Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia.militare
Titolo: 50 Battles that changed the world

William Weir era un MP dell'esercito e successivamente ha prestato servizio
come corrispondente di combattimento dell'esercito nella 25th Infantry
Division durante la guerra coreana. Era un reporter di vari giornali nel
Missouri e Kansas, e redattore militare del Topeka State Journal. Ha scritto
circa 50 articoli, molti di loro su storia militare e sugli armamenti.
Ha scritto altri quattro libri:
Legendary American Gunfights and Gunfighters,
Fatal Victories,
In the Shadow of the Dope Fiend and A Well Regulated Militia:
The Battle Over Gun Control.
Ma l'argomento sul  quale (possibilmente) discutere è la classifica
che ha stilato nel suo libro che ha come titolo quello in oggetto.
Ovviamente bisogna avere un buona preparazione su tutte le
battaglie combattute sulla faccia della terra :-)))
1. Marathon, 490 BC
2. Nika Rebellion, 532 AD
3. Bunker Hill, 1775 AD
4. Arbela, 331 BC
5. Hattin, 1187 AD
6. Diu, 1509 AD
7. Britain, 1940 AD
8. Constantinople, Part 1, 1205 AD
9. Tsushima, 1905 AD
10. Saratoga, 1777 AD
11. Valmy, 1782 AD
12. Adrianople, 378 AD
13. Midway, 1942 AD
14. Hastings, 1066 AD
15. Tenochtitlan, 1520-21 AD
16. Stalingrad, 1942-43 AD
17. Busta Gallorum, 552 AD
18. Lechfeld, 955 AD
19. Dublin, 1916 AD
20. Emmaus, 166 BC
21. Yarmuk, 636AD
22. Batte of the Atlantic, 1939-45 AD
23. Cannae, 216 BC
24. Malplaquet, 1709AD
25. Carrhae, 53 BC
26. Constantinople, Part2, 1453 AD
27. The Armada, 1588 AD
28. TheMarne, 1914 AD
29. Rhodes, 1522 AD
30. Tours, 732 AD
31. Tanga, 1914 AD
32. Chalons, 451 AD
33. Las Navas de Toloso, 1212 AD
34. Gupta, 1180 AD
35. Chickamauga, 1863 AD
36. Lepanto, 1571 AD
37. New Orleans, 1814 AD
38. Petrograd, 1917 AD
39. France, 1918 AD
40. The Alamo, 1836 AD
41. Wu-sung, 1862 AD
42. Waterloo, 1815 AD
43. Kadisiyah, 637 AD
44. Kazan, 1552 AD
45. Lutzen, 1632 AD
46. Manila Bay, 1898 AD
47. Tet Offensive, 1968 AD
48. Rome, 390 BC
49. Sedan, 1870 AD
50. Poltava, 1709 AD
Ciao
Guardrail


Sbaglio o manca Trafalgar?
-- 
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, 
stand like a rock. -- Thomas Jefferson

 battaglie combattute sulla faccia della terra :-)))
Ho l'impressione che l'autore confonda GRANDE battaglia con battaglia che ha 
CAMBIATO il mondo.
Per me la battaglia che ha cambiato il mondo è quella il cui esito, 
rovesciato, avrebbe determinato un diverso corso delle cose.
Per esempio, a mio parere non furono decisive Canne (se vincevano i romani 
la guerra sarebbe finita subito invece che anni dopo), Waterloo (gli alleati 
russo-austro-brito-prussiani-eccetera avrebbero continuato a combattere e 
napoleone avrebbe continuato le sue fatiche di Sisifo, senza alcun 
costrutto).
A mio parere non avrebbe cambiato molto la storia se i francesi avessero 
vinto a Trafalgar (annientando quante navi inglesi? una vittoria di misura 
avrebbe solo permesso alla flotta di Villeneuve di entrare in Mediterraneo, 
da dove non mi pare che avrebbe potuto consentire lo sbarco di Napo. in 
Inghilterra) o se i russi avessero vinto a Tsushima (isolati a Vladivostock 
come avrebbero potuto bloccare i rifornimenti giapponesi alla Manciuria? 
Sempre a meno di un annientamento totale della flotta nipponica, ma allora 
siamo alla fantascienza).
G. De M.
-- 
Granelli di sabbia: La fantascienza non racconta un pauroso futuro, ma 
l'insopportabile oggi
http://www.delosstore.it/librinuovi/scheda.php?id=24874
recensioni: 
http://emanuelemanco.splinder.com/archive/2007-06
http://www.fantascienza.com/magazine/libri/9611/

 23. Cannae, 216 BC
Canne non fu una battaglia che cambiò il mondo benchè fosse stata un grande 
capolavoro di Annibale ma dopo non potè sfruttarne l'effetto e Roma vinse 
alla fine la guerra. 

 Inghilterra)
Trafalgar è un simbolo. Essa spezzò definitivamente la volontà francese 
di minacciare la supremazia britannica sui mari.
Per questo è importante, altrimenti si tratterebbe della solita 
battaglia ove gli inglesi fanno a pezzi una flotta francese.
Idem per Tsushima.
Un simbolo.
La prima volta in secoli che una flotta non occidentale sbaraglia una 
flotta occidentale.


 Campaldino in che posizione sarebbe?
se guardiamo all'effetto domino che avrebbe provocato una vittoria dei 
ghibellini, direi che dovrebbe essere in cima alla lista.
Firenze torna ai Ghibellini, che unificano l'Italia, sparisce lo stato della 
Chiesa, la quale non sopravvive alla perdita del potere temporale...
Benvenuti nella fantapolitica.
(Ma forse sarebbe stata più decisiva una vittoria di Ezzelino da Romano 
nella battaglia di Cassano - 1259)
G. De M. 

