Favorite battles in history.

The Alamo, even though my side lost.

Also, it's only about 135 miles from my birthplace and I have been there several times.

 

Being fascinated by the use of machines in warfare, and the total unpredictability of the outcome, I'd have to say that the Battle of Kursk in WWII, and the air battles of Britain and Berlin are my favorites.

At Kursk, supply lines were the major factor in the German defeat. The Russians were able to get gasoline supplies in to refuel their tanks much more quickly than the Germans, a factor which wasn't really considered at the time. In the Battle of Britain, the proximity of the British air forces to their aerodromes turned out to be the decisive factor even though they faced a much larger, more powerful German Luftwaffe. Over Berlin, the allies were unable to accomplish the destruction and disruption that was their goal for almost the same reason.

 

Stephen Decatur's destruction of the U.S. frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli during the war with Tripoli.

Lord Admiral Nelson called it "the most bold and daring act of the age"

 

The war in heaven--when Lucifer and his angels rebelled against God. They were cast down to the earth. They are still here. The war still rages--for the souls of men. Who is on the Lord's side?

All of battles recorded in the history of man are connected in some way to Lucifer and company--also the battles which were not fairly, honestly recorded--i.e. the Inquisitions etc. which were raged on the People of God.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Tanga Bay - 1914
The bees were an interesting incident.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/tanga.htm

Prairie Grove - 1862
The pigs (unspeakable really) were illustrative of the true horror and nature of war:
http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/media/display.asp?id=66
http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/Gratiot/robertpaynebyrd.htm

 

My memory fails me on which Shennandoah battle it was but...

Jackson violated most of von Clauswitz's rules of war by splitting his force in front of a Union army twice its size. By the end of the battle, the Union was soundly defeated... if I remember correctly, their generals exaggerated their estimates of Confederate strength further paralyzing the Union commander.

I like exceptions.

 

AURIS, C. 1000BC...Auris was the Amakekite city destroyed by Saul. It sat astride the caravan routes between Egypt and Israel. Caravans from many nations traveled this route, the best route by far to travel from one side of the Middle east to the other, due to an abundant water supply. The nations involved had their version of NAFTA, not taxing the caravans crossing their lands. However, the Amalekites built Auris for just that purpose.

Many historians believe that when Amalek and Israel scraped against each other, the Amakekites were on their way to the greatly-weakened Egypt to occupy and rule her, and that they were the "Hyksos" tyrants of Egyptian history. The destruction of Auris broke Amalek's 400-year hold on Egypt, enabling the Egyptians to expel or kill the rest. The grateful Egyptians began a prosperous trade with Israel that lasted into the time of Rehoboam.

Was Amalek really THAT strong? The "plagues of Egypt" hit the rest of the world also, some areas suffered much-more greatly than others.(The Goshen area of Egypt was spared by God's will.) Amalek was spared the worse devastation, and her forces were still quite strong. Apparently they wanted to hurry on to Egypt because they had a much-larger, better-trained army than Israel had, and didn't wanna lose strength fighting a desert battle against a group they considered barbarians. Scripture says she was once "first among the nations" (Numbers 24:20 The Hebrew here rendered "first" in the KJV means "best, chief",with the English "first" being used in that sense, I.E. "Mrs. Bush, first lady". Yes, they WERE numerous and strong enough to have easily subdued a prostrate Egypt.


CARCEMISH, 605 BC...The Babylonians, under then-Prince Nebuchadnezzar(His father, Nabopolassar, was then king) crushed the Egyptians near this city on the Euphrates River, thus foiling Pharaoh Neco's vision of empire, fulfilling several prophecies about Egypt's weakness and God's increase of the Chaldeans' strength.

MARATHON, 490 BC...The Ionian Greek army defeated a force of Persians 3 times larger, saving Athens from being overrun. This was the first of a series of Greek victories over the Persians in a war that lasted some 50 years. After the Greek win, a messenger named Pheidippides ran the 26 miles from the battle site to Athens to proclaim the victory. After a brief rest, Pheidippides volunteered to return to the army to tell them reinforcements were on the way in case the Persians attacked again. Again running the whole distance, Pheidippides collapsed & died almost as soon as he delivered the message. Thus was established the name and the distance of modern marathon races.

