page_title: Charge (warfare)
section_title: Notable charges
hierarchical_section_title: Charge (warfare) / Notable charges
caption_attribution_description: English: Part of scene 52 of the Bayeux Tapestry. This depicts mounted Normans attacking the Anglo-Saxon infantry.
context_page_description: A charge is an offensive maneuver in battle in which combatants advance towards their enemy at their best speed in an attempt to engage in a decisive close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic and decisive moment of many battles throughout history. Modern charges usually involve small groups of fireteams equipped with weapons with a high rate of fire and striking against individual defensive positions, instead of large groups of combatants charging another group or a fortified line.
context_section_description: Battle of Gaugamela (October 1, 331 BC): 1,800 Greek (Macedonian, Thessalian etc.) Companion cavalry, led by Alexander the Great himself and supported by brigades of hypaspists and part of his phalanx, charged and broke through the center of a huge Achaemenid army of more than 50,000 warriors led by Darius III, the emperor.
  Battle of Zama (202 BC): 6,100 Roman and Numidian cavalry led by Scipio Africanus charged a Carthaginian army led by Hannibal from the rear, inflicting a defeat that put an end to the Second Punic War and all resistance from Carthage.
  Battle of Hastings (October 14, 1066): 2,000 Norman heavy cavalry repeatedly charged uphill at several times their number in Anglo-Saxon infantry, who had formed a shield wall. All charges were repulsed until the Saxon infantry, thinking the Normans were retreating, broke their formation to follow them and were routed by the Norman cavalry.
  Battle of Dyrrhachium (October 18, 1081): 1,300 Norman cavalry under Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, were initially repulsed by the Varangian Guard. The Varangian Guard were in turn routed by a counterattack to their flanks by Norman infantry, fled to the sanctuary of a nearby church which the Norman forces burnt down.  The Norman knights then charged the Byzantine line again, and caused a widespread rout.  First recorded instance of a successful and decisive 'shock' cavalry charge.
  Battle of Falkirk (July 22, 1298) The English cavalry without orders from the king charged and though able to break Scottish archers and cavalry, was unable to break the tight formation of Scottish pikemen deployed in schiltrons. King Edward I withdrew his knights back and used his longbowmen to weaken and break up the Scottish lines. The English knights rejoined the battle under cover of the arrow fire and routed the Scottish infantry with heavy losses.
  Battle of the Golden Spurs (July 11, 1302): The French cavalry, consisting of many nobles, was defeated in battle by heavily armed Flemish militiamen on foot. The cavalry charge was cited to be rash and premature with the battlefield's many ditches and marshes blamed for the loss, and at a few points on the Flemish line the French horsemen did manage to break through before being surrounded and annihilated. However it also demonstrated that well-disciplined and heavily armed infantry could defeat cavalry charges, ending the perception that heavy cavalry was practically invincible against infantry.
  Battle of Bannockburn (23–24 June 1314) The mounted English knights under Edward II charged the Scottish lines without covering arrow fire and were slaughtered by the Scottish pikemen. Also in the same battle, the Scottish cavalry charged and routed the English-Welsh archers.
  Battle of Crécy (August 26, 1346): 29,000 French and allied troops 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 Poitiers (19 September 1356): Unlike the other major battles of the Hundred Years' War, the French knights and men-at-arms attacked the English lines on foot in fear of what happened in Crecy. However, instead this led the English knights and men-at-arms to mount up and charge. The combined attack of longbowmen and cavalry charge defeated the French army.
  Battle of Agincourt (October 25, 1415): Dismounted French knights become bogged down in a charge against the outnumbered English forces. The charge was slowed and stalled by the thick mud of the 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 managed to catch a retreating English army by surprise, and for the first time succeeded in defeating the English longbowmen in a direct confrontation, marking a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.
caption: Depiction from the Bayeux Tapestry of Norman cavalry attacking Anglo-Saxons who are fighting on foot in a shield wall.
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