 Sbaglio o manca Trafalgar?
Non sbagli
Smonto pezzo-pezzo il libro - considerando di essere un fortunato
ad averlo - e che ci sono user che ne vorrebbero sapere di più.
Eccoti la prefazione. Ad altri che hanno chiesto verrà dato nel limi
te delle mie possibilità di tempo.
Any attempt to list the 50 most important battles in all history is
necessarily subjective. To list them in order of importance is an even
greater exercise of chutzpah. Nevertheless, people have been listing
decisive battles since Sir Edward Creasy, a lawyer who taught history, a
century-and-a-half ago.
Other compilers include General J.F.C. Fuller, a professional soldier;
Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, who was gassed and injured early in his career
and had to leave the army - he then became a journalist, and Fletcher Pratt,
who was a writer by trade. Each brings a distinctive flavor to the
enterprise.
Fuller is very strong on battles that were fought on land. He's less
interested in sea power and far  less interested in air power.
Liddell Hart emphasizes his strategic theory - the superiority  of
the indirect approach. He, and to some extent Fuller, preaches the gospel of
small, highly trained armies rather than the mass armies we've had in every
major war since those of the French Revolution.
Pratt's The Battles that Changed History has  the distinct tang of
salty air, although most of the early battles it covers were fought on land.
Pratt also has the most openly Occidental orientation.
"[Ojne of the most striking features of Western European culture", he
writes, "has been its ability to achieve decisive results by military means.
It may even be the critical factor, the reason why that culture has
encircled the world. Not that the Far East and Africa have been lacking
in great battles or great victories, but their results have had less
permanent effect on the  stream of world history."
It might be hard to convince a Russian that the victories of Genghis Khan
and the consequent subjugation and isolation of his country for three
centuries didn't have much effect on the stream of history.
Considering that the Mongol  conquests brought such Chinese innovations
as cheap paper, movable type, the astrolabe, and gunpowder to Europe,
it might be difficult to convince anyone else, either.
In this book, I've attempted to avoid this kind of bias. But it's necessary
to consider who we are and where we are. What's important to this author -
an American living at the juncture of the 20th and 21st centuries - and to
his audience  would probably not be important to a Chinese person in the
13th century.
It's been fairly easy to avoid a bias in favor of any particular military
approach. I'm the son of a career U.S. Navy officer and the father of a
career U.S. Air Force officer, but I'm a dedicated civilian. Service
as an army combat correspondent and regimental public information
NCO in the Korean War gave me a slightly broader picture
than most GIs get, but the main thing I learned was when to keep my
head down.
Some of the military in my upbringing may have rubbed off, though.
Large  proportions of the articles I've written have concerned military
history and weapons.
Of  my four previous books, one, Fatal Victories, was entirely military
history.
Another, Written
With Lead, was about legendary American gunfights, including such military
events as the Battle of Saratoga and Custer's last stand. Still another, A
Well
Regulated Militia, detailed the history of the American militia.
- Every battle has some effect on history. How do you decide which
had the most?
- The basic criteria for picking the importance of the battles that
changed the world are:
- How big a change did the battle make, and how much does that change
affect us?
One way is to decide what's really important to us and how did we get to
enjoy it. Most people would put freedom and democracy high on any
list of desirable things.
Consequently, Marathon, which preserved the world's first democracy,
holds the number-one spot. Order, not anarchy, is also highly desirable.
Justinian, Narses and Belisarius, by crushing the Nika revolt, made the
world's most widely  used code of law possible. Bunker Hill, and to a
slightly l
ess extent, Saratoga,  ensured the independence of the United States.
So, in a much less direct way, did Jackson's victory  at
New Orleans. The Allied victories in World War II, particularly the Battle
of Britain, were the latest battles to guarantee democracy.
Another approach is to look at the currents of history. The ancient Greeks
saw history, to a large extent, as a record of the conflict between East and
West. That is certainly a viable idea. There are, in a very general sense,
two cultures in  the world - Western and Eastern. The former would include
ev erything from the  Orthodoxinfluenced
culture of Russia to the secular culture of the United States. The latter
would include the Far Eastern culture of China and Japan, both deeply
non-Western in spite of a Western veneer, and a wide variety of other
cultures, many of them Islamic. Neither the East nor the West has managed
to absorb the other, but  it wasn't for want of trying.
This struggle, too, goes back to Marathon. It continues
through Alexander, Crassus and the seemingly interminable conflicts
between Christianity and Islam.
The West has been unable to absorb the East, but it certainly was able
to dominate it. There are a string of decisive battles that helped bring
that about. At Diu on the Indian Ocean, Portuguese sailors destroyed
a Muslim fleet in 1509. That crippled the thriving Arab trade with India
and China. Dar es Islam began to shrink economically.
Ten years later, Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico. Two years
after that, he had conquered - for the first time since Alexander -
a non-European empire, which opened a trade route to the
Far East across the Pacific. Russia's conquest of Kazan in
1552 initiated European expansion overland to the Far East. A generation
later, the defeat of the Spanish Armada energized the English to push west
across the Atlantic and conquer North America.
The latest trend in world history seems to be that the Western political
domination of the world is ending. In 1940, there was only one
independent country in Africa. Europeans owned the rest of the continent.
Today there are no colonies in Africa. Most of Asia and the
Far Eastern islands, except, China, Japan, and Japan's
colony, Korea, were also owned by Westerners. Today none of it is. In a way,
the battles of the American Revolution started the trend. The United States
became the first independent country in the New World. The rest of the
Americas followed.
In 1905, Togo's Japanese showed that non-Caucasians equipped with modern
technology could beat Caucasians equipped with comparable technology. In
1914, von Lettow Vorbeck's black African soldiers proved that, man for man,
they were the equal of Caucasians. But none of the colonial countries could
field the military equipment the Japanese could. It took a European country,
Ireland, to demonstrate how a weak nation could win its independence from a
strong one.
History is full of odd twists like that.
Ciao
Guardrail

rovesciato, avrebbe determinato un diverso corso delle cose.
Concordo con Albion in merito a questa discussione. Le battaglie non
sono importanti solo in base all'esito, ma anche come simboli. 
Prendendo un esempio che esula dall'argomento battaglie, la rivolta
del ghetto di Varsavia non fu certamente un evento che *cambiò* il
corso della storia, ma fu la scintilla da cui poi l'intera città di
Varsavia riuscì a trarre la forza per insorgere.
Similmente, come giustamente diceva Albion, Trafalgar ha una valenza
simbolica molto forte, così come - a mio avviso - Pearl Harbor ha una
connotazione simbolica molto importante: forse - e dico forse, perché
a tal proposito nutro ancora dei dubbi - gli USA sarebbero entrati in
guerra comunque, ma di sicuro diede una poderosa spinta nel processo
bellico, e in questo contesto avrebbe più ragione d'esser nella lista
rispetto alla battaglia di Canne, ad esempio.
Iskretta

