Era III · 1500 to 1789
The early modern era
Between 1500 and the eve of the French Revolution, armies with firearms fought alongside the last great cavalry charges, from the Japanese arquebusiers at Nagashino to the Polish winged hussars at Kircholm and Vienna. The era runs from Chaldiran and Mohács to the American War of Independence and the siege of Yorktown in 1781.
127 battles · 26 commanders
Image: The Battle of Lepanto, Juan Luna, 1887, Spanish Senate. Public domain.
Where the battles were fought
Every battle of the era with a story in the Field Dispatch. Tap a dot to read it.
Europe in close-up
Eastern North America in close-up
Not on the map: Battle of Flodden, Battle of Pavia, Battle of Cecora, Battle of Filipów, Battle of the Boyne, Battle of Pell's Point.
Basemap: Natural Earth, public domain. Modern coastlines.
The battles in order
- 1493Battle of Krbava Field
On 9 September 1493 Ban Emerik Derenčin led a Croatian army into the open on Krbava Field and was destroyed by the Ottomans. Course, losses and memory.
- 1495Battle of Fornovo
Charles VIII of France fights his way past the army of the League of Venice on the Taro and escapes from Italy.
- 1509Battle of Diu
Francisco de Almeida's Portuguese fleet destroys the Mamluk and Gujarati fleet at Diu, avenging his son's death at Chaul.
- 1513Battle of Flodden
Why James IV invaded England, how Surrey's bills beat the Scottish pikes below Branxton Hill, and how a king and his nobles fell
- 1514Battle of Chaldiran
Selim I's cannon and janissaries crushed Shah Ismail's Qizilbash cavalry and set a frontier for centuries.
- 1514Battle of Orsha
On 8 September 1514 Konstanty Ostrogski's Polish-Lithuanian army defeated a larger Muscovite army at Orsha, a great victory of the Jagiellonian era.
- 1521Battle of Mactan
On 27 April 1521 warriors of Lapulapu, chief of Mactan, beat a Spanish landing party and killed Ferdinand Magellan. What the thin record really tells us.
- 1521Siege of Tenochtitlan
How Cortés, his Tlaxcalan allies, and a smallpox epidemic brought down Tenochtitlan in 1521, ending the Aztec Empire after a brutal months-long siege.
- 1522Battle of Bicocca
Unpaid Swiss pikemen storm Colonna's sunken road north of Milan and are cut down by Spanish arquebus fire in half an hour.
- 1525Battle of Pavia
In 1525 at Pavia the Imperial and Spanish army of Charles V broke into a walled park at night, crushed the French army and captured King Francis I.
- 1526Battle of Mohács
At Mohács in 1526 Suleiman the Magnificent's Ottomans destroyed Hungary's army in a single afternoon, killing King Louis II.
- 1526First Battle of Panipat
On 21 April 1526 Babur's outnumbered army used gunpowder and tactics to destroy Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat, founding the Mughal Empire in India.
- 1531Battle of Obertyn
On 22 August 1531 Jan Tarnowski's small Polish army, fighting from a wagon fort, beat Petru Rareș's larger Moldavian army at Obertyn and regained Pokuttya.
- 1532Battle of Cajamarca
Spain won at Cajamarca on 16 November 1532, when Pizarro's 168 men ambushed and captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa. The trap, the guns and the ransom.
- 1556Second Battle of Panipat
In 1556 at Panipat the army of the boy emperor Akbar met Hemu, who had just seized Delhi. One arrow decided the day and restored Mughal rule in India.
- 1565Battle of Talikota
In January 1565 four Deccan sultanates beheaded the regent Rama Raya near the Krishna river and sacked Vijayanagara, the city now called Hampi.
- 1568Battle of Heiligerlee
Louis of Nassau lures a royal army into the bogs near Groningen. Two commanders die, and the Eighty Years' War begins.
- 1569Battle of Jarnac
How the royal army surprised the Huguenots on the Charente, and why Condé was shot after he had surrendered.
- 1571Battle of Lepanto
On 7 October 1571 the Holy League destroyed the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto, the largest galley battle since antiquity and the end of Ottoman naval dominance.
- 1575Battle of Nagashino
At Nagashino in 1575 Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu used massed matchlock gunners behind palisades to destroy the famed Takeda cavalry.
- 1576Battle of Haldighati
The Mughals under Man Singh held the field on 18 June 1576, but Maharana Pratap escaped and fought on for years.
