What is the greatest ambush in history?
The Teutoburg Forest in AD 9 tops our ranking: Germanic warriors under Arminius destroyed three Roman legions on the march, and Rome gave up its plans for Germania. Lake Trasimene in 217 BC, the textbook ambush, comes second, followed by Cajamarca in 1532, Roncesvalles in 778 and the retreat from Kabul in 1842.
An ambush, in the strict sense used here, is an attack from concealment on an enemy army or column on the move, caught before it can form up. Surprise attacks on fixed positions, such as Pearl Harbor and the Tet Offensive, do not count, and neither do feigned retreats and lures fought in the open, such as Ain Jalut and Hattin; we explain why below. The thirteen ambushes here, from Lake Trasimene in 217 BC to LZ Albany in 1965, are ranked by score, with most weight on how well known each one is and how pure an ambush it was; see how we chose them.1
Most of them punished the same mistake: an army marching without proper scouting, confident that the enemy was somewhere else.
1 Teutoburg Forest, AD 9
- Where
- Probably near Kalkriese, Lower Saxony, Germany
- War
- Roman wars in Germania
- Sides
- Germanic tribes under Arminius vs three Roman legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus
- Strength
- Three legions with auxiliaries, perhaps 10,000 to 15,000 men (modern estimate); Germanic numbers unknown
- Result
- Roman army destroyed over several days; Varus killed himself
In September AD 9 Publius Quinctilius Varus, governor of Germania, set out to march his three legions, with three cavalry squadrons and six auxiliary cohorts, to winter quarters. Arminius, a Cheruscan noble, fed him false news of a rising and lured him off his route onto ground the Germans had chosen and prepared. A modern estimate puts the army at 10,000 to 15,000 men; the German numbers are unknown.2
Cassius Dio, writing two centuries later, describes a column strung out through thick forest among wagons, women, children and servants, lashed by rain and attacked from all sides. The fighting ran into a fourth day, when Varus and his senior officers took their own lives. At Kalkriese, probably one of the battle sites, the road ran through a corridor between a wooded hill and a great bog that Jona Lendering puts at about 1 km wide, 220 m at its most passable, and the spread of finds shows an army that could no longer keep to one column. Myth vs fact: the turf wall found there was long read as the Germans' cover for the ambush, but the Kalkriese museum now says newer digs point instead to a Roman marching camp on the spot, overrun by the Germans, and that the wall most likely belonged to a Germanic farmstead.3
Rome came back with eight legions, but in AD 16 the campaigns were called off and Rome abandoned its plans for Germania for decades. Suetonius says Augustus would beat his head against a door, crying: “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!”4
Why it ranks here: It is No. 1 because it takes full marks for recognition, purity, consequence and memory: a hidden enemy struck an army on the march, and Rome gave up its plans for Germania. Only certainty, 3, holds it down, because every figure is a modern estimate and the site is still argued over.
2 Lake Trasimene, 217 BC
- Where
- North shore of Lake Trasimene, central Italy
- War
- Second Punic War
- Sides
- Hannibal's Carthaginian army vs the Roman army of the consul Gaius Flaminius
- Strength
- About 25,000 Romans and allies (our sum of Livius' breakdown); Carthaginian strength not given
- Result
- Roman army destroyed: about 15,000 dead (Polybius, Livy), Flaminius killed; Carthaginian losses 1,500 (Polybius) or 2,500 (Livy)
In the spring of 217 BC Hannibal marched past the consul Gaius Flaminius, encamped at Arretium, and plundered the country ahead of him, sure that Flaminius, in Polybius' words a self-confident demagogue, would follow. Flaminius' army, by Jona Lendering's breakdown, held two legions of 5,000, 10,000 Italian allies, 2,000 archers and light troops and 2,500 to 3,500 horse: about 25,000 men by our sum. Hannibal reached Lake Trasimene first and by night posted his troops on the hills above the shore road, the last of them at the entrance to the defile between hillside and lake.5
At dawn Flaminius led his column into the defile without scouts, in a fog that, Livy says, lay thicker on the low ground than on the heights. When most of the column was inside, Hannibal gave the signal and his men came down from front, flank and rear at once. Polybius says most Romans were cut down in marching order; Flaminius was killed by Celts, about 15,000 fell in the valley, more died in the lake, and some 6,000 who had broken through at the head of the column surrendered after the battle. Livy, who says he follows Fabius Pictor, gives the same 15,000 Roman dead and 2,500 Carthaginians; Polybius has about 1,500. Rome turned to Quintus Fabius Maximus as dictator.6
Why it ranks here: The textbook ambush, with full marks for recognition and purity, and better attested than most ancient battles, since Polybius and Livy agree on the dead, so certainty 4. It sits below the Teutoburg Forest because Rome survived it and won the war, so consequence 4, and memory 4.