 interessse
Per così poco non mi tiro indietro: mi piacciono post lunghi:-)))
Las Navas de Toloso
The crushing defeat of Muslim forces at Tours (see page 170) in 732 was one
of the first of a whole string of disasters for the followers of Mohammed.
Chinese-led Uighur Turks had defeated the Arabs in 730 at Samarkand
and again in 736 at Kashgar. At the same time (731-732), Khazar
Turks invaded Arab lands through the Caucasus and got as far as
Mesopotamia before being pushed back. And in spite of years of trying,
the Muslim Arabs could  make no more headway against the
Eastern Roman Empire.
In a century, the Arabs had conquered the largest empire the world had ever
seen. Now, internal stresses as well as external enemies had stopped the
empire's explosive growth.
In spite of what they professed- the brotherhood of all believers - the
empire was an Arab, not a Muslim, empire. Arabs held the highest
positions in both civil and military affairs. In the middle of the eighth
century, descendants of Mohammed's uncle, Abbas, led a revolt in
Central Asia. Mainly ethnic Persians, the rebels overthrew
the Omayyad Caliph, who claimed descent from Mohammed's
son-in-law, Omar. They founded a new, Abbasid, Caliphate.
In Spain and North Africa (west of Egypt), in the area known as el Maghrib
(the West) the natives were also restless. The Libyan Desert separated el
Maghrib from the rest °f Dar es Islam. The Muslims in el Maghrib, mostly
African Berbers, had no more use for the Persians than they had for the
Arabs. They didn't recognize the Abbasid Caliph.
Instead, various Berber chieftains ruled small sections of the
countryside independently, while Arab leaders, who had settled in the
cities, ruled city-states.
Eventually the Berbers found another descendant of Omar and proclaimed
a new Omayyad Caliphate. The Omayyads adopted the Spanish city of
Cordoba as their capital.
The new Caliphs at first attempted to revive the holy war against the
Christians in northern Spain, but soon found other things to interest them.
Spain, long ruled by the Romans, was a more urban - and urbane -
place than Africa. The Arabs had brought their own poetry to the
country, along with the art and architecture they had picked up from
the Persians, and the science and mathematics they learned from
the Greeks, the Mesopotamians, and the Indians. The Visigoths had a
literature of their own and had adopted the old culture of Rome.
Under the Muslims, Christians and Jews had freedom to practice
their religions and were able to engage in the learned professions.
Many Jews came to Spain from less tolerant countries in
northern Europe. Before long, Muslim Spain was a center of
civilization, not only in Europe but in the whole Muslim world as well.
Writing, painting, architecture, science, and philosophy flourished in
Omayyad Spain.
In the other Spain, the tiny principalities of the North, there was less
civilization and a good deal less religious tolerance, especially for
Muslims who had stolen Christian land.
The other Spain
The Muslims had never conquered all of Spain. The northwest corner, Galicia,
was inhabited by dour Celts (called Gallegos by the Spanish), who enjoyed
dour Celtic weather. The climate in foggy, rainy Galicia, on the shore of
the
Bay of Biscay, would have seemed perfectly normal to any Irishman or
Scotsman, but it was not inviting to the sun-baked sons of the desert.
Just east of the dour Gallegos were the dourer Basques. The Basques spoke
the same language their ancestors spoke in the Stone Age.
They had defied any attempts to assimilate them by Gauls, Romans, Visigoths,
and Franks. They were not going to let the Arabs and Berbers be the first to
conquer them.
There has long been a notion in the non-Spanish world that Christians from
France gradually pushed the Muslims back. The notion was probably started
and spread by the Franks. Any reader of Cervantes's masterpiece,
Don Quixote, knows that Charlemagne and his Franks were never pure heroes
to Spanish Christians. The Basques proved it by ambushing and wiping out
the rear guard of Charlemagne's army as it retreated through the pass at
Roncevalles. East of the Basques were the incipient kingdoms of Castile
and Aragon. And everywhere in that Christian fringe were dukes, counts,
and other warlords in more castles than you can count.
For a long time, there was no organized reconquista. There was no organized
anything in Christian Spain. The Spanish lords were not only jealous of each
other, but they contributed to the fragmentation of Christian Spain by
dividing their kingdoms up among their sons.
That situation might have resulted in further Muslim conquests if the Omyyad
Caliphate itself had not quickly fragmented into taifas, independent Berber
tribal states. In 1031, a council of taifa kings formally abolished the
caliphate.
There was a lot of raiding back and forth. Stealing from someone of the
other religion was not considered a sin by either the Christians or the
Muslims.
All warfare in Spain, however, was not Christians versus Muslims. Berber
chiefs attacked by other Berber chiefs enlisted Christians to help them.
Christian lords, in turn, had no qualms about seeking help from Muslims when
facing Christian enemies. The great Spanish hero of this age was Rodrigo
Diaz de Vivar, known as el Cid Campeador. His title is instructive.
"Cid" is a corruption of the Arabic "sidi," meaning lord. "Campeador," is
champion, a tide Christians gave their heroes.
A jealous Castilian king had exiled the Cid, so he offered his sword to the
Muslims.
He deserved his fame as a fighting man, triumphing on field after field. But
nevertheless, the Christians were gradually pushing back the increasingly
fragmented Muslims. In 1085, the Castilians took Toledo, the old Visigoth
capital, now a major taifa capital.
Then, the taifa kings did something dangerous. They sought help from Africa,
which lost them the services of the Cid. Even worse from their point of
view, they lost their independence and the good life.
The Almoravids
The Maghrib, and a good part of West Africa south of the Sahara, was under
the control of the Almoravids. While the Muslim rulers of Spain were sipping
wine,
watching dancing girls, and discussing philosophy, a Tuareg in the Sahara
was getting religion. Tuaregs are Berber nomads, people whose hardscrabble
life defies comparison.
"Tuareg" is an Arabic name (singular: Targui). It means "the forsaken of
God," as "Berber," which is Arabic from Greek, means "barbarian." Tuaregs
ran the caravans that crossed the desert. One of them, Yana ibn Omar,
saw how different life in the Arab cities was from his own existence, in
which a pool of clear water was an almost unimaginable luxury.
The Muslims of his time, he concluded, were corrupting
Islam. Luxury was turning them from God. To set things right, he led an
army of Tuaregs against the west African oases, then against the cities
of the north. He then founded a dynasty, called the Almoravids.
The Almoravids quickly conquered all the Maghrib and extended their
dominion to the black empires of the Sudan. When the Spanish Muslims
called on it, the Almoravid Empire was the most powerful Muslim state
in the world.
These African puritans took one look at what life was like in Spain and
saw that they had a double task: They must not only drive back the
infidels, but they must reform their erring brethren as well. An Almoravid
Spain had no attraction for the Cid, who went back to fight for the
Christians.
With him went thousands of Mozarabs, as Christians in the Muslim
area were called, and Jews. Barbarians, like the Tuaregs, and
later the Turks, had no idea why the Prophet made exceptions for the
"people of the Book."
The Castilian king again exiled the Cid, but this time Rodrigo did not
return to the Muslim lands. He raised a private army of both Christians
and Muslims and carved out a kingdom for himself. For the rest of his life,
he was King of Valencia.
When the Cid died, the Almoravids retook Valencia and quite a bit more.
But the warriors from the Sahara quickly succumbed to the fleshpots of
Al Andulus, as the Muslims called Spain. Once again the back-and-forth
raiding resumed and, thanks to the emigration from Muslim Spain,
Christian Spain gained manpower, civilization, and even an approach to
unity. Reconquista was now a definite Christian aim.
Once again, a Muslim prophet appeared in the backwoods. This time it
was Abu Mohammed ibn Tumari, a lamplighter's son in the Atlas Mountains.
He began preaching against luxury and soon converted a man who had
