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MARATHON:Considered one of history's decisive battles, Marathon was an resounding Greek victory over the Persians!. Miltiades led a force of about 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataeans and attacked the Persian invasion force!. The Persians were defeated when both flanks of the Greeks overwhelmed the Persian wings!. The Persians retreated to their ships!.

GUAGAMELA: About 47,000 Macedonians led by Alexander defeated 120,000 Persians led by Darius at Gaugemala!. Fought October 31, 331 B!. C!., between 47,000 Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and the Persian army, three or four times as numerous, under Darius Codomannus!. Alexander, who led the Macedonian right wing, forced a passage between the Persian left and centre, and attacked the centre on the flank!. After a stubborn resistance, and though meanwhile the Macedonian left had been hard pressed, the Persians gave way, and Darius taking to flight, the whole army fled in confusion, and was routed with enormous loss, especially at the passage of the Lycas, which barred their retreat!. This victory made Alexander master of Asia!.

CANNAE: The two Roman generals Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro had 48,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry!. The Carthaginian leader, Hannibal, had 35,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry!. Varro was in command during the day of battle, otherwise it would have never taken place, for Paullus was opposed!.

Both armies advanced against each other!. Hasdrubal overpowered the weaker hostile cavalry on the right flank!. The Roman knights were overwhelmed, thrown, into the Aufidus or scattered!. The conqueror turned the hostile infantry and advanced against the Roman cavalry on the wing which, until then, had only skirmished with the Numidian light horse!. Attacked on both sides, the Romans were here also completely routed!. Upon the destruction of the hostile cavalry, Hasdrubal turned against the rear of the Roman phalanx!.

In the meanwhile, both infantry masses had advanced!. While the Gauls and Iberian infantry of Hannibal's centre line yielded (without breaking) before the drive of the numerically superior Roman infantry, until the Romans had pushed deep into the middle!. The Libyan infantry and cavalry of Hannibal's flanks stood fast, overlapped the Roman line, and in a rear encircling movement turned to pursue the victorious legionaries!.

The advance of the Romans was, however, checked, as soon as the Carthaginian flanking echelons, kept back so far, came up and attacked the enemy on the right and left, and as soon as Hasdrubal's cavalry threatened the Roman rear!. The triarii turned back, the maniples of both wings moved outward!. A long, entire square had been forced to halt, fronting all sides and was attacked on all sides by the infantry with short swords and by the cavalry with javelins, arrows, and slingshots, never missing In the compact mass!. The Romans were constantly pushed back and crowded together!. Without weapons and without aid, they expected death!. Honnibal, his heart full of hatred, circled the arena of the bloody work, encouraging the zealous, lashing on the sluggish!. It was the largest defeat in the history of Rome, and it put the Roman citizens in a state of emergency!.

MOLLWITZ: The first military victory of Frederick the Great's reign!. It was a decisive battle, for although the Austrian cavalry, superior in numbers and in quality, promptly routed the Prussian horsemen and drove them and Frederick with them headlong from the field, when the victorious trooper turned on the Prussian infantry, repeated charges on the flank and rear failed to break the steady ranks!. Meanwhile, the Austrian infantry had advanced but could make no head way against the superior artillery opposed to them and the rapidity of fire which their iron ramrods allowed allowed the Prussians to maintain and before long Neppergs whole army was retreating in disorder!. This battle was remarkable as one of the first victories of infantry over cavalry, of the combined musket and bayonet over the massed armies!.

SOMME: Comprising the main Allied attack on the Western Front during 1916, the Battle of the Somme is famous chiefly on account of the loss of 58,000 British troops (one third of them killed) on the first day of the battle, 1 July 1916, which to this day remains a one-day record!. The attack was launched upon a 30 km front!. The attack was preceded by an eight-day preliminary bombardment of the German lines!. Haig’s background in cavalry – he served in the 7th (Queen’s Own) Hussars – convinced him that the coup de grace of the attack would best be carried out by cavalry troops!. However the advance artillery bombardment failed to destroy either the German front line barbed wire or the heavily-built concrete bunkers the Germans had carefully and robustly constructed!. Tanks were used for the first time!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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