Moment of Battle

[JDG 66]

" 'Moment of Battle’ author James Lacey on the most pivotal military battles in history.
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/24804...mp=sem_outloud


The 20 Battles That Changed the World
video.foxbusiness.com
‘Moment of Battle’ author James Lacey on the most pivotal military battles in history.



Lacey's choices?

Marathon 490 BC (First Greco-Persian War -- unlikely Greek victory, prevented the Persian conquest of Greece)
Gaugamela 331 BC (Alexander's campaign against Persia-- caused the swift disintegration of the Persian Army)
Zama 202 BC (Second Punic War -- Carthage broken to a client state)
Teutoburger Wald 9 AD (Early Germanic tribes destroy the Roman XVII Legion and stop Roman expansion into northern Germany)
Adrianople 376 AD (Huge defeat of Imperial Rome, gross weakening of Roman authority and power in the west).
Yarmuk 636 AD (allows Arab/Muslim conquest of the Levant, North Africa, Sicily, and Spain)
Hastings 1066 AD (Allowed Norman conquest of England)
Spanish Armada 1588 (Thwarted Spanish hegemony in western Europe)
Breitenfeld 1631 (First Protestant victory in the Thirty Years War, established a continuing Protestant-Catholic division in German lands)
Annus Mirabilis 1759 (several British victories in the Seven-Years War worldwide)
Saratoga 1777 (First Continental victory, American War of Independence)
Trafalgar 1805 (British naval victory over France, thwarted Napoleonic hegemony in southwest Europe and led him eastward to his ruin)
Vicksburg 1863 (Severed the Confederate States of America)
Battle of the Marne 1914 (Stopped a swift German thrust into France that would have decided the war)
Battle of Britain 1940 (Prevented a Nazi invasion of Great Britain, inspired Hitler to go east to his ruin)
Midway 1942 (First US victory against Imperial Japan -- unambiguous turning point)
Kursk 1943 (German offensive stalled, German tank capacities gutted, Soviet advance into central Europe effectively unstoppable)
Normandy 1944 (Arguable death-blow to the Third Reich)
Dien Bien Phu 1954 (Forced French departure from Vietnam)
Objective Peach 2003 (Allowed the capture and execution of Saddam Hussein)..."
-I'm glad to see that Waterloo, the most pointless battle in history, is NOT on the list. Napoleon could have annihilated Wellington and Bluecher's armies to the last man and France would still have ultimately gotten its a$$ kicked by all the other armies bearing down on them, i.e., just like what happened in 1813, except this time, the Allies would have started out closer, and France had fewer allies (i.e., by June 1815, NONE).

"Spanish Armada? The great storm that weakened the Spanish fleet allowed England to keep its independence and its Protestant identity -- and become the master of the High Seas. Without this victory, the British colonies from Newfoundland to Georgia never exist, and neither do the United States nor Canada." 
-Even if the Armada had landed an army in England, said army probably wouldn't have faired too well stuck in England. Not that it wasn't important, but most people over rate it.


"Annus Mirabilis? I disqualify this one. Those were impressive victories, but they were many. We are looking at one victory and not several."
-Almost exactly what I thought, except my word was "cop out".

"Kursk? Germany had just been defeated badly at Stalingrad, but this offensive quickly led to a complete Soviet victory after which the Wehrmacht could only retreat -- sometimes with some order, and sometimes in complete disarray. Before Kursk, the Wehrmacht seemed to have a chance at the least to recover and get a stable line somewhere well to the east of the border of the Soviet Union at the start of Operation Barbarossa. Within a year the Third Reich was dead."
-Grossly over-rated. Soviet casualties were far higher than German losses (i.e., at a rate that the Germans could have sustained). Any chance that the author is still stuck in the discredited "Prokhoroka was the Greatest Tank Battle in History" thing?

"The Normandy Invasion?"  
-Operation Bagration was a bit bigger, catastrophe-wise, than Overlord.

I'll get around to more, of course. ?