Correct me if wrong xy.

Vladimir Lenin
Iosif Stalin
Nikita Kruschev
Leonid Brezhnev
Gorbachev (first name leaves my mind)

@Lucid
So. .. the phalanx formation lost. Point valid, even if phalanx was still used, since it had lost.

Battle of Baltimore
Influential morale point for America in the War of 1812 and after that.

Every ruler/transitional period in Soviet Union lasting more than a year:

(Transnational period beginning in 1923, Lenin's second stroke, to roughly 1927, when Stalin started to get real power (Trotsky was removed from the party exiled to Kazakhstan in 1928))
Stalin (27-53)
Khrushchyov (53-64)
Brezhnev (64-80)
(Transitional Period; Brezhnev died in 1982, but actually lost power in 1980)
Andropov (82-84)
Cherenko (84-85)
Gorbachyov (85-91)

Other important ones:

Romania: Nicolae Ceaușescu (65-89); a complete madman who shot on protesters and bathed in dolphin blood
Albania: Enver Hoxha (41-85); a communist leader who decided to side with China in the Chinese-Soviet split; builded a bunker for every three folk
Ygoslavia: Josip Tito (43-80) Quit the alliance with Soviet Union in 1947; both sides liked him, despite him being neutral.

So. .. the phalanx formation lost. Point valid, even if phalanx was still used, since it had lost.


Your point was that phalanx was out o date. They stilled used it until about 400 ad

Mikhail Gorbachev

They used it a lot later than that. The pike formations of the European middle ages were direct descendents of the phalanx. More especially the Macedonian sarrissas. The Scots won the battle of Bannockburn in the 15th century with pikes. And the Swiss also had notable success. Battle of Novara 16th century.

Later they fused pike and musket troops to make the formations of the 17th and 18th century. Such as the Landsknecht pikemen used by most of the major European players, and later the Terico used by Gustavus Adolphus and the Swedes when they were running around Germany bitch slapping everyone else. Before pure gunpowder formations helped by the advent of the bayonet eventually took over.

Edited 3/30/2015 06:06:07

Battle of the Metaurus (207 BC) since if Hasdrubal would have succeeded to unite his forces with the ones of his brother, they could have taken Rome

Edited 4/4/2015 11:20:31

Edited 4/4/2015 14:09:03

The two world's most decisive, bloodiest and important battles:

For WW1
Battle of Verdun:
belligerents: France and Germany
Most recent estimates 976,000 to 1,250,000 casualities, 70.000 soldiers died in both French and German sides for each month of the battle.
Most decisive battle of WW1, the French were victorious despite losses were huge. Finally the front broke. On 19 December 1916 the German army command concluded that they had suffered a defeat at Verdun. The German army had once and for all been pushed back to its original positions. The battle of Verdun had come to an end.
The Battle of Verdun lasted for nearly 300 days and became the longest and one of the most costly battles in human history.



For WW2:
Battle of Stalingrad :
belligerents: USSR and Germany
Total of 1,7 to 2,2 million casualities lasted 5 months, decisive Soviet victory, and German defeat.This was the decisive battle of World War II because it ended the German offensive as well as destroying much of the German armies.The victory at Stalingrad proved to be the end of Nazi Germany’s peak and the beginning of its rapid decline until its final destruction in 1945.
Hitler and his short lived empire collapsed as a result of the battle of Stalingrad because it destroyed much of the German forces and also ended the offensive in Russia. This eventually turned the tide and led to not only the destruction of Germany but also ushered in a new era of global politics and never again would a war of such magnitude ever be forced upon the world.


Edited 5/1/2015 14:11:00

Moscow battle was more important, also, I don't think the Verdun was that important. The Middle Powers were winning the war right until September 1918 or around there. I'd say the Vardar offensive and Third Transjordan offensive really won the war.

