Decisive battles?

[Brenus]

As a French:
1: Alesia: 52 BC Battle lost, opened Gaul of the Roman occupation, starting a new civilisation. If Vercingetorix would have won, perhaps the face of France would have been different.
2: Bouvines: 27 July 1214; Start of the beginning of the French unification under Phillip II Auguste.
3: Agincourt 1415: French nobility slaughtered, so a place was vacant for a modernisation.
4: Valmy: 20th September 1792: General Kallerman. The French Republic is safe from the invaders. Very symbolic indeed, if not really decisive 200 casualties…. For the 1st time a Montgolfier balloon is used as field observation
4: Rocroi: 19th of May 1643: Louis de Bourbon, Duc d’Enghien: Return of France after a century of Religious Civil Wars and turmoil on the European Powers place. End the invincibility of the Spanish Tercios…
5: Abraham Field: 13 September 1759: Marquis de Montcalm: France lost Canada. Start of a new continent.
6: Yorktown: 28 September-19 October 1781: Rochambeau- Washington. Changed a continent political history, complete the Abraham Fields battle results.
7: Fontenoy: 11 May 1745: Maréchal Hermann Maurice de Saxe: Symbol of the war under Louis the XV. After 3 great battles (Fontenoy, Raucou and Lawfeld) and 24 sieges, the French King, not willing to be seen as a shopkeeper, gave back to Austria all his conquest. Frederic II of Prussia kept his. It gave a saying in France” travailler pour le Roi de Prusse” (to work for the King f Prussia) which means a great effort for somebody else.
8: Malpaquet: 9-11 Setpember 1709: Marechal de Villars. Save France from a great disaster.
9: Campaign of Russia 1812. End of Napoleon dream of power.
10: D-day 6th of June 1944U General Eisenhower

[KrooK]

1. Marathon

Omg that really wasn't decisive battle. Decisive would be Salamina or Plateje but not Marathon. That battle did not change anything into situation.

If we are talking about Ancient times, how about
Gaugamela
Khadesh

[Furious Mental]

Agincourt did not cause France to modernise. It remained a feudal and manorial society for long afterwards.

[Brenus]

“Agincourt did not cause France to modernise…” It did help. All the old nobility killed, you create a gap that others will fill.
“It remained a feudal and manorial society for long afterwards”: 100 years, around: 1515, Marignan, is a Renaissance Battle

[Furious Mental]

Yes it was because it occurred during the Renaissance but at that stage France was still a feudal and manorial society; in fact it was because French society remained so backwards for so long that it had a revolution in 1789. If what you are talking about is systems of military obligation, yes armies were not raised in a feudal method but that was not because of Agincourt. There were plenty of battles with high body counts in the Middle Ages but there remained a feudal military class. In fact the Gendarmes of French Renaissance armies were raised almost entirely from the erstwhile feudal military class- the only difference was that they served as full time soldiers under a formalised command structure; clearly this class had not been wiped out by Agincourt or indeed any other battle. And the proximate cause of these military reforms was Charles VII's desire to stop part time soldiers and mercenaries running amok when campaigns ended, a problem which went back centuries. By the time Agincourt was fought feudal methods of recruitment were already considered backwards; most of the soldiers at Agincourt were either from mercenary companies or serving under letters de retinue. To the extent that manorial economies declined in 15th century, that was not a consequence of Agincourt but macrohistorical processes which were operating all across Europe. The only events which could and did have a major effect on these processes were colossal catastrophes which drastically affected the supply of labour, such as the Great Famine of 1315-7 in England, and the Black Death. To make an analogy, theories that the Wars of the Roses (which caused far more casualties to the English nobility than Agincourt did to the French) could be blamed for the decline of feudalism and manorialism in England have been considered worthless for decades. If you want to trace the ancien regime of early modern France to a battle in the HYW (a dubious exercise but whatever) the best choice by far is Poitiers because it was essentially the cause for the institution of the taille and also contributed materially to the creation of the Compagnies d'Ordonnance.

[Brenus]

“in fact it was because French society remained so backwards for so long that it had a revolution in 1789” Can be discussed. The French Revolution appeared because:
- Debts due to the French involvement in America
- Made the King to find a solution for new taxes
- Obliged him to gather “les Etats Generaux”

Because the Americans signed a separation Peace with the English, Louis XVI wasn’t able to take back Canada and India from the English. So he was not able to reimburse.
The Great Nobility, frustrated for the feudal rights (scheme followed by every King of France but fully implemented by Louis XIV) thought it was a good idea to oblige Louis XVI to do so, and then to exchange the return of these rights against money.
They didn’t except the Bourgeoisie and part of the Clergy to be able to counter this manoeuvre (because it was a vote by part, by Tiers –Nobility, Clergy, Tiers Etat-).
So it is because the Feudalism was in fact dead and because some wanted to resurrected it that the French Revolution happened. Well, one of the reasons (and famines, and wars, and the raise of the Bourgeoisies, and Les Lumieres (“L’Esprit des Lois”).

The spirit of the Nobility fighting in Agincourt disappeared with them. No more Knights but canons. Crécy, Poitiers, Azincourt (and before them Courtrai -1302) decimated the French Nobility. Until Agincourt, it always recovered. But the new technology and professionalism needed by artillery then harquebus and it mass effect was a complete denial of the individual valour of knighthood.
So screaming and resisting nobility was push in the new century of the fruitbat... More and more title of Nobility came from the “Noblesse de Robes” which earned her title in
- Marring a “Noble d’Epee” with a lot of money –a title is link with a territory-,
- Lending money to the King
- Being member of a Local Parliament or a “charge” which will give you –on a long term- or your family a title.

I think feudalism died in Azincourt.

The last real Knight in France is probably Pierre Terrail, Chevalier de Bayard 1473-1524. Bayard was the hero of a celebrated combat of thirteen French knights against an equal number of Germans, and his restless energy and valour were conspicuous throughout the Italian wars of this period. On one occasion it is said that he single-handedly defended the bridge of the Garigliano against 200 Spaniards.
“He is considered to be the last true Knight in Shining Armour, the last flower of the Middle Ages before the modern world took over. Appropriately enough, he met his death at the hands of a peasant soldier with a matchlock musket in his hand, the firearm finally triumphing over the old chivalric ideal.”

[Furious Mental]

You may well think that, but Agincourt was not the debut of effective battlefield artillery, or professional soldiers. It was also not the death of the men at arms. As I pointed out after Agincourt men at arms continued to be a major part of French royal armies and they became the Gendarmes cavalry under Charles VII. Agincourt was a demonstration of effective use of foot archers and dismounted men at arms against the mounted man at arms. But that makes it nothing more than a salutary example of a sort of battle that was common place throughout the HYW and to which the French had made conscious efforts to adapt to decades earlier. Just because it is a good example of the English beating the French and showed the trend towards infantry does not make it one of the 10 most decisive battles in history; decisive battles have long lasting macrohistorical consequences. Agincourt didn't. Agincourt was also not the "death of feudalism"; feudal obligations had reached their zenith a long time beforehand but lingered on for a long time afterwards.

And FYI
- There were very few knights at all in the 15th century since that was an honourary title; most heavily armoured mounted soldiers were "men-at-arms". To talk about "the death of knights" is to talk about a small and tactically indistinguishable part of the military elite.
- That is the wrong sense in which to use the word "noble". By definition a noble is a baron or higher in the feudal hierarchy. Anyone below that, e.g. bannerets, knights, and men-at-arms, was not noble.