3 Cajamarca, 1532
- Where
- Main square of Cajamarca, northern highlands of Peru
- War
- Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
- Sides
- Francisco Pizarro's Spanish expedition vs the escort of the Inca emperor Atahualpa
- Strength
- 168 Spaniards (Lockhart) vs 5,000 to 6,000 largely unarmed men in the square (Hernando Pizarro); an army of about 80,000 outside (modern estimate)
- Result
- Atahualpa captured; about 7,000 Inca dead by a modern count, no Spaniard killed
In November 1532 Francisco Pizarro led about 168 Spaniards into Cajamarca, in the northern Peruvian highlands, where the Inca emperor Atahualpa lay encamped after his victory in a civil war, with an army World History Encyclopedia puts at 80,000. Pizarro could not hope to fight that army, so he set a trap. His brother Hernando wrote that the troops were placed in the three halls around the open square, mounted and armed, while the road outside filled with Atahualpa's men.7
On the evening of 16 November Atahualpa was carried in on a litter. He had left his armed men behind and came, Hernando says, with about five or six thousand men carrying no arms but small darts and slings hidden under their shirts. At a signal the guns fired and the whole Spanish force burst out of the halls into the crowded square. The litter bearers and the lords around the emperor were killed where they stood, and Pizarro seized Atahualpa alive. World History Encyclopedia counts 7,000 Inca dead and no Spanish losses. The armed troops outside made no resistance, because night had fallen. Atahualpa paid a room of treasure as ransom and was executed anyway on 26 July 1533.8
Why it ranks here: The capture of a reigning emperor opened the conquest of the Inca empire, so consequence takes full marks. Purity drops to 4 because the victims were an escort expecting a parley rather than an army on the march, and certainty to 3 because every Inca figure is a Spanish or modern estimate.
4 Roncesvalles, 778
- Where
- A pass in the western Pyrenees, traditionally placed at Roncesvalles (Roncevaux), Navarre, Spain
- War
- Charlemagne's Spanish expedition
- Sides
- Basques (Einhard's “Gascons”) vs the rearguard and baggage train of Charlemagne's Frankish army
- Strength
- No figures in the sources; Einhard says only that “very many” fell
- Result
- Rearguard killed to a man; the attackers escaped unpunished
In 778 Charlemagne answered an invitation from Zaragoza and crossed the Pyrenees into Spain at the head of every man he could muster; his biographer Einhard says all the towns he attacked surrendered. The trouble came on the way home. The narrow road through the thickly wooded mountains forced the army into a long, thin line of march, and Basques, whom Einhard calls Gascons, were lying in wait on the top of a very high mountain.9
They fell on the rear of the baggage train and the rearguard covering it, drove them down to the bottom of the valley and killed them to the last man, then plundered the baggage and scattered at nightfall before the Franks could strike back. Their light armor and the broken ground favored them; the Franks fought weighed down by theirs. Among the dead Einhard names the royal steward Eggihard, Anselm, count of the palace, and Roland, governor of the March of Brittany, “with very many others,” and he gives no numbers. World History Encyclopedia dates the fight to 15 August 778 and calls it Charlemagne's only defeat. Myth vs fact: the Old French Song of Roland, written down around 1100, turned a Basque raid on a baggage train into an epic stand against a Muslim army.10
Why it ranks here: The Song of Roland made it the best-remembered ambush in European literature, so memory 5, and Einhard's few lines describe a pure ambush from the heights, so purity 5. It changed little for Charlemagne, so consequence 2, and with no numbers in any source certainty is 3.
