I found over 22 lists of the best/most important military battles of all time and combined them into one meta-list. The list below contains the 77 battles or military engagements that were on three or more of the original source lists, organized chronologically. Each listing contains the name(s) of the battle, the date, the location, the war or conflict in which the battle took place, the major combatants, and the result of the battle. I have also begun to write extended descriptions of each battle, but this project is unfinished – I’ll continue to add descriptions as I am able. For the same list of battles organized by rank (that is, with the battles on the most original source lists at the top), go HERE.
1. Battle of Megiddo (on 3 lists)
Date: April 15, 1457 BCE (or possibly 1479 or 1482 BCE)
Location: Megiddo, Canaan (now Israel, near the city of Haifa)
War/Conflict: Canaanite Rebellion
Combatants: Egyptian Empire (led by Thutmose III) vs. Canaanites, Kadesh, Megiddo, et al. (led by the King of Kadesh and the Prince of Megiddo)
Result: Egyptian victory led to territorial expansion of the Egyptian Empire and reestablished Egyptian dominance in the Levant.
Troop movements at the Battle of Megiddo. The Egyptian camp is in the south (bottom). Diagram courtesy of godswarplan.com
Description: Egyptian forces under Pharaoh Thutmose III defeat a coalition of rebellious Canaanite tribes, led by the king of Kadesh. The defeat forced the Canaanites back into the city of Megiddo, leading to a seven-month successful Egyptian siege. Canaan had been a conquered province of the Egyptian Empire, but the rebellion threatened to remove the area from Egyptian control. The victory at Megiddo allowed the Egyptians to reestablish dominance in the province and expand on its empire. Although all information about the battle is from Egyptian sources, it is considered to be relatively accurate. The battle is the first recorded use of the composite bow, which was made from horn, wood, and sinew laminated together and permitted the use of shorter bows to achieve the same energy as a much larger wooden bow.
2. Battle of Kadesh (on 4 lists)
Date: probably May 1274 (some sources date it approximately 20 years earlier)
Location: Orontes River, near Kadesh (along current Lebanon-Syria border)
War/Conflict: Egyptian-Hittite War
Combatants: Egyptian Empire (led by Ramesses II) vs. Hittite Empire (led by Muwatalli II)
Result: Inconclusive result. Ramesses II managed to avoid capture and survive, despite being outmaneuvered by the Hittites.
A diagram of the Battle of Kadesh, courtesy of Erich B. Anderson at warfarehistorynetwork.com.
Description: The Egyptian army under the leadership of New Kingdom Pharaoh Ramesses II takes on the Hittites, led by Muwatalli II. The result is mixed: the Hittites retreat, but the Egyptians fail to capture the walled city of Kadesh. The Hittite Empire dominated Anatolia (modern day Turkey) and much of what is now Syria and was encroaching on Egyptian-controlled territory in the Levant, pushing back the border of the Egyptian Empire. Ramesses II was the third pharaoh (like Ramesses I and Seti I before him) to undertake to gain back some of the lost territory. When Ramesees II recaptured the Amurru Kingdom (in present-day Syria and northern Lebanon), Muwatalli II marched south in an attempt to halt the Egyptian advance. The result was a huge chariot battle, possible the largest in history, with an estimated 5,000-6,000 chariots engaged, but no clear outcome. The war continued for a number of years until the parties in c. 1259 BCE signed the earliest known international treaty.
3. Battle of Marathon (on 15 lists)
Date: 490 BCE
Location: Marathon, Greece
War/Conflict: Greco-Persian Wars (First Persian Invasion of Greece)
Combatants: Greek States (Athens & Plataea) (led by Militiades, et al.) vs. Persian Empire (led by Datis, et al.)
Result: Greek victory. Ended first Persian invasion of Greece.
A diagram of the first phase of the Battle of Marathon, showing the two armies forming their lines. Diagram courtesy of Goran tek-en/Wikipedia.
Description: The city-state of Athens, with a little help from its neighbor Plataea, turns back the first Persian invasion of Greece on the Marathon plain. The Persian Empire under Darius the Great, sought to punish Athens for its assistance in the unsuccessful rebellion of the Ionians by invading Greece. A large Persian force led by Datis arrived by ship at Marathon but through skillful leadership (by Militiades and others), the Greeks drew the Persians onto the battlefield and then blocked all the exit routes, allowing the Greeks to defeat a Persian force more than twice its size. The defeat at Marathon kept the Persian Empire away from Greece for 10 years.
4. Battle of Thermopylae (on 11 lists)
Date: July, August or September, 480 BCE
Location: Thermopylae, near Lamia, Greece
War/Conflict: Greco-Persian Wars (Second Persian Invasion of Greece)
Combatants: Greeks (Sparta, Thespiae, Thebes, etc.) under Leonidas I of Sparta v. Persian Achaemenid Empire under Xerxes I
Result: Persian victory; Persia gained control over Phocis, Boeotia, and Attica.
Two diagrams of the Battle of Thermopylae. Credit for the diagram goes to Nicolo Arena at Politecnico di Milano/Wikipedia.
Description: The Greek defeat at Thermopylae is one of the greatest “last stand” battles in history. The Persians under Xerxes I had launched a second invasion of Greece. This time, an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, mounted a united opposition. Athenian general Themistocles devised a two-part defense: the Greeks would stop the land invasion at the narrow pass of Thermopylae and the sea invasion at the Straits of Artemisium. An army of approximately 7,000 Greeks marched to the pass, a narrow strip of land between the coastline and the mountains, where they faced off against a much larger Persian force (modern estimates range from 100,000 to 150,000 soldiers). The Greeks withstood the onslaught for seven days, when the Persians, tipped off by a traitorous Greek, discovered a path through the mountains that would allow them to outflank the Greeks. Realizing the trap, Leonidas sent most of the Greeks away, but he and 1000 of his men remained to face certain death at the pass, while slowing down the Persian advance. As a result of the victory, Persia gained control of Phocis (including Delphi), Boeotia (including Thebes), and Attica (including Athens). But the war was not over.
5. Battle of Salamis (on 8 lists)
Date: September, 480 BCE
Location: Saronic Gulf, near Salamis Island, Greece
War/Conflict: Greco-Persian Wars; Second Persian Invasion of Greece
Combatants: Greek city-states (led by Eurybiades & Themistocles) vs. Persian Achaemenid Empire (led by Xerxes I, et al.)
Result: Greek victory; Persian army forced to withdraw from Attica
A diagram of the Battle of Salamis. Credit: Department of History, U.S. Military Academy/Wikipedia.
Description: Having suffered a defeat at the Straits of Artemisium at the hands of the Persian navy, Athenian general Themistocles ordered the Greek fleet to retreat to the island of Salamis in the Saronic Gulf, near Athens. He managed to draw the large Persian fleet into the narrow Straits of Salamis, where the ships found it difficult to maneuver and quickly became disorganized. This gave the Greeks the opportunity to launch a frontal assault, resulting in a victory despite being outnumbered. Although the Persian war would persist for another year until Xerxes finally retreated, Salamis was the battle that turned the tide in the Greeks’ favor.
6. Sicilian Expedition and Siege of Syracuse (on 3 lists)
Date: 415-413 BCE
Location: Syracuse, Sicily (now Italy)
War/Conflict: Peloponnesian War
Combatants: Delian League (led by Athens), Segesta & the Etruscans (led by Nicias, Demosthenes, et al.) vs. the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta), Corinth & Syracuse (led by Gylippus & Hermocrates)
Result: Spartan-Syracusan victory. Some consider the battle, in which Athens incurred severe losses of ships and soldiers, a turning point in the war in favor of Sparta. The Athenian loss encouraged Athens’s other enemies and sparked rebellions.
Diagram of the Sicilian Expedition and the Siege of Syracuse. Credit: alchetron.com.
Description: A devastating loss for the Greek city-state of Athens in Sicily in 415-413 BCE was a turning point in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and its allies, on one side, and Sparta and its allies on the other. The Greek colonies on the island of Sicily had been at war for years, with the Ionic colonies looking to Athens as an ally and the Doric colonies (particularly the city of Syracuse) allying themselves with Sparta. Athens had intervened in those wars in 427 BCE at the request of Leontini, but retreated after the Congress of Gela in 424 BCE imposed a tenuous peace. The second Athenian intervention, known as the Sicilian Expedition, came in response to a cry for help from the city of Segesta in 415 BCE. After some initial success by the Athenians in Syracuse, Spartan general Gylippus arrived to shore up the defenses and mount a counter-offensive. Arrival of reinforcing ships gave the Athenians a temporary advantage, but they squandered it with a disastrous land assault and several naval defeats. In 413 BCE, the Athenians, realizing that defeat was imminent, decided to retreat, but the maneuver failed, and nearly the entire army was killed or captured. Athens never quite recovered from the loss, and the war entered its final phase, with Sparta finally defeating Athens in 404 BCE.
7. Battle of Gaugamela (Battle of Arbela) (on 19 lists)
Date: Oct. 1, 331 BCE
Location: Tel Gomel, near Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan
War/Conflict: Wars of Alexander the Great
Combatants: Macedonia & Hellenic League (led by Alexander the Great) vs. Persian Achaemenid Empire (led by Darius III)
Result: Alexander the Great’s forces victorious over the Persians, effectively ending the Achaemenid Empire.
A diagram of the latter portion of the Battle of Gaugamela. Credit: Frank Martini/The Department of History, U.S. Military Academy/Wikipedia.
Description: Macedonian King Alexander III (Alexander the Great) successfully built a huge empire through an unprecedented series of military victories. His most dangerous and powerful foe was the Persian Empire, led by Achaemenid King Darius III. In 331 BCE, Alexander’s army (composed of soldiers from Macedonia and the Hellenic League of Greece) defeated Darius at the Battle of Issus, in what is now eastern Turkey, capturing Darius’s mother, wife and two daughters in the process. The defeat led to several attempts by Darius to negotiate a diplomatic solution, including an offer to be “co-rulers”, but Alexander was not willing to compromise. While negotiating, he continued to advance: turning south and taking the city of Tyre, then turning east towards Mesopotamia. He crossed the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and turned south towards the Persian camp, which had been expecting Alexander to take the more direct (but much more difficult to supply) southern route. At Gaugamela (near Erbil in what is now Iraqi Kurdistan), Alexander and the Persians faced off; the result was a resounding defeat for the Persians, although a Persian flanking action allowed Darius and a core of his army to retreat to Babylon. Soon after the loss, Darius was murdered by his own satraps, leading to internecine squabbles and the ultimate fall of the Achaemenid Empire. (Alexander gave Darius a royal funeral at Persepolis as a gesture of respect for a worthy adversary and married one of his daughters.) Soon after Gaugamela, Persia became another of Alexander’s vassal states.
8. Battle of Cannae (on 11 lists)
Date: August 2, 216 BCE
Location: Apulia, Roman Republic (Italy)
War/Conflict: Second Punic War
Combatants: Roman Republic (led by Gaius Terentius Varro & Lucius Aemilius Paulus) vs. Carthage (led by Hannibal)
Result: Carthaginian victory; gave Carthage control of part of southern Italy; led to defection of some Roman allies.
A diagram of one phase of the Battle of Cannae. Credit: The Department of History, U.S. Military Academy.
Description: The Battle of Cannae was the single biggest defeat ever suffered by a Roman army and the high point of Hannibal Barca’s war against Rome. Hannibal and his diverse armies from Numidia (now North Africa), Iberia (now Spain) and Gaul (now France) had made his way across the Mediterranean to Hispania, made his way across the Alps and into northern Italy, mostly winning along the way. He had bypassed Rome and travelled to southern Italy in the hopes of sparking an anti-Roman revolution among the vassal states of the Roman Republic. Fearing the tactical skills of Hannibal and the superior quality of his experienced fighters (particularly his cavalry), Rome had adopted the controversial Fabian strategy: attempting small rear guard actions against Carthage’s allies and avoiding large battles. When Hannibal’s troops captured a major Roman storage center at Cannae and blocked access to the grain fields of the south, the Romans had no choice but to fight a face-to-face battle. The Republic sent a huge army – larger than any Rome had ever put into battle – under the command of consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. Due to an odd requirement of the constitution, Paullus and Varro were given command on alternate days. Varro was in command on August 2, 216 BCE when the battle took place. Hannibal’s strategy was to provoke a frontal assault in the center of the line, then strategically retreat slowly at the center, while his flanks spread out to enclose the Romans. Once the Carthaginian cavalry defeated the Roman cavalry on the flanks, it returned to face the rear of the Roman army, which was now totally encircled. The result was a massacre that humiliated and frightened Rome and led to the defection of a number of local Roman vassal states to the Carthaginian cause. It also led the Romans to rethink their battle tactics. Unfortunately for Hannibal, after Cannae, there were fewer and fewer victories for Carthage in the Second Punic War.
9. Battle of the Metaurus (on 5 lists)
Date: June 23, 207 BCE
Location: Metauro River, between Fano and Fossombrone, Roman Republic (Italy)
War/Conflict: Second Punic War
Combatants: Roman Republic (led by Marcus Livius & Gaius Claudius Nero) vs. Carthage (led by Hasdrubal Barca)
Result: Roman victory. Confirmed Roman control over Italy and forced Hannibal to withdraw to Bruttium.
A diagram of the Battle of Metaurus. Credit: J.G. Bartholomew, LLD, A Literary & Historical Atlas of Europe (New York, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Ltd., 1910)/Wikipedia.
Description: After Hannibal’s triumph at Cannae in 216 CE, the Romans, with seemingly unlimited resources of materials and troops, mounted a comeback, highlighted by their victory at the Battle of the Metaurus River nine years later. Far from his home base in North Africa, Hannibal’s reliance on scavenging for provisions and creating alliances with disaffected Roman allies was not sufficient to make up for the losses suffered from years of war on foreign soil. He needed reinforcements, and those fresh troops and equipment were on their way under the leadership of Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal Barca, who followed Hannibal’s path up through what is now Spain and France and across the Alps into northern Italy in 208-207 BCE. As he pushed south to hook up with his brother, Hasdrubal needed to confront the relatively small army of Marcus Livius, which was camped near the Metauro River in northwest Italy, blocking the route south. But when the armies lined up the next morning for battle, the Carthaginians were surprised to see a much larger Roman force than they had anticipated. During the night, Gaius Claudius Nero had marched his army, which had just fought Hannibal at Grumentum, hundreds of kilometers to the north without being noticed, to meet up with Marcus Livius. The Romans took advantage of their numerical superiority to outflank Hannibal’s troops, who suffered a major defeat. When it was clear that all was lost, Hasdrubal made a suicidal charge on his horse into the Roman front lines where he was killed, leaving his surviving troops leaderless. (Historians still debate whether Hasdrubal’s final act was heroic or foolish.) The Roman victory prevented Hannibal from getting his reinforcements and signaled the waning of the Carthaginian cause.
10. Battle of Gaixia (Last Stand at Wu River) (on 3 lists)
Date: December, 203 BCE
Location: Gaixia (present day Guzhen County, Anhui), China
Conflict: Chu-Han Contention
Combatants: Kingdom of Han (led by Han Xin & Liu Bang) vs. Kingdom of Western Chu (led by Xiang Yu)
Result: Han victory resulted in Han control of China and inauguration of the Han Dynasty, led by Liu Bang.
Diagram of Battle of Gaixia and events leading up to it. Credit: World History Encyclopedia.
Description: Following the death of Qin Shi Huang – first emperor of a united China – in 210 BCE, the weakened Qin Dynasty faced attacks by the combined forces of the Han (under Liu Bang) and the Chu (under Xiang Yu). But the Han-Chu alliance did not survive the demise of the Qin Dynasty in 206 BCE. Instead, four years of civil war (the Chu-Han Contention) set Liu Bang and Xiang Yu against one another. The civil war ended temporarily in 203 BCE after the parties negotiated the Treaty of Hong Gate, which divided the empire between the Han and the Chu, but Liu Bang – who sought to reunify China – soon broke the treaty. After Xiang Yu’s forces pushed Liu Bang back into Han territory, Liu Bang’s forces (led by General-in-Chief Han Xin, who led his own forces in his role as King of Qi, a dependent of the Han state) counterattacked, which required Xiang Yu to retreat to the state of Chu, all the while being harassed by Han Xin. During a skirmish, Liu Bang’s army captured Yuji, Xiang Yu’s concubine, who was used to lure Xiang Yu’s army into a narrow pass at Gaixia. Xiang Yu, aware that he was being led into a trap, divided his army, sending half back to Chu, and leading 10,000 to rescue Yuji. Once the Chu army entered the valley, Liu Bang’s army ambushed it from all sides. The battle (during which Yuji was rescued) lasted until nightfall, inflicting devastating damage on Xiang Yu’s forces. During the night, Han soldiers sang the native songs of the Chu, demoralizing the troops and leading to some desertions. Yuji, believing that she was responsible for the defeat, committed suicide. The next morning, Xiang Yu, with fewer than 800 left of his 10,000-man army, fought his way out of the canyon, only to be caught up with at the Wu River and annihilated. Xiang Yu took his life to avoid being taken prisoner. As a result, the state of Chu came to an end and the Han Dynasty was born. Liu Bang later became Emperor Gaozu of Han.
11. Battle of Zama (on 7 lists)
Date: 202 BCE
Location: Zama, Carthage (now Tunisia)
War/Conflict: Second Punic War
Combatants: Roman Republic & Eastern Numidia (led by Scipio Africanus) vs. Carthage & Western Numidia (led by Hannibal)
Result: Roman victory. Led to end of Second Punic War.