a natural talent for military leadership, Abd el Mumin. Abd el Mumin
raised an army and took over leadership of the movement.
By 1149, he had made himself Emir of Morocco. He founded a new
dynasty, the Almohades, and when he died in 1163, he was emperor
of a larger territory than the Almoravids held. Apparently
unable to learn from experience, once again, a taifa king invited the
African reformers to come to Spain and save his people.
They came; they saw; they conquered. By 1172, they controlled
all of Al Andulus, and their first order of business was to wipe out the
licentiousness of their co-religionists. The Almohades did not succumb
to the fleshpots. They kept their capital in the Atlas Mountains.
But by 1195 they were ready to take on the infidels.
The Almohades' Emperor Ya'cub gathered an army of Islamic troops
from all over Africa and Spain to march against Castile, the largest
and most aggressive of the Christian Spanish states.
Alfonso the Lucky
At the time Castile was ruled by Alfonso VIII, nicknamed the Lucky.
After his first meeting with Ya'cub's army, he was lucky to be alive.
The Muslims routed the Christians, and Alfonso made a humiliating
peace with Ya'cub. He was lucky to be able to sign a peace treaty.
One lucky break was that the old Almohade emperor knew he was
dying and wanted to go back to his beloved mountains to die.
The other was the result of an earlier stroke of luck, when Alfonso
of Castile was able to marry bis daughter to Alfonso of Aragon.
The King of Aragon died near the time of the battle.
His crown went to his son, Pedro II, grandson of Alfonso of Castile.
Aragon, on the Mediterranean shore, was a relatively powerful
Spanish state, and Pedro was famed as a knight-errant.
Continuing the campaign against both Castile and Aragon
would take more energy that old Ya'cub wanted to expend.
About this time, an idea originating in the Holy Land came to Spain.
The military monks founded in Outremer, the Knights of St. John
and the Knights Templars (see Rhodes and Malta, page 161),
inspired three orders of Spanish monks: the Knights of Calatrava,
the Knights of Alcantara, and the Knights of St. James. Like
their crusader counterparts, the Spanish orders were brave,
disciplined, and very professional soldiers.
Spain had not seen a disciplined military force since the Corps of
Slaves, mameluks maintained by the Caliphs, had been disbanded.
Ya'cub finally died in 1199. His son, Mohammed al Nazir, never
liked the peace with the Christians and he saw with apprehension that
Castile was growing stronger.
Alfonso, on his part, felt ready to challenge the Muslims again.
He denounced the treaty, and Mohammed al Nazir declared a holy war.
The Spanish Christians countered with a holy war of their own.
The Archbishop of Toledo persuaded the Pope to declare a crusade
against the Muslims in Spain. Both sides began recruiting wildly.
At that moment the Muslim world was relatively peaceful. Mohammed
al Nazir was able to recruit unemployed soldiers from as far east as
Persia and Turkestan and as far south as Nubia, on the upper Nile.
Alfonso's agents toured the courts of Europe and picked up a horde
of knights and men at arms. Most of both armies were cavalry.
The Christian strength, as always, was heavy cavalry - mailed horsemen
expert with the lance and sword. Muslim strength was in light cavalry -
horse archers and javelin men wearing less armor than their enemies
but more mobile.
Sancho cuts the chain
Al Nazir's plan was to draw his enemies away from their bases and
confront them with a strong position they couldn't break through.
Soon, their supplies would run out.
Logistics were not well developed in the Middle Ages. They'd have
to retreat, which would mean they'd scatter, making them an easy
prey for his agile horsemen.
He fortified the passes of the Sierra Morena Mountains, a little north of
the Guadalquivir River and Cordova, and waited. When Alfonso's allies,
his grandson, King Pedro of Aragon, and King Sancho the Strong of
Navarre, saw the situation, they advised Alfonso to retreat, but Alfonso
wanted to go on.
Then a shepherd appeared and showed the Christians an unguarded path around
the passes. The knights made their way over the path and suddenly appeared
on the heights above the Muslim army. Al Nazir's main body was located on
some small plains in the midst of hills, a geographical feature called
"navas" in Spanish.
Mohammed al Nazir's luring of the Christian army far away from its bases was
a smart strategy, as was confronting it with the fortified passes, but
keeping the bulk of his forces on the navas was not.
The small plains didn't provide enough
room for his light horse to operate effectively. But the navas were perfect
ground for the bonecrushing charges and hand-to-hand melees that were the
Christians' most effective tactics. Even so, the size of the Muslim army was
so great the Christians spent two days in prayer before they even moved.
The Muslim army was a great mass. In the center was Mohammed al Nazir.
The Emperor stood under a large parasol that served as a standard and
behind a stockade of logs bound together with a chain. He held a sword in
one hand and a Koran in the other. Around him on all sides was a bodyguard
of picked troops. El Nazir was no Alexander the Great, riding at the head
of his cavalry striking force. On the other hand, he was in the line of
battle-a position no modern head of state or even commanding general
would ever find himself in.
The Christian army was divided into the customary three "battles." Alfonso
commanded the center; Pedro of Aragon commanded the left; Sancho the
Strong commanded the right. The Christians charged. It was their kind of
battle: a wild, handto-hand brawl. But there were so many Muslims.
It was the largest Muslim army ever seen in Europe, the largest Muslim
army that would ever be seen in Europe for centuries hence.
The wings commanded by Pedro and Sancho slowly pushed the Muslims
into the rocky, wooded hills behind them, where they would lose all their
mobility. But in the center, the Muslims, fighting under the eye of the
Emperor, drove back the Christians.
The Knights of Calatrava were almost wiped out.
"Archbishop, it is here that we ought to die!" Alfonso yelled to the
Archbishop of Toledo as he rushed forward.
"No, sire, it is here that we should live and conquer," the churchman
replied. He pointed out that the Muslim horsemen had been stopped by
Alfonso's infantry spearmen, and the Knights of St. James were slashing
into their flank.
Alfonso's standard, following the King, pressed forward. The Muslims slowly
fell back. But it was Sancho the Strong, not Alfonso, who reached the
stockade first.
Sancho demonstrated why he had his nickname. He chopped through the chain
stockade and burst into Al Nazir's bodyguard. The royal parasol, sheltering
the Emperor from the sun, went down.
"Shah mat," Persian chess players used to say, the origin of our
"checkmate."
"The king is dead," meaning the game is over. At the Navas of Toloso, the
game was over. The Muslim army panicked and tried to flee. Most of them
didn't get far. The slaughter was terrific.
It almost wiped out the warrior aristocracy not only
of Muslim Spain but also of North Africa. The losses hurt Egypt and Arabia
and were felt as far as Central Asia.
The aftermath of such a horrendous battle seemed incongruous. The Christian
army took a few towns and castles and went home. Pedro of Aragon was killed
in battle the next year, Alfonso of Castile died a year later, and Christian
Spain went back to its intracommunal feuding.
The Muslim threat was over. The Almohade Empire in both Spain and Africa
began to fall apart immediately. It was extinct 50 years after the battle.
The Muslim taifa states paid tribute to the Christian kings.
Most importantly, the Christians held the central plateau of Spain,
containing the headwaters of all the Spanish rivers and
the intersections of all the roads. Geography had always been a strong force
against centralization in Spain. That obstacle was now removed.
The Muslim states slowly were wiped out until only Grenada, in the
far south, remained. Less than three centuries after the fight on the
Navas of Toloso, Isabella of Castile married Ferdinand of Aragon,
and Spanish unity was almost achieved.
Ferdinand and Isabella then invaded Grenada and drove the last Muslim
ruler out of Spain.
That was in 1492. The Spanish then looked for new worlds to conquer.
They found them across the Atlantic.
Questo è quanto su quella battaglia, poi il resto.
Ciao
Guardrail

