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All of history’s wars are painted crimson,
crudely smeared with the blood of mankind.
The final stroke was often unforeseen,
when sure victors ended a war not won,
when one battle changed the War God’s mind,
underdogs having reversed the whole scene.
Turning point battles, historians find
altered history then and in between.

BATTLE OF MARATHON, Greece, 490 BC

In 490 BC, the famous Battle of Marathon
began when strong Persia invaded Greece.
Darius the Great, Persian King, also ruled
likewise Egypt, India, Babylon.
But, seeking ever more power increase
Persia was defeated, the Greeks not fooled.
The Greek’s smaller army won, regained peace,
and Persian domination overruled.

This battle is oft remembered today,
not due just to the underdog’s conquest,
but for the legend of the lithe young man
who ran the news to Athens, 26 miles away.
Upon relaying his joyous attest,
collapsed and died within a minute’s span.
Today, “marathon”, as we know it best,
means a 26 mile footrace, the distance he ran.

BATTLE OF ZAMA, Africa, 202 BC

The Carthaginians and Romans fought
sixty years for control of world power.
Carthage’s famed, risk taking general
Hannibal, for 16 of those years ably sought
to crush Rome’s troops, and did to near demise.
Hannibal’s downfall began cerebral,
by devising a plan he thought quite wise,

a blunder known today, atemporal.
‘Twas in North Africa, Zama the town,
in 202 BC Hannibal’s plan bought Carthage’s fate.
With 15,000 less men, he implemented his scheme,
sprung 80 elephants free to run Rome’s men down,
terror and panic the ill plotted slate.
The beasts took the easy route to extreme
and ran the wrong way, Hannibal irate.

Carthage lost battle, war, and world esteem.
BATTLE OF HASTINGS, England, 1066
Edward the Confessor, King of England,
having no sons to inherit his throne,
promised on death his crown would belong
to William of Normandy as per plan.
Calmly waiting for the day he’d be known
as potent King of a country so strong,
William was thrown a figurative stone,
smashing the dream he had dreamed for so long.

In late Jan.1066 King Edward, on his deathbed,
reneged on his promise and chose Harold,
the Earl of Wessex, as his successor.
Enraged, William prepared to fight instead,
seize his crown, English army in peril,
his French Normans would be the aggressor.
They invaded Hastings, arrows barreled,
and fooled Harold, a mistaken guesser.

At battle’s height the Normans pretended
to flee. The English, thinking a sure win,
gave chase to finish off the Norman’s quest
who split forces, turned, and at last ended
all English hope when they’re attacked again.
King Harold was sent to eternal rest,
an arrow in his face leaving him slain,
and the Norman Conquest was nothing less.

Following King Harold’s battlefield death,
William had ascended to England’s throne,
“William the Conqueror” to be known hence.
For 21 long years, until he took his last breath,
he ruled with cruelty as commonly known.
His evil ways led to payback immense,
when fighting French, in a land once his own,
a 1087 war accident made his life past tense.

BATTLE OF AGINCOURT, France, 1415

A clear misnomer, the Hundred Years War
found England and France battling for 116 years,
but a famous part lasted a mere day.
King Henry V of England, seeking more
revenue and new lands for England’s sphere,
in 1415 lead his army to their common prey.
In France, their early losses were severe,
disease claiming more than the French could slay.

Although England had won the first conflict,
French troops outnumbered English 4 to 1 or more,
which gave Henry a reason to defer.
Deciding to move his army he picked
Calais, English stronghold on the French shore,
where they could re-equip, or else transfer
to ships and sail back home with little chore.
They trudged toward Calais through rainy blur.

Near half his army sick, wounded or dead,
Henry led on, exhausted, through the mud,
to be intercepted by French swoops,
eager for battle to the English’s dread.
Expecting to spill their collective blood,
the weakened English army prayed in groups.
But the blood was French that fell like a flood,
the final result surprising both troops.

Agincourt and Tramecourt, in north France,
framed a thin strip of open, muddy land.
There, October 25, the battle was fought
with numbers poor English doubting their chance.
But the English longbows, as they had planned,
kept French archers at bay, led them to naught
as, using short crossbows, they failed to land
arrows in English lines urgently sought.

The French decided to charge to close in
but, weighed down by full armour, sinking deep
in soft mud with every step slower,
they were sitting ducks for English bowmen.
Though the English had been outnumbered steep,
their losses were many thousands lower.
England won the battle in a clear sweep,
one unwanted, but enhancing power.

BATTLE OF LEXINGTON AND CONCORD,
Massachusetts, 1775

“The British are coming!” yelled Paul Revere,
galloping on his famous midnight ride,
to warn the American colonists
of some 700 troops from Boston advancing near.
The colonist’s unrest had made them decide
breaking from Britain was first on their list.
The Redcoats knew this, planned to stem the tide,
stifle an uprising before it exists.

The Patriots were storing munitions
that, April 19, 1775, the Brits set out to destroy,
heading for Concord, northwest of Boston.
Revere had spread word of their positions,
and rebel militia quickly deployed
to meet them at Town Green of Lexington,
where one route to Concord must be employed.

At dawn the “Minutemen” would be outdone.
The British column reached Lexington Green
in morning’s first light, to see about 70 armed
militia lined across in formation,
and ordered them to disarm at the scene.
The minutemen’s leader wasn’t charmed,
his order to “Run!” the realization,
followed by the well known shot that alarmed
the world, and changed it’s orientation.

