THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 12, 1994 TAG: 9406100259
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Bill Reed
DATELINE: 940612 LENGTH: Medium
That World War II battle, probably more than any other of that era - maybe even this century - was responsible for tilting the course of global history.
{REST} If the German defenders had turned back the assault, it is entirely possible that the world would be a far different and less hospitable place to live in than it is today.
The battle ranks, or should, with other epic conflicts that have changed the course of civilization throughout history.
If, for no other reason, it should be remembered for its sheer size and scope: 150,000 Allied troops, 5,000 ships, 12,000 aircraft. Modern historians say it was the largest armada ever assembled and who is to dispute it?
Nobody knows for sure how many Greeks took part in the epic siege of Troy in 1250 B.C. or thereabouts. Homer wrote about it in ``The Iliad,'' indicating the presence of hundreds of thousands of warriors outside the beleaguered city. The defenders, we are told, eventually fell for that old Trojan horse trick and didn't live to tell anyone the details.
Alexander the Great, at the age of 20, it is said, led an army of more than 35,000 Macedonians to conquer the Persian Empire, which included most of Asia. He consolidated his gains by defeating the Persian king Darius III in separate battles in 331 and 333 B.C.
In the Punic Wars, Hannibal led a force of 40,000 Carthaginians and an unspecified number of elephants across the Alps in winter to defeat Roman legions under Scipio at the Trebia River in 218 B.C. He then whipped the Romans again at Lake Tresimane in 217 and at Cannae in 216 before his luck ran out.
Under Attila, the Huns - presumably by the hundreds of thousands - overran what is now Italy, France and the Balkans in 435. Meanwhile, an equally formidable number of Visigoths under Alaric, sacked Rome in A.D. 410 and generally made life miserable for the waning Roman Empire.
Duke William of Normandy invaded England in 1066 and defeated King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. This was a D-Day assault in reverse, but it's unlikely that William commanded as many troops or ships as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In 1095 Pope Urban II cranked up the Crusades, sending off armies of zealous lords and knights from Europe to wrest the Holy Land from the Turks. As far as is known, neither he nor the crusaders ever turned up the Holy Grail, the legendary chalice from which Christ drank at the Last Supper.
From 1213 to 1215 Genghis Khan, with his mounted Mongol hordes, swept through Turkestan, Iran, Afghanistan and southern Russia, carving out an empire that covered most of Asia and Eastern Europe. How many men he commanded in any one engagement is open to speculation.
In 1781 Gen. George Washington, with 8,800 troops, aided by a French force of 7,800, laid siege to 6,000 British soldiers under Gen. Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown. Cornwallis surrendered on Oct. 19 and sealed American independence from England.
Napoleon, in 1812, invaded Russia with an army of 500,000 and, after a series of successes, advanced on Moscow. But a vicious Russian winter and the lack of supplies forced him to retreat. Of the original 500,000 in his Grand Army, only about 30,000 made it back home.
Three years later, on June 18, 1815, after having escaped from exile on the island of Elba, Napoleon and a new army took on the British, Prussians and Russians at Waterloo in Belgium. Napoleon was overcome by a coalition army under Lord Wellington and lost nearly 25,000 men in the process. The defeat ended Napoleon's dreams of European conquest. He was sent off to exile once again and there he died.
The battle of Gettysburg on July 1-4, 1863, spelled the beginning of the end for the Confederacy in war-torn America. The epic clash pitted nearly 100,000 Union troops against some 65,000 Confederate soldiers, led by Gen. Robert E. Lee. After a series of engagements during a three-day period, Lee was forced to retreat and he remained basically on the defensive from that point until his surrender April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House in central Virginia.
{KEYWORDS} D-DAY
by CNB