THERMOPYLAE, 480 BC...A small Greek force under Leonidas, king of Sparta, temporarily thwarted a Persian force estimated to be at least 70 times larger. Though the Persians eventually overwhelmed the Greeks & killed them to the last man, they lost thousands of men themselves, including most of the flower of their army, thus weakening the Persians so they couldn't conquer most of Greece.

Before I go on, lemme say I'm not a particular fan of Alexander's but since this is a CHRISTIAN board, we must include battles involving prophecy.

GUAGAMELA, 331 BC...Sometimes incorrectly called the battle of Arbela. After his defeat, Darius fled to Arbela, about 20 miles away. The battle was fought on a flat plain called Guagamela, near the present city of Mosul, Iraq.
There were several significant battles between forces under Darius III and Alex, but this one was the one that broke the Persians' back. As in the earlier battles of Issus and the Granicus River, Alex faced a much-larger army, his having some 45K troops to Darius' at-least 250 K. Now, while Darius wasn't too bad a general, he was brilliantly out-generaled by Alex, who drove straight for Darius himself with his best men, making Darius flee the battlefield. When he fled, his army's resistance soon collapsed. Not long afterward, Darius was killed by Bessus, who then proclained himself Artaxerxes IV, but he was not the ruler Darius was, and his "empire's" provinces surrendered to Alexander & allied themselves with him, one-by-one. This paved the way for the spread of the Greek language and culture that had, by Christ's time, been embraced by most of the Jews.

ACTIUM, 31 BC...The Roman Republic was in turmoil shortly after Julius Caesar's assassination, 44 BC, with Brutus and Cassius, Caesar's assassins, claiming power, while Octavian, Caesar's grand-nephew, declared Caesar's heir in his will, along with Mark Antony and Lepidus, opposed them. They defeated Brutus and Cassius and formed a ruling triumvirate. However, Antony soon tried to seize ALL the power; Lepidus wasn't much interested and wouldn't choose a side. The dispute culminated in the naval battle off Actium(modern Punta) in which Antony was soundly defeated and fell upon his own sword. His concubine Cleopatra did NOT die with him, as is commonly believed, but met with Octavian to try to make the best arrangements for her 3 children by Antony. Only when she found that Octavian intended to parade her through the streets of Rome in a cage did she kill herself, and with ingested poison, not an asp's bite.
After Actium, Octavian's power was unquestioned, and he took the title Augustus Caesar, becoming one of the best Caesars of them all, ending civil strife, building most of the famous highways and aqueducts for which Rome was famous, establishing a sound currency and postal system, ruling justly, and using the threat of force, rather than actual attack, to secure many alliances with small nations and tribes. His keeping his word and his protection from more powerful neighbors kept them loyal. This was the Rome of Christ's youth the beginning of the "Pax Romana" period of some 200 years. Thus, the Battle of Actium was instrumental in bringing to power the man who made the Roman Empire into the Rome familiar to us through history books.

More modern battles:

HASTINGS,1066 AD...The Normans(Northmen) defeated the ruling Saxons & Angles and stayed in England, introducing many of the things that are the basis for our very own cultures in the nations formed largely by the British. The Normans kept the nation's name "Angle-Land" to pacify the Angles and Saxons.

AGINCOURT, 1415...Stopped a likely invasion of England by France during the Hundred years War

TRAFALGAR, 1805...Both the French and the British knew if Napoleon's army were to be able to land in England, it would soon conquer England. However, the supremacy of the British Royal Navy kept the French army on its own side of the Channel. However, Napoleon hatched a grand scheme, now that Spain was his ally, to beat the RN. However, the French-Spanish sailors were no match for the battle-hardened, supremely-skilled British, who wer all 110% loyal to Nelson, and knew they were fighting for the very freedom of England.
As if that weren't enough, the French-Spanish command was disorganized and quarrelsome among themselves, while the British command was very organized and efficient, with each captain fully informed of Nelson's brilliant planby nelson himself, of breaking the French-Spanish line, doubling back om the other side of the Allied fleet & placing his whole strength against one portion of the Combined Fleet till they destroyed it, then moving on to the next group, pitting two British ships against one ship of the Allies each time.. Also, Nelson, knowing he had outstanding captains and men, gave each captain the authority to deviate from the initial plan if he saw opportunity to inflict greater damage to the enemy by departing from the plan. Nelson knew that sea battles in sailing ships seldom went according to plan, and he didn't want to restrict his captains, whom he trusted completely.
The crushing of the Allied fleet permanently ended Napoleon's ambitions to invade England. Had he won, we can only speculate about how history woulda turned out, but we can rest assured that it's be much-different from what it is now.

