[GlarlraTpople]

agreed.

[uphokyhuP]

I'm opting for Liegnitz in 1241.

Partly because it was the last big battle between European forces and the Mongols in Central-Eastern Europe (other than the destruction of King Bela's forces in Hungary at the Battle of the River Sajo), and partly because if the Mongols had over-wintered in Hungary or Poland or Bohemia, and started to campaign afresh in the Spring, then Europe from France to Italy would have been a rich and tempting target.

The Italian Renaissance was yet to get under way and the resurgence of science and philosophy in Paris would be aborted if the Mongols headed West:

The Grand Master of the Templars wrote to King Louis IX of France, saying of the battle, "The Tartars have destroyed and taken the land of Henry Duke of Poland, ...with many barons, six of our brothers, three knights, two sergeants and five hundred of our men dead." King Louis, preparing to go to central Europe to fight the Mongols, told his mother, Queen Blanche, that either they would send the Tartars back to hell, or the Tartars would send them to Paradise. His statement was a play on the Latin term for hell, Tartarus, and helped fix the Mongols' nickname among the Europeans.

The Grand Master's missive to Louis also stated that no army of any significance stood between the invaders and France. That was no exaggeration.
http://www.historynet.com/magazines/...tml?page=3&c=y


Possibly then: no southern Renaissance in Italy, no aid from France for Spanish Christians, no French or Iberian Atlantic empires...

[BWJfEkOB]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
I'm going with the Battle of Tours. Had it gone the other way, mainland Europe might have become entirely Islamic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_tours Unless it was really just a big raid, as is widely thought now.

[HawksBurnDown]

Thermopylae?

[radicalvolume]

I don't want to pinpoint any specific battle, but I think that the most important one must come from that group of battles which allowed the Greek or Roman civilizations to survive. Salamis and Marathon are certainly up there. Also the Battle of the Caudine Forks in the sense that the entire Roman army could be destroyed there.

[Hlennisal]

The battle of Umbuto Gorge

[fabrizioitwloch]

The earlier the battle, the greater the importance;

The more lasting the effects, the greater the importance;

The more people involved, the greater the importance.

Therefore, I pick the twin battles of Salamis and Platea. Losing either one would mean the end of Greece, no Greco-Roman civilization, no renaissance, no enlightenment, no glorious revolution, no declaration of independence, and no industrial revolution. The world would be very very different.

[NutChusty]

I wouldn't go for a battle really, but Hannibal not razing Rome to the ground when he had the chance was pretty important.

[Calluffence]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Pardon my provincialism, but I vote for Yorktown.

The United Colonies were on the brink of collapse. (When the messager brought Congress word of the victory, they voted to pay him his expenses. Then they learned the Treasury was EMPTY, so they passed the hat and took up a collection among themselves.)
The victory at Yorktown was like the cliche boxing movie, where the hero gets up off the canvas at the last minute to knock out a much bigger opponent.

But more importantly, the victory of the Americans set off a series of republican revolutions from Terra del Fuego to the Ural mountains. Some, like Bolivar's, were successful. Others failed. But the result was the spread of republcanims throughout the Americas and Europe. I would argue that Saratoga was more important than Yorktown, for the simple reason that without Saratoga, Yorktown (if the war lasted so long) would probably not be a total victory for the Americans. Mostly because the Americans wouldn't have had the French fleet (or French troops for that matter).

Though Trenton may have been the most important battle of the revolution. There was a great fear that the war would have been over when the year ran out as a result of the commissions ending on the 31st of December. The victory over the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas allowed Washington to keep some of his army together.

[66paptroump]

Originally posted by Patroklos
He never had the chance. c'mon...

[codespokerbonus]

It wasn't troops Hannibal was lacking, and if you remember there were reasons why Carthage didn't send more troops not to mention to eventually call back Hannibal.

[realfan87]

A loss at Marathon = no Salamis or Plataea.

= No rice of Macedon

= No Alexander

= No spread of Hellenistic culture.

[yxn2dC07]

And without salami

[scoussysows]

Originally posted by Agathon
A loss at Marathon = no Salamis or Plataea.

= No rice of Macedon

= No Alexander

= No spread of Hellenistic culture. Romans would have spread the ideas instead (well not into Iran etc, but hellenisation there was always much less intense)

[Avoireeideree]

A good point.

[Kayakeenemeds]

Originally posted by Agathon


= No spread of Hellenistic culture. No great spread of Hellenistic culture to the East perhaps.

Greeks from different cities were already established in Spain, France, North Africa and Egypt and Sicily and lower Italy.

The Greek colonies in Asia Minor prospered under Achaemenid rule too.

On the other hand, the Macedonian empire (and the later states of the Diadochi) did allow for a Hellenistic 'common market', at least of ideas and culture, so Greek theatre, art and philosophy and science could spread from the Punjab to Marseilles, from Viet Nam to Ethiopia...

[Misiotoagodia]

It's always questionable to tell something like "if battle A was lost, historical development B would never have happened". It surely would not have been "fired" in the same way, at the same time, but that doesn't mean it would have been made impossible from that point on.

For example it's difficult to imagine what a Persian win at Marathon would have meant for Greek city state culture and for Europe later. First the Persian force was not large enough to subdue all of mainland Hellas at this time. The best they could hope for was to punish Athens for supporting the Ionian Revolt and to establish an operational basis in central Greece to prepare to fight against Sparta and the rest in the following time, but not without serious reinforcements.

But even then it wouldn't have been that easy to control Hellas permanently, like it wasn't easy to permanently control other parts of the Persian realm esp. the more they were on the periphery. And even Ionian cities under Persian control didn't lose their Greek character.