 Varsavia riuscì a trarre la forza per insorgere.
Direi che la rivolta di Varsavia ha un buon piazzamento nella classifica 
"La battaglia più inutile della storia", valenza ideale a parte, 
naturalmente.
Tale rivolta difatti eliminò una buona parte dei quadri del movimento 
partigiano non-comunista e non accellerò la liberazione di Varsavia 
(anzi, forse... ma non si hanno prove, per cui è inutile discuterne).
Saluti,
--------------------
    Luca Morandini
www.lucamorandini.it
--------------------

 vinse alla fine la guerra.
Avendolo negli appunti delle mie ricerche ci aggiungo anche questo articolo:
La battaglia di Canne? Fu combattuta a colpi di insulti
Alessio Altichieri
in Corriere della sera, 11 agosto 1998
Se avete in mente le antiche battaglie come ce le ha raccontate il cinema,
scordatevele. Non è vero che gli eserciti si affrontavano a viso aperto, con
migliaia di soldati pronti a dare la vita in scontri all'arma bianca per
un'eroica
vittoria in nome del re, dell'imperatore, della patria. Piuttosto, le prime
linee si fronteggiavano per lunghe ore, a debita distanza, insultandosi,
minacciandosi e scagliandosi lance, per mettersi paura a vicenda. Poi,
quando finalmente uno dei due eserciti aveva raggiunto una fifa blu, girava
sui tacchi e scappava. Al vincitore, così, non restava che l'inseguimento e
il massacro. E' la tesi, innovativa e ragionevole, di Philip Sabin, del
dipartimento di studi di guerra del King's College di Londra, il quale l'ha
esposta sul «Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies». Sono passati
così tanti anni da quelle battaglie corpo a corpo, che ormai ci siamo
lasciati convincere che si svolgessero «in stile Hollywood», spiega Sabin.
Se si prendono film come «Spartacus», per esempio, «si vedono truppe come
teppaglie che s'avventano urlando l'una contro l'altra e ingaggiano duelli
con la spada». Dall'altro lato, finora, vigeva la tesi dei circoli
accademici, secondo cui gli eserciti s'affrontavano come squadre di rugby:
«Una gran mischia, coi battaglioni che si schieravano con gli scudi uno
contro l'altro, e cominciavano a spingere». Ma anche questa tesi, benché più
realistica, non convince Sabin, perché tali mischie non sarebbero potute
durare più che qualche minuto, mentre sappiamo che gli scontri duravano a
lungo. Nelle battaglie della seconda guerra punica, in cui Annibale trionfò
sui romani a Canne nel 216 avanti Cristo, gli eserciti si affrontarono per
molte ore, o per un giorno intero. E certo non restavano sotto il sole a
spingere gli scudi. Secondo Sabin all'inizio gli eserciti si stuzzicavano in
scaramucce della fanteria leggera e della cavalleria, poi una parte
schierava la sua linea di battaglia principale e l'altra parte contrapponeva
la propria. Ma non era ancora la battaglia: «Decisivo era il confronto
faccia a faccia, a pochi metri di distanza. Stavano lì, urlandosi insulti e
minacce. Poi, sporadicamente, qualche gruppetto di soldati avanzava e
ingaggiava il corpo a corpo. Finché, finalmente, una delle due parti si
faceva prendere dal panico. I soldati voltavano le spalle e cominciavano a
scappare: una scelta suicida».
Secondo il ricercatore, la battaglia di Canne è quella che meglio avvalora
tale tesi: infatti la cavalleria gallica e spagnola che combatteva con
Annibale deve avere speso un certo tempo per battere la cavalleria romana,
metterla in fuga dietro la fanteria e tornare al sicuro. Altrimenti, non si
spiega come un combattimento corpo a corpo possa essere durato molte ore:
«E' quasi impossibile immaginare le opposte prime file che si combattono
a breve distanza per molto più di un'ora senza un'enorme quantità di morti
e feriti, in entrambi gli eserciti». Eppure il massacro, alla fine, avveniva 
lo
stesso. Intimorito dagli insulti e dalle minacce, indebolito dagli assalti
dell'opposta cavalleria, uno dei due eserciti cominciava a sgretolarsi:
prima scappavano i soldati delle ultime file, poi quelli in prima linea. E
quando tutto un esercito volgeva le spalle al nemico, non aveva più
speranze. La sconfitta, così, diventava un «si salvi chi può».
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Cosa era in gioco in questa battaglia?
Secondo l'autore: La sopravvivenza di Roma e la civilizzazione occidentale.
Hannibal could see with only one eye, but he was looking into the future.
He was happy with what he saw. He saw the liberation of Italy and the
end of Rome's attempt to rule the world. He had already accomplished
what the Romans considered impossible. He had taken an army - including
war elephants-over the Alps and enlisted the ferocious Gauls. Now he
knew he was about to fulfill his dream.
From his earliest childhood, Hannibal had heard about the Romans - their
arrogance, their cruelty, how they bragged about warring down any nation
that refused to kiss their feet. As he grew older, he learned how they had
conquered the other Latin tribes, the Etruscans, the Greek cities in Italy,
and the Italian Gauls. In his own lifetime, they had fought his country,
Carthage. His father, Hamilcar Barca, was Carthage's most successful
general in that war. He wasn't successful enough.
The Romans won after a war 23 years long and forced Carthage out of Sicily.
Hamilcar left, vowing revenge. The Carthaginian Senate sent Hamilcar
to Spain, and he took Hannibal with him. In Spain, Hamilcar set out to
conquer a new empire for Carthage.
Spain had silver mines, and by controlling Spain and the adjoining coast of
North Africa, Carthage owned the Straits of Gibraltar. Beyond Gibraltar were
the tin mines of Brittany and Britain and the ivory and gold of West Africa.
The heart of Hamilcar's army was his African heavy infantry, who fought in
phalanx in the Macedonian mariner, and his Numidian cavalry, who fought
in a style all their own. These North African nomads used no bridles,
guiding their racehorses with their knees so they could fight with both
hands.
Their main weapon was a short steel javelin, which they carried in
quivers hung on their horses. Hooded, with long, flowing robes
and sitting on leopard skin saddle blankets, the agile Numidians struck
terror into their enemies. Hamilcar enlisted the Spaniards he met.
He turned the civilized Iberians and Celtiberians into excellent heavy
cavalry and infantry. The Spanish horsemen wore armor
and fought with javelins, lances ,and curved short swords, sharp
on the inside curve. The Greeks had adopted the weapon, and
Alexander's troops had carried it to India. The modern Nepalese
Gurkhas still use a version of it, called a kukri. The Spanish infantry
carried a straight sword, about two feet long and doubleedged.
The Spanish footmen liked to fight at close quarters,
using the needle-sharp points of their swords. Their blades were
made of the best steel in Europe.The barbarian Celts of northern
Spain also provided both cavalry and infantry.
They put little value on human life, their own included.
They fought without body armor - even without shirts - although
they wore helmets with horns to make themselves look more
ferocious and carried long shields. Their weapons were long iron
swords and a heavy javelin with a long iron point like the Roman pilum.
For light infantry skirmishers, Hamilcar had the usual archers and
javelin men, but also slingers from the Balearic Islands, generally
considered the greatest masters of that weapon.
Hamilcar was both a general and a viceroy for the Carthaginian
Senate, but his troops had become, in practice, a private army,
an autonomous force. After he died, they elected Hannibal's
brother-in-law, Hasdrubal, commanding general.
Hasdrubal was assassinated, and the army elected Hannibal to command.
He was 26.
The Carthaginians were sailors and merchants. Their military defeat
and loss of Sicilian colonies did not permanently affect their business
and, thanks to Hamilcar, they had more than made up their territorial
losses. The Romans, who had just begun getting involved in
international trade, found the Carthaginian competition irksome.
They had been looking for an excuse to wipe out Carthage.
They found it when Carthage had a dispute with a Spanish city that
was allied to Rome. Roman envoys came to Spain and forbade
Hannibal to make war on Saguntum.
He ignored them. His troops were not equipped to storm walls, but
he took the city after a siege. The next year, 218 BC, the Roman
envoys went to Carthage and demanded the extradition of Hannibal.
The Carthaginian Senate, of course, refused. Even if they wanted to
hand over Hannibal, there was no way they could. Rome declared war.
Hannibal was sure the Romans would come after him, so he sent his
wife and infant son to Carthage for safety. But the Romans intended to
attack Carthage as well.
Hannibal's spies told him the Romans were assembling an invasion
army in Sicily, under the consul Tiberius Sempronius. They planned
to send another army, under the second consul, Publius Cornelius
Scipio, to their ally, Massilia (modern Marseilles).
Scipio was then to march overland and deal with Hannibal in Spain.
Hannibal knew he'd have to protect Carthage. Instead of returning to
Africa, he decided to invade Italy.
That would make the Romans forget all plans to invade Africa.
He knew it was a desperate venture. If he couldn't even assault the
walls of Saguntum, how could he attack Rome - one of the largest
cities of the western world?
The last Roman census showed 770,000 men capable of bearing arms.
Carthage couldn't call up one-tenth of that. Carthage didn't even have
700,000 people - men, women, and infants - in all its African territories.
Latinium had more than six million. But Hannibal remembered the
aftermath of the last Roman war. The Carthaginian Senate refused to pay
off the mercenary troops who had fought for it. The mercenaries revolted.
In the terrible war that followed, Carthage's African dependencies
revolted, too. Only Hamilcar's genius saved Carthage. Hannibal
would make war on Roman territory and encourage Rome's subject
peoples to revolt. That would finish the growing Roman Empire.
Ciao
Guardrail

 (anzi, forse... ma non si hanno prove, per cui è inutile discuterne).
mmm.... da questo pdv forse ha avuto la sua valenza, in quanto se l' 
Organizzazione partigiana bianca Polacca fosse rimasta in ordine, 
sicuramente ci sarebbe stata una ripetizione di quanto gia' visto nel 
1919-21 (cioe' le guerre tra polacchi, sovietici ed ukraini) che avrebbe 
cambiato decisamente il quadro di base della Guerra Fredda.
Saluti,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

