Charge (warfare) - Notable Charges

Notable Charges

• Battle of Gaugamela (October 1, 331 BC) 7,000 Greco-Macedonian Companion cavalry, led by Alexander the Great himself, charged and broke ranks through a huge Persian army of more than 200,000 warriors led by King Darius III of Persia. The largest cavalry charge in ancient history.
• Battle of Hastings (October 14, 1066): 2,200 Norman Knights repeatedly charged the Anglo-Saxon shield wall. All charges were repulsed with heavy casualties until the Saxon infantry, thinking the Normans were retreating, broke its formation to follow them and were routed by Norman cavalry.
• Battle of Dyrrhachium (October 18, 1081): Normans under the Duke of Apulia Robert Guiscard charged and routed the Varangian Guard, Byzantine levies and caused a widespread rout of the Byzantine army, ending in a devastating defeat for Byzantium. The Varangian Guard fled to the sanctuary of a nearby church which the Norman forces burnt down. First recorded instance of a successful and decisive 'shock' cavalry charge.
• Battle of Falkirk (July 22, 1298) English cavalry, though able to break Scottish archers and cavalry, charges and is repulsed by a tight formation of Scottish Pikemen. With the Battle of Golden Spurs (below), the battle contributed to the end of the perception of cavalry supremacy in warfare.
• Battle of Golden Spurs (July 11, 1302): French cavalry, consisting of many nobles is defeated in battle against heavily-armed Flemish militias. The cavalry charge was cited to be rash and premature with the battlefield's many ditches and marshes blamed for the loss. However it also demonstrated that well-disciplined and heavily-armed infantry could defeat cavalry charges, ending the perception that heavy calvalry was practically invincible against infantry.
• Battle of Crecy (August 26, 1346): 29,000 French and allied knights charged 16,000 English soldiers on a gentle slope. Under heavy longbow fire, the charge was a total disaster, with the French army losing over 1500 knights, many of them from important noble families.
• Battle of Agincourt (October 25, 1415): French knights become bogged down in a charge against the outnumbered English forces. The charge is slowed and stalled by the thick mud of Agincourt field, allowing the light English infantry to kill and capture many French knights and prominent French nobles.
• Battle of Patay (June 18, 1429): French heavy cavalry charges an English army, for the first time defeating the English longbowmen in a direct confrontation, marking a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.
• Fall of Constantinople (May 29, 1453) 1,000 of the remaining Greek soldiers charged the 120,000 Turkish soldiers that had just surged over the walls in a heroic last charge to allow the other 4,000 defenders to escape. They were led by the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI. They were all slaughtered.
• Battle of Nagashino (1575) - Charge of Takeda clan cavalry against massed arquebusiers behind stockades and supported by other infantry fails with heavy losses.
• Battle of Kircholm (September 27, 1605) - Polish cavalry 2,600 men supported with 1,000 infantry defeated 11,000 Swedes. Polish-Lithuanian winged hussars charged and completely defeated advancing Swedes.
• Battle of Klushino (4 July 1610) – Polish forces numbering about 4,000 men (of which about 80 percent were the famous 'winged' hussars under Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski defeated a numerically superior force of about 35,000–40,000 Russians under Dmitry Shuisky, Andrew Golitsyn and Danilo Mezetski. In battle hussar units charged 8 – 10 times.
• Battle of Vienna (September 11–12, 1683): 20,000 Polish, Austrian and German cavalry led by the Polish king Jan III Sobieski and spearheaded by 3000 heavily armed Polish armoured lancers – hussars charged Ottoman lines. The largest cavalry charge in history.
• Battle of Eylau (February 8, 1807): 11,000 French cavalry under Joachim Murat charge the centre of the Russian Army to save the French Army of Napoleon Bonaparte.