5 Retreat from Kabul, 1842
- Where
- The passes between Kabul and Jalalabad, Afghanistan, from the Khurd Kabul to Gandamak
- War
- First Anglo-Afghan War
- Sides
- Afghan tribesmen vs the British and Indian garrison of Kabul under General Sir William Elphinstone
- Strength
- 4,500 British and Indian troops with 12,000 camp followers (National Army Museum); about 16,000 people in all (Historic UK); Afghan numbers unknown
- Result
- Column destroyed; one European, Dr William Brydon, reached Jalalabad; others held as hostages or prisoners
By December 1841 an uprising had cornered the British garrison in Kabul and Akbar Khan had killed the British envoy, Sir William Macnaghten. The commander, General Sir William Elphinstone, negotiated a withdrawal, handing over most of his cannon and his reserves of gunpowder. In January 1842 the garrison, 4,500 British and Indian troops with 12,000 camp followers, marched out under a promise that it could retreat to India in safety. Historic UK puts the total at about 16,000 people and the day of departure at 6 January. The promised escort never came, nor did food and fuel for the winter crossing.11
The road east ran through passes such as the Khurd Kabul, a defile some five miles long. From the heights the Afghans sniped with long jezails, raided the column and picked off stragglers. Only a few soldiers escaped the final massacre at Gandamak. Most of the Indian sepoys were killed, several hundred were later sold in Kabul's slave markets, and just one European, the surgeon William Brydon, reached Jalalabad. Myth vs fact: Brydon was not the sole survivor, as legend has it; soldiers, wives and children were held as hostages and prisoners, Elphinstone among them. Lady Butler's painting of Brydon's arrival, The Remnants of an Army (1879), keeps the scene alive.12
Why it ranks here: Brydon's ride and Lady Butler's painting keep recognition and memory at 4, and the National Army Museum's figures give certainty 4. Purity is 4 because it was a running series of attacks on a column retreating under a broken promise of safe conduct rather than one sprung trap, and Pollock's Army of Retribution retook Kabul that September, so consequence 3.13
6 Okehazama, 1560
- Where
- Okehazama, Owari Province (today Aichi Prefecture), Japan
- War
- Wars of the Sengoku period
- Sides
- Oda Nobunaga vs Imagawa Yoshimoto
- Strength
- 2,000 to 3,000 Oda troops vs about 25,000 Imagawa (the usual figure; 45,000 in the chronicle Shinchō kōki)
- Result
- Imagawa Yoshimoto killed; Oda victory
In the fifth month of 1560 Imagawa Yoshimoto, lord of Suruga and Tōtōmi, marched into Owari with about 25,000 men to crush Oda Nobunaga and, if things went well, take the whole province; the Shinchō kōki, the chronicle of Nobunaga's retainer Ōta Gyūichi, gives 45,000. Nobunaga could raise about 3,000, and fewer than 2,000 went with him when he moved up to the fort at Nakajima. The Imagawa army was spread over the hills, and Yoshimoto's headquarters had halted on high ground near Okehazama.14
The version told in films and dramas has Nobunaga circle north through the hills unseen, wait above a hollow where Yoshimoto was resting and charge down as a violent storm threw the camp into confusion. That story comes from Oze Hoan's later Shinchōki and the Meiji army general staff's war history, and most researchers now reject the detour. The historian Fujimoto Masayuki, reading the Shinchō kōki closely, argued for a frontal attack; others doubt that 2,000 men could beat 25,000 head on, and the argument goes on. The storm, at least, is in the older chronicle: a sudden downpour struck like hailstones just before Nobunaga's men broke the Imagawa ranks. What is not in doubt is the result. Yoshimoto was killed, and Nobunaga went on to subdue his rivals and take Kyoto in 1568.15
Why it ranks here: Killing Yoshimoto launched the man who began the unification of Japan, so consequence 5. Purity is 4 because the blow fell on a halted headquarters, and certainty 2 because historians still argue whether there was any hidden approach at all; it ties Maling on 37 and on recognition and goes above it on consequence.
7 Maling, 342 BC
- Where
- Maling, northern China, where the Shiji places a narrow road lined with defiles
- War
- Wars of the Warring States period
- Sides
- The state of Qi, with Tian Ji in command and Sun Bin as adviser, vs the state of Wei under Pang Juan and Crown Prince Shen
- Strength
- 10,000 crossbowmen in the ambush (Shiji); no other figures for either army
- Result
- Wei army destroyed; Pang Juan dead and Crown Prince Shen captured
The story is told by Sima Qian in the Shiji, written more than two centuries later. When Wei and Zhao attacked Han, Qi sent an army under Tian Ji, with Sun Bin as his adviser, against the Wei capital, Daliang, and Pang Juan, Wei's general, turned back. Sun Bin, counting on Wei's contempt for Qi's soldiers, had his army, now inside Wei territory, build 100,000 cooking hearths on the first day, 50,000 on the next and 30,000 on the third. Pang Juan, sure Qi's army was deserting, left his infantry and pushed on with light troops at double speed.16
Sun Bin reckoned he would reach Maling at dusk, where the road ran narrow between defiles. He had a great tree stripped and wrote on it: “Pang Juan dies under this tree.” Then he hid 10,000 of Qi's best crossbowmen on both sides of the road, to shoot when they saw a light. Pang Juan arrived in the dark and lit a torch to read the writing; before he had finished, the crossbows loosed at once and his army fell apart. In this chapter he cuts his own throat; the Shiji's chapter on Wei says Qi killed him, and both say Crown Prince Shen was taken. The Mencius has King Hui of Wei lament that in the east he was defeated by Qi and his eldest son died there.17
Why it ranks here: In Sima Qian's telling a perfect trap, so purity 5, and the defeat broke Wei's army and cost it its heir, so consequence 4. But the whole story rests on the Shiji, so certainty 2; it ties Okehazama on 37 and on recognition and goes below it on consequence.