 "Gupta".
Per l'autore invece si.
What was at stake. The rise of Temujin, later Genghis Khan, and ultimately
the Mongol conquest of Eurasia and the interchange of ideas between East and
West.
They didn't know why, but their world was drying up. Every year the sands of
the Gobi inched farther north. Every year, there were fewer water holes.
Every year, the grass was drier and sparser. To feed their animals, they had
to find new pastures. And in the new pastures, they collided with other
clans who were also being driven off their ancestral land by the advancing
desert.
There was war. Defeated clans, in fleeing the battlefield, pressed on other
clans. There was more war, and the fugitives either occupied new land or
fled farther.
The growth of the desert and the wars it caused created a human avalanche.
That was an old story in High Asia. Earlier, the Huns, the Avars, the
Bulgars, and the Magyars had been driven to new lands. This time, many
of the Turkish tribes -The Seljuks, the Khazars, the Pechenegs, the
Kankalis, the Kipchaks, and others - were driven west.
Some of the fugitives prospered in their new homes. The Seljuks developed a
mighty empire. But not all of the Turks were driven from their pastures.
Fighting for the best land went on in High Asia. The struggle involved more
than Turks. Mongols, Tibetans, and Tungusi all fought for living space.
The Turks were the strongest. The Shah of Kwaresm carved out an empire
that covered all of what was later called Turkestan, and the Uighurs took
over the ancient Tocharian cities of the Tarim Basin.
Among the weakest of the steppe people were the Mongols, scattered
clans of nomads related to the once-mighty Avars.
The Mongols lived close to the borders of China - too close. The Chinese
subsidized a neighboring nomad people, the Tatars, to keep their borders
free of potential enemies. The Tatars attacked the Mongols and beat them
so badly that many of the Mongol clans began calling themselves Tatars.
Not all the Mongols were willing to accept second place in their corner
of the world. Yesukai the Strong, Khan of the Yakka Mongols, raided
the Tatar camps continually. On one raid, he captured a beautiful
Tatar girl, named Houlon, on her wedding night. A year later, he returned
from another raid to learn that Houlon had borne him a son.
He named the boy Temujin, the name of a Tatar khan he had brought
back as a captive.
When Temujin was a small boy, Yesukai was invited to a Tatar feast. On his
way home, he felt sick. He had been poisoned, and when he reached home,
he died.
With the strong khan dead, enemies - Tatars and others - attacked from all
sides.
A certain Targutai, Khan of the Taidjut Mongols and a former vassal of
Yesukai, persuaded most of Yesukai's clansmen to join him. Yesukai's
family was outlawed and hunted like animals. One time Temujin was
captured and clamped in a wooden yoke.
He escaped only because a Taidjut clansman took pity on the boy, freed him
from the yoke, and hid him in a cart loaded with wool. Taidjut warriors
thrust spears into the cart, but missed Temujin.
"The smoke of my house would have vanished and my fire would have died out
forever if they had found you," the Taidjut told the young Mongol. "Go now
to your brothers and mother."
Temujin did. Then he went to the clans who once followed his father. During
the unequal struggle with the Taidjuts, he had been gaining a reputation as
a warrior.
Many men wanted to follow such a leader. Among the Mongols and other
peoples of the pastures around the Gobi, ethnicity got little consideration.
Descent from famous warriors did help one gain leadership - Temujin was
descended from the legendary Bourchikoun, the Gray-Eyed Men, probably
the ancient Yue Chi (see Adrianople, page 63).
But the warriors of the steppes, like the ancient Celts, chose their own
leaders.
When Temujin's horde (from ordu, an army or camp) numbered several thousand
warriors, he took the bride Yesukai had picked out for him years before.
After the wedding, he called on Toghrul Khan, chief of the Keraits, a mostly
Turkish tribe who were also mostly Nestorian Christians. Both Toghrul Khan
and the Emperor of Ethiopia have been identified as the inspiration for the
medieval European legend of  "Prester John" (see Diu, page 36).
Toghrul Khan had been a longtime friend of Yesukai.
Toghrul took the young Mongol as his adopted son. Soon after that, Temujin's
bride, Bourtei, was kidnapped by the Merkits, as his own mother had been
kidnapped from the Tatars. Temujin secured the help of the Keraits, one of
the strongest tribes in the Gobi area, and got his bride back. The Yakka
Mongols, backed by the powerful Keraits, had become a force to be reckoned
with on the eastern steppes.
Temujin used the newfound peace to build his warriors into an army. From
ancient times the steppe nomad society was a military society. All the men,
of necessity, could ride and shoot arrows from horseback. Every male from
14 to 70 years of age was expected to fight for the clan. At times, the
women, who could also ride and shoot, took part in the fighting. In battle,
each man belonged to a squad of 10 - nine men and a leader.
He would remain a member of that squad until his fighting days were over.
Each squad of 10 was part of a company of 100. The companies usually
fought in squadrons of 500, although they were sometimes grouped into
regiments of 1,000. Temujin used this military organization as the basis of
his civil administration.
Each squad leader now was the chief of 10 tents and so on. More importantly,
Temujin drilled his warriors in times of peace and imposed strict discipline
on them at all times. Every unit, from regiment to squad, stayed together at
all times.
There would be no dispersing to loot until the khan allowed the troops to do
so.
Temujin's army maneuvered in response to signals he sent with his standard
of nine yak tails; the smaller units responded to orders given by kettle
drums
and hand signals.
Penso possa bastare
Ciao
Guardrail

 il massacro.
Non credo che gli storici si basino sui film di Hollywood. Credo che leggano 
Tucidide, Erodoto, Livio, Cesare ecc.
Basta la descrizione di mantinea in La guerra del Peloponneso di Tucidide 
per seppellire le teorie di Philip Sabin.
G. De M.

 spettacolare.
Solo cosě si evitano gli equioci: almeno l'assaggio.
Who fought: The Ever-Victorious Army (the Ward Corps led by Fred Ward)
vs. the Taiping Rebels (the Chung Wang).
What was at stake: The fate of China. (Ward demonstrated that Chinese with
Western equipment could fight as well as Westerners.)
Hong Huoxiu had failed the examination. In Imperial China in 1836,
everything depended on success in examinations.
Only by passing examinations could one rise in the government bureaucracy.
The 22-year-old schoolteacher sank into depression. He lost his appetite
and seemed to lose all his energy. He went back to studying the Confucian
classics so he'd do better when he took the examinations again.
But he studied another book as well. The book, Good Words
for Exhorting the Age, was by Liang Afa, a Chinese man who had been
converted by an American Protestant missionary.
The book concerned a strange Supreme God of Heaven and how his worship
could bring heavenly peace (Taiping). Hong saw many parallels between the
beliefs of the Christians and traditional Chinese teachings, and as he
looked at the life around him, he saw much that was opposed to both.
There were violent crimes, sadistic executions, corrupt rulers, and
oppressive landlords.
Big-nosed barbarians were ravaging China,  the Middle Kingdom -
the heart of civilization. (The First Opium War had begun.)
Foreign usurpers (the Manchus) ruled it.
With this disturbed state of mind, Hong took the examination a second time.
Not surprisingly, he failed. When he returned home, his depression became
so extreme that he got sick and then he lost consciousness.
Eventually Hong came out of his coma, and told his family a strange tale.
While his body was unconscious, he said, his soul had been taken up to
heaven, where he met the Supreme God and his Son, Jesus.
He learned that he was God's second son, the younger brother of Jesus.
God told him that China had been taken over by devils and he must return
to earth and fight them. He would no longer be Hong Huoxiu but Hong Xiuquon.
(Xiuquon means "Complete Fire.")
Hong lived up to his new name. He began preaching the message he had
received from heaven, going from village to village. He made many converts,
especially among those alienated from the Manchu-dominated society
- pirates, bandits, and members of anti-government secret societies.
The powers-that-be reacted by arresting and executing Hong's followers.
Hong responded by organizing his church like an army.
Every four men and their families were commanded by a corporal, and every
four corporals by a sergeant. Four sergeants reported to a lieutenant and
four lieutenants to a captain, and so on, up to general. Generals
commanded divisions of  13,155 men each. The top generals, known as kings
("wang" in Chinese), were Hong's closest associates. Hong was called Tien
Wang (Heavenly King).
Hong's church was not just organized like an army - it was an army. It
fought back against the persecutors. The Taiping army fought so well that it
captured Nanking, the old Imperial capital. Hong sent his armies out in all
directions to drive the devils out of China. At about that time, the
Second Opium War began, distracting Imperial troops. It began to look as
if the Taipings would take over all of China.
It also began to look as if Hong was mentally unbalanced. Until the Heavenly
Kingdom was achieved, the Taipings were forbidden to drink alcohol, smoke
opium, or have sex. Even married couples who slept together were beheaded.
The rules applied to everyone but the Tien Wang. Hong's palace was filled
with mistresses and he was usually intoxicated with drugs or drink.
The Taipings, however, no longer depended on Hong for leadership.
The movement had developed a number of talented generals, such as
Li Xiucheng, known as the Chung Wang (Faithful King), who was leading the
army pressing toward Shanghai.
Warfare in Imperial China was often derided by Westerners: Much of it was
based on bluff and bluster. But it had a nasty side: Victory was often
followed by massacre.
The Taipings were particularly nasty. Before it was over, the Taiping
Rebellion would end more than 20 million human lives: It was the bloodiest
war between the time of Genghis Khan and World War II.
Ciao
Guardrail

 rovesciato, avrebbe determinato un diverso corso delle cose.
quoto. Vedi la battaglia di Stalingrado. Che e' sia una grande battaglia e
ha cambiato il corso della Storia, interrompendo la marcia nefasta verso
il Reich Millenario.
Sergio
 
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 (anzi, forse... ma non si hanno prove, per cui è inutile discuterne).
Umh... 
Iskretta parla della rivolta del **ghetto di Varsavia** che se non erro è
un altro evento rispetto a quanto accenni tu.


