What are the most famous battles in history?

The most famous battles in history include Marathon, Thermopylae, Gaugamela, Cannae, Hastings, Grunwald, Agincourt, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Stalingrad, Midway and Normandy. This guide gathers the greatest battles across all seven eras of Echoes of Battle, each told in full.

What are the most decisive battles of all time?

Battles are usually called decisive when their outcome changed the course of history, when empires, faiths and nations rose or fell in a single day. Gaugamela broke the Persian Empire, Hastings changed who ruled England, and Normandy opened the road to the end of the war in Europe.

How many great battles does this guide cover?

This guide covers twenty-five of the greatest battles of all time, organized into the seven eras of Echoes of Battle, from Marathon in 490 BC to Berlin in 1945. Each links to a full account, and the wider guide, Battles That Changed the World, gathers thirty-two decisive days across more than two thousand years.

Where can I learn about the greatest battles in history?

Every battle in this guide is told scene by scene in Echoes of Battle, a free history app of the greatest battles, with audio narration, real maps and a quiz. This page links to a full written account of each one.

Which is the oldest battle in this guide?

The earliest are the clashes of the ancient world, such as Marathon in 490 BC, when a Greek force turned back the first Persian invasion.

Do these battles span the whole world?

They range across Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia and the Pacific, from the ancient Greek wars to the great battles of the twentieth century.

What is the greatest battle in history?

There is no agreed answer. Edward Creasy's classic 1851 book The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World judged battles by whether a different result would have changed history, and began with Marathon in 490 BC. Ranked by size instead, the largest battles were fought in the twentieth century.

What is the greatest battle in ancient history?

Historians usually name Marathon, Thermopylae, Gaugamela and Cannae. Creasy's 1851 list of decisive battles included Marathon, Gaugamela (which he called Arbela) and the Metaurus, while Cannae became the model of encirclement that later generals such as Alfred von Schlieffen studied.

What are the 15 decisive battles of the world?

Edward Creasy's 1851 list: Marathon, Syracuse, Arbela (Gaugamela), the Metaurus, the Teutoburg Forest, Chalons, Tours, Hastings, Orleans, the Spanish Armada, Blenheim, Poltava, Saratoga, Valmy and Waterloo.

The Greatest Battles of All Time, ranked by era

Q: What is the most important battle in history?

Historians name no single most important battle, because each mattered in its own age. Marathon and Salamis are often credited with saving Greek independence, Tours is traditionally seen as checking the Umayyad advance into Francia, Waterloo ended Napoleon's rule, and Stalingrad is seen by many as the turning point of the Second World War. Which counts as the most important depends on the era and the fate that hung on it.

Quick answer

What are the greatest battles in history?

The greatest battles in history include Marathon, Thermopylae, Gaugamela and Cannae in the ancient world, Hastings, Grunwald and Agincourt in the Middle Ages, Vienna in 1683, Austerlitz and Waterloo, Gettysburg, Verdun, Stalingrad and Normandy. No single one is agreed to be the greatest of all, and each is counted among the most important battles of its own age.

Some days decide centuries. These are some of the greatest and most important battles in history, the ones where empires, faiths and nations rose or fell between dawn and dusk. We have gathered them the way Echoes of Battle does, era by era across seven ages of war, from the plain of Marathon to the ruins of Berlin, each one told in full.

At a glance
#	Battle	Date	Forces	Casualties
1	Marathon	490 BC	~35,000	~6,600
2	Thermopylae	480 BC	~127,000-307,000¹	~24,000
3	Gaugamela	331 BC	~147,000	~41,500²
4	Cannae	216 BC	~136,000	~83,000
5	Zama	202 BC	~75,000	~41,500³
6	Tours	732	~35,000-45,000⁴	unknown
7	Hastings	1066	~18,000⁵	~6,000
8	Grunwald	1410	~50,000⁶	unknown
9	Agincourt	1415	~22,000⁷	~8,600⁸
10	Lepanto	1571	~172,000	~47,500
11	Vienna	1683	~185,000-220,000⁹	unknown
12	Poltava	1709	~58,500	~14,000-17,000¹⁰
13	Trafalgar	1805	~48,000	~15,700
14	Austerlitz	1805	~158,000	~36,000
15	Waterloo	1815	~185,000-191,000¹¹	~50,000
16	Fort Sumter	1861	~500-6,000	0 in combat
17	Gettysburg	1863	~165,000	~51,000
18	The Marne	1914	~2,000,000	~513,000
19	Gallipoli	1915	~804,000	~507,000
20	Verdun	1916	~2,390,000	~700,000-750,000¹²
21	The Somme	1916	3,000,000+	Over 1,000,000¹³
22	Midway	1942	7 fleet carriers	~3,400
23	Stalingrad	1942	~2,150,000	~1,900,000-2,500,000¹⁴
24	Normandy (D-Day)	6 Jun 1944	~206,000	~14,000-19,000 (both sides)¹⁵
25	Berlin	1945	~3,070,000-3,270,000	~1,281,000¹⁶

Unknown: the sources give no reliable figure.