VICKSBURG, 1863...Although the battle of Gettysburg has drawn much-more attention and had many more casualties, I believe the successful siege of Vicksburg, Miss. was the great turning point of the American Civil War. In a brilliant campaign, Gen. Grant had captured all the other rebel strongholds on the Mississippi River, but they couldn't use the whole river long as Vicksburg commanded a key point with its many batteries of artillery. Grant sent schoolteacher-turned-soldier Ben Grierson on a fast, slashing cavalry raid through Mississippi to Federal-held Baton Rouge. This drew away some of the Rebel forces at Vicksburg, commanded by General Pemberton. Grant also made several demonstrations above and below Vicksburg which Pemberton couldn't ignore, thus drawing off more Rebel forces.
On the advice of a former slave, Grant crossed into the Vicksburg area from Hard Times, La. into Bruinsburg, Miss. They defeated the only other Rebel army in the area, which was under Gen. Joseph Johnston, cutting off Johnston from Pemberton. When Grant realized he couldn't take Vicksburg by storm, he wisely besieged it, knowing it couldn't be relieved from the river. The siege lasted from May 22 to July 4 when Pemberton surrendered due to lack of food.
With Vicksburg in their hands, the Union had the entire Mississippi River under their control, able to move troops east and west at will, cutting the Confederacy in two. While Lee's army was forever weakened at Gettysburg, the whole Confederacy was weakened, and the Union gained a HUGE maneuverability advantage with the fall of Vicksburg.

These are just a few of the significant battles to come to mind. I'll leave the more modern ones to be addressed by others.

 

When Jesus deadeated death, hell, and the grave on my cross

 

Another comes to mind, cuz I believe GOD had a hand in it...the "BATTLE OF BRITAIN". Not to take away anything from the gallant efforts of the RAF, but they were heavily outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, and they were WINNING because they were attacking Fighter Command's radar stations & sector airfields from where the RAF fighters were directed toward the greatest concentrations of Luftwaffe planes. GB's fighters and pilots were being destroyed faster than they could be replaced, and had the LW kept it up, Fighter Command woulda been rendered impotent within 2-3 weeks. However, Goering inexplicably shifted the LW's targets to the British aircraft industry, giving the RAF time to recover & soon gain the upper hand.

Why do I think GOD intervened? Because Goering was well aware of the British defense system, and had chosen the correct targets at first, his intention being to drive the RAF from the skies, making seaborne invasion of GB much easier, as the LW could then turn its attention to the Royal Navy. And despite his many faults, Goering at first was a fine air commander, having been both an ace and a leader in WW1, so it really cannot be blamed on ignorance on his part. Goering never explained why he suddenly switched targets when he knew the LW was winning, that the RAF opposition was becoming thinner each day. At any rate, it happened, and I fully believe GOD caused Goering to make his fatal error.

 

Chosin Reservoir- Korean War

One division of US Marines surrounded by 120,000 Chinese troops fought their way out of the trap and inflicted a 60% casualty rate on the Chinese while doing so.

 

Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn

Last sketch in Custer's diary reads

"Indians?? What Indians???!!"

Battle of Vicksburg

Found in the diary of a Reb soldier

"The poor Yankees have us surrounded!!!"

Battle of the Bulge---Bastogne

Found in diary of soldier holding against the Krauts

"Me no comzee outee---you comzee ineee!!"

 

I don't know if I have a favorite, but just yesterday, I finished reading the book Waterloo: Day of Battle. The whole battle was fought in just one day. I hadn't realized that.

 

How does favorite battle differ from favorite sin?