A diagram of the Battle of Zama. Credit: This Day, This Battle/Facebook/Tom Peter.
Description: The Roman victory against Carthage at the Battle of Zama marked the end of the Second Punic War. The waning of the threat posed by Hannibal’s weakened and unreinforced army in Italy freed the Romans and their allies to bring the war closer to Hannibal’s core territory in North Africa. A Roman invasion of Africa became a realistic possibility in 212 BCE, after the successful Roman siege of Syracuse, which led to Roman control of the entire island of Sicily – an excellent base for an African invasion. First, however, the Romans chose to drive the Carthaginians out of the Iberian Peninsula, which was accomplished by Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Ilipia in 206 BCE. Scipio’s army landed in North Africa in 204 BCE and won a series of victories against the Carthaginians and their allies the Numidians, first at the Battle of Utica and then at the Battle of the Great Plains (both in 203 BCE). These losses led Carthage to sue for peace and sign an armistice, but at the same time they called for Hannibal’s return. Once Hannibal’s forces landed, Carthage broke the truce, setting the stage for Hannibal and Scipio Africanus to confront each other at Zama, some distance inland from Carthage. An important factor in the ultimate Roman victory was the decision of Numidian leader Masinissa, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, to switch sides and provide troops to Scipio Africanus. Hannibal first sent a wall of elephants charging at the Romans, but they were ineffective. The ultimate result was a Roman victory. Hannibal himself fled and survived, but Carthage submitted to Roman vassalship for half a century, until the Third (and final) Punic War erupted.
12. Battle of Alesia (Siege of Alesia) (on 3 lists)
Date: September, 52 BCE
Location: Alise-Sainte-Reine, France
Conflict: Gallic Wars
Combatants: Roman Republic (led by Julius Caesar) vs. Gallic confederation (led by Vercingetorix & Vercassivellaunos)
Result: Roman victory completed the Roman conquest of Gaul, which now became incorporated into the Roman Republic.
A diagram of the siege of Alesia, courtesy of Muriel Gottrop/Wikipedia.
Description: Julius Caesar became proconsul of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis (southeastern France) in 58 BCE. During the next several years, he sought to expand the territory of the province through alliances with and warfare against the local Gallic tribes. In 53 BCE, Caesar announced that all of Gaul would be treated like a Roman province. This led the Gallic tribes to unite and revolt against Roman rule in 52 BCE. They chose Vercingetorix, king of the Arveni tribe, as their leader. Caesar returned from Rome and, with an army consisting of Roman troops and Germanic allies, began capturing fortified Gallic towns (oppida) to obtain supplies. The Gauls tried to avoid direct attacks, harassing Caesar’s foraging parties and supply trains instead, and defending only the strongest oppida. But when Vercingetorix retreated to the oppidum of Avaricum, Caesar successfully besieged the town, slaughtering the populace and obtaining supplies. Vercingetorix escaped to Gergovia, his own tribe’s capital, where a strong Gallic force repelled the Romans, a victory that brought many more tribes to the Gallic cause. Caesar’s forces then defeated the Vercingetorix’s cavalry at the Battle of the Vingeanne. The Gauls then retreated to the hill town oppidum of Alesia. Caesar’s army surrounded the town and began to develop an extensive set of fortifications. They built a wall around Alesia to prevent the besieged army from escaping, and they built a second wall, farther out, to prevent reinforcements from getting to the town. Vercingetorix’s remaining calvary managed to escape while the Romans were building their walls, and they brought back a large army of reinforcements, which camped outside the outer wall. Despite coordinated efforts by the Gallic troops inside and outside the walls, the Gauls failed to breach the fortifications. On the third day of fighting, a Gallic scouting party found a gap in the outer wall and breached the Romans’ first line of defense, while the besieged Gauls came out to the meet them, but Caesar rallied and attacked the Gauls from behind with his cavalry. The result was a rout. By morning, many of those inside the town had fled. Vercingetorix surrendered to Caesar. Although the Gallic revolt would not end for another two years, the Battle of Alesia destroyed any hope of a Gallic victory.
13. Battle of Pharsalus (on 3 lists)
Date: August 9, 48 BCE
Location: Palaepharsalus, Greece
War/Conflict: Caesar’s Civil War/Caesar’s Invasion of Macedonia
Combatants: Forces of Julius Caesar vs. Forces of Pompey
Result: Julius Caesar defeated Pompey in the decisive battle of Caesar’s civil war, leading Pompey to flee in disguise to be killed in Egypt. Although the victory did not end the war, it brought many of Rome’s eastern provinces into Caesar’s camp.
A diagram of the Battle of Pharsalus. Credit: The Department of History, U.S. Military Academy.
Description: Caesar’s Civil War (49-45 BCE) moved east across the Adriatic after Caesar captured Rome, forcing Pompey and his army (which had the support of much of the Senate) out of Italy. Caesar’s forces unsuccessfully besieged Dyrrachium (in what is now Albania) from April-July, 48 BCE and then moved further east, pursued by Pompey’s much larger army. Caesar’s troops sacked Gomphi on 29 July, 48 BCE after a brief siege. The two armies then line up across from each other along the Enipeus River near Pharsalus in Thessaly. Pompey arranged three lines of infantry, keeping most of his cavalry on his left (away from the river). Caesar’s lines were spread much more thin due to his lesser numbers. Worried about a mismatch of cavalries, he spread his three lines even thinner by creating a fourth line of infantry on his right flank, behind his cavalry, to counter Pompey’s cavalry. Pompey ordered his infantry not to march, hoping that forcing Caesar’s soldiers to come to them would tire them out. As hand-to-hand combat commenced, Pompey’s officer Labienus ordered the cavalry on the left flank to attack Caesar’s cavalry. Pompey’s cavalry successfully pushed back Caesar’s cavalry, but then Pompey’s horseman unexpectedly encountered the javelins of Caesar’s hidden fourth line of infantry, which caused severe casualties and threw them into disarray. The confusion among Pompey’s cavalry gave Caesar’s cavalry time to regroup and counterattack. The much-damaged cavalry of Pompey fled, allowing Caesar’s cavalry to attack the left flank of Pompey’s infantry. They, too, fled the battlefield. Watching the debacle, Pompey himself left the battlefield and fled to his camp, where he donned civilian clothing and escaped, leaving his troops to fend for themselves. The soldiers in the camp (many of them Thracians) defended valiantly but could not hold off Caesar’s assault. Caesar’s victory was total. Pompey fled to Egypt where he would be murdered on the orders of Ptolemy VII. Caesar granted clemency to all those of Pompey’s army who wished to join him. The tide had turned, and civil war would soon be over.
14. Battle of Actium (on 6 lists)
Date: 31 BCE
Location: Ionian Sea, near Actium (now Aktio), Greece
War/Conflict: Roman Civil War; Final War of the Roman Republic; War of Actium.
Combatants: Forces of Octavian vs. Forces of Mark Antony & Ptolemaic Egypt (led by Cleopatra)
Result: Victory of Octavian’s forces. Led to suicides of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Gave Octavian ability to consolidate power to become de facto emperor.
A diagram showing the initial positions at the Battle of Actium. Credit: Future Perfect at Sunrise (Lencer & Leo2004)/Wikipedia.
Description: The naval victory of Octavian (later Augustus) over the combined forces of Mark Antony and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII ended more than a dozen years of civil war within the Roman Republic. After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Caesar’s adopted son Octavian joined with Mark Antony, Caesar’s best general, and Marcus Lepidus as the Second Triumvirate. Together they defeated the forces of Caesar’s assassins, Brutus and Cassius. Relations between Octavian and Mark Antony became strained after the latter left his wife for Cleopatra and moved in with her in Alexandria. Even more troubling to many in Rome was the joint declaration of Cleopatra and Mark Antony in 34 BCE that Cleopatra’s son Caesarion was the son and heir of Julius Caesar. Over the next three years, Octavian took political actions to weaken Mark Antony’s power as well as undertaking a public relations campaign to smear him as a would-be dictator. Despite Octavian’s efforts, Mark Antony still had a core base of supporters in Rome. In 32 BCE, Octavian convinced the Roman Senate to declare war on Cleopatra’s Egypt, which allowed him to confront Mark Antony indirectly. The war came to a head on September 2, 31 BCE when Antony and Cleopatra were encamped on the Ionian coast of Greece (then a Roman province) at Actium. Octavian’s general Agrippa drew Antony’s ships out into the open ocean and inflicted a fatal defeat on his fleet. Instead of taking part in the battle, Cleopatra’s ships, perceiving the danger, fled. Mark Antony himself fled soon afterwards, leaving his fleet to be destroyed. When the land army learned of their leader’s flight, they quickly capitulated to Octavian. Sporadic fighting continued for another year until the war finally concluded with the suicide of Mark Antony in July and Cleopatra in August, 30 BCE. Octavian was now in position to become the first leader of the Roman Empire.
15. Battle of Teutoburg Forest (Varus Disaster) (on 6 lists)
Date: September 8-9, 9 CE
Location: Kalkriese, Bramsche, Lower Saxony, Germania, Roman Empire (Germany)
War/Conflict: Roman Wars of Conquest; Imperial Germanic Campaigns
Combatants: Germanic Peoples (led by Arminius) vs. Roman Empire (led by Publius Varus)
Result: Disastrous defeat of the Romans, preventing further incursions into Germanic territory by Rome.
A diagram of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Credit: Skaalr (2021).
Description: The Roman defeat at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest was a crucial event in the history of the German nation. By halting the Roman advance into German territory at the Rhine River, an alliance of Germanic tribes preserved much of Germany from Roman domination for the duration of the Roman Empire. Publius Quinctilius Varus has been appointed governor of Germania, a Roman province that included a number of conquered German territories. In the fall of 9 CE, he decided to move his three Roman legions to winter quarters. Unbeknownst to Varus, one of his own auxiliary officers, the Roman-educated German Arminius, was planning an ambush of the Romans. The Germans waited until the Roman line was stretched out and then attacked, surrounding the entire force. Later, when the Romans attempted to make a night escape, Arminius’s alliance (which included soldiers from the Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Chauci and Sicambri) blocked their retreat. After two days of fighting, the disaster was total, reportedly leading Emperor Augustus to cry out at the news, “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!” Despite occasional forays into Germany in later years and attempts to manipulate tribes through diplomatic means and support of friendly allies, Rome did not attempt military conquests of territories east of the Rhine after the defeat at Tuetoburg Forest.
16. Battle of the Milvian Bridge (on 5 lists)
Date: October 28, 312 CE
Location: Ponte Milvio, northern Rome, Roman Empire (now Italy)
War/Conflict: Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy
Combatants: Forces of Roman Emperor Constantine vs. Forces of Roman Emperor Maxentius
Result: Victory for Constantine and death of Maxentius established Constantine as sole ruler of the Roman Empire.
A diagram of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Credit: redcrossofconstantine.uk
Description: The victory of Constantine I over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge resolved the question of who would be emperor of the western portion of the Roman Empire and was a crucial step in the course of the eventual reunification of the Roman Empire under Constantine in the 4th Century CE. The underlying conflict arose from Emperor Diocletian’s decision in 293 BCE to divide the Empire into western and eastern halves and create a tetrarchy arrangement whereby two senior officials, each known as an Augustus, ruled with the assistance of a less senior ruler, or Caesar. In 305 CE, Diocletian and his co-emperor Maximian abdicated and their Caesars (Galerius and Constantius) were both promoted to Augustus. Maximinus and Severus were appointed as new Caesars. When Constantius died in 306 CE, Galerius promoted Severus to Augustus in the west. This displeased Maximian’s son Maxentius, who eventually intervened, forcing Severus to abdicate and later having him killed. At the same time that Severus was promoted to western Augustus, Constantius’ son Constantine also thought he was entitled to a position, and his own troops proclaimed him Augustus in 306 CE. To complicate matters further, Maximian decided to return from retirement. By 308 CE, four people (Galerius, Constantine, Maximian and Maxentius) all claimed the title of Augustus. This led Diocletian, Galerius and Maximian to meet and attempt to settle the dispute: they confirmed Galerius as eastern Augustus, with Maximinus as his Caesar and appointed Licinius as western Augustus with Constantine as his Caesar. Maximian agreed to retire, and Maxentius was declared an illegitimate usurper. The settlement did not resolve the dispute, however, because Maxentius and his armies were now in physical control of Italy and North Africa, a fact that could not be erased by a declaration of illegitimacy. Furthermore, neither Constantine nor Maximinus liked the idea of answering to Licinius. Between 309 and 312 CE, the playing field cleared somewhat: Constantine captured Maximian (who had renounced his retirement) in 310 CE and forced him to commit suicide, and Galerius died of natural causes in 311 CE. This left Constantine and Maxentius in the west, both claiming the title of Augustus, while in the east, Licinius ruled as Augustus with Maximinus as his Caesar. In 312 CE, Constantine began a military campaign against Maxentius in Italy. As Constantine’s troops approached Rome, Maxentius, instead of preparing for a siege (as he had in response to previous attacks by Galerius and Severus), decided to bring his troops out of Rome and across the Tiber to do battle. This decision (perhaps prompted by a superstitious belief in inevitable victory) turned out to be a mistake, as it left Maxentius’ forces with only the narrow Milvian bridge and the powerful river as escape routes. When Constantine’s army advanced, the defenders had nowhere to regroup; retreat was hampered by the narrowness of the bridge and the difficulty of crossing the river, where many drowned, including Maxentius. A victorious Constantine advanced to take control of Rome. The result of the battle was that Constantine was now sole Augustus of the western Roman Empire. The next day, Maxentius’ body was retrieved and decapitated and his severed head was paraded through Rome. Later, Constantine defeated Licinius to become emperor of east and west. NOTE: Since early Christian times, a persistent legend has it that Constantine had a dream before the battle in which he saw a Christian symbol (either a cross or a Chi Ro) with the words, “In this sign, you shall conquer”, but other evidence contradicts this theory. For example, the Arch of Constantine, which was erected soon after the battle to celebrate the victory, contains no explicit references to Christianity. Constantine and his co-emperor Licinius did agree to make Christianity legal with the Edict of Milan in 313 CE and Constantine reportedly converted on his deathbed.
17. Battle of Adrianople (Battle of Hadrianopolis) (on 7 lists)
Date: August 9, 378 CE
Location: Adrianople, Thrace (now Edirne in Turkey)
War/Conflict: Gothic War; Roman-Germanic Wars
Combatants: Goths & Alans (led by Fritigern, et al.) vs. Eastern Roman Empire (led by Emperor Valens, et al.)
Result: Victory for the Goths and Alans. Death of Roman Emperor Valens.
A diagram of the Battle of Adrianople. Credit: Elias84.
Description: The Goths soundly defeated the forces of the eastern Roman Empire under Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople, although it is not clear that the battle was the turning point that some early historians claimed it to be. Various Gothic tribes had been pushed from their homelands by the invading Huns and by 376 CE they found themselves at the edge of the Roman Empire, near the Danube River, seeking asylum and protection. The Romans agreed to allow the tribes to settle in Roman territory as refugees. The Roman governors treated the Goths harshly, however, leading them to take up arms in revolt. The rebel army consisted of several Gothic tribes, especially the Thervingi and the Greuthungi, as well as Alans and even some Huns, under the leadership of Fritigern, a Thervingian Goth. After a series of inconclusive battles, the Romans began to win some victories in 378 CE, including an ambush of some Gothic troops by Sebastianus while marching from Constantinople to Adrianople and a victory over the Germanic tribe the Lentienses by western Roman Emperor Gratian (Valens’ nephew) at Argentaria. Valens wanted a victory of his own, so he assembled an army at Adrianople (in the Roman province of Thrace, now Edirne, Turkey) in the summer of 378 CE. Having learned that the rebels were in the vicinity, he marched his troops out from Adrianople into the countryside. Valens falsely believed that his troops outnumbered the Goths, based on Roman scouting reports that failed to count much of the rebel cavalry, which was out of the camp foraging for provisions. After a seven-hour march over rough ground, the Romans came unexpectedly upon the rebel camp, which was set on a hill and surrounded by a “fortress” of wagons. The Goths were well rested and provisioned, and battle tested; in addition, quite a few of Frithigern’s officers had fought in Roman armies. Fritigern, seeking time to allow his cavalry to return, send an emissary to Valens in a fruitless attempt to resolve the matter diplomatically. Valens’ own advisors urged him to wait for reinforcements from Gratian, which were on the way, but Valens wanted the glory for himself and disregarded the advice. When the Roman attack came, it was disorganized. The soldiers, already tired and thirsty, were distracted by smoke from fires lit by the Goths in the fields around their encampment. When the Gothic cavalry arrived soon after the battle began, they swooped down from the hilltop “like a thunderbolt”, according to an early historian, ensuring the Gothic victory. In the course of battle, Valens himself went missing; there are conflicting stories about the manner of his death. The Goths attempted to follow up on their victory with a siege of Adrianople soon afterwards, but failed, and the war dragged on for another four years. Although some have claimed that the battle highlighted the importance of cavalry over infantry, in fact, the bulk of the armies on both sides were foot soldiers, and the number of cavalry was about the same on each side. Others have claimed the battle was a turning point in the fall of the western Roman Empire, although that claim is also disputed. The near term result of the Gothic Wars was the peaceful settlement of the Goths within the bounds of the empire.
