Battles That Changed the World (Magbook)
English | PDF | 100 pages | 50.1 mb

Following on from the first successful Battlefields Magazine Against All Odds this second edition Battles that Changed the World is about decisive battles that have altered the course of history. This time the focus is on Hastings 1066, Waterloo in 1815 and Stalingrad 1942-3.
The Battle of Hastings is a watershed being the last time a foreign invader has successfully seized and held the British Isles. Since 1066 no foreign power has successfully crossed the English Channel or North Sea, although the Spanish Armada in 1588, Napoleon in 1803-5 and Hitler’s Wehrmacht in 1940 all tried. Defeat at Hastings resulted in 4,000 Saxon Thegns, the traditional English nobility, losing their ownership of land overnight to 200 Norman barons. It was a defining moment in British history. Afterwards England had a new language, laws, church, aristocracy and a new system of government enabling 10,000 Normans to hold 1 million Saxons in thrall.
Waterloo in 1815 is another battle defining the future history of Europe and was to herald the future development of the British Empire. It ended 23 years of unbroken French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and ushered in a period of general peace and prosperity, which with few exceptions was to last until 1914. The political map of Europe was redrawn in a form that would be recognizable to contemporaries today. Waterloo was the last mass battle of the 19th Century pre-industrial age to be fought in Europe over such a small physical area. Conflict was never again to be conducted in such splendid uniforms. The next major war would be fought in drab grey and khaki from the trenches of the First World War.
Hitler’s defeat with the capitulation of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad in February 1943 was one of the turning points of the Second World War. It shattered the ascendancy of Wehrmacht Blitzkrieg established in 1939-40. Turkey was deterred from joining her traditional German ally while Hungary, Romania and Italy, who all lost sizable contingents during the battle were dismayed and encouraged to seek a way out of the war. Russia and the Allies realised for the first time that they would
win. As with the previous two examples, the outcome of this one battle was world changing.

CONTENTS
4. INTRODUCTION
THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS 1066
6. BACKGROUND NARRATIVE Two Invasions
The most decisive battle fought on English soil
10. COMMANDERS
Harold Godwinson, King of England Duke William of Normandy
18. COMBATANTS
The English: Behind the Saxon Shield Wall The Normans: Breaching the Shield Wall
22. TOUR
Facing the Saxon Shield Wall at Hastings 1066
30. MOVIES
'Middle Earth' fantasy versus Medieval Imitality - filming Hastings 1066.

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO 1815
32. BACKGROUND NARRATIVE
The countdown to the 100 Days campaign ¦V Near Run Thing
48. COMMANDERS
The Duke of Wellington, Field Marshal Bliicher & Napoleon Bonaparte
54. COMBATANTS
Wellington's 'infamous' Army: 'There, it all depends on that article, whether mve do the business or not'
The French: 'Animated with the most inflexible courage and ardent enthusiasm towards the Emperor Napoleon '
58. TOUR
Walking Wellington's Line at Waterloo
64. MOVIES
Epic spectacle - Thousands star in Waterloo.

THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD 1942/3
70. BACKGROUND NARRATIVE The road to Stalingrad
The End Of Wehrmacht Invincibility
78. COMMANDERS
Field Marshal Von Paulus And General IVasily I Chuikov
76. COMBATANTS
The Sixth Army German Soldier: 'When you have to look into the eyes of dead comrade'
The 62nd Army Russian Soldier: They won the 'Rattenkrieg'
84. TOUR
The Bloody Fight for Stalin's City.
94. MOVIES
It depended whose side you were on -The Hollywood view of Stalingrad.