NationStates Jolt Archive

What is the greatest battle in history? What battle is hallowed as the most influential, the most dramatic, simply 'the greatest'?

Battle of Thermopolae, Troy, Stalingrad, Berlin, Midway, Iwo Jima.

What is the greatest battle in history? What battle is hallowed as the most influential, the most dramatic, simply 'the greatest'?

Battle of Eurymedon.

In terms of their effects upon history, I'd say that the Battle of Gaugamela (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaugamela) and the Battle of Borodino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Borodino) had the greatest long term effects.

The Spanish Armada - in terms of recent impact and global implications.

Too many things could have happened if you consider the Ancient World (as in Greece, Persia, China etc), the Spanish Armada leads a direct trail to the world we live in today.

British Empire and world colonialism
No unification of Europe
America
Religion
British War tactics - naval power over land, which led to WW1.

FTW

Stalingrad.

Turned the tide of WW2.

battle of the titans?

Hastings, 2nd Battle of Lincoln, Towton, Naseby, Blenheim, Plassey

I'd say the Battle of Munda, it was the final collapse of Pompey's forces, the final victory of Julius Caesar and was the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire (Which effected quite a bit of world history).

The battle for Middle Earth

The Battle of Suomussalmi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Suomussalmi

Absolutely.

What is the greatest battle in history? What battle is hallowed as the most influential, the most dramatic, simply 'the greatest'?

WW2:
Stalingrad
Siege of Leningrad
Battle of Britain
Montecassino

WW1:
Italian/Austrian front (Alps)
Verdun

XIX century:
Austerlitz
Borodino
Magenta
San Martino
Shiloh Church
Trafalgar
Ishandlwana

Marathon. It, and it alone, preserved Hellenism against Persia in 490, and thus not only precpitated Classical Greece, but also, by extension, the majority of the western world.

Stalingrad.

Turned the tide of WW2.

No, it didn't. The intervention of the USA, insofar as any single event did, "Turned the tide" of WW2.

What is the greatest battle in history? What battle is hallowed as the most influential, the most dramatic, simply 'the greatest'?

I misread the title first as the 'Greatest Bottle'. :)

Greatest battle? No friggin' clue! The battle between the Horde and the Alliance.

Goku vs. Frieza.

Ooh, ooh, no. The tide pool battle between the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchmen.

No, wait. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah

Optimus Prime vs. Megatron

P.S. In all seriousness, Battle of Jutland.

What is the greatest battle?
That which is not fought. :p

There's no 'great' war. Folks die, blood flows, stuff gets blown up, and typically, TV in the affected region goes down. Nothing great about it.

For most influential, I'd have to side with the Stalingrad folks.

what do you define as greatest?

In all honesty I'd say Marathon or the Battle of the Eurymedon, in ultimate effect, without them western culture would likely be radically different.

No, it didn't. The intervention of the USA, insofar as any single event did, "Turned the tide" of WW2.

No, it didn't.
The US were on the offensive in mid 1942 against Japan (after Midway), but in Europe (main theatre) the Axis was still on the offensive. It was Stalingrad (and El-Alamein) that marked the beginning of the defensive phase of the Axis. After Stalingrad, the Nazis lost all battles.
Look on wiki about the casualties and number of combatants of the various countries in WW2. The main theatre was the Eastern Front. Period.

One could say Marathon but that just forced Persia to come back with a greater Army. One could say Salamais but Persia didn't leave, Xerxes did. Mardonius was still there. The battle that stopped Persia from ever really trying to take the West by force was Platea. They did however become defacto rulers after the Peloponesian Wars, if only for a very short time so they did with money what they couldn't do with military force. One needs only recollect the amount of times Athens and Sparta when to the Persian Monarch begging for money to see where the influence lay.

I would go with Actium. That battle laid the foundation for the Roman Empire, which maintained and strengthened the foundations of modern Western Civilization and did much to influence the East as well.

In terms of impact, these might not be the biggest, but they're fairly prominent -- imagine if the USA had been split in half (and were still split in half), the ramifications that might have had.