To this day no one knows who first fired
the immortalized “shot heard ’round the world”.
But, hearing it, the quick British reply
was to shoot as their orders required,
killing 8 Minutemen, as musket balls hurled,
the first of the Revolution to die.
The rest retreated as combat unfurled,
and the Brit’s mission at Concord drew nigh.

The Redcoated troops advanced to Concord,
and accomplished their original goal,
to find and destroy the munitions store.
In leaving, they encountered a small horde
of armed militia, four hundred in whole,
at Concord North Bridge on the southern shore.
The Minutemen fought hard, taking control,
and the Brit’s retreated, not wanting more.

Back to Boston the English decided,
and their disastrous 16 mile return began.
Minutemen from all the surrounding towns
flanked the one road to Boston provided,
assaulting Redcoats the entire span,
hiding and constantly firing their rounds.
The Minutemen won with the crafty plan,
English in large numbers dead on the grounds.

BATTLE OF WATERLOO, Belgium, 1815

March 1815, Napoleon returned to power,
after his escape from island exile,
and again became Emperor of France.
It was indeed a most concerned hour
for allied states to which he’d been hostile.
The Vienna Congress chose to advance
their army, formed from nations versatile,
to the Belgium border with northeast France.

This ” Seventh Coalition”, as so known,
was formed to oppose Napoleon’s reign,
to invade France and end it evermore.
But Napoleon, with plans of his own,
the element of surprise to attain,
decided to move first to start this war.
Roaring into Belgium his army came,
near Waterloo, famous today in lore.

Napoleon’s army had far less men
than the stubborn coalition array,
who repeatedly withstood French attacks,
’till finally winning the battle when
a strong counterattack ended the fray.
The allies had won to the very max,
and Napoleon’s throne crumbled like clay,
while French domination melted like wax.

Among the bloodiest battles in time,
the famed Battle of Waterloo rewrote
the balance of European power.
Napoleon, aged 46, in relative prime,
was exiled to one more island remote,
remaining until 1821 and his last hour.
Today “Waterloo” is often a quote
for any defeat especially sour.

BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG,
Pennsylvania, 1863

The American Civil War laid claim
to well over 620,000 lives, Americans all,
the Battle of Gettysburg most deadly,
a fact questionably worthy of fame.
Results of the battle were nothing small,
some say they won the war decidedly.
Even today, others want a recall,
they say with tongue-in-cheek absurdity.

The Rebel’s General Robert E. Lee,
with an army outnumbering the Yanks,
led them across the Mason-Dixon line.
Learning of this, the Yank’s General Meade
rushed his army to encounter their ranks,
yet the battle occurred not by design.
A Southern brigade up to some high jinks
was hiking along, they couldn’t decline.

Plans to steal a supply of Union shoes
were interrupted by Yankee forces,
and musket shots readily filled the air.
Reinforcements came quickly with the news,
grass soon red from blood of men and horses,
the famous battle began then and there.
The Rebs won day one using all sources,
forcing the Yanks to retreat on a tear.

On the second day, July 2, 1863, neither side
actually gained any advantage,
but that evening Lee reveled in new might.
General George Pickett came to provide
some 15,000 rested men to inflict Yanks damage,
and the two laid plans until late that night.
Day 3, the Rebels began with a barrage
of artillery, but all erred in flight.

It was time for the famous “Pickett’s Charge”.
Pickett led his men in a line more than
a mile long. Fully exposed, in the heat
of July, they struggled on without urge,
toward the North’s ridge encampment per plan.
Only one-third reached the ridge top to meet
the Yanks, and only to fight hand to hand.
The rest dead or dying, some in retreat.

Though regarded as one of the greatest
generals in the annals of warfare,
Lee’s decision for Pickett to proceed
with his long “charge” is one of the biggest
blunders in war history anywhere.
It cost the South any chance to succeed,
losing the battle and war in despair.
In 1870, Lee died peacefully at home, Godspeed.

BATTLE of BRITAIN, England, 1940

In summer of 1940, after the fall of France,
only Great Britain stood in Hitler’s way.
With ground forces stymied by the English
Channel, Germany took another stance,
launching a massive air attack by day
on England, where life became quite hellish.
Germany soon switched the bombings away
from day to night with more deaths to relish.

Beginning on September 7, 1940, the German
Luftwaffe rained bombs on London for 57 nights,
using an average of 200 bombers each time,
killing some 43,000, exact count undetermined.
But the Royal Air Force rose to great heights,
and shot down 1,887 Luftwaffe with courage sublime.
The first battle fought with only air fights,
in “Britain’s finest hour” RAF was prime.

The decisive British victory led
Germany to give up invasion plans,
and the failure of Nazi Germany
to destroy Britains air defense or shred
British morale and continued war plans
is considered Germany’s first loss by many.
The war raged on for 4 more long yearly spans,
British think this battle sweet as any.

CONCLUSION :

Battles have seen their share of turning points
over the course of human existence.
Battles won by the underdog that seemed
to have no look at winning, not a glint.
But sometimes resistance, or persistence,
or just luck has brought the victory dreamed.
A chance to win may need another chance,
a loss at anything might be redeemed.

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