18. Battle of the Catalaunian Fields (Battle of Châlons; Battle of Maurica) (on 4 lists)
Date: June 20, 451 CE
Location: Near Châlons, Gaul (Châlons-en-Champagne, Grand Est Region, France)
War/Conflict: Hunnic Wars; Hunnic Invasion of Gaul; Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Combatants: Western Roman Empire, Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, Saxons, et al. (led by Flavius Aetius & Theodoric I) v. Hunnic Empire, Amali Goths, Rugii, Sciri, et al. (led by Attila the Hun)
Result: Inconclusive. The battle stopped the Huns from further advancement into Roman territory, but the Huns looted and pillaged much of Gaul and seriously damaged Rome and the Visigoths militarily.
A diagram of the Battle of Catalaunian Fields. Credit: World History Encyclopedia at worldhistory.org.
Description: Historians dispute whether the result of the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields was a Roman victory over Attila the Hun or not, but no one questions the bloody carnage of the day’s events. From their home base north of the Danube, the Huns had already staged a series of successful plundering raids in the eastern Roman Empire in 440-443 CE and again in 447 CE. In 451 CE (for reasons that are debated) Attila turned toward the western Roman Empire, specifically the province of Gaul. His mounted warriors crossed the Rhine and worked their way through northern Gaul with ease until they reached Orleans, where they were forced to lay siege to the city, which was occupied by members of the Alan tribe under Sangiban. This delayed their usually rapid movements enough to allow a Roman army under Flavius Aetius to catch up with them. Unable to breach the walls of Orleans and disappointed in his inability to persuade the defenders to capitulate, Attila began a measured retreat back toward the Rhine, looking for an open place to stop and give battle. Somewhere between Troyes and Châlons, he set up camp and waited for the Romans. Aetius, who had only a small band of soldiers, few of them Romans, had to convince the local Visigothic king Theodoric (not a friend of Rome) to join forces against the Huns. Once Theodoric agreed, Aetius was able to face Attila (who had his own allies) with a substantial force, including Sangiban and his army of Alans from Orleans. The battle did not begin until mid-afternoon. Each army set up along opposing flanks of a ridge and they both moved to gain control of the high ground between them. After the Huns devastated the Alans in the center, and Aetius’ attempt at encirclement failed for lack of numbers, it looked as if Attila would win. But then the Visigoths under Theodoric rallied and struck a hard blow against the Huns. Theodoric himself was killed, but his son Thorismund took over. As darkness fell, confusion took hold – Thorismund was almost killed when he accidentally found himself in the Hunnic camp – and the parties separated. The next day, Aetius ruled out a follow-up attack and let Attila retreat back across the Rhine. Aetius reasoned that without the Huns as a common enemy, the Visigoths would certainly rebel against Rome. The very next year, Attila launched a new attack against the western Roman Empire, this time into northern Italy. A party of negotiators, including the Pope, agreed to pay off Attila to keep him away. The Hunnic threat would not last long, however: Attila died in 453 CE and his empire splintered and faded soon afterwards. While the result of the battle may have been inconclusive, it is of historical significance for at least three reasons: the high number of casualties; the message it sent that Attila was not invincible; and the fact that it was the last major battle of the western Roman Empire, which would officially die less than 25 years later.
19. Battle of Badr (Raid of Badr; The Day of the Criterion) (on 3 lists)
Date: March 13, 624 CE
Location: near Badr, Hejaz, Arabia
War/Conflict: Muslim-Quraysh War
Combatants: First Islamic State/Sahaba (led by Muhammad) vs. Quraysh Meccans (led by Amr ibn Hishām/Abu Jahl)
Result: Muslim victory. Led to alliance with Medina and other tribes outside Medina.
A diagram of the Battle of Badr. Credit: By Dr Zubair Rashid, used with permission. Wikipedia.
Description: The only battle mentioned by name in the Qur’ an, the Battle of Badr was a turning point in the life of the early Muslim community. Following the Hejira – the emigration of Muhammad and many of his followers from Mecca to Medina – the Muslims remaining in Mecca suffered aggression from Mecca’s ruling tribe, the Quraysh. Muhammad launched raids on trading caravans heading for Mecca as they passed near Medina, without much success. In March, 624 CE, Muhammad planned to raid an unusually large caravan that was bringing goods south from the Levant. The leader of the caravan, Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, suspecting a Muslim raid, sent a messenger to Mecca asking for military support. The Qurayshi – led by Amr ibn Hisham – assembled an army of about 1,000-1,500, far more than Muhammad’s raiding party of about 300. On the way to defend the caravan, the Qurayshi learned that Abu Sufyan had avoided a raid by taking a different route, far from Medina. Nevertheless, Amr ibn Hisham wanted to confront Muhammad’s raiding party, and pressed forward (although a contingent of Meccans decided to return home). The two groups met in Badr; Muhammad arriving from the north and the Qurayshi from the south. First, by tradition, leading warriors from each side engaged in duels. Then the Qurayshi attacked. The attack failed to break the Muslim line, and, following a gesture by Muhammad (throwing either pebbles or sand toward the Meccans), the Muslim army counterattacked. The Muslims broke the Qurayshi lines and killed several important leaders, including Amr ibn Hisham and Umayyah ibn Khalaf. The remaining Qurayshi fighters turned and ran. This was the first Muslim victory in what would become a lengthy war between the Muslims and the Meccans.
20. Battle of the Yarmuk (on 5 lists)
Date: August 15-20, 636 CE
Location: near the Yarmuk (also spelled Yarmouk) River, east of the Sea of Galilee, Syria (near Syria’s borders and Israel)
War/Conflict: Arab-Byzantine Wars; Wars of Muslim Conquest
Combatants: Rashidun Caliphate (Islamic), led by Khalid ibn al-Walid, et al. vs. Byzantine Empire, Ghassanid Kingdom & Tanukhids (led by Emperor Heraclius, et al.)
Result: Rashidun victory led to annexation of Byzantine Syria into the Rashidun Caliphate.
A diagram of the initial positions of the Battle of the Yarmuk. Credit: Arun Reginald. Wikipedia.
Description: The Battle of the Yarmuk was a decisive victory of the Arab Muslim armies over the forces of the Byzantine Empire. Muhammad had united many disparate Arab tribes under the new Islamic religion. Following Muhammad’s death and a civil war to determine his successor, Caliph Abu Bakr of the Rashidun Caliphate began a series of wars to conquer territory in the name of the new faith. Under the expert leadership of general Khalid ibn al-Walid, Muslim armies attacked the Persian Sassanids in Mesopotamia and conquered most of what is now Iraq. Then in 634 CE, Abu Bakr called for an invasion of Syria and the Levant, which were part of the Byzantine Empire. The Muslim armies proceeded north through Palestine, defeating the Byzantines at Ajnadayn and Fahl, and taking the city of Damascus. Abu Bakr died in 634 CE, but his successor Umar continued the campaign. The Muslims took Tiberias, Baalbek and, in early 636 CE, Emesa, which put them within striking distance of Byzantine strongholds at Aleppo and Antioch. Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, who had been slow to counter the Muslim advance, now felt the threat, and pulled together a large army with the intent of picking off the divided Arab forces that were spread out through the Levant. Heraclius also made a treaty with his former foes, the Persians, against the common Muslim threat, and Persian Emperor Yazdegerd III agreed to launch an offensive in the east, forcing the Muslims to fight a two-front war. But Yazdegerd never lived up to his promise, and Heraclius lost precious time waiting for the Persians to attack. The Muslims took advantage of the Byzantine hesitation to implement a comprehensive defensive strategy. Khalid ibn al-Walid had Muslim forces retreated from Emesa and Damascus, so that all the disparate armies united near the Yarmuk River, deeper into Muslim territory. Heraclius was forced to march south, with inadequate supply lines, to the site of the battle that the Muslim commander had selected. The Byzantines arrived, led by Armenian general Vashan, but once again the Byzantines hesitated, waiting for Persia to act, while Arab reinforcements continued to arrive. Finally, the Byzantines realized they needed to seize the initiative while they still outnumbered their foes (by at least 2-1 according to most historians) and the two sides began a battle that lasted six days. The first four days, Vashan’s armies took the initiative. Every time it looked as if the Byzantines were about to break through, Al-Walid used his secret weapon, his large cavalry reserves, or his own battle-tested core troops, to reinforce the weak spot and prevent destruction. On the second day, the Arabs were pushed all the way back to their camp, but managed to push back (according to legend, due to the vociferousness of their wives). On the fifth day, the parties rearranged their forces without a major clash. Al-Walid decided on a major offensive the next day. In preparation, he sent a cavalry unit to guard the bridge that would be the probable Byzantine escape route. On the sixth day of battle, the Muslim armies attacked and eventually flanked the much larger Byzantine force, driving them towards the trap set by the bridge, where many of the fleeing soldiers died either by sword or by falling over the steep cliff at the edge of the battlefield. The Byzantine loss of its army at Yarmouk left the rest of the Levant open to the Muslims, who advanced all the way to the borders of what is now Turkey. They also eventually took over Egypt and the remains of the Persian Empire. The shrunken Byzantine Empire based at Constantinople remained alive, withstanding a number of unsuccessful Arab sieges to the capital city in the following years.
21. Siege of Constantinople (on 4 lists)
Date: July 15, 717 CE – August 15, 718 CE
Location: Constantinople, Thrace, Bithynia & Sea of Marmara (modern day Istanbul, Turkey)
War/Conflict: Arab-Byzantine Wars; Early Muslim Conquests
Combatants: Islamic Umayyad Caliphate (led by Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik) vs. Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria (led by Leo III the Isaurian & Tervel of Bulgaria)
Result: Byzantine-Bulgarian victory. The failure of the siege ensured the survival of the Byzantine Empire, the end of 100 years of war, and a postponement (by many centuries) of Muslim advances into southeastern Europe.
Two diagrams of the Siege of Constantinople. Credit: Kandi/Wikipedia.
Description: By 717 CE, the armies of the Umayyad Caliphate had swept through the Middle East, north Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula. Soon after the failed siege of the Byzantine capital Constantinople in 674-678 CE, an Islamic civil war erupted, preventing further Muslim encroachments into Byzantine territory until the Umayyads emerged victorious in 692 CE. In the next decades, the Caliphate made steady advances into Byzantine lands, penetrating further and further into Asia Minor. Aiding the Muslims was strife and infighting among the Byzantines. Emperor Justinian was deposed twice – once in 695 and again in 711. Emperor Anastasius II was forced to resign in 715 in favor of Theodosius, who would be replaced by Leo III the Isaurian in March 717 CE after Leo himself marched on Constantinople. Meanwhile, the Muslims, recognizing Byzantine weakness, set out to besiege Constantinople again. Under the leadership of Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik (brother of the Caliph Sulayman), they advanced through Asia Minor in 715 and 716 CE, taking key fortresses along the way (although they were thwarted by the double-dealing Leo at Amorium). By the time the Arab forces had reached Constantinople, the Byzantines were prepared for a siege, with strong stone walls on the land city, abundant supplies amassed, and a strong navy patrolling the Bosporous Strait. The Umayyad army built two siege walls on the land side – one facing the city, the other facing the Thracian countryside. A large fleet of Arab ships set out to establish a blockade on the water side, but an errant wind allowed them to drift close to the Byzantine ships, which destroyed many of them with Greek fire. This defeat allowed the Byzantines to supply themselves by sea, thus frustrating the siege. To make matters worse for the Muslims, they had devastated the countryside on their approach to Constantinople, and during the harsh winter of 717-718 CE, many died of starvation, exposure, and disease. When spring arrived, a fleet of ships with reinforcements and supplies arrived from Egypt. Unfortunately for the Muslims, however, the crews of the ships were Egyptian Christians who defected to the Byzantine side upon arrival and alerted the Byzantine navy to the location of the fleet, which led to the destruction of many of the Egyptian ships. At about the same time, the Arabs camped on the land side of Constantinople encountered an army of Bulgars, allies of the Byzantines who had come to relieve the siege. The Bulgar under Tervel inflicted significant damage on the Arab forces. These setbacks convinced the Caliph to call off the siege. To add insult to injury, many of the surviving ships were destroyed by a storm and by fires begun by ashes from a volcano. Although the Caliphate would continue raids into Asia Minor, its defeat at Constantinople ended a century of war with the Byzantines and allowed that much-weakened empire to survive many more centuries.
22. Battle of Tours (Battle of Poitiers; Battle of the Palace of the Martyrs) (on 15 lists)
Date: Oct. 10, 732 CE
Location: Moussais-la-Bataille, France
War/Conflict: Early Muslim Conquests: Invasion of Gaul
Combatants: Christian Franks (led by Charles Martel) vs. Islamic Umayyad Caliphate (led by Abdul Rahman al Ghafiqi)
Result: Frankish victory; some claim the battle halted Muslim expansion into Europe.
A diagram of the Battle of Tours, showing the initial position of Charles Martel’s army.
Description: The Franks’ victory over the army of the Ummayad Caliphate at the Battle of Tours-Poitiers marked the farthest penetration of Muslim armies into Gaul (France). Some historians believe that a Muslim win here might have led to Muslim control of Western Europe. Muslim armies had conquered Northern Africa, then crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711 CE into Hispania. Over the next few years, they took most of the Iberian Peninsula from the Visigoths, where they established the kingdom of al-Andalus. Umayyad troops continued to expand to the north, taking Septimania in southern France in 719 CE and establishing a base in the city of Narbonne on the Mediterranean coast, then setting their sights on Aquitania in the west. But Aquitanian Duke Odo surprised the Muslims during the siege of Toulouse, temporarily setting them back. Muslim armies continued to strike in the north, including a raid on Autun in Burgundy in 725 CE. Odo secured an an alliance with a Berber general to prevent further attacks on Aquitania, but the general (Uthman ibn Naissa) rebelled against the Ummayad’s, leading al-Andalus governor Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi to bring an army to crush both the Berber rebellion and Odo, who lost two crushing defeats at Bordeaux and then at the Battle of the River Garonne in early 732 CE, where the Muslim cavalry was able to inflict serious damage on the Christian troops. Odo called for help to his one-time foe, Charles, leader of the Franks, whose kingdom covered most of what is today northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and southwestern Germany. Charles was a skilled military leader with a large army of well-trained experienced infantry troops, a fact of which Abdul Rhaman, due to lack of sufficient reconnaissance, was not aware. The Muslims did not anticipate a forceful defense of Europe beyond Aquitania. Charles agreed to aid Odo in return for Aquitanian allegiance to the Franks. He then marched his army to a wooded hill between Poitiers and Tours and waited for the Ummayad troops. By hiding his army in a wooded area, Charles made it much more difficult for the Ummayad cavalry to penetrate his infantry’s formation. Charles maintained a defensive position while Abdul Rahman attacked with his cavalry. Despite some incursions, the Frankish line remained intact. Charles then sent Odo in a rearguard action to attack the unoccupied Ummayad camp far behind the enemy lines. Odo’s disruption of the camp sent many of the Ummayad attackers in retreat to save their booty. This gave Charles the opportunity to mount an offensive and the remaining Ummayads retreated in disarray as night fell. Charles set up his armies to wait for another attack, but the Muslim army had retreated in the night and fell back into al-Andalus. Charles went on to defeat the Ummayads at Agde, Béziers and Maguelonne, but he was unable to dislodge them from Narbonne, which was a base of future raids into Frankish territory – though the Muslims never again penetrated so far into Western Europe as at Tours-Poitier. For his victory, Charles earned the sobriquet Martel (“the hammer”) and his reputation soared; his son was the first of the Carolingian Dynasty and his grandson was Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. Early historians claimed that Charles Martel’s victory at Tours-Poitiers was a turning point in history. According to this theory, the Frankish army was the last obstacle to a complete Muslim takeover of Western Europe, such that Charles Martel “saved” Christianity. More recent historians have questioned this thesis; some see the Ummayad move toward Tours as merely one of many raids seeking plunder, in this case from St. Martin’s Abbey at Tours, and not an attempt to conquer and hold territory in France.
23. Battle of Lechfeld (Second Battle of Augsburg) (on 5 lists)
Date: Aug. 10-12, 955 CE
Location: Lechfeld plain, near Augsburg, Bavaria, East Francia (now Germany)
War/Conflict:Hunnic Wars
Combatants: Kingdom of Germany, et al. (led by King Otto I, Conrad, Duke of Lorraine, et al.) vs. Principality of Hungary (led by harka Bulcsú, et al.)
Result: German victory. Preserved the Kingdom of Germany and ended further invasions by the Huns into Latin Europe.
A diagram of the Battle of Lechfeld. Credit: Warfare History Network/William E. Welsh.