Ergo, I offer you:

July 4, 1863

Battle of Gettysburg

&

Vicksburg


Both were settled on the same day. That is the day the tide clearly turned in favor of the Union in the US Civil War. The Union won both, under Meade (Gettysburg) and Grant (Vicksburg).

Grant was especially influential in winning the war for the Union. Abhorrent numbers of troops died, but he went right at the Confederate forces and achieved result after result. Moving from west to east (once he basically split the Confederacy in two with control of the Mississippi River), Grant and his comrades (namely Sherman and Sheridan) moved through the heart of the Confederacy and tore shit up.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vicksburg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg


Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Battle of Thermopolae, Troy, Stalingrad, Berlin, Midway, Iwo Jima.

Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.
Thermopylae. Not Thermopolae.

The least known of the battles that shaped the world as we know it (or rather prevented the communists from shaping it after their taste):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Battle_of_Warsaw
„ Vladimir Lenin viewed Poland as a bridge that had to be crossed so that communism could be brought to Central and Western Europe”

The Germany was teeming with revolutionary fervor, its military after WW I was virtually nonexistent - it was restricted to 100 000 men and arms manufacture was prohibited. The peoples of the Western Europe were not looking eagerly towards the possibility of another war after the horrors of WW I. Who knows where the Red Army would have stopped?

Umm getting me out of bed to get to work on time?

Umm getting me out of bed to get to work on time?

Peepelonia wins the thread.

Peepelonia wins the thread.

Whooo hoo yeah baby! Now wots me prize huh huh?

Whooo hoo yeah baby! Now wots me prize huh huh?

*drops a mountain of cookies on you*

The battle of Earth, as told in The Butlarian Jihad.
If they hadn't reduced the place to slag then the human race would be enslaved and possibly wiped out when the thinking machines took over due to the success of the loyalty experiment.

Me and Illiteracy.

Me and Illiteracy.

Wot yu got against people born out of wedloock den?

Should I go for the dark chocolate or the milk chocolate bar?

Should I go for the dark chocolate or the milk chocolate bar?

No choice at all. The dark, always the dark. Never underestimate the power of the darkside!

America vs. Evil :rolleyes:

The ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (http://www.ultimateshowdown.org/)

or Pepsi vs Coke...

Daleks vs Cybermen

No choice at all. The dark, always the dark. Never underestimate the power of the darkside!

Come over to the Dark Side. We have not only cookies, but chocolate.

Hitler vs. Gandhi - The Dance-Off.

Come over to the Dark Side. We have not only cookies, but chocolate.

But do you have nougat?

Cannae.

The perfect battle. Hannibal crushed the Roman forces utterly, smashed them into tiny pockets, overwhelmed them and drove the pitiful few survivors from the field.

And in so doing, dealt death to his own civilization.

It is not in victory that a nations shows it's true strength. Rome was not cowed, not beaten, but merely - and temporarily - defeated. They rallied. The formed a new army, under a new general, and they fought on, and on, and on.

And years later, Scipio sowed the ruins of Carthage with salt, ensuring that one power alone would rule the Mediterranean: Rome.

Cannae.

The perfect battle. Hannibal crushed the Roman forces utterly, smashed them into tiny pockets, overwhelmed them and drove the pitiful few survivors from the field.

And in so doing, dealt death to his own civilization.

It is not in victory that a nations shows it's true strength. Rome was not cowed, not beaten, but merely - and temporarily - defeated. They rallied. The formed a new army, under a new general, and they fought on, and on, and on.

And years later, Scipio sowed the ruins of Carthage with salt, ensuring that one power alone would rule the Mediterranean: Rome.

Ohh now look what you have done!:eek: Brought the seriousness back, you naughty boy, go and astand in the corner. No no face it! I mean it. I don't want to see your face for at least ten mins!

Is this even a question?

It's obviously the battle for the second Death Star!

Do you realize how close we were to loosing that one?

The Lunatics vs. The Goofballs.

The resukt? A Hybrid: Lunatic Goofballs.

His Mission? To steal your mud. :eek:

Hannibal's assault on Carthage. Mountain melting and f'ing elephants FTW!