"lol fucking americans"

Actium

Every lost battle during the slow fall of Rome

WE WUZ GREEKS AN SHIET

The Siege of Helsinki

THIS

The first battle in history.

>The only thing it did was create the Spartan myth and the longest and most successful propaganda campaign in history

Which is precisely why it is the most important battle in history. 500 years in the future, the myth will inspire a breed of supersoldiers who will be responsible for saving humanity itself from extinction.

Not him but I'll take a crack at it. At the time Rome was ruled by the Triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus. The first two had been covering themselves in glory in their respective military endeavors while Crassus had essentially been cheated out of the credit for defeating the slave revolt led by Spartacus. He was in effect the junior partner in the three-way leadership so he decided to go seek his own glory by attacking Parthia. His army got wrecked, he was killed and suddenly Caesar and Pompey were head to head, setting the stage for everything that followed.

Tl;dr the stabilizing third wheel Crassus being removed led to Caesar versus Pompey and the eventual shift of Rome from a republic to an empire.

Gettysburg :(

Rome was already fucked by the time of Carrhae, eventually something would have given and one person would have gone on to monopolize power. Even if it wasn't Caesar, the Republic was already effectively dead by that point, and in the process of being divided up as spoils by the astronomically wealthy