The ancient world

War in antiquity was decided by the discipline of the phalanx and the legion, by citizen soldiers and god-kings. These were the days that decided the fate of city-states and empires and set examples that commanders would still study two thousand years later.

Battle map of Cannae showing the Roman army encircled — US Military Academy map of Cannae, 216 BC: Hannibal's African infantry and cavalry close around the Roman army, the double envelopment commanders still study. Public domain

Marathon, 490 BC

Athens and its Plataean allies defeat the Persian landing force.¹⁷

Thermopylae, 480 BC

Leonidas and his Greeks hold the pass until a mountain path lets the Persians outflank them.¹⁸

Gaugamela, 331 BC

Alexander breaks the Persian Empire. 1 October in history ›¹⁹

Cannae, 216 BC

Hannibal's double envelopment, a model later studied by Alfred von Schlieffen. 2 August in history ›²⁰

Zama, 202 BC

Rome finally answers Hannibal.

The Middle Ages

The medieval battlefield belonged to the mounted knight and the castle, until the arrow and the pike began to answer them. Faith, crown and land hung on single afternoons, and a few of them redrew the map of Europe for good.

Bayeux Tapestry scene of mounted knights and the fall of King Harold — The death of King Harold at Hastings in 1066, scene 57 of the Bayeux Tapestry, embroidered within a few years of the battle. Public domain

Tours, 732

Charles Martel turns back an Umayyad army, though historians still debate how much the battle decided.²¹

Hastings, 1066

The day England changed hands. 14 October in history ›

Grunwald, 1410

Poland and Lithuania break the military power of the Teutonic Order. 15 July in history ›²²

Agincourt, 1415

The longbow's finest hour. 25 October in history ›

The early modern age

Gunpowder changed everything. Pike and shot, ships of the line and the first true empires met in battles that ran from the Mediterranean to the gates of Vienna, deciding which powers would shape the modern world.

Lepanto, 1571

The last great battle of galleys ends in a heavy defeat for the Ottoman fleet. 7 October in history ›²³

Vienna, 1683

The great relief at the gates of Europe.

Poltava, 1709

Russia gains the upper hand in the Baltic, and Sweden begins its decline as a great power. 8 July in history ›²⁴

The Napoleonic age

Napoleon turned war into a science of mass and speed, moving whole nations in arms across Europe. For twenty years his campaigns dazzled the continent, until that same continent finally combined to bring him down.

Panoramic painting of armies clashing in smoke at Waterloo — The Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815, painted by William Sadler in the 19th century, with the armies spread across the ridges south of Brussels. Public domain

Trafalgar, 1805

Nelson dies winning the victory that secures British command of the sea. 21 October in history ›²⁵

Austerlitz, 1805

One of Napoleon's greatest victories, the battle of the three emperors. 2 December in history ›²⁶

Waterloo, 1815

The end of Napoleon.

The industrial age

Railroads, the telegraph and the rifled musket made war bigger and deadlier than ever before. The American Civil War was its proving ground, where a single field could swallow tens of thousands and decide the fate of a nation.

Fort Sumter, 1861

The first shots of the American Civil War. 12 April in history ›

Gettysburg, 1863

The high-water mark of the Confederacy.

The First World War

Industry met the battlefield and produced a slaughter no one had imagined, with trenches, machine guns and artillery that turned open ground into a moonscape. These were the battles that ended the old world.

The Marne, 1914

The Allied counterattack that saved Paris from capture.²⁷

Gallipoli, 1915

The failed Allied attempt to force the Dardanelles. 25 April in history ›²⁸

Verdun, 1916

They shall not pass. 21 February in history ›

The Somme, 1916

Its first day, 1 July, was the bloodiest in the history of the British Army.²⁹

The Second World War

The largest war in history was fought across oceans, deserts and frozen cities, by tanks, carriers and air fleets. A handful of days between 1942 and 1945 turned the tide and decided the shape of the world we live in.