- 1586Drake takes Santo Domingo
How Francis Drake took the capital of Spain's Caribbean by a night landing, held it for a month and burned it for ransom.
- 1592Battle of Hansan Island
In August 1592 Admiral Yi Sun-sin lured a Japanese squadron out of a narrow strait and destroyed it off Hansan Island in a crane-wing formation.
- 1595Battle of Cecora
Jan Zamoyski's army held a fortified camp on the Prut against the Crimean khan and won Moldavia a Polish-backed ruler.
- 1597Battle of Myeongnyang
In 1597 Admiral Yi Sun-sin, just released from prison, held the Myeongnyang strait with 13 ships against a far larger Japanese fleet. What happened?
- 1598Battle of Noryang
In December 1598 Joseon and Ming fleets under Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin fought Japan's fleet in the Noryang strait. Yi fell, and the Imjin War ended.
- 1600Battle of Sekigahara
How one foggy October morning in central Japan made a shogun and decided who would rule the country for 250 years.
- 1601Battle of Kinsale
England won the Battle of Kinsale in the winter of 1601, scattering O'Neill and O'Donnell's army; the Spanish then surrendered. Why the relief failed.
- 1602Siege of Dunboy
143 Irish defenders hold O'Sullivan Beare's castle against Carew's army until it lies in ruins and they are killed or hanged.
- 1605Battle of Kircholm
How about 3,600 Polish-Lithuanian troops led by winged hussars broke a Swedish army three times larger in half an hour.
- 1610Battle of Klushino
At Klushino on 4 July 1610 about 6,700 Poles led by winged hussars broke a Russian and mercenary army of 15,000 to 35,000 and opened the road to Moscow.
- 1619Battle of Sablat
Buquoy traps Mansfeld's Bohemian army and ends the siege of České Budějovice early in the Thirty Years' War.
- 1620Battle of White Mountain
How the Emperor's and the Catholic League's armies broke the Bohemian estates outside Prague, and what followed.
- 1621Battle of Khotyn
At Khotyn in 1621 a Polish-Lithuanian and Cossack army held its camp for over a month against Sultan Osman II. Forces, losses and why it cost him his life.
- 1622Battle of Fleurus
Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick cut through a Spanish army to reach the Dutch, and Christian loses his arm.
- 1622Battle of Saint-Martin-de-Ré
On 27 October 1622 La Rochelle's Huguenot fleet under Jean Guiton fought the royal fleet off the Île de Ré: fireships, losses and the peace that followed.
- 1626Battle of Lutter
Tilly's Catholic League army routs Christian IV of Denmark and wrecks his war in northern Germany.
- 1627Battle of Oliwa
On 28 November 1627 the small Polish-Lithuanian fleet sailed out of Gdańsk, defeated a Swedish blockading squadron off Oliwa and took the Swedish flagship.
- 1629Battle of Trzciana
How Koniecpolski's hussars mauled the Swedish cavalry and King Gustavus Adolphus narrowly escaped capture. The full story.
- 1631Battle of Breitenfeld
Gustavus Adolphus and the Saxons beat Tilly near Leipzig, the first big Protestant win of the Thirty Years' War.
- 1632Battle of Lützen
How Gustavus Adolphus attacked Wallenstein in the fog, died in a cavalry melee, and left his army to win the field without him.
- 1636Battle of Wittstock
Banér's Swedish army, with Leslie's Scots and Germans, defeats the Imperial and Saxon army in a bold flanking battle.
- 1638Battle of Rheinfelden
How Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar lost to Werth and Savelli, came back three days later and captured both.
- 1642Battle of Edgehill
On 23 October 1642 King Charles I and Parliament fought the drawn Battle of Edgehill, the first pitched battle of the English Civil War.
- 1643Battle of Hopton Heath
Northampton's Royalist horse charges Gell's Parliamentarians outside Stafford, takes their guns and loses its commander.
- 1643Battle of Rocroi
France won the Battle of Rocroi on 19 May 1643, when the young Duc d'Enghien broke the Spanish tercios. The armies, the losses and the battle step by step.
- 1644Battle of Freiburg
Enghien and Turenne storm Mercy's Bavarian lines above Freiburg in one of the bloodiest fights of the Thirty Years' War.
- 1644Battle of Okhmativ
Hetman Koniecpolski and Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki rout Tuhaj Bey's Tatar raid before it can plunder.
- 1644Second Battle of Newbury
On 27 October 1644 Parliament's armies attacked Charles I at Speen and Shaw House by Newbury but let him escape, which led to the New Model Army.