8 Fetterman Fight, 1866
- Where
- Lodge Trail Ridge, near Fort Phil Kearny, in present-day northern Wyoming, United States
- War
- Red Cloud's War
- Sides
- Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors vs a U.S. Army detachment under Captain William J. Fetterman
- Strength
- 80 or 81 men, two of them civilians, vs as many as 2,000 warriors (HistoryNet's estimate)
- Result
- The whole detachment killed, 80 or 81 men; warrior losses unknown
In 1866 the Army built Fort Phil Kearny to guard the Bozeman Trail, a road to the Montana gold fields through hunting grounds the Lakota and their Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho allies meant to keep. By mid-December, Shannon Smith counts, nearly 70 soldiers and civilians had died in more than 50 skirmishes near the post.18
On 21 December another wood train was attacked, and Captain William J. Fetterman led out the relief: infantry, Lieutenant George Grummond with 27 cavalrymen, and two civilians armed with repeating rifles. A small party of decoys, Crazy Horse among them, drew the soldiers toward Lodge Trail Ridge, which Colonel Henry Carrington had ordered them never to cross. Beyond it, out of sight of the fort, as many as 2,000 warriors were waiting, by HistoryNet's estimate. None of the command survived: the state historic site says 81 men were buried, HistoryNet's breakdown of the command also comes to 81 with Fetterman, and Smith counts Fetterman and 79 others. Myth vs fact: Fetterman's boast that with 80 men he could ride through the whole Sioux Nation comes from the books of Carrington's wives; Smith finds that Grummond's horsemen raced ahead and Fetterman most likely crossed the ridge to support them. It was the Army's heaviest loss to a Native force up to then, the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand to the Lakota, and in 1868 the Army gave up the Bozeman Trail forts, which Red Cloud's warriors burned.19
Why it ranks here: Decoys, a ridge and a hidden army make it a pure ambush (purity 5) with well-recorded numbers (certainty 4), and it helped cost the government the Bozeman Trail forts (consequence 3); recognition and memory of 3 hold it at 35 points.
9 Pliska, 811
- Where
- A pass in the Balkan Mountains, most likely the Varbitsa pass, Bulgaria
- War
- Byzantine and Bulgar wars
- Sides
- Khan Krum of Bulgaria vs Emperor Nikephoros I
- Strength
- Not reliably known; the Byzantine Battles database gives the emperor 80,000 men, a figure we could not confirm
- Result
- Byzantine army destroyed and the emperor killed
Nikephoros I had sacked Pliska, the Bulgar capital, in 810 and came back in 811. His army burned the city in July, and while it plundered, Khan Krum raised everyone he could, women and Avar mercenaries among them, to hold the mountain passes the Byzantines would have to use on the way home.20
The army marched into a narrow pass, most likely the Varbitsa pass, and found the road ahead closed by thick wooden walls; then the Bulgars shut the entrance behind it. Against the advice of his generals Nikephoros made camp. At dawn on 26 July, the date Theophanes gives, the Bulgars fell on the camp, and men died by the sword, drowned in a muddy river, fell from the wooden walls or burned in the fires they lit to destroy them. Mark Cartwright dates the disaster to 25 July. The emperor was killed, the first Byzantine ruler to die at foreign hands in more than 400 years, and his son and heir Staurakios was badly wounded. Theophanes writes that Krum hung the emperor's head on a pole for several days, then had the skull covered with silver and made Slav chieftains drink from it. Kat Jivkova notes that historians still argue whether Theophanes had the story from an eyewitness or from rumor, and that later chroniclers mostly took it from him.21
Why it ranks here: An emperor and his army lost (consequence 4, memory 4), but the blow fell on a trapped camp rather than a column on the move (purity 3) and the numbers are unknown (certainty 3). It ties the Cosmin Forest on 34 points and recognition and goes ahead of it on consequence.
