re: History Nerds: The most decisive battle fought since the year 1800?

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has anybody else ever beat the british azzz that bad ?

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Japan whipped the shite out of the British for the first several months of the war in 1941-42. Percival surrendered Singapore's 60-80,000 man garrison to a Japanese army half his strength. Similar results came in Hong Kong and Burma.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

I'll go with Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig since I may stop there on the way to Berlin this weekend.

It set in motion defeat of France, abdication & exile of Napoleon and establishment of German Confederation.

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Midway

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My pick. Japan rolls in with 4 carriers and limps out with zero.

How does the Ardennes not make the list?

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San Jacinto

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I wouldn't necessarily include Vicksburg in the list since it was more of a prolonged siege than a battle, although the outcome was extremely important to the Union.

Along with Midway being a decisive naval battle for the United States, I think I would have to include the Battle of the Coral Sea alongside it in importance.

Stalingrad was probably the single biggest factor, insofar as battles, in bringing Nazi Germany to its knees. Germany had invested too much in the war against Russia and fought a retreating war on the eastern front until May of 1945. The losses incurred from the eastern front prevented Germany from making any real gains on the western front after that point in the war.

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While it was an arse whoopin, I think the Battle of NOLA would be the smallest engagement on this list by an order of magnitude or so

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Not so fast. The British had long established that they didnt give a rat's arse about previous treaties or US soveriegnty.

They also established that they considered anything Napoleon did to be illegal/illegitimate.

The transfer of territory from Spain to France was not considered legal. The purchase of that land by the US was not considered legal.

True, the treaty was considered a "draw." However, we now know (based on primary source military orders in the British archives) that Pakenham was specifically ordered to ignore any word of treaty and take New Orleans no matter what.

If he succeeded, the treaty was not yet ratified and the UK very easily could have rescinded the unofficial diplomacy. The mostly empty land could have been returned to Spain, with Britain keeping New Orleans and control of the river.

With that, the commerce from the Ohio river and Miss. River would never have created the continuous geographic and economic expansion of the US.

The ramifications are huge. The US never goes west of the Mississippi and never achieves superpower status.

Andrew Jackson should have a memorial in DC twice the size of Lincoln's

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The Battle of the Bulge? That was never going to be a German victory.

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Maybe not, but it played out to be a decisive defensive victory for the Allies that arguably put the nail in the coffin for the German Army in the west

I don’t disagree, I just don’t see how it can be compared to anything else on the OP list