- 1648Battle of St Fagans
Horton's 3,000 Parliamentarian veterans rout Laugharne's 8,000 rebels near Cardiff in about two hours.
- 1651Battle of Berestechko
In June 1651 John II Casimir defeated Khmelnytsky's Cossacks and their Crimean Tatar allies at Berestechko, one of the largest battles of the 17th century.
- 1651Battle of Worcester
Cromwell destroys Charles II's Scots and Royalists at Worcester, and the young king flees into hiding and exile.
- 1652Battle of Dungeness
How Maarten Tromp's Dutch fleet caught Robert Blake off the Kent coast and won control of the Channel.
- 1655Siege of Jasna Góra
How Prior Kordecki's small garrison of monks, soldiers and nobles held the Częstochowa monastery against a Swedish army.
- 1656Battle of Filipów
A Swedish and Brandenburg army caught Hetman Gosiewski's Lithuanian division two weeks after his victory at Prostki.
- 1657Battle of Czarny Ostrów
Polish armies trap George II Rákóczi of Transylvania in Podolia and force him to capitulate and leave Poland.
- 1659Battle of Nyborg
How a Danish and allied army with a Dutch fleet beat the Swedes on Funen and forced some 3,000 of them to surrender.
- 1664Battle of Saint Gotthard
Montecuccoli's coalition of Imperial, German and French troops throws an Ottoman bridgehead back into the Rába.
- 1665Battle of Lowestoft
The Duke of York's fleet beats the Dutch as Admiral Obdam's flagship explodes in the North Sea.
- 1670Battle of Sinhagad
In 1670 Tanaji Malusare led Shivaji's Mavles up the cliffs of Kondhana by night and took the Mughal fort near Pune. He and its commander both died.
- 1673Battle of Khotyn
On 11 November 1673 Jan Sobieski stormed the fortified Ottoman camp at Khotyn, destroying Hüseyin Pasha's army in a victory that helped make him king.
- 1676Battle of Stromboli
How Michiel de Ruyter's small Dutch fleet fought Duquesne's stronger French squadron off Sicily, and why both sides claimed it.
- 1683Siege of Vienna
How a starving city held until a Polish king led one of the largest cavalry charges in history and broke the Ottoman siege of Vienna.
- 1690Battle of Beachy Head
Tourville's French fleet beats the Anglo-Dutch fleet off Sussex and briefly rules the Channel. The Dutch pay most.
- 1690Battle of Staffarda
Catinat's French army defeats Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy in Piedmont, and young Prince Eugene covers the retreat.
- 1690Battle of the Boyne
How William III beat James II on an Irish river, why it settled little yet changed much, and why it is marked on 12 July.
- 1691Battle of Slankamen
Louis of Baden defeats the Ottoman army on the Danube, and Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasha is killed.
- 1694Battle of Hodów
In June 1694 a few hundred Polish horsemen barricaded themselves in Hodów and held off a far larger Tatar army: the stand called the Polish Thermopylae.
- 1697Battle of Zenta
Prince Eugene catches the Ottoman army astride the Tisza and destroys it, opening the way to the Peace of Karlowitz.
- 1700Battle of Narva
Charles XII, aged eighteen, attacked through a snowstorm and routed a Russian army about three times his size. Why Peter left.
- 1702Battle of Luzzara
Prince Eugene attacks Vendôme's larger Franco-Spanish army on the Po; both sides claim victory in a bloody draw.
- 1704Battle of Blenheim
Marlborough and Prince Eugene destroy a Franco-Bavarian army on the Danube and knock Bavaria out of the war.
- 1704Battle of Málaga
Rooke's Anglo-Dutch fleet and Toulouse's French fleet fight a day-long line battle off Vélez-Málaga after Gibraltar fell.
- 1704Battle of the Schellenberg
Marlborough and Louis of Baden storm the hill above Donauwörth at dusk and open the road into Bavaria.
- 1707Battle of Almansa
Berwick's Franco-Spanish army crushes Galway's allies in La Mancha and settles the War of the Spanish Succession in Spain.
- 1708Battle of Lesnaya
On 9 October 1708 Peter the Great caught Lewenhaupt's Swedish corps and its supply train at Lesnaya, the battle Peter called the mother of Poltava.
- 1709Battle of Poltava
How Peter the Great crushed Charles XII at Poltava in 1709, ending Sweden as a great power and announcing Russia's rise in the Great Northern War.