Gli studi di Sabin sono molto interessanti ed ovviamente molto più
approfonditi rispetto a quanto riportato nell'articolo del Corriere della
Sera.
Nell'articolo "The Face of Roman Battle" (Journal of Roman Studies - 2000)
lo studioso inglese osserva correttamente che una battaglia romana durava
solitamente diverse ore, dalla due alle quattro. Battaglie come quelle di
Pidna, durata circa un'ora, sono infatti definite dalle fonti (in questo
caso Plutarco) come inusualmente brevi. 
Di norma, le perdite per il vincitore non superavano il 5%, mentre la
maggior parte delle perdite per lo sconfitto avvenivano al momento della
rotta. Nel periodo in cui il confronto tra schieramenti era ancora in
corso di svolgimento, quindi quando non si era ancora verificata la rotta,
le perdite della parte che poi risulterà sconfitta non arrivavano a
superare il 15, massimo il 20% degli effettivi. Superate queste
percentuali di perdite infatti, nessun esercito antico avrebbe potuto
reggere ancora il campo ma sarebbe iniziata la rotta finale. 
Tenendo conto di questi fattori, durata degli scontri e percentuali di
perdite, diventa molto difficile immaginare una battaglia romana come ad
un confronto tra due schieramenti che si scontrano combattendo
continuamente a strettissimo contatto, scudo contro scudo, operando una
continua pressione l'uno contro l'altro in modo prolungato nel tempo e con
l'ulteriore apporto della spinta prodotta dalle file posteriori, in modo
quindi simile alla tecnica di combattimento oplitica nella Grecia
Classica. 
Oltre al fatto che un simile tipo di scontro non può essere retto, sia
fisicamente che psicologicamente, che per pochi minuti consecutivamente,
il punto fondamentale è che questo continuo contatto/scontro ravvicinato
col nemico, che sarebbe dovuto durare per diverse ore prima della rotta
finale, avrebbe causato un numero di caduti assolutamente non in linea con
le percentuali sopra indicate.
Valete


 prima volta che leggo di questo episodio.
Arieccomi:
Who fought: Russians (Ivan the Terrible) vs. Mongols (Shah Ali).
What was at stake I Whether Russia could finally end Mongol
domination and become fully independent?
At the beginning of the 16th century, Russia was more unknown to western
Europeans than China. This was strange, because until the 13th century she
had developed along the same lines as other countries of northern Europe.
Russia began as a number of trading posts built by Swedish Vikings.
The Swedes allied themselves with the Slavic, Finnic, and Alanic inhabitants
of the forests and steppes and founded independent states.
Russians from those states had been among the waves of barbarians
who pounded in vain on the gates of  Constantinople, and Russians had
been among the barbarians who learned Christianity from missionaries
sent from Constantinople. When Constantinople was under siege by the
Muslims, the Russian principalities had been the bulwarks of Christianity in
Eastern Europe.
The Russian states came to recognize the Prince of Kiev as first among
equals, but they never united as a single nation.
Outside pressure prevented that.
First, it was the Germans who, blocked by the French in the west, began
expanding eastward, spearheaded by the Teutonic Knights. The Knights
had shifted their focus from the Muslims of the Near East, to the Cuman
Turks of the steppe, and the pagan Prussians of the Baltic.
Then they changed the motive of their crusading from religion
to nationalism. They fought the Catholic Poles and the Orthodox Bulgarians
and Russians. The Russians reacted by not only fighting back, but by turning
away from contact with the West. Hatred of the "Latins" grew rapidly and
became a permanent feature of Russian thought. At the same time, the
Russian states began quarreling among themselves, which left them in poor
condition to resist a really horrendous threat: the Mongols of Genghis Khan.
Ciao
Guardrail

 Non credo che gli storici si basino sui film di Hollywood.
Mi segnali dove l'ho scritto?
Saluti
Guardrail 

 un altro evento rispetto a quanto accenni tu.
Non erri.
Diciamo che l'inutilità la vedo nella rivolta di Varsavia, non in 
quella, antecedente, del suo ghetto.


 scordatevele.
E' a questa frase che si riferiva il mio commento.


 Spiega, che la ignoro.
Ezzelino da Romano (Onara 1194 - Soncino 1259) era signore di Padova, 
verona, Vicenza, Feltre e Belluno. Era di parte ghibellina, fedelissimo di 
Federico II. Alla morte dell'Imperatore dovette lottare contro potenti 
coalizioni guelfe: Milano, Venezia, Bolonga, Mantova e dagli estensi, che 
suscitarono anche ribellioni nei suoi stessi domini. Per risolvere il 
conflitto una volte per tutte, dopo aver occupato Brescia e Bergamo marciò 
su Milano, ma fu respinto a Cassano d'Adda, poi, durante il ripiegamento 
verso Bergamo cadde in una imboscata, fu ferito, fatto prigioniero e 
incarcerato nel castello di Soncino, dove si uccise togliendosi le bende 
dalle ferite e fiddanguandosi.
Un suo successo su Milano sarebbe stato un terremoto politico di prima 
grandezza. Si sarebbe costituita una potenza militare egemone nell'Alta 
italia che, unendosi si ghibellini del centro avrebbe potuto affrontare con 
successo le coalizioni guelfe. Invece i nuclei ghibellini rimasero 
territorialmente isolati e furono sopraffatti, uno ad uno nel corso dei 
cinquant'anni successivi.
G. de M.


 fiddanguandosi.
fiddanguandosi non è un neologismo. è un errore di digitazione (mannaggia ai 
gatti che amano passeggaire sulla tastiera mentre scrivo) = dissanguandosi
Salud
G. De M.


 battaglie combattute sulla faccia della terra :-)))
Non me ne intendo molto, ma secondo me l' assedio di Vienna avrebbe potuto 
starci.. 

 starci..
Ti riporto la giustificazione dell'autore:
This battle was in 1529 and often makes lists of decisive battles. But the 
Turkish army that circled the crumbling walls of Vienna was one that had 
lost its taste for sieges at the gory and nominally successful siege of 
Rhodes (which is included here).
Ciao
Guardrail 

 48. Rome, 390 BC
Queste sono le battaglie più importanti prima di Cristo, secondo l'autore.
Mi sembra strano mettere solo Maratona e non Termopili, Salamina e Platea,
per le guerre persiane.
Poi per i romani solo sconfitte. Ma evidentemente quelle battaglie non
hanno cambiato tanto il mondo, visto che poi i romani lo hanno dominato
per secoli...
ciao
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> 1. Marathon, 490 BC
Mh! Mi domando cosa sarebbe cambiato se i persiani avessero vinto a 
maratona.
Avrebbero fatto sparire la filosofia, le tragedie, l'arte?
Che, alla fin fine sono le cose che contano, non il nome dell'arconte o del 
satrapo che ha governato Atene nel xxx a.C.
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 42. Waterloo, 1815 AD
Ultima nota per la più ovvia delle citazioni.
Che sia importante non ci piove, dopo questa battaglia Napoleone non ne ha
fatte più altre!
Che sia stata una *grande* battaglia nemmeno, hanno manovrato a lungo con
attacchi e difese all'ultimo sangue, e se 2 marescialli di Francia non si
fossero, 1 perso nei meandri di un campo di battaglia che non era in grado
di sentire e l'altro inventato di sprecare la sua cavalleria in bellissime
cariche dall'effetto - a lungo termine - controproducente, magari adesso un
cretino (strapagato) della Telecom non avrebbe fatto la figura del fesso in
rete. LOL
Ma non avrebbe deciso nulla, semmai procrastinato il momento dell'ormai
imminente uscita di scena del corso; magari in modo più dignitoso, ma
nonostante la sconfitta, gli Alleati non gli avrebbero dato la tregua di cui
Napoleone aveva assolutamente bisogno, non solo per riorganizzare
l'esercito, ma per ricostruire il suo potere politico.
A mio avviso Leipzig è il momento cruciale, perchè una sua vittoria lì
avrebbe rafforzato in modo decisivo la sua posizione nei confronti degli
alleati, rafforzato la sua posizione all'interno del paese.
Avrebbe potuto strappare una tregua in quel caso ancora possibile, la
Francia e Parigi non sarebbero state invase, non ci sarebbero stati scossoni
politici con il ritorno dei vecchi aristocratici, insomma tutto il ribaltone
politico non sarebbe avvenuto come, di fatto, avvenne dopo Leipzig.
Sò che gli amici albionici storceranno il naso, ma Waterloo c'è stata solo
perchè in quel dell'Elba la sorveglianza ha fatto pena; fosse stato inviato
altrove o fosse stato sorvegliato meglio, l'epopea napoleonica si sarebbe
conclusa in Germania, Waterloo sarebbe solo una canzone degli Abba e nella
lista proposta, al numero 42, ci sarebbe Leipzig, come di fatto dovrebbe
essere.
Mi riprometto di postare qualche considerazione sulla Canne combattuta con
insulti e sputi (ma 'sti personaggi che fanno affermazioni così perentorie
qualche classico se lo sono letto??) e sulla scoperta (dell'acqua calda) da
parte dello stesso, che in antichità non ci si legnava per 10 ore
consecutive.
-- 
A. Ball  -  Punico Aviatore
''L'esito corrisponde alle aspettative meno
 in guerra che in qualunque altro caso''
Tito Livio

