Most Important Battle for Western Civilization?

[SuburbanFarmer]

MHF, 2016-2017.

We lost a lot of good men there...

[doc_loliday]

Milvian Bridge

Well played.

[jbird4049]

The short version...
http://classroom.synonym.com/egypt-stra ... 10316.html

Short version--that's the entire article!
Also available from that erudite site--how to change 1/16 into a decimal.

World War Two was lost and won in the east.

Yes, the article is the short version of the strategic importance of Egypt intended for Carlus who admitted he had no historical knowledge. 12 lines is pretty concise.
You could also add that the US was still sitting on the sidelines and Churchill felt the British needed an important victory to convince Roosevelt that the British Empire was a viable ally and not just going to fold at the first sign of pressure like some other European military powers, cough cough France cough

If we are going that route, I would say Pearl Harbor might be the single most important battle. The only way the United States was going to put not only its military but also its full economic resources was if it entered the war. The only way the British, and the Soviets, last long enough to survive is by the full economic support of the Americans. Both were supplied not only with the food needed to overcome a probable fatal shortage, but also all the shortage of equipment needed to run their economy, and military. The Soviets especially got much of its transportation, which included most of its trucks, plus whole train engines!

[heydaralon]

I don't know if its the most important, but I always thought the Battle of Lepanto was pretty fucking cool.

[Speaker to Animals]

Battle of Vienna too.

[C-Mag]

Frankly, for us today. It is the Global Jihad against Western Culture that is currently on going.

[ssu]

What are some of the most important battles for Western Civilization? If not the most important one?

Salamis
Thermopylae
Battle of Tours
Battle of Lepanto
Siege of Vienna
Battle of Vienna

I would say the battle of Tours. (Or the battle of Poitiers, as it sometimes is called)



The reason is that during the time of the Greeks Western Civilization was at it's infancy, hence if the annoying Greeks would have been annihilated By the Persians, nobody would give a fuck about those little city states. Because then the landmass of Western Europe wasn't exactly the cradle of Western Civilization. If Greeks would be part of Persia, then we could all speak about our Persian heritage.

At Lepanto and the two times at the Vienna, the West was powerful enough that simply the Ottomans couldn't have conquered everything until the North Sea. An Ottoman win in these battles wouldn't have meant the end of Western Europe.

It is Tours. Even if it wasn't such a big event, even if we hardly know anything about it and basically as a pure battle it's not so huge. Yet during that time Western Europe was extremely fragile and could have easily fallen. And hence it was sheer luck that the Mongols did only do a "recon" attack into Europe.

It actually could be the battle of Nineveh in 627 AD.

This because the Roman-Sassanid war fought by Heraclius weakened both great Empires so much that some annoying zealot bedouins from the middle of nowhere could disrupt everything. If that wouldn't have happened, I guess that people here would be writing about the nasty fire worshippers in the way as they do about Muslims now. Yep, for some reason, the nice people from Iran seem to be our "enemy" at all times.

Christianity and East Rome wins Persia (then the Sassanid Empire), yet loses in the long run... with fateful consequences for the Roman Empire.

[Speaker to Animals]

It would be very cool to see the Hussars charge into the Turkish flank at the Battle of Vienna.

[ssu]

It would be very cool to see the Hussars charge into the Turkish flank at the Battle of Vienna.

Polish cavalry is simply awesome. It doesn't get better than the Winged Hussars.

We as part of Sweden btw. have endured the most humiliating loss to the Poles. The Polish cavalry attacked a far bigger force of Swedish and simply routed them in the battle of Kirkholm in 1605. It's the greatest defeat that Sweden has ever endured.

I like it that even today the Poles cherish their cavalry heritage.

[heydaralon]

This thread reminds me of the book Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson. It is an extremely biased book, especially towards the end, but it discusses many of the battles we talked about. He thought the battle of Tours (Poiters) was an epic and decisive clash between East and West, but other academics have said that the Ummayad calvary Martel came across were just a grab ass raiding party looking for an easy score. I don't know which version is accurate, but Charles Martel was a pretty bad ass dude, with his "wall of ice."
I'm glad that France is defending his legacy with their immigration policy. Martel would have been overjoyed to see how his descendants solemnly stood up to the invaders, bravely handing out welfare checks and housing subsidies, down to the last man, until the papercuts became too much for even the most resolute Frankish bureaucrat to bear...