- 1710Battle of Saragossa
Starhemberg and Stanhope rout Philip V's army on Monte Torrero, and Archduke Charles enters Zaragoza the next day.
- 1713Skirmish at Bender
After years as the Sultan's guest, Charles XII of Sweden fought off Ottoman troops in his own house until it was set on fire.
- 1714Battle of Napue
How Golitsyn's flank march through the snow broke Armfelt's Finnish army at Isokyrö and opened seven years of Russian occupation.
- 1716Battle of Petrovaradin
Prince Eugene routs the Ottoman army camped before the Danube fortress, and Grand Vizier Ali Pasha is killed.
- 1741Battle of Mollwitz
Austrian horse sweeps away the Prussian right and Frederick II leaves the field, but Schwerin's infantry wins the day.
- 1743Battle of Dettingen
Trapped on the river Main, George II's Pragmatic Army beats off the French and marches to safety.
- 1745Battle of Kesselsdorf
How the 69-year-old Prince of Anhalt-Dessau stormed a fortified Saxon village in the snow and ended the Second Silesian War.
- 1745Battle of Prestonpans
On 21 September 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highlanders routed Sir John Cope's government army in about fifteen minutes at Prestonpans.
- 1746Battle of Culloden
On 16 April 1746 the Duke of Cumberland's army crushed Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobites at Culloden, the last pitched battle fought on British soil.
- 1746Battle of Rocoux
Marshal Saxe's French army storms the villages outside Liège and drives the Pragmatic Army back across the Meuse.
- 1747First Battle of Cape Finisterre
Anson's 14 ships of the line run down La Jonquière's escort and take every French warship that stood to fight.
- 1747Second Battle of Cape Finisterre
On 25 October 1747 (14 October, Old Style) Hawke's fleet took six of eight French warships guarding a convoy off Cape Finisterre. What happened.
- 1754Jumonville Glen
Young George Washington ambushes a French party in the Ohio country, and the killing of its leader starts a world war.
- 1756Battle of Lobositz
Frederick the Great attacks Browne's Austrians on the Elbe, takes the town but loses his cavalry and his campaign.
- 1756Battle of Minorca
Admiral Byng fails to relieve Fort St. Philip, sails for Gibraltar, and is shot on his own quarterdeck a year later.
- 1757Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf
In East Prussia, Apraksin's Russian army beats Lehwaldt's Prussians, then fails to follow up its victory.
- 1757Battle of Kolín
Daun's Austrians beat Frederick the Great in Bohemia and force him to lift the siege of Prague.
- 1757Battle of Leuthen
How Frederick the Great's 33,000 Prussians feinted, marched unseen and broke an Austrian army twice their size.
- 1757Battle of Plassey
On 23 June 1757 Robert Clive's East India Company force beat the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey, won by treachery and rain, opening India to British rule.
- 1757Battle of Prague
Frederick II storms the Austrian lines east of the city, loses Field Marshal Schwerin and some 14,000 men, and wins the day.
- 1757Battle of Rossbach
How Frederick the Great's 22,000 Prussians routed a French and Imperial army twice their size in an afternoon.
- 1758Battle of Carillon
Montcalm's 3,600 French behind a log wall at Ticonderoga throw back Abercromby's army of about 15,000.
- 1758Battle of Domstadtl
Loudon's Austrians ambush the great Prussian convoy bound for the siege of Olomouc and force Frederick to retreat.
- 1758Battle of Hochkirch
On 14 October 1758 Daun's Austrians crept up on Frederick the Great's camp at Hochkirch and struck at 5 a.m.: the night march, Keith's death, the numbers.
- 1759Battle of Maxen
How Frederick the Great sent General Finck behind the Austrian army, and how Daun trapped and captured his whole corps.
- 1760Battle of Landeshut
Loudon's Austrians storm the Prussian hill forts at today's Kamienna Góra and capture General Fouqué and his corps.
- 1760Battle of Warburg
A flank march in the fog and Lord Granby's British cavalry drive the Chevalier de Muy's French corps over the Diemel.
- 1761Third Battle of Panipat
At Panipat in 1761 an Afghan-led coalition under Ahmad Shah Durrani crushed the Marathas in one of the largest, bloodiest battles of the 18th century.
- 1762Battle of Freiberg
On 29 October 1762 Prince Henry of Prussia beat the Austro-Imperial army near Freiberg in Saxony, called the last battle of the Seven Years' War.