Soldiers wading from a landing craft toward Omaha Beach — Into the Jaws of Death: troops of the US 1st Infantry Division wade ashore on Omaha Beach, 6 June 1944. Photograph by Robert F. Sargent, US Coast Guard. Public domain

Midway, 1942

Japan loses four carriers, and the war in the Pacific begins to turn. 4 June in history ›³⁰

Stalingrad, 1942

Seen by many as the turning point of the Second World War.³¹

Normandy, 1944

The longest day on the beaches. 6 June in history ›

Berlin, 1945

One of the last major battles of the war in Europe.³²

No single battle is agreed to be the greatest of all. Each is counted among the most important of its own age.

Want the full sweep? Battles That Changed the World gathers thirty-two decisive days across more than two thousand years, or dive into an era: the greatest ancient battles, the greatest medieval battles, the greatest early modern battles, the greatest Napoleonic battles, the greatest industrial battles, the greatest battles of the First World War, or the greatest battles of the Second World War.

You can also rank them by cost in the deadliest battles in history, take to the water with the greatest naval battles in history, meet the minds behind them in the greatest military commanders in history, or follow one nation's story through the greatest battles in American history.

How did we choose the greatest battles?

We chose battles that decided something: a war, an empire, the fate of a people or the way war itself was fought. Size alone was not enough, and neither was the death toll. We also kept a spread across all seven eras of Echoes of Battle, so that no single century crowds out the rest.

Three questions shaped the list. Did the result change what came after, the test Edward Creasy applied in 1851? Did the battle change how armies fought, as Cannae did when it became the model of encirclement that Alfred von Schlieffen studied? And can it be told from sources we can check? That last test is why the table above says unknown wherever we found no trustworthy figure, and why disputed numbers appear as ranges.³³

Some giants are missing on purpose. Leipzig in 1813 and Kursk in 1943 were among the largest battles ever fought, as the section on size below shows, but for those eras we chose Austerlitz, Waterloo, Stalingrad and Normandy, whose results reached further. Ranking them is an argument that never ends, so read each one and judge for yourself.

This is the widest of our guides. To go deeper into one era or kind of war, branch off to the greatest military commanders, the greatest naval battles or the deadliest battles in history.

What is the greatest battle of all time?

No battle is agreed to be the greatest of all time. The best-known list, Edward Creasy's 1851 book The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, judged battles by consequence, not size: would history have run differently if the other side had won? His list opens with Marathon in 490 BC and ends with Waterloo in 1815.³⁴

Creasy took the test from the historian Henry Hallam, who wrote that Tours was one of the few battles whose opposite result would have "essentially varied the drama of the world". Creasy admitted in his preface that probably no two historians would ever entirely agree on such a list.³⁵

His fifteen were Marathon, the Athenian defeat at Syracuse in 413 BC, Arbela (the battle we call Gaugamela), the Metaurus in 207 BC, the victory of Arminius over Varus in the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, Chalons in 451, Tours in 732, Hastings in 1066, Joan of Arc's relief of Orleans in 1429, the Spanish Armada in 1588, Blenheim in 1704, Poltava in 1709, Saratoga in 1777, Valmy and Waterloo. Six of them are also on our list above: Marathon, Gaugamela, Tours, Hastings, Poltava and Waterloo.³⁶

Writing in 1851, Creasy could not include anything later, so Gettysburg, the Marne, Stalingrad and Midway are missing from the most quoted list of all. Rank by the number of soldiers instead and the answer changes again: see the largest battles in history, where the record holders all belong to the twentieth century.

What is the most important battle in history?

There is no agreed answer, only arguments. Edward Creasy ranked Marathon above Salamis, which in his view only confirmed what Marathon had begun. The historian Barry Strauss argues that Salamis saved Greece. In the modern era, Stalingrad has a strong claim: it destroyed a German army and gave the Red Army the initiative in the east.³⁷

Creasy's reasoning is worth following. In his preface he set aside battles that merely confirmed a trend an earlier battle had started, which is why he ranked Marathon above Salamis and Plataea, the Metaurus above Zama, and Valmy above the later victories of the French Revolution. He also wrote that the number of killed and wounded does not decide a battle's importance. Strauss makes the opposite case for the sea battle: the subtitle of his 2004 history calls Salamis the naval encounter that saved Greece and Western civilization. Livius.org adds a caution. In its reading, Salamis hurt Persia badly without ruining it, and the war was settled a year later at Plataea.³⁸

Military map of southern Russia in 1942 showing the German drive to the Volga and the Caucasus — The German drive to Stalingrad and the Caucasus, July to November 1942, from the US Military Academy atlas. Public domain (US government work). Department of History, US Military Academy, via Wikimedia Commons.