Edited 5/1/2015 15:47:23

Stalingrad and Verdun had the most impact in the 2 world wars, no doubt on that. Moscow for ww2 and the battle of Somme for ww1 also were major battles we can agree on that. But Stalingrad and Verdun still are the most famous and symbolic wars, as few battle were as psychologically, morally and strategically important.

Edited 5/1/2015 16:41:34

Moscow battle failed Operation Barbossa and is the bloodiest battle in the 20th century. How can you not say it's the most important?

Somme, French front was pretty stationary, no important battles fought there until October-November 1918. They barely even got into Alsace at the war's end!

Smolensk Battle - Maybe we can beat the Germans?
Moscow Battle - I think we can beat the Germans.
Stalingrad Battle - We're going to beat the Germans.
Kursk Battle - LET'S BEAT THE GERMANS!

Edited 5/1/2015 18:51:44

The most important battle in history of our planet is humans vs aliens. It will happen in the future.

The most important battle in history of our planet is humans vs aliens. It will happen in the future.

The most important battle of history happens in the future. You see the problem here?

Time when the battle will happen will be history... someday.

Somme and Verdun were clearly the most decisive battles of ww1, as I said earlier because they deeply impacted the Germans morally and as millions of soldiers were sacrificed, the German front was consequently weakened (as we can see just after Verdun battle, the Germans were finally expelled and they could never go further). How can you say that there were no important battles in the west front, those battles were by far the bloodiest, using the most modern artillery ever of that period and were the battlefront of the 3 major and biggest armies (Germany, France and Great Britain).

As for ww2, I believe (unless you show me reliable figures and serious studies on that topic) that Stalingrad was more important than Moscow, just one fact: If Stalingrad was taken the Germans could have taken the great and vital reserves of oil, gas and raw materials (that was the main reason of the invasion of USSR, increase the German lebensraum and the rich industrial lands of Southern Russia) whereas Moscow was just symbolic, and as we know with Napoleon, even if an army takes Moscow you do not control Russia at all.

Doesn't really matter how bloody the battle is, just what you accomplish with the blood you paid. French front was very stationary - like I said, they just barely got to Germany in November (while much of the French and almost all Belgian land was still German). Vardar Offensive pushed back Bulgaria and soon forced them to surrender, the Third Transjordan Offensive pushed back Turkey, and did not stop until Turkey surrendered.

Stalingrad was a big battle, no denying that. But if the Germans captured Stalingrad without too much trouble, there would be another chance: Astrakhan. Going to Kazakhstani oil fields would be troublesome due to West Kazakhstan terrain.

Moscow, there was no chance. Napoléon captured Moscow, but what was Moscow? Not a capital. Moscow was by far the biggest industrial middle Russia had, and the Germans changed the operation's name to Operation Fuck-up after Moscow Battle (They were very disappointed and considered Operation Barbossa a failure.)

Vardar Offensive pushed back Bulgaria... etc

Don't mention that word! Andreas might come here!

Evil Mongol, pleaze go bak to wher u came frum.

They were all equally important.

One I haven't seen mentioned much:
•Battle of Marathon (490 BC) Athens and Plataea vs Persian Empire. It's impossible to judge the importance of this battle as it was so long ago with many things inbetween. But Greece was definitely the birth of the Western culture, civilisation and democracy. If Persia had occupied Athens, who knows if this culture and democracy would have been stopped or changed. I believe eventually there would have been a revival but this could have fatally effected it. As John Stuart Mills put it "The Battle of Marathon, even as an event in British history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings"

I like how this sums it up "Two thousand three hundred and forty years ago, a council of Athenian Officers was summoned on the slope of one of the mountains that look over the plain of Marathon, on the eastern coast of Attica. The immediate subject of their meeting was to consider whether they should give battle to an enemy that lay encamped on the shore beneath them; but on the result of their deliberations depended, not merely the fate of two armies, but the whole future progress of human civilization."

Battle of Britain was also pretty important in WW2 and has anyone mentioned D-Day.

What do you think about battle of Vienna in 1683? Did it really stop islamic invasion in Europe?