• Battle of Somosierra (November 30, 1808): During the Peninsular War Napoleon overwhelmed the Spanish positions in a combined arms attack, charging the Polish Chevau-légers of the Imperial Guard at the Spanish guns while French infantry advanced up the slopes. The victory removed the last obstacle barring the road to Madrid, which fell several days later.
• Battle of Borodino (September 7, 1812) Three cavalry corps contained French, German and Polish regiments strike enemy's centre. Russian counter charge with cavalry and it led to cavalry battle.
• Battle of Dresden (August 27, 1813) French cavalry under Marshal Murat cut off and then defeated left Allies wing. Few Austrian infantry divisions suffered heavy casualties, many soldiers surrendered. Napoleon's forces achieved great victory.
• Battle of Leipzig (October 16, 1813): French, Italian and Saxon 10,000 cavalry unfortunate charged and were routed with artillery fire and counter charge delivered by Austrian, Russian and Prussian cavalry.
• Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815): 2,000 British cavalry charge French infantry, and 9,000 French cavalry charge British infantry.
• Charge of the Light Brigade (October 25, 1854) at the Battle of Balaklava in the Crimean War. This probably is the most famous cavalry charge in history, as well as the famous saying for this charge- "glorious, but truly pointless'.
• Pickett's Charge (July 3, 1863) at the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War.
• Battle of Opequon (September 19, 1864): the largest cavalry charge of the American Civil War.
• Second Battle of Franklin (November 30, 1864): the largest infantry charge of the American Civil War.
• Battle of Little Bighorn (June 25–26, 1876) General George A. Custer leads at least 268 men of the 7th U.S. Cavalry against 900 - 1,800 Sioux Indians.
• Battle of Wörth (August 6, 1870): French heavy cavalry brigade, with two squadrons of light cavalry, charges Prussian infantry in the village of Moiseront and lost 800 men.
• Battle of Mars-la-Tour (August 16, 1870): "Von Bredow's Death Ride". Prussian heavy cavalry brigade overrun French infantry and artillery to save left flank of Prussian Army, at cost of half the brigade.
• Charge of the 21st Lancers in the Battle of Omdurman, September 2, 1898: 400 British cavalry charge 2,500 Mahdist infantry. This was also one of the first battles Winston Churchill engaged in, and was accurately described in his first book, The River War
• Relief of Kimberley (13 February 1900): Major-General John French led a charge of 7,500 cavalry through Boer lines to lift the Siege of Kimberley, during the Second Boer War.

• Charge of the 4th Light Horse in the Battle of Beersheba (October 31, 1917): two regiments of Australian Light Horse charge an unknown number of entrenched Turkish infantry and Austrian artillery.
• Charge of the 7th Dragoon Guards, November 11, 1918: British cavalry make an opportunistic charge on German infantry to capture Lessines and the Dender crossings in Belgium. The last cavalry charge of World War I, with the action completed as the clocks were striking 11 o'clock to mark the end of hostilities.

• Battle of Komarów (August 31, 1920): a vital and decisive battle of the Polish-Bolshevik War. It was the largest and last great cavalry battle of significance in which cavalry was used as such and not as mounted infantry.
• The last British army's cavalry charge by a complete regiment was executed in Turkey during the 1920 Chanak crisis, when the 20th Hussars successfully charged a body of Turkish infantry.
• Battle of Krojanty (September 1, 1939): a cavalry charge that gave birth to the myth of Polish cavalry charging German tanks. It's an invention of the Germans. In fact, Polish cavalry charged a regiment of German soldiers and were surprised by the arriving of a group of armored cars and retreated.
• Battle of Bataan (January 16, 1942): US 26th Cavalry Regiment makes a mounted pistol charge against Japanese positions, the last mounted charge in battle by conventional United States troops.
• Eastern Front, World War II, (August 24, 1942): The last cavalry charge against a regular enemy army of Italian history happened in Izbušenskij. It was mounted against a Soviet artillery position along the River Don by 700 men of the Italian 3rd 'Savoia' Cavalry Regiment. This is often reported as "the last successful cavalry charge in history".
• Battle of Poloj (October 17, 1942): The last charge of an Italian horse regiment during WWII. It was executed in Yugoslavia by the 14th Light Cavalry Regiment "Cavalleggeri di Alessandria" versus Communist partisans.
• Battle of Borujsko (Schönfeld in German) was the last charge of the Polish 1st Cavalry Brigade just before the end of WWII. On March 1, 1945, it attacked the German lines in support of Soviet Forces. The charge was successful.
• Korean War (February 7, 1951): A company of soldiers from the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Regiment did an infantry charge which successfully defeated an enemy machine gun position.
• Battle of Mount Tumbledown (June 13–14, 1982): British infantry charge Argentine positions in the Falklands War. The last successful bayonet charge until 2004.