Big elections were planned for 10 th May 1948. Perhaps the most precise coincidence between war and eclipse was in Korea. Korean War Eclipse, 9th May 1948 (Image: NASA) There have been many other examples since then. Fighting stopped for an hour or so, and the Battle became known as the Battle of the Eclipse. The earliest recorded case was in May 585BC, when philosopher Thales predicted an eclipse which interrupted the Battle of Halys. Several major military confrontations were presaged by eclipses. And the crusades, which ran for two centuries, began just after an eclipse over Jerusalem in September 1093. Just before Alexander the Great invaded Persia, there was a solar eclipse over Tyre, a city he captured in a defining moment of his campaign. Britain’s first military casualty, John Parr, died within minutes of the eclipse.Īncient people have long associated eclipses with war, and it’s not hard to see why. The eclipse was on 21 st August – the day German and British troops first clashed on the Western Front. The battle occurred in what is now north-eastern Poland, and it happened five days after an eclipse centred just 281 miles from the battle. Tannenberg Eclipse, 21st August 1914 (Image: NASA) The protracted stalemate of the First World War resulted from the exact scale of the German victory at Tannenberg. If it had gone just slightly worse, the war would have been over too – but with a different result. If the battle had gone even better for them, they may have broken through in the West and the war really would have been over by Christmas. Crucially, Tannenberg allowed the Germans to swing their troops back towards France, and with speed. Some 150,000 Russian soldiers were killed or captured, and a large part of their imperial army collapsed as a military force. It was the first big battle on the Eastern Front, and resulted in a huge win for the Germans. Which is why the most important battle of the war was probably at Tannenberg, in August 1914 (the 101st anniversary is next week). And away from the Eastern Front, perhaps the Gallipoli campaign offered the biggest chance to change the war – although it ultimately failed. Battle of Jutland, 1916Īt sea, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) was the greatest encounter, but it wasn’t decisive. But it was also one of the war’s most futile confrontations. It ran throughout most of 1916, and cost almost a million lives. In France, the Battle of Verdun stands out. Many in Britain would consider the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916) to be the most important – it was certainly the most deadly for the UK, although it did little to shift frontlines or change the strategic balance. What was the most important battle of World War One? There are lots of contenders. Russian Captives after the Battle of Tannenberg
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