Description: The victory of East Francian King Otto I over Hungarian invaders at the Battle of Lechfield had important consequences for the future of Otto as well as the Hungarian people. The Hungarians (also known as the Maygars) had begun to conquer the Carpathian Basin in Eastern Europe in the 9th Century CE. By 900, they had established a home base in Pannonia and Moravia and began conducting plundering raids against the Byzantine Empire to the South and to the north and west into East and West Francia (and in one case as far as the Iberian Peninsula). The death of East Francian king Henry I (“the fowler”) in 936 CE led to internecine warfare among second son and chosen heir Otto and his three brothers, with various nobles within and around East Francia siding with one or the other of the brothers. The Hungarians chose the instability of this civil war to send a plundering force into East Francia in 936-938 CE, after which they withdrew to their home base. Then, when Otto’s son rose up against him in the 950s, bringing a number of princes with him, the Hungarians invaded again (possibly at the request of one of the rebelling princes) under Bulcsú and his chieftains Lél (Lehel) and Súr. This invasion eventually united the East Francians against their common enemy. Otto marched his troops, which included groups of Franconians, Saxons, Bavarians and Swabians, along a narrow Roman road in Bavaria to engage the Hungarians, who were in the process of besieging the walled city of Augsburg. The stretched-out line gave the Hungarian cavalry an opportunity to attack and capture the baggage train at the rear of the army. But Otto sent back Duke Conrad of Lotharingia (who had allied himself with the Hungarians but recently switched sides to back Otto) to recapture the baggage train – Conrad’s forces surprised the Hungarians in the process of plundering, and he succeeded at driving them off. Meanwhile, Otto marched the rest of his army to a plain between two rivers, where he attacked the Hungarians, who had come from the Augsburg siege to face Otto. Otto formed his troops in a single line. The Hungarians charged – a small force in the front and a larger group flanked the line to attack the camp in the rear. Despite the two-pronged attack, and a later feigned Hungarian retreat, Otto’s line held. The cramped nature of the field of battle made it impossible for the Hungarians to employ their successful “shoot and run” tactics, and once Conrad’s troops returned from their rearguard action, the combined forces under Otto eventually prevailed, capturing or killing most of the Hungarians (but not before Conrad was killed by an arrow in the neck). The retreat became a bloodbath when Hungarian horses were slowed by the pebbly bed of the river they had to cross. Otto’s success at the Battle of Lechfeld united the disparate princes and dukes of his kingdom behind him, setting the stage for the consolidation of his power, the expansion of his territories (particularly south into Italy) and his later crowning as Holy Roman Emperor – the first of the Ottonian Dynasty. On the Hungarian side, the Battle of Lechfeld marked the last foray of these nomads into western Europe. By the end of the 10th Century, the Hungarians exchanged their nomadic lifestyle for agricultural settlement and declared the new nation of Hungary in their home base in the Carpathians.
24. Battle of Hastings (on 22 lists)
Date: Oct. 14, 1066
Location: Hastings, East Sussex, England
War/Conflict: Norman Conquest of England
Combatants: Normans (led by William, Duke of Normandy) vs. Anglo-Saxon England (led by King Harold Godwinson)
Result: Norman victory; brought much of England under Norman rule.
Diagram of the Battle of Hastings. Credit: victrixlimited.com.
Description: The Battle of Hastings was a decisive victory by the Normans, led by William, Duke of Normandy (William the Conqueror) over the English King Harold Godwinson and was the turning point in the Norman conquest of England. But the differences between the English and the Normans were not as distinct as the term “Norman conquest” implies. The Normans were former Vikings, who had been permitted to settle in the French coastal region of Normandy in 911 CE. In 1002, the Anglo-Saxon king of England married the sister of the Duke of Normandy. Their son, Edward the Confessor, spent many years in exile in Normandy before he became king of England in 1042. Edward surrounded himself with Normans in his court, his army and the English church. During his reign, Edward’s chief rival was Godwin, Earl of Wessex. When Edward died without an heir in January 1066, there were four contenders who claimed the kingship: Godwin’s sons Harold and Tostig Godwinson, Norwegian king Harald III (Harald Hardrada) and William, Duke of Normandy. The English council of nobles known as the Witenaġemot, or Witan, elected Harold Godwinson king, but that did not deter his three rivals. Tostig struck first with some raids, but was pushed back to Scotland; later in the year, he joined forces with Harald Hardrada’s invading Norwegians and the combined forces defeated the English at the Battle of Fulford on September 20. When he learned of the Norwegian invasion, King Harold marched north and defeated the invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25. Both Tostig Godwinson and Harald Hardrada were killed in the battle, leaving only William to challenge Harold, whose armies were depleted and weakened after Stamford Bridge. William’s forces landed at Peavensey in Sussex on September 28 and quickly built a wooden fort at Hastings, which served as a base of operations. Harold marched much of his army south to meet William. He lost the element of surprise when William’s scouts discovered him. Harold arrived, deployed his troops on high ground (probably Senlac Hill, near the current town of Battle), and waited for William to march out from the castle to meet him. The battle began at 9 a.m. on October 14 and lasted until dusk. Harold’s troops were mostly infantry, while William’s troops were much more diverse, with significant numbers of cavalry, archers, and spearmen. In the initial phase, the Normans attacked, first with archers, then spearmen backed by cavalry, but could not break the English line and retreated in some disarray. The English broke their line and pursued the Normans, but William rallied his troops and mounted a counterattack, which forced the English back to their original position. After a lull, the Normans charged again, this time deliberately feigning flight in an attempt to tempt the English to break their line and pursue them. But the decisive event was the death of Harold himself, which led many of his troops to abandon the effort. A core group stayed and fought to the end but they were eventually overwhelmed by the Normans. William’s victory was not complete, however, because it did not convince the Witan, which instead proclaimed Edgar the Ætheling their new king. William pressed on to London, where he defeated some remaining pockets of resistance. He was crowned king on December 25, 1066 in Westminster Abbey. He also needed to put down rebellions in 1068, 1069 and 1070. Later, William built Battle Abbey on the site of the Battle of Hastings. The ruins of the abbey may still be seen and a reenactment of the battle is performed regularly.
25. Battle of Manzikert (on 7 lists)
Date: August 26, 1071
Location: near Manzikert, Armenia, Byzantine Empire (now Malazgirt, Muş Province, Turkey)
War/Conflict: Byzantine-Seljuk Wars
Combatants: Byzantine Empire (led by Romanos IV, et al.) vs. Seljuk Empire (led by Alp Arslan)
Result: Seljuk victory. Beginning of Turkic rule and settlement in Anatolia.
A diagram of the Battle of Manzikert. Credit: Byzantium Novum Militarium/jim. http://www.byzantiumnovummilitarium.blogspot.com.
Description: The defeat of the Byzantine Empire’s army and the capture of Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 was a significant turning point in the relations between the two empires. The Seljuks swept in from Central Asia in the 10th Century and conquered Persia and Iraq, converting to Islam and adopting much of Persian culture. From their base in Baghdad, the Seljuks began to expand west, including conquests in Byzantine territory, particularly in the far eastern border territory of Armenia. There, the Seljuks under their leader Alp Arslan captured several key fortresses, including Ani, in the 1060s. Despite a winning record against the Byzantines, Alp Arslan readily agreed to a peace treaty with new Emperor Romanos in 1069, which allowed the Seljuks to focus on their plan to conquer the Fatimid Caliphate, which controlled Egypt and much of the Levant. In 1071, Alp Arslan agreed to renew the treaty. But Romanos violated the treaty soon thereafter by marching east from Constantinople with a large army (mostly consisting of mercenaries) in an effort to recapture the lost fortresses in Armenia. Although Romanos hoped to make a surprise attack, Alp Arslan learned of the approaching army well in advance from his scouts. As Romanos approached Manzikert, north of Lake Van, he sent half of his army under Joseph Tarchaniotes to Khliat to guard the southeastern approach to Manzikert. Romanos led the remainder of his army to Manzikert itself, where he quickly recaptured the fortress. What happened to the southern portion of the Byzantine army is not clear: Alp Arslan may have defeated them or they may have simply returned to Constantinople. What is clear is that they never returned to reinforce Romanos. Instead of taking the southwest approach, Arp Arslan led his army around the east coast of Lake Van to meet the Byzantines outside Manzikert on August 25, 1071. The actual battle began the next morning. Using the hit and run style common among steppe nomads, the Seljuk horse archers refused to meet the Byzantines head on, so the Byzantines marched forward to capture the Seljuk camp. This advance led to a separation in the line, which the Seljuks exploited, isolating and surrounding the Byzantine right flank. At this point, the reserve cavalry was to have come forward to counterattack, but the force, led by Romanos’ political rival Doukas, refused to join battle, and the right wing was destroyed. The left wing also soon collapsed, leaving Romanos and his core, including the Varangian Guard, in the center, where they were eventually surrounded and Romanos captured. While in captivity, Romanos agreed to cede some Byzantine territory to the Seljuk Empire and pay reparations. He was released after about a week and escorted to Constantinople, where he was blinded and imprisoned by his political rivals. Alp Arlsan died in 1072, but over the next two decades, Seljuk forces penetrated far into Anatolia (Asia Minor), significantly reducing the eastern portion of the Byzantine Empire. The near term result of this 11th Century Seljuk expansion was the Byzantine emperor’s call to Western Europe for mercenary soldiers to recapture the lost territory, a call that turned into the First Crusade.
26. Siege of Jerusalem (on 3 lists)
Date: July 7-15, 1099
Location: Jerusalem, Fatimid Caliphate (now Israel/Palestine)
War/Conflict: First Crusade
Combatants: Crusaders (led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond IV of Toulouse, et al.) vs. Fatimid Caliphate (led by Iftikhar ad-Dawla)
Result: Crusader victory. Led to the founding of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
A diagram of the Siege of Jerusalem by Christ Gotz. World Military History/Eric Pinzelli.
Description: With the conquest of Jerusalem, holy city of three monotheistic religions, in July 1099, the participants in the First Crusade achieved their stated goal. The First Crusade was the brainchild of Roman Catholic Pope Urban II. When Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus requested a band of mercenary knights to assist him in pushing back the Seljuk Turks from Anatolia (Asia Minor) and the Levant, Pope Urban decided to launch a Holy War against Islam in the Middle East. He believed the Crusade would increase the power of the Church and reduce squabbling among western European nobles by uniting them in a common goal. The Pope promised that everyone who “took up the cross” and joined the Crusade for spiritual reasons, would be forgiven all his sins and guaranteed eternal life in heaven. When a huge army arrived at Constantinople, the Emperor was skeptical, but he promised to support the Crusaders in return for their promise that they would not conquer the lands for themselves but would return them to the Byzantine Empire. Despite internal conflicts, and a double-crossing by the Byzantine Emperor at Nicea, the Crusaders eventually made it to Antioch in 1098, which they took after a long siege (and a bribe to a Turk to open the gates). After a long period of power struggles (and the defection of two knights, who set up small fiefdoms in Antioch and nearby Edessa), the remaining Crusaders marched on to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they found the city well defended. In 1098, the Fatimid Caliphate (based in Egypt) had taken Jerusalem from the Seljuk Empire (based in Baghdad). In anticipation of the Crusaders, the Fatimids had stripped the land of trees, poisoned a number of wells and expelled Christians (who might aid the attackers). Despite the lack of supplies to build siege weapons and the difficulty of obtaining food and water, the Christians set up camp outside the walls and prepared to lay siege to the city. First, they performed a penitential rite: encircling the city in a prayer procession and then listening to the sermons of the accompanying priests. The first assault was a failure, but then several Genoese ships arrived at Jaffa with supplies. Fatimid ships prevented a sea escape, so the Genoans dismantled their ships and brought the wood and supplies to the Crusaders, who were now able to build two siege towers. In the second attack, the Crusaders brought the siege towers to the north and south walls; the north side, led by Godfrey, successfully breached the walls. There followed a massacre of the Muslims and Jews inside the city. Historians debate whether the carnage was typical for medieval warfare or more brutal than usual. After taking Jerusalem, many Crusaders returned home, but some needed to stay to fight the Fatimids, who sent an army to retake the city. The Crusaders defeated that army at the Battle of Ascalon on August 12, 1099.
27. Battle of Hattin (on 6 lists)
Date: July 3-4, 1187
Location: Horns of Hattin, Galilee, Palestine (now Israel)
War/Conflict: Wars of the Crusader States
Combatants: Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Tripoli, Principality of Antioch, Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller, et al. (led by Guy of Lusingna, et al.) v. Islamic Ayyubid Sultanate (led by Saladin, et al.)
Result: The Ayyubid victory made the Muslims the dominant military power in the area, prompting the Third Crusade.
A diagram of the Battle of Hatting. Credit: (c) http://www.arsbellica.it/alchetron.com.
Description: After Ayyubid Sultan Saladin had solidified his control of Egypt and Syria, he turned his attention to conquering the Crusader states. The Crusaders were weakened by internecine squabbles, particularly the rift between the King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, and Raymond III of Tripoli, who disputed Guy’s legitimacy. Saladin was held back by a five-year truce he had signed with the Crusaders in 1184 when he needed to focus his attention on consolidating his gains in the Islamic world (esp. Aleppo and Mosul). Fortunately for Saladin, Raynald of Châtillon attacked a Muslim caravan in early 1187, breaking the truce. Knowing an attack from Saladin was coming, Guy of Lusignan sent a peace mission to Tiberias to reconcile with Raymond, who had signed a separate treaty with Saladin. In late April, Saladin besieged Kerak, while he sent out a raiding party, led by Gökböri of Edessa to the area near Nazareth. The peace mission, led by the master of the Knights of Templar, Gerard of Ridefort, and Roger de Moulins, the master of the Knights Hospitaller, encountered the raiding party on the way to Tiberias and a skirmish ensued near the springs of Cresson on May 1, 1187. The Ayyubids defeated the Crusaders, killing or capturing most of the knights. Although the overall number of combatants was small, the Battle of Cresson deprived the Crusaders of many of the highly skilled Knights Hospitallar and Knights Templar (including the two leaders) shortly before a major battle, severely damaging morale. Meanwhile, Saladin and Guy were assembling their armies for a decisive clash. Saladin brought his Egyptian troops north and made peace with Antioch (a Crusader state) so that his Syrian troops could move south. The Crusaders sent out a rare call for all able-bodied men to provide military service; this left many of the Crusader strongholds with few defenders. A last-minute reconciliation between Guy and Raymond provided additional manpower. The Crusaders gathered at La Saphorie (also known as Sepphoris), where they had plenty of water and supplies. Saladin’s army assembled on the Golan Heights, between the Horns of Hattin and Tiberias, a Crusader state on the shores of Lake Galilee (then called Lake Tiberias). Saladin was wary of attacking the Crusaders in their camp, and tried unsuccessfully to lure them into the open plains with a series of raids. Saladin then decided that he would besiege Tiberias, where Raymond’s wife and family were located; the siege began on July 2, with Saladin leading a small continent of his much larger army. At a council of the Crusader leaders in Saphorie, Raymond said it would be better to sacrifice Tiberias – including his family – than to risk a march across the desert to save them. At first, Guy agreed, but he later succumbed to the advice of one of his lieutenants, who argued that failing to save Tiberias would scar his reputation and weaken his hold on the throne. So on July 3, the Crusaders ventured out of their camp, just as Saladin wanted. The only spring on the path to Tiberias, at Turan, was insufficient to provide water for the entire army, so they soon became thirsty. They decided to turn left towards the springs of Kafr Hattin, spend the night there, and arrive at Tiberias on the 4th. But Saladin’s troops were waiting, positioned in front of the springs; they were also staying hydrated with water from nearby Lake Tiberias. By contrast, the Crusaders were dehydrated, demoralized, and exhausted. When Saladin’s troops set the dry grass on fire, the smoke choked and blinded the Crusaders. On the morning of July 4, the weakened Crusaders attempted to form a battle line and attack, but Saladin’s refreshed army counterattacked and pushed them back. Raymond launched two charges and finally broke through the lines with a small group and headed to Tiberias (some later speculated that Raymond was allowed to pass through by Saladin’s army). Many of the recent untrained recruits fled into the hills, effectively deserting, but Guy and many of the knights fought on. Despite being surrounded, they mounted three separate charges at Saladin’s lines, but failed to break through. The result was a total defeat for the Crusaders. Those who were not killed were taken prisoner, including Guy of Lusignan and Raynald of Châtillon. Both were brought before Saladin, who spared Guy but had Raynald beheaded for breaking the truce. Many other knights were also beheaded. The battle destroyed the Crusader army and left the Crusader states weakly defended. In the next few months, Saladin took nearly every Crusader base in the Levant (except Tyre), with Jerusalem – the big prize – surrendering on October 2, 1187. Back in Europe, a cry was raised for a Third Crusade to take back the Holy Land.
28. Battle of Ain Jalut (on 4 lists)
Date: September 3, 1260
Location: near Ayn Jalut (Ma’ayan Harod), Jezreel Valley, Galilee, Mamluk Sultanate (now Israel)
War/Conflict: Mongol Wars of Conquest
Combatants: Mamluk Sultanate (led by Qutuz, Baybars & Al-Mansur of Hamah) vs. Ilkhanate, Cilician Armenia & Georgia (led by Kitbuqa Noyan & Al-Ashraf Musa)
Result: Mamluk victory. As a result, the Mongols withdrew from the Levant and ceded occupied territories to the Mamluks.
A map of the Battle of Ain Jalut. Credit: MapMaster/Wikipedia.
