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Almost all battles listed in that book are of a mere symbolic value. They didn't change anything to the outcome of the conflicts they were part of.
Enjoy the moronic comments (underlined in bold):
Teutoburger Wald, Champs Catalauniques (Châlons), Poitiers (Tours) and Poltawa are classical instances of overstretched invasion attempts that were due to come to a halt somewhere at some moment.Victory of Arminius over the Roman Legions under Varus, AD 9
Known as the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
Excerpt: ..that victory secured at once and forever the independence of the Teutonic race.
The Battle of Châlons, AD 451
Also called the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields or the Battle of the Catalun.
Excerpt: The victory which the Roman general, Aëtius, with his Gothic allies, had then gained over the Huns, was the last victory of imperial Rome.
The Battle of Tours, AD 732
Also called the Battle of Poitiers.
Excerpt: the great victory won by Charles Martel ... gave a decisive check to the career of Arab conquest in Western Europe.
The Battle of Hastings, AD 1066
Excerpt: ..no one who appreciates the influence of England and her empire upon the destinies of the world will ever rank that victory as one of secondary importance.
Joan of Arc's Victory over the English at Orléans, AD 1429
Known as the Siege of Orléans.
Excerpt: ..the struggle by which the unconscious heroine of France, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, rescued her country from becoming a second Ireland under the yoke of the triumphant English.
Defeat of the Spanish Armada, AD 1588
Excerpt: The England of our own days is so strong, and the Spain of our own days is so feeble, that it is not easy, without some reflection and care, to comprehend the full extent of the peril which England then ran from the power and the ambition of Spain, or to appreciate the importance of that crisis in the history of the world.
The Battle of Blenheim, AD 1704
Excerpt: Had it not been for Blenheim, all Europe might at this day suffer under the effect of French conquests resembling those of Alexander in extent and those of the Romans in durability.
The Battle of Pultowa, AD 1709
Also called the Battle of Poltava.
Excerpt: The decisive triumph of Russia over Sweden at Pultowa was therefore all-important to the world, on account of what it overthrew as well as for what it established
Victory of the Americans over Burgoyne at Saratoga, AD 1777
Excerpt: The ancient Roman boasted, with reason, of the growth of Rome from humble beginnings to the greatest magnitude which the world had then ever witnessed.
The Battle of Valmy, AD 1792
Excerpt: ..the kings of Europe, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, trembled once more before a conquering military republic.
The Battle of Waterloo, AD 1815
Excerpt: The exertions which the allied powers made at this crisis to grapple promptly with the French emperor have truly been termed gigantic, and never were Napoleon's genius and activity more signally displayed than in the celerity and skill by which he brought forward all the military resources of France...
Blenheim has no importance except in the minds of British jingoists.
Had Napoleon prevailed in Waterloo, he would then have faced much bigger invasion threats with Russians and Austrians, and you cannot win against a coalition made of the rest of the world. Joan of Arc, Saratoga: in both cases the English would have been defeated sooner or later.
Actually I know only two battles that would have made a totally different world had the outcome been another one (and it was very tight): Hastings, and Ludendorff's Michael offensive of March/April 1918.
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