The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World

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The fifteen decisive battles of the world from Marathon to Waterloo is a work published in 1851 by the British historian Edward Shepherd Creasy (1812–1878). In fifteen chapters, he depicts a battle that, in his opinion, was decisive for the course of world history. The work appeared in numerous editions, was translated into German, among other things, and had several other authors write similar works.

The original 15 battles

The 15 battles are:

  1. Battle of Marathon 490 BC Chr.
  2. Defeat of Athens before Syracuse 413 BC Chr.
  3. Battle of Gaugamela 331 BC Chr.
  4. Battle of Metaurus 207 BC Chr.
  5. Battle in the Teutoburg Forest 9 AD
  6. Battle of the Catalaunian Fields 451
  7. Battle of Tours and Poitiers 732
  8. Battle of Hastings 1066
  9. Victory of the French at Orleans by Joan of Arc 1429
  10. Defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588
  11. Second battle near Höchstädt 1704
  12. Battle of Poltava 1709
  13. Battle of Saratoga 1777
  14. Valmy Cannonade 1792
  15. Battle of Waterloo 1815

Add five more battles

In 1964 an edition of the American historian Joseph B. Mitchell was published, supplemented with five other battles fought after 1851. The five battles are:

expenditure

  • First edition: The fifteen decisive battles of the world from Marathon to Waterloo. Burt, New York 1851
  • German translation: The fifteen decisive battles in the world from Marathon to Waterloo. After the 10th edition of the original, edited by A. Seubert. Stuttgart 1865
  • Joseph Brady Mitchell, Edward S. Creasy: Twenty decisive battles of the world . Macmillan, New York 1964. German edition: Twenty decisive battles in world history. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1968

"The sixteenth decisive battle"

In 1930 the Texan historian Clarence Wharton published his work San Jacinto: The Sixteenth Decisive Battle , in which he advocated adding the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution to the list of decisive battles. There is an inscription on the San Jacinto Monument that supports this view.