INTRODUCTION
This little volume will prove of interest to the general reader and of inestimable value to the student or teacher of history. It contains graphic descriptions of the seventeen great struggles of the historic past—Marathon, Arbela, Zama, Teutobergerwald, Adrianople, Chalons, Tours, Senlac-Hastings, Orleans, Lepanto, Spanish Armada, Naseby, Blenheim, Pultowa, Saratoga, Valmy, and Waterloo. Dates, figures, facts, estimates and reflections are presented in attractive form; and the net results of long research labor are given in a nutshell.
Those terrific conflicts of the past seem strangely fascinating when looked at in their crucial throes ere yet they are stamped with the die of destiny. The thoughtful mind asks, “Would our world of today be just what it is if all or if any one of these battles had borne results the reverse of what they did bear?”
PRESS OF
THE ALDINE PRINTING COMPANY
1331-1333-1335 FIFTH AVENUE
PITTSBURGH, PENNA.
INDEX TO CHAPTERS
| PAGE | |||
| Chapter | I. | — Marathon | [7] |
| Chapter | II. | — Arbela | [13] |
| Chapter | III. | — Zama | [27] |
| Chapter | IV. | — Teutoberger Wald | [33] |
| Chapter | V. | — Adrianople | [40] |
| Chapter | VI. | — Chalons | [48] |
| Chapter | VII. | — Tours | [54] |
| Chapter | VIII. | — Hastings-Senlac | [63] |
| Chapter | IX. | — Orleans | [81] |
| Chapter | X. | — Lepanto | [92] |
| Chapter | XI. | — Spanish Armada | [103] |
| Chapter | XII. | — Naseby | [114] |
| Chapter | XIII. | — Blenheim | [129] |
| Chapter | XIV. | — Pultowa | [134] |
| Chapter | XV. | — Saratoga | [140] |
| Chapter | XVI. | — Valmy | [145] |
| Chapter | XVII. | — Waterloo | [150] |
J. A. KOFFLER, Supervisor
FRANK HAMILTON, Lino Machinist
CHAS. F. MILLER, Compositor
ROBERT E. LEWIS, Pressman
[Chapter I.]
MARATHON
As in the order of time, so likewise in the order of importance, Marathon stands first among the Battles of Destiny. Without Marathon there would have been no Thermopylæ, Salamis, Platæa, Mycale; no Attic supremacy; no Age of Pericles: and would the world be just what it is today if these things had not been? Would Attica as a Persian satrapy ever have become Athens of the Acropolis crowned with the Propylaea-Erectheum-Parthenon: Athens bright star-night of the past glittering with deathless names?
Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia had risen and set; Rome subsequently rose and fell; France, Italy, Spain, England, Germany, and our own infantine experimental Republic of the West are advancing fatefully in the old circle: yet not one of these may boast as many eminent men, stars of first magnitude, glorious constellations—as little Greece might boast, that brief bright star-night of the past thick-studded with immortal names.