If we must pick one, our editors argue for Stalingrad, and it is an argument, not a settled fact. Germany's national history museum counts about 150,000 German soldiers who died inside the pocket and about 91,000 taken prisoner, and writes that from then on the initiative passed to the Red Army. Britannica puts Axis casualties at about 800,000 and Soviet casualties at about 1.1 million. The case against is real as well. The Imperial War Museums argue that the German offensive was overstretched before it ever reached the city, and in the Pacific the tide had already begun to turn at Midway in June 1942.³⁹

What was the largest battle in history?

By the number of soldiers engaged, the largest battles were fought on the Eastern Front of the Second World War. Kursk in 1943 drew roughly 2 to 2.7 million men at the outset, and for the assault on Berlin in 1945 the Red Army alone massed between 1.5 and 2.5 million soldiers. Before 1914, Leipzig in 1813 held the European record.⁴⁰

The answer depends on what counts as one battle. Kursk was a chain of operations through July and August 1943. The National WWII Museum, citing the historian David Glantz, gives more than 1.9 million Soviet troops against more than 780,000 Germans at the start, while World History Encyclopedia counts 1.3 million troops in the two Soviet fronts and 700,000 on the Axis side. Both call it the largest tank battle in history. Berlin is just as hard to pin down: Britannica counts more than 1.5 million Soviet soldiers outside the city, the Imperial War Museums about 2.5 million.⁴¹

Map of the Kursk salient with German attacks from north and south — The Kursk salient and the two German pincers of July 1943, from the US Military Academy atlas. Public domain

For a battle in the older sense, fought over a few days around one place, Leipzig is the benchmark. World History Encyclopedia counts over half a million soldiers there, and HistoryOfWar.org nearly half a million, calling it the largest battle in Europe until the First World War. Our guide to the largest battles in history ranks ten of them, and our account of the Battle of Kursk follows the fighting in the salient.⁴²

What was the bloodiest battle in history?

By most estimates it was Stalingrad, fought from 1942 to 1943. Britannica puts Soviet casualties at about 1.1 million and Axis casualties at about 800,000, and a 2018 study by two Russian historians puts the military losses of both sides at no fewer than 2 to 2.5 million. The Somme, with more than a million casualties, comes next.⁴³

Black and white photograph of British soldiers in steel helmets resting in a trench — Royal Irish Rifles in a trench at the Somme, probably on the first day, 1 July 1916. Public domain

These are casualty figures: killed, wounded, captured and missing together, not deaths alone. Over the whole Somme offensive more than a million men became casualties, and on its first day, 1 July 1916, the British Army alone suffered more than 57,000. The Mémorial de Verdun counts about 700,000 casualties at Verdun, 306,000 of them dead or missing. For a single afternoon, few battles match Cannae in 216 BC. Polybius wrote that about 70,000 Romans died there, and Livy gives 45,500 infantry and 2,700 cavalry killed. Our ranking of the deadliest battles in history gives every figure as the range the sources use.⁴⁴

What is the oldest known battle?

The oldest battle recorded in reliable detail is usually taken to be Megiddo, where the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III defeated a coalition led by the king of Kadesh. It is commonly dated to about 1457 BC, although Britannica dates the capture of Megiddo to about 1468 BC. Oldest known here means oldest documented, not the first battle ever fought.⁴⁵

The record goes back to Tjaneni, the king's military scribe, who kept a journal of the campaign; at the king's wish, extracts from it were inscribed in the Temple of Amun at Karnak. World History Encyclopedia ranks it among the fullest records of any Egyptian campaign. It tells how the king took the least expected route, a narrow pass over the mountains, to surprise the enemy, and according to Britannica the city fell after a siege of eight months. HistoryNet calls Megiddo “history's first reliably recorded battle”. Years in this period depend on how the reigns of the pharaohs are dated, which is why the sources differ by about a decade. For the battles that followed, see the greatest battles of the ancient world.⁴⁶

What was the longest battle in history?

It depends on where a battle ends and a campaign begins. Verdun, one of the longest battles of the First World War, lasted ten months, from 21 February to 18 December 1916. The Battle of the Atlantic, fought from September 1939 to May 1945 between Allied convoys and German submarines, was the longest campaign of the Second World War.⁴⁷

Sieges are usually counted separately, and they could last longer still. The siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days, from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944, and The National WWII Museum estimates that about 1.5 million soldiers and civilians died there. Older battles were far shorter. Cannae was decided in a single day, and Leipzig, the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, was fought over four days in October 1813.⁴⁸

Think you can rank them? Try Put the Battles in Order and Which Battle Was Bigger?