Description: By 1260, the Mongols, led by Great Khan Möngke Khan, were on the verge of conquering all of the Middle East. Möngke Khan gave this task to Hulegu Khan, his brother, who established the Ilkhanate in the southwestern portion of the Mongol Empire. Both Möngke and Hulegu were grandsons of Genghis Khan. After assembling a massive army (which included Cicilian Armenians and Georgians), Hulegu proceeded to conquer (by persuasion or force) much of the area. In 1258, he took Baghdad, destroying the Abbasid Caliphate; shortly thereafter, he took Damascus, ending the Ayyubid dynasty. The next target was Egypt, which was under the control of the powerful Bahri Mamluk Sultanate, led by former slave Sayf ad-Din Qutuz. In 1260, Hulegu sent envoys to Qutuz in Cairo with a threatening message – surrender or be destroyed. Qutuz responded by beheading the envoys and placing their heads on the city gates. But luck was on the Mamluk’s side. At this point, Hulegu received news that his brother, the Great Khan, had been killed in battle. Hulegu hurried back to Mongolia, where the Mongol leaders would choose a successor Great Khan. Hulegu brought much of his army with him, leaving approximately 10,000 troops in the Levant under the command of Kitbuqa Noyan, a member of the Naimans, a Christian sect that was subservient to the Mongols. Hulegu’s departure with many of his troops provided Qutuz with an opportunity to inflict a defeat on the Mongols. He gathered his army – composed of Egyptian Mamluks, Syrians, Arabs Turcomans, and others – and marched north to Palestine. They marched along the Mediterranean coast to Acre, part of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusaders – who feared the Mongols more than the Mamluks – agreed to remain neutral and allowed the Mamluks to pass through their territory unharmed. At the same time, the Mongols headed south from Syria to meet the Mamluks. They probably reached Ain Jalut (Goliath’s Spring) before the Mamluks. Once at Ain Jalut, Qutuz and his lead general, Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari (known as Baybars or Baibars) decided to divide their forces. Baybars would lead a small continent of cavalry who would use hit-and-run tactics to draw out the Mongols. Meanwhile, the bulk of the Mamluk fighters were hidden in the forested highlands adjacent to the battlefield. On the morning of September 3, the Mongols began their assault on the Mamluk position. Baybars and his troops attacked and retreated again and again. Kitbuqa eventually took the bait and followed the retreating Mamluks into the highlands, where they were ambushed and surrounded by the forces hiding in the woods. But the Mongols did not collapse, and began to pierce the Mamluk left wing, which would have provided an escape from the encirclement. At that point, Qutuz took off his helmet (so he would be recognized) and rallied his troops in the name of Islam. The line held, and the Mongols were pushed back to Beisan, followed by the Mamluks. Kitbuqa reorganized his forces and counterattacked, but the Mamluk line held strong and the Mongols were pushed back. Eventually, most of the Mongols, including Kitbuqa, were killed. Many historians see the Mongol loss at Ain Jalut as the turning point in their Middle Eastern conquests. Soon afterwards, the Mamluks took Damascus and Aleppo from the Mongols, preventing them from expanding westward. Unfortunately for Qutuz, he had little time to enjoy his victory; during the return to Cairo, he was assassinated as part of a conspiracy to make Baybars the new sultan.
29. Battle of Crécy (on 4 lists)
Date: Aug. 26, 1346
Location: near Crécy-en-Ponthieu, Picardy, France
War/Conflict: Hundred Years’ War (Edwardian Phase)
Combatants: England (led by King Edward III) vs. France, Bohemia & Duchy of Lorraine (led by King Philip VI)
Result: English victory. The battle reduced the French army’s ability to relieve the subsequent siege of Calais, which fell to the English in 1347.
Diagram of the Battle of Crécy. Credit: Department of History, U.S. Military Academy (westpoint.edu).
Description: Most historians agree that the Hundred Years’ War between England and France was triggered by French King Philip VI’s dispossession of lands in France held by Edward III of England in 1337. The official reason given for hostilities was a dispute over the succession to the French throne. Edward – nephew of Charles IV of France – claimed that he had a better right to be king of France than Philip, Charles’s patrilineal cousin, but an assembly of French barons rejected Edward’s claim. After eight years of inconclusive warfare, Edward assembled a massive army and sailed across the English Channel to Normandy, landing at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue on July 12, 1346. For the next six weeks, the English army month marched through northern France, conquering and looting the cities (including Caen on July 26) and countryside. Meanwhile, the main French army, under Duke John of Normandy, was engaged in a siege of Aiguillon in southwest France. As Edward’s troops approached Paris, Philip ordered Duke John to abandon the siege and move north to engage Edward. Only two miles from Paris at Poissy, Edward decided to find a better defensive position to face the French and turned north. (Hopes of linking up with a mostly Flemish force were dashed when the invaders returned to Flanders after an unsuccessful siege of Béthune.) Although Philip had ordered his troops to keep Edward south of the River Somme, Edward managed to find a weak spot at Blanchetaque; at low tide, Edward’s longbowmen and cavalry waded into the river and routed the small French force on the north bank. Edward’s army crossed the Somme and marched to the vicinity of Crécy. He situated his army on a hill and had his troops dig holes and trenches on the approaches. The English flanks were protected by a river on one side, and a town on the other. Behind was his baggage train, circled to provide a corral for the horses. The English were rested and ready when the much larger French force began to arrive from Abbeville. The French were exhausted from the long march; disorganization meant that the line stretched for miles and soldiers arrived at the battlefield over a period of many hours. At a war council, Philip decided to allow his army to rest and attack in the morning, but his knights and allies (which included the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Duchy of Lorraine) were pushing to attack and defeat the much smaller English army. (Estimates of troop strength vary, but some estimate the English at c. 15,000, with the French and allies at twice or three times that number). At that point, a brief thunderstorm occurred, which created muddy conditions on the battlefield. Without an order to attack, in the late afternoon, the French began to move up the hill toward the English position. The Genoese crossbowmen led the attack in what became an archery duel, but were unsuccessful in countering the shower of armor-piercing arrows from the English and Welsh longbowmen. (The crossbow had shorter range and longer reloading time than the longbow; some reports indicate that the crossbowmen also suffered from the lack of their large protective shields, which were still in the baggage train.) As the Genoese retreated, they encountered the oncoming French mounted knights, some of whom struck down the crossbowmen in anger at their apparent betrayal, causing chaos on the front lines, already challenging due to the uphill trajectory, the mud, and the holes dug by the English. The English held their positions through attack after attack by the French, whose horses were shot from under them by the hundreds. Dead horses and bodies formed obstacles that made each assault more difficult. Those French who avoided death by a longbowman’s arrow then confronted the dismounted English in heavy hand-to-hand combat at the ridge of the hill. Significantly, Edward ordered his men not to follow the retreating French after each failed charge – they were only allowed to go far enough to collect their arrows, then reform their defensive line. The discipline of the English forces (along with the advantages of the longbows and the placement on the hilltop) and the haphazard nature of the French assaults allowed the smaller force to defeat the larger. The next morning, the French knights, unwilling to admit defeat, made another charge, which was again repulsed. This time, the English followed the bedraggled French down the hill and killed many thousands. The casualty numbers are much debated, but everyone agrees that the French dead numbered in the thousands, while the English lost at most several hundred. Following the battle, Edward turned north to besiege Calais. The battle also had long-term consequences for war tactics: the longbow was now considered the weapon of choice, and knights on horseback were no longer considered an invincible weapon of war.
30. Battle of Grunwald (First Battle of Tannenberg; Battle of Žalgiris) (on 3 lists)
Date: July 15, 1410
Location: between Grünfelde and Tannenberg, State of the Teutonic Order (now Grunwald and Stębark, western Masuria, Poland)
War/Conflict: Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War.
Combatants: Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, et al. (led by King Władysław II Jagiełło & Grand Duke Vytautas) vs. Teutonic Order, et al. (led by Ulrich von Jungingen)
Result: Polish-Lithuanian victory. Led to the eventual decline of the Teutonic Order; shifted the balance of power in Central and Eastern Europe, and marked the rise of the Polish-Lithuanian union as the dominant regional force.
A map showing the final stage of the Battle of Grunwald, in which the Polish heavy cavalry break through. Credits: Screen2/Piotrus/Emax/Wikipedia.
Description: Founded in Jerusalem in 1190, the Order of the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary’s Hospital moved to Europe in 1230 and changed their mission from protecting Holy Land pilgrims to converting the pagan lands of northern Europe to Christianity, particularly the pagan Duchy of Lithuania. The Knights established a Teutonic Order state along the Baltic Sea (in parts of what is now Germany and Poland) and added territory to their nation over the next century, absorbing the Livonian Order of the Sword and expanding into the Baltic States. Border tensions between the Teutonic State and neighboring Poland (a Christian nation) resulted in a series of minor military conflicts. In 1385, Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania (later known as King Władysław II Jagiełło) converted to Catholicism and married Queen Jadwiga of Poland, creating the Polish-Lithuanian Union and presumably removing the grounds for the Teutonic Order to continue its crusade against Lithuania. (Upon Jadwiga’s death in 1399, Jagiełło became both king of Poland and Supreme Duke of Lithuania, with his cousin Vytautas designated Grand Duke). But the Teutonic Knights claimed that Jagiełło’s conversion was a sham. After Lithuania and Poland supported an uprising in Teutonic-held Samogitia in May 1409, Teutonic Grandmaster Ulrich von Jungingen declared war on both nations, and made a small invasion into Poland. The parties signed a truce on October 8, 1409 that was due to expire on June 24, 1410, during which time they both prepared for a full-scale war. In late 1409, Ulrich von Jungingen, expecting the Poles and Lithuanians to invade separately, placed his army at Schwetz, a central location. But Władysław II Jagiełło and Vytautas instead decided to merge their armies at Czerwińsk and march north to attack the Teutonic capital at Marienburg. The combined Polish-Lithuanian army left Czerwińsk on July 3, 1410 and crossed the Teutonic state border on July 9. When Ulrich learned of the invasion, he marched the bulk of his army east (leaving some behind to counter a Polish diversionary attack), stopping at the ford of Kauernik along the Drewenz River, where the Polish-Lithuanians arrived on July 10. But Władysław II Jagiełło and Vytautas declined to engage the Knights at the well-defended ford, and turned east to find another pass over the river. The Teutonic Knights also moved east on a parallel track. On July 15, 1410, the two armies faced off near the town of Grünfelde. The Teutonic Order, who were outnumbered (the actual numbers are debated), established their lines first, hoping to provoke an attack. For hours the heavily armored knights stood in the sun while the Poles and Lithuanians failed to move. Eventually, Ulrich von Jungingen sent messengers with ironic “gifts” of swords to the enemy camp, hoping to embarrass the Polish-Lithuanian forces into making the first move. Finally, Vytautas assaulted the left flank of the Order. After an hour of heavy fighting, the Lithuanian light cavalry retreated. Historians debate whether they were truly defeated or were engaged in a feigned retreat. Next the Teutonic Order attacked the Polish right flank. A charge directly at Władysław II Jagiełło was only thwarted by his secretary Zbigniew Oleśnicki. The Order appeared to have the upper hand. But then, the Lithuanians, who had reorganized, returned to the battlefield and joined the attack, overwhelming the Knights. After Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen was killed, the Teutonic forces retreated to their camp, where they used wagons to create an improvised fortification. But the Polish-Lithuanian troops easily penetrated their defenses and slaughtered the knights within the wagon fort. The remnants of the Teutonic Order rushed back to Marienburg, where they withstood a two-month siege, thus saving their state from annihilation. By October, the war was over. The consequences were severe; although the Order lost little territory, many of their best knights were killed, and the cost of reparations severely impacted their financial stability. For the Polish-Lithuanians, the victory established their nation as a powerful force in the region.
31. Battle of Agincourt (on 7 lists)
Date: Oct. 25, 1415
Location: Azincourt, County of Saint-Pol, France (now Paz-de-Calais,France)
War/Conflict: Hundred Years’ War
Combatants: England (under Henry V, et al.) vs. France (under Charles D’Albret, et al.)
Result: English victory. Began period of English dominance that lasted until 1429.
A diagram showing the army positions at the Battle of Agincourt. Credit: ArdadN/Wikipedia.
Description: After negotiations with the French over Henry V’s claim to the French throne and French lands broke down, the English king assembled an army of English and Welshmen and invaded northern France in August 1415. The English successfully laid siege to the port city of Harfleur, but the campaign took longer than expected and the army suffered significant losses to, mostly to disease. With the cold weather coming, Henry decided to march his army to English-controlled Calais and return to England from there; they left Harfleur on October 8. But the French blocked Henry’s path at the Somme and he had to turn south to find a safe place to cross the river. When the English army turned north again, they found that the French army – which outnumbered them significantly (the estimates vary from 5-1 to 4-3) – had marched ahead and was blocking the road to Calais. The two armies faced each other near the town of Azincourt on October 24 and prepared for a battle the next day. Even though the troops were sick and tired (having marched 260 miles), Henry chose to engage the French now rather than wait for more French forces to arrive. He set up his battle lines on a strip of open land along road that was bordered on both sides by woods, which narrowed the line of battle and severely restricted any flanking maneuvers. It had rained heavily for several days, so the ground was muddy and difficult to march through. Henry had his archers hide in the woods on the flanks, and place wooden stakes in the ground in front of their positions. After the French failed to attack, Henry had his army (including the line of stakes) move closer. This provoked the first line of heavily armored French knights to attack, but the assault of the arrows (whose tips could pierce all but the best quality armor) at close range caused havoc, bodies of men and horses piling up along the front lines. The tight squeeze at the narrow front line meant there was no escape from the archers; some of the French barely had room to use their weapons. After the assaults of the longbowmen had done their damage, the archers dropped their bows and picked up spears and hand-axes to join in the brutal hand-to-hand combat. Some of the French knights may have died from drowning or suffocating in their armor after falling in the mud among the piles of bodies. After a short time, the English had taken more prisoners than they had soldiers. At some point during the battle, a small French force was able to make a flanking maneuver behind the English line and raided the English baggage train, leading Henry to believe that his force was surrounded. In response, he gave an order to kill all the prisoners. By the time he realized his mistake and revoked the order, a number (there is a debate about how many) of French prisoners were dead. A second line of French troops suffered the same fate as the first; the third line, which may have consisted of the knights’ servants or unarmed pages, failed to attack and scattered. The result was a stunning and unexpected victory for the English and King Henry V in which the French lost approximately 6,000 men (including many important nobles and other leaders), while the English lost between 600 and 1,600. Henry returned to England as a hero, and English would have the advantage for the next 15 years.
32. Siege of Orléans (on 9 lists)
Date: October 12, 1428-May 8, 1429
Location: Orléans, France
War/Conflict: Hundred Years’ War
Combatants: England and Burgundy (led by Thomas Montagu, William de la Pole, et al) vs. France and Scotland (led by Jean de Dunois, Joan of Arc & La Hire)
Result: French victory. England’s failure to capture Orleans was a turning point in the war in favor of the French.
Battle map of the Siege of Orléans. Credit: John Fawkes/britishbattles.com.
Description: By mid-1428, the English were winning the Hundred Years’ War against France. The Treaty of Troyes had designated Henry V (and by descent his son Henry VI) the successor to the French throne after the death of French King Charles VI, although many French leaders (known as the Armagnacs) disavowed the treaty and claimed that Charles VI’s son Charles, the Dauphin of France, was his father’s rightful heir. English King Henry VI’s forces controlled most of northern France (including Paris), and a significant portion of the southwest coast. England’s French allies, the Burgundians, controlled large portions in the east center of the country and the far north. The city of Orléans, the northernmost city still in the hands of French loyal to the Dauphin, was blocking the English advance south. During 1427 and early 1428, the English, under John, Duke of Bedford, consolidated their control of the Maine region, although the French forced the English to lift their siege of Montargis in late 1427, raising French morale. But the arrival of Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury, from England with reinforcements in July 1428 led to a change of plans. Between July and October, Salisbury and his troops swept through the countryside southwest of Paris, taking several towns, and then turned southwest towards Orléans, seizing two more towns. Then Salisbury bypassed Orléans and seized several towns to the west. Meanwhile another English force under John de la Pole and the Burgundians took other towns in the area, leaving Orléans almost completely surrounded. To prepare for the oncoming siege, John of Dunois (the half-brother of Charles I, Duke of Orléans, who had been imprisoned since Agincourt) fortified the main bridge across the Loire leading into the Orléans. The siege formally began on October 12, 1428. Over the next two weeks, the English pushed the French back from the fortifications and across the bridge. But the arrival of French reinforcements forestalled a disaster. To make matters worse, the Earl of Salisbury died of wounds sustained by masonry dislodged by an English cannon. Over the winter, the English – under harassment by the French – refortified the defenses on the south side of the Loire at the site of the bridge and also built seven forts around the city, although the northwest was left unfortified, which allowed the French a resupply route. When a French-Scottish attack (under Charles de Bourbon, Count of Clermont) attacked an English supply convoy (including lots of fish for Lent) led by Sir John Fastolf that had been sent from Paris to resupply the besiegers, the French were ignominiously defeated in what became known as the Battle of the Herrings, further damaging French morale. By March 1429, John of Dunois had decided to surrender to the Burgundians on the promise that Orléans would remain a neutral city, but John of Bedford, believing that Orléans’s fall was imminent, refused the offer. In response, Philip III of Burgundy, furious with Bedford, withdrew his troops from the siege. Then Joan of Arc arrived. Joan believed that God wanted her to place the Dauphin on the French throne; she had convinced the Dauphin to send her to Orléans with a supply convoy, where she believed would lead the troops to victory. Joan (called la Pucelle, or “the maiden”) entered the city on April 29, to much acclaim from the local populace. Soon afterwards, John of Dunois made his way to Blois to assemble and lead reinforcements to the besieged city. He and two other French convoys arrived on May 4 and (with Joan) attacked St. Loup, the English fort east of Orléans; it fell after a few hours of fighting. On May 6, the French (again with Joan) attacked the English fortifications on the south bank of the Loire, at the main bridge. When the French flank was exposed to English fire, and word came that more English forces were on the way, the French faltered and began to retreat. But (according to legend), Joan rallied the troops; they reversed course and took the fortified monastery of Les Augustins, leaving the English garrison trapped in the complex known as the Tourelles. On the morning of May 7, the French assaulted the Tourelles. Joan was struck by an arrow between the neck and left shoulder and was taken off the battlefield, while the English successfully repulsed multiple French assaults. Later in the evening, the wounded Joan returned to the battle. Although John of Dunois wanted to wait until morning for the next assault, Joan overruled him and urged the French to attack once more; this time, the French succeeded in breaching the English defenses. Having lost control of the bridge, the English recognized the pointlessness of continuing the siege. Instead, they demolished their forts and assembled for a pitched battle. The French lined up across from the English, but neither army moved, and the English withdrew from the field after an hour. Although the English still held much of the surrounding countryside, and the towns within it, the French success at Orléans blocked the English momentum and bolstered French morale. Joan and the army soon began the Loire Campaign, taking back much of the area from the English in June 1429. In July, they began a march toward Reims – the traditional coronation city – taking a number of towns along the way. The Dauphin – with Joan by his side – was crowned King Charles VIII on July 17.