- 1764Battle of Buxar
On 22 October 1764 Hector Munro's East India Company army defeated the Mughal emperor and the nawabs of Bengal and Awadh at Buxar, securing Bengal.
- 1775Battle of Bunker Hill
At Bunker Hill in 1775 American militia twice shattered the advancing British before losing the ground, proving the colonists could stand and fight.
- 1775Lexington and Concord
On 19 April 1775 Massachusetts militia and British regulars clashed at Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War.
- 1776Battle of Long Island
On 27 August 1776 the British beat Washington at Long Island, the largest battle of the Revolution, but a night evacuation saved the American army.
- 1776Battle of Pell's Point
John Glover's 750 Massachusetts men fought Howe's landing from wall to wall and bought Washington time to escape.
- 1776Battle of Trenton
On 26 December 1776 Washington crossed the icy Delaware and surprised the Hessians at Trenton, a small victory that revived the American Revolution.
- 1776Battle of White Plains
The fight for Chatterton's Hill, who won, the losses on both sides, why it mattered, and what to see today.
- 1776Fall of Fort Washington
Why Greene held it, how Hessians and British stormed it, Margaret Corbin and 2,800 prisoners.
- 1777Battle of Bound Brook
Three British and Hessian columns from New Brunswick surprise Benjamin Lincoln's outpost on the Raritan River.
- 1777Battle of Brandywine
On 11 September 1777 Howe outflanked Washington at Brandywine Creek, the largest single-day battle of the Revolution, opening the road to Philadelphia.
- 1777Battle of Germantown
On 4 October 1777 Washington's bold four-column attack on the British at Germantown failed in the fog, but even in defeat its daring impressed France.
- 1777Battle of Princeton
On 3 January 1777 Washington slipped away from Trenton by night and beat the British at Princeton, ending the Ten Crucial Days that saved the Revolution.
- 1777Battle of Saratoga
How the American victory at Saratoga in 1777 broke a British invasion and convinced France to enter the Revolutionary War.
- 1778Battle of Monmouth
On 28 June 1778 Washington fought the British to a standstill at Monmouth, proving the army forged at Valley Forge could stand toe to toe with regulars.
- 1778Battle of Wyoming
Loyalist rangers and Iroquois warriors under John Butler destroy the Patriot militia of Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley.
- 1779Siege of Savannah
French and American forces try to retake the city; the 9 October assault fails and Pulaski is killed.
- 1780Battle of Kings Mountain
On 7 October 1780 Patriot frontier militia destroyed Patrick Ferguson's Loyalists at Kings Mountain, a turning point of the Revolution in the South.
- 1781Battle of Cowpens
On 17 January 1781 Daniel Morgan destroyed Banastre Tarleton's force at Cowpens with a brilliant double envelopment, a turning point in the American South.
- 1781Battle of Guilford Courthouse
On 15 March 1781 Greene bled Cornwallis white at Guilford Courthouse, a British victory so costly it put the British army on the road to Yorktown.
- 1781Battle of the Chesapeake
On 5 September 1781 de Grasse's French fleet fought Graves's British fleet off the Virginia capes. No ship was taken, but the French kept the bay and trapped Cornwallis.
- 1781Siege of Yorktown
In 1781 Washington and the French trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown while a French fleet held the sea, forcing the surrender that won American independence.
Commanders of the era
- Selim I the Grim
- Suleiman the Magnificent
- Jan Tarnowski
- Stefan Batory
- Jan Zamoyski
- Takeda Shingen
- Oda Nobunaga
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi
- Tokugawa Ieyasu
- Jan Karol Chodkiewicz
- Stanisław Żółkiewski
- Stanisław Koniecpolski
- Turenne
- Stefan Czarniecki
- Jan III Sobieski
- George Washington
- Nathanael Greene
- Daniel Morgan
- Francis Marion
- Benedict Arnold
- John Paul Jones
- Casimir Pulaski
- Baron von Steuben
- Marquis de Lafayette
- Tadeusz Kosciuszko
- Francis Drake
Guides and lists
- The Greatest Battles of the Early Modern Age
- The Greatest Battles of the Ottoman Empire
- The Greatest Commanders of the Ottoman Empire
- The Greatest Commanders of Feudal Japan
- The Wars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
- The Winged Hussars' Greatest Battles, from Orsha to Vienna
- The Greatest Battles of the American Revolution
- The Croatian-Ottoman wars
Test yourself
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