10 Cosmin Forest, 1497
- Where
- The Cosmin Forest in Bukovina, in present-day Ukraine
- War
- John I Albert's Moldavian expedition
- Sides
- Stephen the Great of Moldavia, with Turkish and Tatar allies, vs King John I Albert of Poland
- Strength
- Polish army about 50,000 (Grabarczyk) or 60,000 to 80,000 soldiers and servants (Węgłowski); Moldavian numbers unknown
- Result
- Polish defeat; 5,000 to 10,000 killed or captured (Węgłowski)
In 1497 King John I Albert led a Polish army of about 50,000 into Moldavia and besieged Suceava, the well-fortified capital of Stephen the Great, from 24 September to 19 October without taking it. Polish writers blamed Stephen's betrayal and the Hungarians who broke their word.22
On 26 October, as the army withdrew through the Cosmin Forest in Bukovina, Moldavians and their allies fell on it from ambush. The chronicler Maciej Stryjkowski, as Adam Węgłowski quotes him, wrote that the attackers had cut into trees on purpose and brought them down across the roads. Part of the army was caught, and the court banner, a royal guard of up to 2,000 men, saved the knights of the noble levy from complete defeat. The numbers are disputed: Węgłowski gives perhaps 60,000 to 80,000 soldiers and servants and 5,000 to 10,000 killed or captured, another National Geographic Polska article several thousand dead.23
It survives in the saying "za króla Olbrachta wyginęła szlachta", under King Olbracht the nobility perished. Węgłowski traces it to the opening of a song about the Bukovina defeat quoted by the chronicler Marcin Bielski, and dzieje.pl notes it was used in propaganda against the king. Myth vs fact: the nobility did not die out. The heaviest losses fell on the noble levy of Lesser Poland and Ruthenia, dzieje.pl says, but Węgłowski, setting 5,000 to 10,000 killed or captured against an army of 60,000 to 80,000, calls the saying a great exaggeration.24
Why it ranks here: A forest ambush (purity 4) that Poles still quote (memory 4), but it changed no border (consequence 3) and its figures differ widely (certainty 3). It ties Pliska on 34 points and recognition and falls behind it on consequence.
11 Posada, 1330
- Where
- A defile in the Carpathians of Wallachia, exact site unknown (north of Câmpulung or on the Olt road to the Red Tower pass)
- War
- Hungarian campaign against Wallachia
- Sides
- Basarab I of Wallachia vs King Charles I Robert of Hungary
- Strength
- About 30,000 Hungarians (Fulton) vs Wallachians, number unknown
- Result
- Hungarian army routed; the king barely escaped
In 1330 Charles I Robert of Hungary marched against Basarab I of Wallachia, urged on by Thomas, voivode of Transylvania, and by Dionysius. Basarab offered 7,000 marks of silver, Severin, a yearly tribute and a son, and the king replied, in the Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle's telling, that he would drag this shepherd of his sheep from his lair by the beard.25
Charles took Severin, but in the mountains his men and horses began to starve, and he made a truce: Basarab promised a safe return and guides. The guides led the army into a defile shut in by steep slopes, with strong barriers set up ahead, and from Friday 9 November into the Monday Wallachians ran along the slopes hurling missiles at the Hungarians, caught, the chronicler says, like fish in a net. Charles had changed arms with Desev, son of Dionysius, who was killed in his place, and got away with a few men; Gloria Fulton writes that he barely escaped with his life from an army of 30,000.26
The chronicle counts the dead only as beyond reckoning and names no place; Fulton puts the pass north of Câmpulung, the De Re Militari edition on the Olt road to the Red Tower pass. The defeat ended the king's attempt to subdue Basarab by force, and Fulton calls the victory a crucial moment in the establishment of Wallachia's sovereignty; yet within a few years, she notes, Wallachia again became a dependency of Hungary, winning full independence only in 1380.27
Why it ranks here: A trap sprung in a defile and kept up for days (purity 5) that ended Hungary's attempt to subdue Wallachia by force and is remembered as the founding victory of the Wallachian state, though Hungarian overlordship was later acknowledged again (consequence 4), it sits on 33 points because few outside Romania and Hungary know it (recognition 2) and the chronicle gives neither numbers nor a place (certainty 3).