33. Fall of Constantinople (Siege of Constantinople) (on 7 lists)
Date: April 6-May 29, 1453
Location: Constantinople, Byzantine Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey)
War/Conflict: Byzantine-Ottoman Wars
Combatants: Ottoman Empire & Serbia (led by Mehmed II) vs. Byzantine Empire, Papal States, Kingdom of Sicily & Crown of Aragon (led by Constantine XI)
Result: Ottoman victory. End of the Byzantine Empire.
A map of the fall of Constantinople. Credit: Sémhur/Wikipedia.
Description: By 1453, Constantinople, once the bustling center of the powerful Byzantine Empire (also known as the Eastern Roman Empire), retained only a pitiful remnant of its former glory. The schism of the Catholic Church in 1054 into Roman and Eastern Orthodox factions opened the door for the disaster of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, when Latin Crusaders sacked the city. Over the next two centuries, the rising Ottoman Empire had conquered most of the land to the north and east of the city, while the Hungarians and Balkan states pressed from the west. The Empire had shrunk to a fraction of its former size, encompassing the city itself and some lands to the west; the population had diminished from a high of 400,000 to only about 40,000. Inside the legendary (and so far impregnable) walls, the city itself consisted of a series of villages separated by large tracts of unused land. When Mehmed II ascended to the Ottoman sultanate in 1451, he vowed to take Constantinople, the only obstacle standing in the way of Ottoman expansion into eastern Europe. Through a combination of treaties and military actions, he eliminated most of the other threats in the vicinity. He also ordered the building of large cannons to use during the siege, especially against the Theodosian walls on the land side of the city. Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI, meanwhile, prepared for the siege by shoring up the city’s defenses, placing a chain across the entrance to the Golden Horn seaway, and asking his European allies for aid. To encourage the Pope and other Roman Catholics to support him, Constantine announced an end to the religious schism, although his own people protested vociferously. Little aid arrived, however. The Hundred Years’ War had depleted England and France, and the Reconquista consumed the bulk of Spain’s resources; the Holy Roman Empire was at war with itself, and the Ottomans had recently defeated the Poles and Hungarians at the Battle of Varna. Several Italian city-states sent soldiers, and several prominent nobles, including Cardinal Isidore, raised armies. The most important volunteer was Giovanni Giustiani, a Genoese soldier and expert in defending walled cities, who brought 700 men with him. When Giustiani arrived, Constantine made him the overall commander of the city’s defense. The total number of defenders was estimated to be 7,000. Surrounding this meager force was an enormous army of Ottomans and their allies and vassals. Estimates range from 50,000 to 80,000. Mehmed II also had cannons to barrage the city’s walls. The siege began on April 5 or 6, with a barrage of cannon fire. The defenders repulsed several frontal assaults against the land wall. In the early weeks of the siege, the Ottomans suffered many casualties and failed to enter the city. While the cannons did puncture the walls, the gaps were too small, and the Byzantines repaired the damage quickly. Furthermore, attempts by Mehmed II’s navy to break through the chain across the Golden Horn also failed. The Ottoman fleet controlled the waterways outside the Golden Horn, but could not pass through the chain at the entrance. Instead, Mehmed II had his troops build a road of greased logs to portage a number of ships across Ottoman-controlled land and into the Golden Horn, and by April 22, the Ottoman navy surrounded the city on three sides. Ottoman attempts to mine beneath the walls also failed when the Byzantines dug counter-mines, and killed the tunnelers. By May 21, Mehmed II was willing to offer to lift the siege in return for the city; he promised safe passage to the Emperor and anyone else who wanted to leave and guaranteed the safety of those who remained. Constantine rejected the officer. After conferring with his advisors, Mehmed II chose to make one final attack. The night before, Constantine and representatives of both Latin and Greek churches gathered for prayers at Hagia Sophia. Just after midnight on May 29, the Ottoman assault began. Turkmen mercenaries breached the Blachernae walls in the northeast, but were pushed back. Then the elite Janissaries attacked. Commander Giovanni Giustiniani was mortally wounded, damaging morale. The Ottomans had breached the walls at several points, overwhelming the defenders. At some point, Constantine himself died (it is disputed whether he was killed alongside his troops or committed suicide). Many of the surviving Greeks, Venetians, and Genoese retreated outside the city to their ships or their homes. For three days, mayhem reigned in the city, with many rapes and killings, and much looting. Eventually Mehmed II called a halt to the destruction; he wanted to preserve enough of the city to establish it as the new capital of the Ottoman Empire, to be named Istanbul.
34. Siege of Tenochtitlán (on 6 lists)
Date: May-August, 1521
Location: Tenochtitlán, Mexico (present day Mexico City)
War/Conflict: Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire
Combatants: Spanish Empire, Tlaxcalan, Chalco & Huexotzinco (led by Hernán Cortés, et al.) vs. Aztec Empire (led by Cuauhtémoc & Coanacoch)
Result: Spanish and Tlaxcalan victory. Fall of the Aztec Empire. Creation of the Kingdom of New Spain.
A map showing the route Cortes and his troops took in 1519-1521. Credit: Warfare History Network (warfarehistorynetwork.com).
Description: The Siege of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, signaled the beginning of the end of the Aztec (Mexica) Empire, which – on its own and as part of the Triple Alliance with two neighboring states – had controlled much of Mesoamerica beginning about 1430. The Aztecs maintained control over vassal states by requiring significant tribute in the form of goods, military service, and human sacrifices. Many of the vassal states resented the Aztecs for these sacrifices, resentments that Hernán Cortés would use to his advantage when his exploratory force landed in the Yucatan in 1519. Seeking gold and glory, Cortés and his small army of conquistadors subdued many of the local city-states, and founded a new Spanish city, Veracruz. After receiving gifts from Aztec Emperor Moctezuma, they marched through Mesoamerica toward Moctezuma’s island capital, Tenochtitlán, making alliances and defeating any groups who attacked them. Cortés was aided by his consort, La Malinche, a native woman given to the Spanish as a slave by the natives of Tabasco, who served as a translator between the Mayan and Aztec languages. When Cortés, accompanied by his Spanish troops and many native allies, arrived in Tenochtitlán on November 8, 1519, the initial friendly diplomatic mission quickly deteriorated as Cortés realized the number and power of the Aztec military, and the Spanish took Moctezuma hostage on November 14. For several months, Moctezuma agreed to the demands of the Spanish, but his rule depended on public support, and the public was losing confidence in him. A fragile peace held for several months until April, 1520, when Cortés learned that a Spanish ship had landed on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico with orders to arrest him for treason for exceeding the scope of his orders. Leaving Pedro de Alvarado in charge in Tenochtitlán with a small force, Cortés marched with the bulk of his army to confront Pánfilo de Narváez. After convincing many of Narváez’s soldiers to join him, Cortés and his men battled and defeated Narváez and those who remained loyal to him. Meanwhile, back in Tenochtitlán, a nervous Alvarado, who feared an Aztec revolt, misinterpreted the frenzied dances of the Aztec festival of Tóxcatl and massacred thousands of Aztec nobles, warriors, and priests. By the time Cortés returned, the Aztecs had turned against the Spanish and were in open revolt. Attempts to use Moctezuma to quell the uprising failed, and Moctezuma was killed (either by the Spanish or by Aztecs who had lost confidence in his leadership). The Spanish attacked the main temple, but were pushed back with many casualties. That night, Cortés and his men retreated back over the causeways linking Tenochtitlán, in what the Spanish call “La Noche Triste,” or The Night of Sorrows. The Spanish and their indigenous allies were able to leave the city unnoticed but were eventually discovered on the causeway, and suffered the loss of many men, weapons, horses, and gold treasure during their escape to safety in Tlaxcala. (On the way to Tlaxcala, Cortés is said to have narrowly defeated a large Aztec army in a European-style battle on the plain of the Otumba Valley.) While Cortés worked on rebuilding his alliances with local states, smallpox brought by the Spanish infected the Aztecs by the thousands in October 1520, killing a significant percentage of the population of Tenochtitlán, including the emperor Cuitlahuac, Moctezuma’s successor. Cuauhtémoc succeeded Cuitlahuac in late 1520. On December 26, 1520, Cortés – having rebuilt his alliances and devised a siege plan, which included building over a dozen sloops to counter the Aztec canoes on the lake surrounding the city – began the march toward Tenochtitlán. Along the way, his army grew larger, and defeated the Aztecs whenever they encountered them. On May 22, 1521, Cortés divided his forces in thirds, corresponding to the three causeways linking the city to the mainland – one in Tlacopan at the west under the command of Pedro de Alvarado, another in Coyoacán at the southwest under Cristóbal de Olid, and the third and largest one in Iztapalapa at the south under Gonzalo de Sandoval – while Cortés took control of the 13-ship navy. Early in the siege, the Spanish cut off the fresh water supply, and prevented food from being supplied via the causeways. But the Aztecs fought hard, and the fighting along the causeways, and in the lake surrounding them, was fierce. Commanders Alvarado and Olid failed to make way against the Aztecs in the Battle of Tlacopan, although Cortés and his ships defeated the Aztec canoes at the First Battle of the Lake. Over the next weeks, the besiegers pushed slowly forward, against fierce resistance by the defenders. A simultaneous attack by Cuauhtemoc against the Spanish on all three causeways wounded Alvarado, and five captured men were sacrificed to the Aztec gods in full view of the Spaniards. In the Battle of Colhuacatonco on June 30, 1521, the Spanish – led by Cortés – launched a major assault, hoping to take the market of Tlateloco, but they faced strong resistance (at one point Cortés was wounded and almost captured) and were forced to retreat after suffering heavy losses. The failure of Cortés to take the city led many of his native allies to return home in discouragement. But the blockade began to take its toll: the people of Tenochtitlán were suffering; they had no food, no clean water, no reinforcements, and no new supplies. Meanwhile the Spanish had received supplies and additional soldiers from Veracruz, had finally entered the center of the city. Many of the disaffected allies returned to help Cortés; he ordered a simultaneous advance from all three causeways toward the Tlatelolco market. This time, the Aztecs could not resist the onslaught. After several days, the Spanish and their allies had overrun the city. When Cuauhtémoc attempted to escape, the Spanish intercepted him, brought him back, and received his surrender on August 13, 1521. Plunder, pillaging, and mass murder ensued. The Tlaxcalans, who had seething anger against the Aztecs for years of injustices, committed many atrocities. Estimates of casualties vary widely. Between 860 and 1,800 Spaniards were killed between 1519 and 1521, with many thousands (perhaps 20,000) of indigenous allies. Estimates of Aztec/Mexica dead from the 1521 siege alone range from 100,000 to 240,000.
35. First Battle of Panipat (on 3 lists)
Date: April 21, 1526
Location: near Panipat, Sultanate of Delhi (now Haryana, India)
War/Conflict: Mughal Wars of Conquest
Combatants: Mughals (led by Babur) vs. Delhi Sultanate (led by Ibrahim Khan Lodi)
Result: A Mughal victory marked the beginning of Mughal rule in India. The Mughal Empire lasted 200 years.
A diagram showing the First Battle of Panipat. Credit: IDF/Medium.com
Description: A descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, Babur (born Zahir ud-Din Muhammad) spent the years between 1494 and 1526 attempting to establish a empire in what is now Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, with mostly negative results. He conquered and lost Samarkand three times in that period, while his rival, Uzbek prince Muhammad Shaybani, founder the Khanate of Bukhara and gained power and lands at Babur’s expense. Babur then turned his attention to India. Most of northern India was part of the Delhi Sultanate, under Sultan Ibrahim Lodi. But Lodi was vulnerable, as he was engaged in a power struggle with his relatives and ministers. One of those ministers, Daulat Khan Lodi, Governor of Punjab, asked Babur to invade India and assist Daulat to overthrow Ibrahim. In 1524, Babur marched on the Punjab, defeating a Lodi army near Lahore, and taking a number of territories before retreating to his base in Kabul, leaving Ibrahim Lodi in power. At the end of 1525, Babur set out again, determined to reach Delhi. The two armies met north of Delhi at Panipat. Ibrahim Lodi had a significantly larger force (two to three times the size of Babur’s), with 1,000 war elephants. But Babur had gunpowder weapons – matchlock muskets and cannons – and Ibrahim did not. Babur established a defensive line by tying together wagons, inserting breastworks for musketeers to fire, and creating several gaps for the cavalry archers to sally through. Ibrahim’s attack failed. Musket and cannon held back the center of his force, while the horse archers harassed the Ibrahim’s army on both flanks and the rear. The elephants panicked at the sound of the cannons, trampling Ibrahim’s men. Ibrahim and 20,000 of his men were killed in the battle, and thousands more died in the retreat. As a result of the battle, Babur established the Mughal Empire in north India. Although he would need to secure his position in the next few years by defeating the Mewars and the eastern Afghans, a new dynasty was established that would reign for over 200 years.
36. Battle of Mohács (on 3 lists)
Date: August 29, 1526
Location: Mohács, Kingdom of Hungary (now Hungary)
War/Conflict: Ottoman Wars in Europe; Hungarian-Ottoman Wars
Combatants: Ottoman Empire (led by Suleiman the Magnificent & Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha) vs. Kingdom of Hungary, et al. (led by King Louis II, et al.)
Result: Ottoman victory. The battle marked the beginning of the Ottoman-Hapsburg wars, which lasted until 1791, and the decline of Hungary as an independent power.
A map/diagram of the Battle of Mohács.
Description: By 1526, the once-mighty Kingdom of Hungary had fallen upon hard times. Wars of conquest and royal financial concessions to the aristocracy had depleted the kingdom’s coffers and weakened its defenses. The brutal suppression of a peasant revolt in 1514 had soured the nation’s poor on fighting for kings and nobles. Military raids by the ever-growing Ottoman Empire had taken a toll on the kingdom’s southern regions; after the Ottomans took Belgrade in 1521, Hungary’s underbelly lay exposed and vulnerable. (Although a massive army was raised to retake Belgrade in 1523, the force was beset by hunger and disease and never reached its goal.) Although King Louis II had allied with the Hapsburgs by marrying Mary of Austria in 1522, Hungary’s new European allies were busy with wars in Italy elsewhere involving the French and the Holy Roman Empire and reluctant to lend aid. In fact, France’s unorthodox alliance with Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sparked the conflict that destroyed Hungary. Seeking to relieve some of the pressure on France from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, French King Francis I asked the Ottomans to open a second front against Charles. To reach Charles, Suleiman would first have to defeat Hungary, which stood in the way. Anticipating an attack, Louis called for his nobles to assemble armies and hold back the Ottoman onslaught. But response to the king was slow and reluctant, and Suleiman’s army met no resistance as it marched through the south toward the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Louis was able to marshal three forces: his own troops (including numerous mercenaries) of about 25,000, a Transylvania army of about 10,000 under John Zápolya, and 5,000 Croatians led by Christoph Frankopan. Louis placed his army on a sprawling, undulating plain with many boggy area near the town of Mohács. When the Ottoman force arrived, the soldiers were tired from a long march. The rested Hungarians, who were familiar with the land, appeared to have the advantage. But the Hungarians did not fully realize that they were significantly outnumbered. Not only did the Ottoman army have two to three times the manpower, but their artillery consisted of about 200 cannons to the Hungarians’ 50-85 pieces. Louis wanted to wait until his two other armies arrived, bringing 15,000 additional men, but some of his advisers- confident of victory through an attack of the heavy cavalry- persuaded him to attack immediately. The initial Hungarian cavalry charges caused some disarray in the Ottoman front ranks, which were pushed back. But the disciplined center, commanded by Sullivan himself, held strong. When the Hungarians came within cannon range, the Ottoman artillery mowed them down. Simultaneously, the Ottomans counterattacked on both flanks. In what may have been a deliberate feigned retreat planned by Suleiman’s Grand Vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, the Ottomans had almost completely surrounded the Hungarian army. The result was a massacre, on the field of battle, in King Louis’s camp, and during the Hungarian retreat. In the aftermath, King Louis and a large portion of the ruling elite were dead (many of them decapitated after being taken prisoner). The great Kingdom of Hungary was no more-now merely a pawn in the politics of East and West. By 1541, Suleiman had taken Buda, and set his sights on the Hapsburg capital of Vienna.
37. Siege of Vienna (on 5 lists)
Date: Sept. 27-Oct. 15, 1529
Location: Vienna, Holy Roman Empire (Vienna, Austria)
War/Conflict: Ottoman wars in Europe; Ottoman–Habsburg wars
Combatants: Holy Roman Empire & Spanish Hapsburg Empire (led by Niklas Graf Salm) vs. Ottoman Empire & Moldavia (led by Suleiman the Magnificent & Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha)
Result: The Ottomans failed to conquer Vienna. The Hapsburg-Ottoman Wars would continue for 150 years.
A print by Antonion Salamanca showing a view of the siege of Vienna, dating to 1532, and now in the Newberry Library.