 l'autore.
Diciamo che l'autore non pare avere una grande dimestichezza con l'epoca 
antica e non osa più di tanto... :-)



Filippide.
Pat
PS: Io l'ho fatto. ;-) 

 ciao
Più si va avanti nella sana discussione e più emerge la "soggettività" del
nostro autore? Credo comunque che si voglia cimentare in un "esercizio
storico" come questo troverà tante di quelle difficoltà che vien voglia di
abbandonare. Ma il desiderio di capire è sempre più grande per chi si
appassiona.
Ho iniziato con un libro di Edward Shepherd Creasy:
"Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World". Libro scritto nel 1851 e che
descrive/elenca 15 battaglie da Maratona a Waterloo.
Poi avrei dovuto passare a Joseph Mitchell che ha allungato la lista di
Creasy a 20. Spero di riuscire a trovare anche questo libro.
Andiamo a Salamina?
The Battle of Salamis
The battle in which the Greek fleet, under the Athenian Themistocles, wiped
out the Persian fleet, serving Xerxes. The Greek victory destroyed Xerxes's
plan for the conquest of Greece. But that was a plan Xerxes's predecessor,
Darius, had already rejected as almost impossible.
Darius knew that the conquest of Greece would require subtlety and
subversion. His general, Datis, ruined the Great Ring's plan by his sacking
of Eretria, which discouraged the Athenian fifth column. Darius planned on
that fifth column opening the gates of Athens after Datis had lured the
Athenian army to Marathon.
Questa battaglia viene considerata come "honorable mentions" insieme a
- The Battle of the Metaurus
- The Battle of Blenheim
- 50 Battles Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham
Questa - credo - sia poco conosciuta e qualche riferimento va riportato.
That Changed
This battle, which resulted in the British capture of Quebec, makes many
lists. Quebec was the key to the St. Lawrence Biver, which leads to the
Great Lakes and the river-and-lake communications of much of North America.
But the French had already been pushed out of most of North America, and
with British control of the sea, they had no hope of rebuilding their
strength.
The deaths of both Wolfe and Montcalm make the battle a dramatic
story, but it wasn't that decisive.
- The raising of the siege of Orleans by Joan of Arc
- The Roman defeat in the Teutoburger Wald
- The siege of Constantinople
- Manzikert
- The Turkish failure to take Vienna
- Plassey
- The Battle of the Chesapeake
Aspettatevi altre sorprese!!!
Ciao a tutti
Guardrail

 della Sera.
[SNIP]
Celere Console,
l'articolo sarà anche raffazzonato e scritto malamente, ma già uno che mi 
parte a parlare di battaglie antiche usando il cinema come fonte mi essica i 
cabbasisi.
Evidentemente per lui Polibio è il nuovo suv della Toyota!
Mentre è da lui et similes da cui si dovrebbe partire, giusto?
L'articolista si è allargato ed ha accumulato una serie di nefandezze, tra 
cui una ''Non è vero che gli eserciti si affrontavano a viso aperto, con 
migliaia di soldati pronti a dare la vita in scontri all'arma bianca per 
un'eroica vittoria in nome del re (?)'' che immagino farebbe sganasciare 
Cesare e le SUE legioni... :-)
O Leonida e i suoi spartani.
Più avanti impariamo che nelle battaglie combattevano solo i velites (''le 
prime linee si fronteggiavano per lunghe ore, a debita distanza, 
insultandosi, minacciandosi e scagliandosi lance, per mettersi paura a 
vicenda''), basiamo dinanzi al potere della Forza (''quando finalmente uno 
dei due eserciti aveva *raggiunto* una fifa blu - tipo Pretorians per Pc -, 
girava sui tacchi e scappava'') e tiriamo il fiato perchè almeno qualcosa di 
sensato è riuscito a scriverlo (''Al vincitore, così, non restava che 
l'inseguimento e il massacro'').
Capisco il barritus romano e lo warscream dei galli, capisco lo sbattere 
delle spade e degli scudi (come cose già note e stranote e quindi non 
capisco dove sia innovativa la tesi di Sabin), ma che si cancelli l'evidenza 
dell'othismos (ah già, tutta colpa di 300...'sti filmacci!) mi pare 
esagerato, almeno in ambito greco.
I legionari romani impiegati in Gallia o sul fronte germanico avrebbero 
volentieri scambiato il modus pugnandi della tesi di Sabin con quello con 
cui dovettero affrontare i loro nemici... .-))
L'esempio di Canne, poi, è ben più dannoso dei film da lui tanto denigrati, 
effetto di una distratta se non assente lettura classica, sono veramente 
perplesso: sparita dal campo la cavalleria numidica e stravolta la valenza 
della manovra a tenaglia delle due ali che fù tutto tranne che lenta, visto 
che un'ala romana venne messa in fuga quasi subito...insomma un orrore!
Ora, se non possiedo solo libri taroccati, questo Sabin così presentato mi 
lascia perplesso, ed uso un eufemismo.
Quello che tu scrivi è, ripeto, fondamentalmente già noto, seppur Sabin 
dovrebbe sapere che nelle battaglie antiche vi erano anche momenti di pausa, 
di riorganizzazione e che la legione era strutturata apposta per permettere 
il ricambio delle prime linee, quindi questo voler partire da un'immagine di 
5000 uomini chick to chick che spingono come forsennati come tesi di 
partenza mi pare piuttosto forzata.
Se poi, in originale, il suddetto mi porta anche qualche citazione di 
partenza, che non siano le sue perplessità, il suo non credere che et 
similia, beh allora vediamo come ho malamente interpretato il suo pensiero.
Tu che 'lo conosci', fai un pò il Cicerone della situazione e arringa nel 
Foro... :-)


 Fidippides?
Esatto, l'emerodromo Fidippides (o Filippide), ieri non ricordavo..


 Il primo milite del genio trasmissioni che la storia ricordi?
Certamente. Il povero Phidippides si era appena sorbito un viaggetto andata 
e ritorno a Sparta, poi una corsa Atene-Maratona per portare a Milziade la 
notizia che gli spartanti se la prendevano comoda. Probabilmente ha 
partecipato alla battaglia e, subito dopo, si č fatta la galoppata per 
avvisare gli ateniesi che avevano vinto ma, piů probabilmente, per avvisarli 
che la flotta persiana era salpata e avrebbe potuto presentarsi davanti al 
porto chiedendo la capitolazione.
Ma i greci non avevano cavalli?


 Ma i greci non avevano cavalli?
Se ne sono fuggiti tutti quando hanno percepito cosa li aspettava. :-)
