Gettysberg and Waterloo

Which battle had a more significant impact on world history?

TBH, Napoleon was already in a precarious position before Waterloo. While Waterloo was a sad end to the most glorious regime of all time, it was just the hard end of a fall which began with the retreat from Russia.

I am not sure about Gettysburgh, whether it was similar or different.

IMO both conflicts (the Napoleonic Wars and the Civil War) would have given birth to a very different world should their conclusion have differed from what we know. Napoleon's victory would have made the French Empire the 1st world power for the whole of the 19th century, with the USA as its biggest ally. The whole world would be speaking, trading and thinking in French; like English is used today. Religion would be a thing of the past, and colonialism would not have happened in the form it took under the Brits, or maybe not happened at all. Forget about WWI and II too, cause a French dominion over continental Europe would mean no real power would be allowed to emerge and challenge it. There would have been no Holocaust either.

I'll leave it to y'all Americans to help us imagine what a Confederate victory would have brought about, be it positive or negative.

Great thoughts, Tenebrae!

Tenebrae said:

I'll leave it to y'all Americans to help us imagine what a Confederate victory would have brought about, be it positive or negative.

Click to expand...

I once read a[n] historian's theory that even if Lee had prevailed at Gettysburg and possibly extended the Confederacy's incursion into the North, leading not necessarily to the total victory of the South but inspiring enough discouragement among Union forces and the Northern people that the already burgeoning anti-war sentiment would have become irresistible and possibly resulted in McClellan's triumph over Lincoln in the presidential election of 1864 and either the accompanying or the separate recognition of the independence of the South, the Southern states would have eventually rejoined the U.S. given the general national consolidation trend especially prior to and following World War I. How the slavery question would have been resolved is anyone's guess, but given its moribundity in the world even in the late nineteenth century, it's very likely the South would have soon embraced emancipation also.

A shiny new nickel to anybody who can find a single sentence longer than the first one above even in dry academic publications.