Description: Following the Hungarian defeat at the Battle of Mohács, Hungary was divided into three portions: the Ottoman-controlled south; Royal Hungary, ruled by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (brother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, husband of slain Hungarian King Louis II’s sister Anna, and brother of Louis’s wife Mary); and the Principality of Transylvania, ruled by John Zápolya, but a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I sought to consolidate his and Zápolya’s control of the area, and so in May 1529, a very large Ottoman force (estimates range from 80,000 to 300,000 men) set out from Constantinople, heading through Bulgaria and Hungary toward Vienna, led by Sulieman himself. Troubles beset the Ottomans during the long march. The spring rains were particularly heavy that year, and the mud made many portions of the route impassable, particularly for the larger cannons and artillery, many of which were left behind. The camels used to carry supplies succumbed in great numbers to the unseasonable weather, and disease struck the soldiers, many of whom died or became incapacitated by sickness. At the Mohács plain on August 18, what remained of Suleiman’s army was joined by a large force led by John Zápolya. Together, they recaptured a number of key fortresses and cities, including Buda, which fell on September 8. Meanwhile, the Viennese prepared for the attack. Charles V sent German and Spanish mercenaries, including 1000 Landsknechts under 70-year-old Nicholas, Count of Salm, a distinguished veteran of the Battle of Pavia; Queen Mary sent a contingent of Spanish harquebusiers led by Marshal Luis de Ávalos; Pavle Bakić of the Serbian Despotate provided 2,000 Serbian hussar cavalry. The defensive garrison was led by Wilhelm von Roggendorth, Hofmeister of Austria. He chose the Count of Salm as operational commander. Salm fortified and reinforced the city’s walls, erected earthen bastions and a rampart, and blocked the city gates. The Ottoman army arrived on September 27 and, after a fruitless exchange of emissaries, began to besiege the city. The light artillery that survived the long trek was unable to pierce the walls, and the firing of arquebuses from the walls, and use of long pikes by the defenders repulsed the Ottoman assaults. The Ottoman elite cavalry (the Sipahi) added little, as their special skills were not needed in a siege. Attempts by the Ottomans to dig beneath the walls and plant mines were frustrated by Austrian cavalry sorties sent out from the city. On October 6, a force of 8,000 men was sent out to attack the Ottoman mining operations; they successfully destroyed many tunnels, but suffered heavy losses in returning to the safety of the walled city. By the second week of October, the Ottomans were facing shortages of food, water, and supplies. The ranks of the once-massive army had been decimated by the enemy attacks, as well as sickness and desertion. Suleiman and his war council decided to launch one final assault on October 14, but it, too, failed. On October 15, Suleiman called off the siege and headed back to Constantinople. During the return, snow began to fall, and Austrian cavalry harassed the retreating army, taking prisoners and rescuing some of the civilians, including many children, imprisoned by the Ottomans and destined for slavery. The campaign solidified the rule of the Ottoman Empire and its vassal state under John Zápolya over much of Hungary. Ottoman devastation of the countryside around Vienna deterred Austria from a counterattack, although Charles V did assemble an army to confront the Ottoman threat. But the failed siege also demonstrated the inability of the Sultan to sustain a large army so far from their base; although the Ottoman military was known for its discipline, the siege revealed the limits of their logistical capacity.
38. Battle of Cajamarca (Massacre of Cajamarca) (on 11 lists)
Date: Nov. 16, 1532
Location: Cajamarca, Peru [South America]
War/Conflict: Spanish Conquest of Peru
Combatants: Spanish Empire (led by Francisco Pizarro) vs. Inca Empire (led by Atahualpa)
Result: Spanish victory resulted in capture of Atahualpa, massacre of his supporters, and fall of the Inca Empire.
A map showing Pizarro’s approach to the Incan camp in November 1532. Credit: A HIstory of the Inca (ahistoryoftheinca.wordpress.com).
Description: After two unsuccessful attempts to explore the area of South America that the Spanish called Peru in 1524 and 1526, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro convinced the Queen of Spain to send him on a third expedition. He arrived with a small troop of about 200 soldiers in 1532 to find the vast and prosperous Incan Empire in disarray. Incan Emperor Huayna Capac and his chosen heir had died in 1527 or 1528 – probably from smallpox brought by the Spanish. Their deaths ignited a civil war between two of the emperor’s sons: Huáscar (who had a more legitimate claim to the throne) and Atahualpa (who had the support of the army). By the time of Pizarro’s arrival, Atahualpa’s forces had defeated those of his rival. Atahualpa was resting at a natural spring designated as the royal baths, near the town of Cajamarca in the north of the empire before marching south of Cuzco to claim his crown. Since Pizarro’s arrival, he and the Incan’s had been exchanging friendly messages. Atahualpa was confident that the small Spanish force was no threat to his empire, given the army of 80,000 men accompanying him at Cajamarca (another large force was located in Cuzco). But Pizarro was set on conquest and plunder of the Incas’ riches. During the march to Cajamarca, he negotiated alliances with some of the disaffected and subjugated groups that made up the Incan Empire, including the Huancas, Chankas, Cañaris, and Chachapoyas, who provided additional men for his army. Pizarro and Atahualpa agreed to meet at the main plaza of Cajamarca on November 16, 1532 to negotiate a peace treaty. Suspecting no foul play, Atahualpa left his army camped outside the city. He arrived at a nearly empty plaza with about 6,000 unarmed attendants, carried in on a litter with much pomp and circumstance. Seeing no Spaniards, he sent his men to explore the buildings, where they located a priest, Friar Vincente de Valverde. Unbeknownst to the Incans, Pizarro had hidden his troops, including cavalry and cannons, around the plaza and in nearby buildings; they were waiting for the signal to attack. According to one account, the friar and his interpreter greeted the Emperor, gave him a religious book, and told him he must convert to Christianity and pay tribute to the Spanish throne. According to this account, Atahualpa threw the book on the ground and stated “I will be no man’s tributary.” At that, Pizarro gave the signal to attack. The result was a massacre – thousands of unarmed Incas died in the plaza. Attempts to take Atahualpa prisoner were hampered by the courage of his attendants, who threw themselves in front of the Spanish guns in order to protect their leader. When a Spanish soldier attacked the Emperor, Pizarro (who wanted to ransom the leader) personally intervened, sustaining an injury from one of his own soldiers. When the Incan army outside the city heard that their leader – whom they worshipped as a god – had been captured, they fled in confusion. After the bloodshed ended, Pizarro demanded a room full of gold and two rooms full of silver as ransom for the captive emperor. But when the Inca complied, the Spaniards reneged on the deal, put Atahualpa on trial, and executed him in 1533. Pizarro and his men then marched south to Cuzco, where they defeated the remaining Incan armies and established a puppet emperor, Manco Inca. Although the full conquest of Peru would not be completed for decades, due to pockets of resistance, the Battle of Cajamarca was a turning point in the Spaniards’ campaign.
39. Battle of Lepanto (on 7 lists)
Date: Oct. 7, 1571
Location: Gulf of Patras, Ionian Sea, Greece
War/Conflict: Fourth Ottoman-Venetian War; Ottoman-Habsburg wars; War of Cyprus
Combatants: Holy League (Spanish Empire, Italian city-states), led by John of Austria vs. Ottoman Empire (led by Ali Pasha)
Result: Holy League victory.
A series of maps depicting the positions of the combatants at the start of the Battle of Lepanto. Credit: Kandi/Wikipedia (based on Stevens & Westcott, A History of Sea Power, 1920).
Description: Five years after Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I (“the Magnificent”) failed attempt in 1565 to take Malta, which blocked Ottoman access to the western Mediterranean, the Ottomans, now led by Suleiman’s son Selim II, set their sights on the island of Cyprus, then a possession of the Republic of Venice. After the fall of Nicosia and other Cypriot cities in 1570 (including the massacre of many Christians) and during the subsequent siege of Famagusta, Pope Pius V urged the creation of a Holy League of Christian nations to save Cyprus from the Muslim Turks. Although internecine rivalries delayed the formation of the League, it eventually united the Papal States, the Republic of Venice, the Spanish Empire (including the Kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia), the Hapsburg monarchy, the Duchies of Savoy, Urbino, and Tuscany, and the Knights Hospitaller. The League chose to assemble an enormous fleet and set out to confront the Ottoman navy, which threatened both trade in the Mediterranean and the security of continental Europe. The overall commander was a young Hapsburg, John of Austria, who was the half-brother of Philip II of Spain. Among his lieutenants were Marcantonio Colonna, from Rome, Sebastiano Venier, from Venice, Giovanni Andrea Doria, from Genoa, and Álvaro de Bazán, from Spain. The Holy League armada, consisting of over 200 ships, most of them oar-driven galleys, plus six galleasses (larger galleys with galleon-like masts and sails), other ships (galleons, galiots, and fustas) and about 65,000 men, set out from Messina, in Sicily on September 16, 1571, and headed east, looking for the Ottomans. The League ships were heavily armed with arquebuses and cannons. Many of the oarsmen of the Holy League ships were enslaved men. The Ottoman navy had anticipated a response to their invasion of Cyprus, and had been harassing Venetian outposts in the eastern Mediterranean all summer. By October, the depleted Ottoman navy had gathered near Lepanto (Greek: Naupactus) in the Gulf of Corinth in Greece, and had begun to disperse, having used much of their ammunition and lost many men in a so-far fruitless search for the enemy. When the Holy League fleet neared the Gulf of Patras, they discovered the Ottomans there, and the two navies prepared for a battle that would be one of the largest naval confrontations ever (with over 450 ships involved) and one of the last great battles of oar-powered ships before the coming of the Age of Sail. The Ottomans were led by Ali Pasha, who was supported by corsairs Mehmed Sirocco, of Egpyt and Uluç Ali (also spelled Occhiali), an Italian-born privateer who served the Regency of Algiers, an Ottoman vassal state. Ali Pasha commanded a fleet of over 200 war galleys, over 50 galliots, and other, smaller ships. The Ottomans had some arquebuses and artillery (but were outgunned by the League), and many skilled composite bowmen. All the oarsmen were enslaved, and many were Christians. Some of the Ottoman ships were manned by Greek natives, with tenuous loyalty to Selim II. John of Austria set up his galleys in four divisions: left, center, right, with reserves in the rear; in front of the galleys, he placed the galleasses. John of Austria placed himself on La Real, in the center, while Ali Pasha commanded the Sultana, in the center of the Ottoman line, which also had four divisions (left, right, center, and rear reserves). The battle took place on October 7, 1571, in the Gulf of Patras; the Holy League ships were aligned on a north-south line, west of the Ottoman fleet. The morning wind favored the Ottomans, but it shifted about noon – before the two fleets made contact – to favor the League. When the galleasses came within firing range, they opened fire with cannons and arquebuses, disrupting the Ottoman center and sinking many ships instantly. The first galley contact was on the left wing, where the ships came so close they formed an almost continuous platform for hand-to-hand fighting. Venetian commander Agostino Barbarigo was killed by an arrow, and the League’s flank seemed to falter, but Bazán came forward with his reserves to tip the balance. Sirocco, the leader of the Ottoman flank, was killed and beheaded. Soon afterwards, the two center lines met, and Ali Pasha drove his galley into the Real. The two ships, now linked, became one battlefield as soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat on the decks. The League fighters gained the upper hand, boarded the Sultana and killed everyone on it, including Ali Pasha. His head was placed on a spike, and the Holy League banner was flown from the Ottoman flagship, severely damaging morale among the Turks and their allies. On the right, Andrea Doria inexplicably took his ships so far south that the gap allowed Uluç Ali to attack Colonna’s right flank, where the Knights of Malta were stationed. It looked as if Ali might break through to the center and turn the tide in favor of the Ottomans, but once again, Bazán and his reserves came to the rescue and routed Ali. During the battle, the Holy League unchained their enslaved oarsmen and gave them weapons to assist with the hand-to-hand combat. On some of the Ottoman ships, the Greek sailors and rowers mutinied and overthrew their Ottoman captors. By the end of the battle, the Holy League had captured 117 galleys and sunk or destroyed 83 more. Some Ottoman ships deliberately ran aground so the soldiers could escape onto land. The Ottomans suffered about 30,000 deaths (possibly more), with about 10,000 taken prisoner. The League freed thousands of enslaved Christian oarsmen. Holy League deaths numbered between 7,500 to 10,000. Although the Battle of Lepanto did not return Cyprus to Venice or end the struggle between the Ottomans and the Christian nations, it did destroy the myth of the invincibility of the Ottoman navy, boosted morale in the Christian nations, and effectively stopped the Ottomans from expanding control into the western Mediterranean. The Ottomans quickly built ships to replace those that were lost (although some historians allege that the new ships were shoddily constructed and made more for show than for battle). Venice conceded the loss of Cyprus in a 1573 treaty, and other members of the League made their peace with the Ottoman Empire in order to have access to the lucrative eastern Mediterranean trade routes. As for the Holy League, after the death of Pius V in May 1572, the shaky alliance quickly fell apart.
40. The Spanish Armada (including the Battle of Gravelines) (on 10 lists)
Dates: July-August 1588
Location: English Channel and North Sea
War/Conflict: Anglo Spanish War; Eighty Years’ War
Combatants: England & Dutch Republic (led by Lord Howard of Effingham) vs. Habsburg Spain (led by Duke of Medina Sidonia, Juan Martinez de Recalde, et al.)
Result: English/Dutch victory; thwarted Spanish invasion of England.
A 1590 map by Augustine Ryther and Robert Adams depicting the Battle of Gravelines on August 8, 1588. Credit: Royal Museums Greenwich/Wikipedia.
41. Battle of Sekigahara (on 5 lists)
Date: Oct. 21, 1600
Location: Sekigahara/Aonogahara, Mino Province (now Gifu Prefecture), Japan
War/Conflict: Sekigahara Campaign (Sengoku Period)
Combatants: Western Army (Toyotomi clan, led by Ishida Mitsunari) vs. Eastern Army (Tokugawa clan, led by Tokugawa Ieyasu & Ii Naomasa)
Result: Eastern Army victory. Beginning of Tokugawa shogunate.
An Italian-language diagram of the Battle of Sekigahara, with the Eastern Army in red and the Western Army in blue. Credit: Moroboshi/Rage Against. Based on Anthony Bryant, Sekigahara 1600: The Final Struggle (1995).
42. Battle of Breitenfeld (on 4 lists)
Date: September 1631
Location: near Breitenfeld, Saxony (now Leipzig, Saxony, Germany)
War/Conflict: Thirty Years’ War
Combatants: Sweden & Saxony (led by Gustavus Adolphus & Johann George I) vs. Holy Roman Empire/Catholic League (led by Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly)
Result: Swedish-Saxon victory, which allowed Gustavus Adolphus to launch an invasion of southern Germany.
A diagram of the Battle of Breitenfeld. Credit: The Department of History, U.S. Military Academy,
43. Battle of Naseby (on 4 lists)
Date: June 14, 1645
Location: Naseby, England (now United Kingdom)
War/Conflict: English Civil War
Combatants: Parliamentarians (led by Sir. Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell) vs. Royalists (led by Charles I and Prince Rupert)
Result: Parliamentarian victory. The battle destroyed the main Royalist army, including veteran infantry, artillery, and many arms and ended any real hope of Royalist victory.
A map of the Battle of Naseby. Credit: John Fawkes/britishbattles.com
44. Battle of Vienna (on 6 lists)
Date: Sept. 12, 1683
Location: Kahlenberg Mountain, near Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire (now Vienna, Austria)
War/Conflict: Great Turkish War; Ottoman–Habsburg wars; Polish–Ottoman War
Combatants: Ottoman Empire & vassal states (led by Kara Mustafa Pasha, et al.) vs. Holy Roman Empire, Hapsburg Monarchy & Poland-Lithuania (led by John III Sobieski, Charles of Lorraine, et al.)
Result: Victory of the Christian Coalition, following which the Ottomans gained no further ground in Europe.
A map of the Battle of Vienna. Credit: Ludwich H. Dyck/sultanstrail.com.
45. Battle of Blenheim (on 8 lists)
Date: Aug. 13, 1704
Location: Blindheim, Höchstädt, Bavaria
War/Conflict: War of the Spanish Succession
Combatants: Grand Alliance (England, Holy Roman Empire, Dutch Republic & Scotland), led by Duke of Marlborough, et al. vs. France & Bavaria (led by Duke of Tallard, et al.)
Result: Grand Alliance victory. Ensured safety of Vienna and prevented collapse of the Grand Alliance.
A diagram of the Battle of Blenheim, giving positions at about noon on August 13, 1704. Credit: The Department of History, U.S. Military Academy.
46. Battle of Poltava (on 10 lists)
Date: July 8, 1709
Location: Poltava, Cossack Hetmanate, Tsardom of Russia (now Ukraine)
War/Conflict: Great Northern War
Combatants: Swedish Empire and Cossack Hetmanate (led by Charles XII, Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld & Carl Gustaf Creutz) vs. Russian Empire, Cossack Hetmanate, and Kalmyk Khanate (led by Peter I, Boris Sheremetev, et al.)
Result: Russian coalition victory. Loss of status for Swedish Empire; beginning of Russian supremacy in eastern Europe.
A map of the Battle of Poltava. Credit: Warfare History Network (warfarehistorynetwork.com).
47. Battle of Plassey (on 5 lists)
Date: June 23, 1757
Location: Plassey (Palashi), on the banks of the Hooghly River in Bengal, India (now Nadia District, West Bengal, India)
War/Conflict: Seven Years’ War
Combatants: Great Britain/British East India Company (led by Robert Clive) vs. Bengal State & France (led by Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal)
Result: British victory. De facto beginning of British East India Company rule in India; creation of Bengal puppet state under Mir Jafar.
A map of the Battle of Plassey. Credit: John Fawkes/britishbattles.com.
48. Battle of the Plains of Abraham (First Battle of Quebec) (on 7 lists)
Date: September 13, 1759
Location: Plains of Abraham, Quebec, New France (now Quebec City, Canada)
War/Conflict: Seven Years’ War (French and Indian War)
Combatants: Great Britain (led by James Wolfe, et al) vs. France and Indigenous Nations (led by Montcalm, et al.)
Result: British victory.
A diagram of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Credit: Imagewikipedia.
49. Battles of Saratoga (on 6 lists)
Date: September 19 & October 7, 1777
Location: near Saratoga, New York, U.S.
War/Conflict: American Revolutionary War
Combatants: United States (led by Horatio Gates, Benedict Arnold, etc.) vs. Great Britain (led by John Burgoyne, et al.)
Result: American victory. Surrender of Burgoyne. Considered a turning point in the war in favor of the US and led to French intervention on the side of the revolutionaries.
A map showing the Second Battle of Saratoga (Battle of Bemis Heights) on October 7, 1777. Credit: World History Encyclopedia. The History Department, U.S. Military Academy.
50. Siege of Yorktown (Battle of Yorktown) (on 17 lists)
Date: September-October, 1781
Location: Gloucester and Yorktown, Virginia, U.S.
War/Conflict: American Revolutionary War
Combatants: United States (led by George Washington) vs. Great Britain (led by Charles, Lord Cornwallis)
Result: American victory. Led Britain to eventual peace treaty recognizing U.S. independence.
A map of the Siege of Yorktown. Credit: (c) 2014 Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (mountvernon.org/revolutionarywar).
51. Battle of Valmy (on 7 lists)
Date: Sept. 20, 1792
Location: Between Sainte-Menehould and Valmy in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France.
War/Conflict: War of the First Coalition; French Revolutionary Wars.
Combatants: France (led by Charles François Dumouriez & François Christophe de Kellermann) vs. Prussia, Holy Roman Empire, and Army of Condé (led by Duke of Brunswick, et al)
Result: French victory. Important psychological victory that led the National Convention to end the monarchy and establish a French Republic.
A map of the Battle of Valmy. Credit: Warfare History Network (warfarehistorynetwork.com).
52. Battle of Trafalgar (on 8 lists)
Date: 1805
Location: Atlantic Ocean off the southwest coast of Spain, just west of Cape Trafalgar, near the town of Los Caños de Meca.
War/Conflict: Napoleonic Wars; War of the Third Coalition.
Combatants: United Kingdom (led by Horatio Nelson) vs. France & Spain (led by Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, et al.)
Result: British victory removed the immediate threat of a French invasion of the UK.
A diagram showing the positions of the ships in the Battle of Trafalgar at noon. Credit: Pinpin/RJHall/Wikipedia. Based on an illustration in Strategy & Tactics magazine, number 84.
53. Battle of Borodino (on 4 lists)
Date: Sept. 7, 1812
Location: Borodino, Russian Empire (now Russia)
War/Conflict: Napoleonic Wars; French Invasion of Russia
Combatants: France, Poland, Italy, Naples, Bavaria, et al. vs. Russia
Result: Disputed/inconclusive. The French pushed back the Russian line, but failed to meet their objectives of destroying the Russian army (which retreated in formation to fight again) or ending the war.
A map showing the parties’ positions at about 9:30 on September 7, 1812. Credit: Department of History, U.S. Military Academy/Wikipedia.
54. Battle of Leipzig (Battle of the Nations) (on 6 lists)
Date: Oct. 16-19, 1813
Location: Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony (now Germany)
War/Conflict: War of the Sixth Coalition; Napoleonic Wars
Combatants: Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, UK, et al. (led by Tsar Alexander I, Karl von Schwarzenberg, Gebhard von Blücher and Swedish Crown Prince Charles John) vs. France & the Rhine Confederation (led by Napoleon Bonaparte)
Result: French defeat. Considered by some the deciding battle of the Napoleonic Wars; led to Napoleon’s forced abdication and exile in April-May 1814.
A map showing the positions of the parties on October 16, 1813, at the outset of the battle. Credit: Napoleon & Empire (napoleon-empire.org).
55. Battle of Waterloo (on 21 lists)
Date: June 18, 1815
Location: Waterloo, Belgium (then Netherlands)
War/Conflict: Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)
Combatants: Seventh Coalition (UK, Netherlands, Prussia, Hanover, Nassau, Brunswick) (led by Duke of Wellington & Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher) vs. France (led by Napoleon Bonaparte)
Result: Seventh Coalition victory. End of Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon exiled to St. Helena.
A map and diagram showing the Battle of Waterloo. Credit: Ipankonin/Wikipedia.
56. Battle of Ayacucho (Battle of La Quinua) (on 3 lists)
Date: December 9, 1824
Location: Pampa de Ayacuchon, near Quinua, Spanish Empire (now Peru)
War/Conflict: Peruvian War of Independence
Combatants: Patriots (Peru & Gran Colombia), led by Antonio de Sucre & Agustin Gamarra vs. Royalists/Spanish Empire (led by José de la Serna & José de Canterac)
Result: Victory for the Patriots led to the capitulation of the Royalists and the consolidation of the independence of the Peruvian Republic.
A map of the Battle of Ayacucho: (A) Royalists positions in the night from 8 to 9; (B) Preparatory maneuver for the royalist attack; (C) March of battalions under colonel Rubín de Celis; (D) Maneuver and attack of Monet division; (E) Attack of Valdés’ vanguard over the house occupied by the independentists; (F) Charge of royalist cavalry; (M) and dispersion of Gerona battalions by the royalist reserve; (K) Battalion Ferdinand VII, last royalist reserve. Credit: Historia de la Revolución Hispanoamericana (1830), by Mariano Torrente/Wikipedia.
57. Battle of San Jacinto (on 3 lists)
Date: April 21, 1836
Location: Buffalo Bayou & banks of San Jacinto River, Texas (now La Porte & Deer Park, Harris County, Texas)
War/Conflict: Texas Revolution
Combatants: Centralist Republic of Mexico (led by Antonio López de Santa Anna, et al). vs. Republic of Texas (led by Sam Huston, et al.)
Result: Texan victory. The capture of Santa Anna several days later led to the Treaties of Velasco, which de facto recognized the independence of the Texas Republic, although no official armistice was signed until 1843.
A map of the Battle of San Jacinto. Credit: W. T. Kendall and Ronna Hurd (1989) (sanjacinto-museum.org).
58. Battle of Antietam (Battle of Sharpsburg) (on 6 lists)
Date: Sept. 17, 1862
Location: Washington County, near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek
War/Conflict: American Civil War
Combatants: United States (Union/North), led by George B. McClellan vs. Confederacy (South), led by Robert E. Lee
Result: Strategic Union victory but tactically inconclusive. Provided President Lincoln with political capital to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
A map of the Battle of Antietam. Credit: National Park Service (nps.gov/anti).
59. Battle of Gettysburg (on 14 lists)
Date: July 1-3, 1863
Location: Gettysburg, Adams County, Pennsylvania
War/Conflict: American Civil War
Combatants: Union/North/USA (led by George Meade) vs. Confederacy/South (led by Robert E. Lee)
Result: Union victory; considered the turning point of the war in favor of the North.
A map of the Battle of Gettysburg. Credit: (c) American Battlefield Trust. Map by Steven Stanley.
60. Battle of Königgrätz (Battle of Sadowa) (on 4 lists)
Date: July 3, 1866
Location: Sadowa, near Königgrätz on the upper Elbe River, Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now Hradec Králové, Czech Republic)
War/Conflict: Austro-Prussian War
Combatants: Prussia (led by Wilhelm I & Helmuth von Moltke) vs. Austrian Empire & Saxony (led by Ludwig Benedek & Prince Albert)
Result: Prussian victory. The decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, it led to the Peace of Prague the same year, cleared the path to German unification, and put Prussia in a good position when war with France came in 1870.
A map of the Battle of Königgrätz. Credit: Warfare History Network (warfarehistorynetwork.com).
61. Battle of Sedan (on 5 lists)
Date: Sept. 1-2, 1870
Location: Sedan, France
War/Conflict: Franco-Prussian War
Combatants: North German Confederation (Prussia & Saxony) & Bavaria (led by Wilhelm I, Otto von Bismarck & Helmuth von Moltke) vs. France (led by Emperor Napoleon III, Patrice de MacMahon & Augusts-Alexandre Ducrot)
Result: German victory, with Napoleon III taken prisoner. Although France continued to fight, the battle effectively decided the war.
A map of the Battle of Sedan, showing the positions at about 10 a.m. Credit: George Hooper/Edward Weller/The British Library/Wikipedia.
62. Battle of Manila Bay (Battle of Cavite) (on 3 lists)
Date: May 1, 1898
Location: Manila Bay, Captaincy General of the Philippines, Spanish Empire (now the Philippines)
War/Conflict: Spanish–American War
Combatants: United States (led by George Dewey) vs. Spain (led by Patricio Montojo)
Result: American victory. Marked the end of the Spanish colonial period in Philippine history.
A map of the Battle of Manila Bay. Credit: spanamwar.com
63. Battle of Tsushima (Naval Battle of the Sea of Japan) (on 9 lists)
Date: May 27-28, 1905
Location: Straits of Tsushima, Korea Strait (between Korea and Japan)
War/Conflict: Russo-Japanese War
Combatants: Japan (led by Tōgō Heihachirō) vs. Russia (led by Zinovy Rozhestvensky)
Result: Japanese victory ended the Russo-Japanese War.
A map of the Battle of Tsushima. Credit: historicair/Wikipedia.
64. First Battle of the Marne (Miracle on the Marne) (on 7 lists)
Date: Sept. 6-10, 1914
Location: Marne River near Brasles, east of Paris, France
War/Conflict: World War I
Combatants: Entente (France & UK), led by Joseph Joffre, et al. vs. Germany (led by Helmuth von Moltke, et al.)
Result: Entente victory. Stopped German advance toward Paris, frustrating Schlieffen Plan. Followed by four years of trench warfare.
A map and diagram of the First Battle of the Marne. Credit: timewisetraveller.co.uk
65. Battle of Verdun (on 4 lists)
Date: February-December, 1916
Location: on the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France.
War/Conflict: World War I
Combatants: German Empire (led by Erich von Falkenhayn, et al.) vs. France (led by Joseph Joffre, et al.)
Result: French victory; successfully repulsed a German offensive. The combatants suffered over 700,000 casualties and the fighting destroyed nine French villages. It is estimated that over 10 million unexploded shells (both explosive and chemical) remain in the soil around Verdun.
A map of the Battle of Verdun. Credit: Department of History, U.S. Military Academy.
66. Battle of Warsaw (Miracle on the Vistula) (on 4 lists)
Date: August 15-25, 1920
Location: Warsaw, Poland
War/Conflict: Polish–Soviet War
Combatants: Poland (led by Józef Piłsudski) vs. Soviet Union (led by Mikhail Tukhachevsky)
Result: Polish victory. The loss seriously crippled the Red Army. Poland went on to secure its independence and sign a peace treaty with Russia and Ukraine the same year, securing its borders until 1939.
A map of the Battle of Warsaw. Credit: britishpoles.uk.
67. Battle of the Atlantic (on 3 lists)
Dates: September 1939-May 1945; peak activity June 1940-December 1943
Locations: Atlantic Ocean, Rio de la Plata, North Sea, Irish Sea, Labrador Sea, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Outer Banks, Arctic Ocean
War/Conflict: World War II
Combatants: UK, US, USSR, Canada, Brazil, et al. (led by Dudley Pound, Royal E. Ingersoll, et al.) vs. Germany & Italy (led by Erich Raeder, Angelo Parona, et al.)
Result: Allied victory. Although Axis surface-raiders and U-boats caused significant damage to Allied merchant and military ships, the Axis never interrupted supply lines to Britain, failed to mount a comprehensive blockade of Britain, and failed to prevent the build-up of Allied invasion forces.
A map depicting aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic. Credit: Francisco Suárez Viera/Facebook.
68. Battle of Britain and the Blitz (on 8 lists)
Date: July 1940-May 1941
Location: Airspace over Britain and English Channel
War/Conflict: World War II
Combatants: UK & Canada (led by Hugh Dowding, et al.) vs. Germany & Italy (led by Hermann Göring, et al.)
Result: British victory. Axis strategic failure.
A map of the Battle of Britain. Credit: military-history.org
69. Attack on Pearl Harbor (Hawaii Operation) (on 3 lists)
Date: Dec. 7, 1941
Location: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, U.S.
War/Conflict: World War II
Combatants: United States (led by Husband E. Kimmel & Walter Short) vs. Japan (led by Isoroku Yamamoto & Chūichi Nagumo)
Result: Japanese victory. The Japanese attack destroyed much of the American naval fleet (but not the three aircraft carriers, which were out to sea that day, or the repair yards and fuel depots). The attack was followed by mutual declarations of war by the US and Japan, and shortly thereafter by the US, Germany, and Italy.
A map of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
70. Battle of Midway (on 8 lists)
Date: June 4-7, 1942
Location: Midway Atoll, North Pacific Ocean
War/Conflict: World War II; Pacific War
Combatants: U.S. (led by Chester Nimitz, et al.) vs. Japan (led by Isoruku Yamamoto, et al.)
Result: American victory. Considered one of the turning points of the Pacific War in favor of the Allies.
A map of the Battle of Midway. Credit: William Koenig, Epic Sea Battles. Keysanger/Wikipedia.
71. Battle of Stalingrad (on 19 lists)
Date: July 1942- February 1943
Location: Stalingrad, Russia
War/Conflict: World War II (Eastern Front)
Combatants: USSR (Soviet Union) (led by Georgy Zhukov, etc.) vs. Germany (led by Friedrich Paulus)
Result: Soviet victory. Considered turning point of World War II in favor of the Allies.
A map of the Battle of Stalingrad. Credit: iMeowbot/Wikipedia.
72. Battle of Guadalcanal (on 3 lists)
Date: August 7, 1942-February 9, 1943
Location: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands
War/Conflict: World War II
Combatants: US, UK, Australia & New Zealand (led by Robert L. Ghormley, Alexander A. Vandegrift, Alexander M. Patch, et al.) vs. Japan (led by Isoruku Yamamoto, Hitoshi Imamura, et al.)
Result: Allied victory. Japan abandoned Guadalcanal to focus on the other Solomon Islands. The campaign marked the Allies’ transition from defensive to offensive operations.
Four maps of the Battle of Guadalcanal. Credit: Department of History, U.S. Military Academy.
73. Allied Strategic Bombing of Japan (including atomic bombs) (on 4 lists)
Date: April 1942-August 9, 1945, with strategic raids beginning in June 1944
Location: Japanese cities and industrial sites, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
War/Conflict: World War II
Combatants: US, UK, and Republic of China (led by Henry H. Arnold, Kenneth Wolfe, Curtis LeMay, et al.) vs. Japan (led by Hideki Tojo, et al.)
Result: Japan surrendered following the dropping of the second atomic bomb. The air raids destroyed much of Japan’s industrial capacity, killed many civilians, and destroyed large urban areas, rendering many people homeless. The air raids were a factor in the surrender, although experts debate the magnitude of this factor. There is also some evidence that the air raids may have reduced civilian morale. The morality of the bombings has been debated for decades.
A map showing U.S. Naval Air attacks on Japan in July and August 1945. Credit: Wikipedia.
74. Normandy Landings & Battle of Normandy (on 11 lists)
Date: June 6, 1944-August 30, 1944
Location: Normandy, France
War/Conflict: World War II
Combatants: US, UK, Canada, Free France, et al. (led by Dwight D. Eisenhower) vs. Germany (led by Gerd von Rundstedt, Erwin Rommel, et al)
Result: Allied victory; led to successful Allied invasion of France.
A map of the Normandy landings. Credit: Hogweard/Wikipedia.
75. Huaihai Campaign (Battle of Hsupeng) (on 6 lists)
Date: November 6, 1948 – January 10, 1949
Location: Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, China
War/Conflict: Chinese Civil War
Combatants: Republic of China (led by Liu Zhi, et al.) vs. Chinese Communist Party (led by Sun Yu, Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping, et al.)
Result: Communist victory. Allowed Communist to occupy areas north of the Yangtze River. Gave momentum to Communists. Led to Chiang Kai-Shek stepping down as Nationalist president.
A map depicting Three Campaigns of the Chinese Civil War, including the Huaihai Campaign. Credit: SY/Wikipedia.
76. Battle of Dien Bien Phu (on 5 lists)
Date: March 13-May 7, 1954
Location: Điện Biên Phủ, French Indochina (now Vietnam)
War/Conflict: First Indochina War
Combatants: France & State of Vietnam (led by Christian de Castries) vs. Democratic Republic of Vietnam, including Viet Minh (led by Võ Nguyên Giáp)
Result: Decisive defeat of the French led quickly to the end of the war and signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords, which required French withdrawal and the division of Vietnam into North and South.
A map of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Credit: Warfare History Network (warfarehistorynetwork.com).
77. Tet Offensive (including Battle of Saigon and Battle of Huế) (on 9 lists)
Dates: January 30-March 20, 1968
Location: South Vietnam
War/Conflict: Vietnam War
Combatants: South Vietnam & US (led by Cao Văn Viên & William Westmoreland, et al.) vs. Viet Cong & North Vietnam (led by Nguyễn Chí Thanh & Võ Nguyên Giáp, et al.)
Result: Tactical victory for South Vietnam; strategic victory for North Vietnam.
A map of the Tet Offensive. Credit: Department of History, U.S. Military Academy/Wikipedia.