12 Ia Drang (LZ Albany), 1965
- Where
- Near Landing Zone Albany, Ia Drang valley, Central Highlands, South Vietnam
- War
- Vietnam War
- Sides
- North Vietnamese army (8th Battalion, 66th Regiment, with elements of the 33rd) vs 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, U.S. 1st Cavalry Division
- Strength
- About 400 to 500 Americans in the column vs a North Vietnamese battalion and supporting units, number not given
- Result
- 155 Americans killed and 124 wounded; North Vietnamese losses unknown
On 16 November 1965, in the Ia Drang valley, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, relieved its sister battalion at Landing Zone X-Ray, and the next day it was ordered to march overland to another clearing, LZ Albany.28
About three miles into the march the column halted near the landing zone, strung out over some 550 yards of narrow trail. The company commanders had been called forward, and many men sat down without posting security. Just off the trail a North Vietnamese battalion was taking a lunch break, and at 1:15 in the afternoon the 8th Battalion of the 66th Regiment, with elements of the 33rd, struck the length of the column at close range. The Americans fought in small, isolated groups for about six hours and on into the night, and both sides, HistoryNet writes, had lost interest in taking prisoners.29
By the next morning 155 Americans were dead and 124 wounded, out of a column of about 500 by HISTORY's count; DVIDS calls it the single bloodiest day of the war for the Americans. HISTORY reports more than 400 North Vietnamese bodies on the field. Albany was one half of the Ia Drang battle, which McNamara reported had shown the enemy could meet and exceed American escalation.30
Why it ranks here: No ambush on the list is better documented (certainty 5), but the column ran into an enemy resting by the trail rather than one long lying in wait (purity 4), and its consequence belongs to Ia Drang as a whole (consequence 2). It ties Oriskany on 32 points and goes ahead of it on recognition.
13 Oriskany, 1777
- Where
- A ravine near the Oneida village of Oriska, about six miles from Fort Stanwix, Mohawk Valley, New York
- War
- American Revolutionary War (Saratoga campaign)
- Sides
- Loyalists and mostly Mohawk and Seneca warriors under Sir John Johnson and Joseph Brant vs Tryon County militia and Oneida allies under Nicholas Herkimer
- Strength
- About 800 militia and 60 Oneida and Tuscarora warriors vs about 500 (American Battlefield Trust) to 700 (National Park Service)
- Result
- Relief column wrecked: 385 Americans killed (American Battlefield Trust); Herkimer mortally wounded
In August 1777 Barry St. Leger's Loyalists and Iroquois besieged Fort Stanwix in the Mohawk Valley, and Nicholas Herkimer gathered about 800 Tryon County militia, joined by some 60 Oneida and Tuscarora warriors, to relieve it. St. Leger sent Sir John Johnson to meet them with Loyalists and mostly Mohawk and Seneca warriors under Joseph Brant, about 500 men by the American Battlefield Trust's count and around 700 by the National Park Service's.31
On 6 August they waited at a deep ravine about six miles from the fort, the Loyalists blocking the road and the warriors along both sides. Some warriors fired before the whole column was in, and part of the rear fled, but the rest were caught in the ravine. Herkimer, shot in the leg early on, kept directing the fight sitting on his saddle, and died of the wound on 16 August. The American Battlefield Trust counts 465 American casualties, 385 of them killed, against 7 Loyalists killed and 21 wounded; Tom Hand of Americana Corner gives the same 385 dead. New York State Parks notes that it has been described as the bloodiest single day of fighting in the war, and that it was the first time Haudenosaunee warriors fought warriors from other nations of the Six Nations: Oneida on the American side, mostly Mohawk and Seneca against them.32
The relief failed, but the warriors' losses left St. Leger's allies ready to leave; they deserted him, he raised the siege and went back to Canada, and by 21 August a second American relief column had reached the fort.33
Why it ranks here: A pure ambush (purity 5) with well-counted losses (certainty 4) that still helped end the siege (consequence 3), but little known outside New York (recognition 2), it ties Ia Drang on 32 points and falls behind it on recognition.
How we chose and ranked these ambushes
We counted an ambush only in the strict sense: an attack from concealment on an enemy who is on the move, an army or column caught on the march before it could form up. The core of the ranking is how pure and complete the ambush was. Surprise attacks on fixed positions do not count, which is why Pearl Harbor and the Tet Offensive, both on this page before, are now left out, and so is Isandlwana, where the Zulu blow fell on a camp. Feigned retreats and lures fought in the open, such as Ain Jalut and Hattin, are left to our guide to the greatest medieval battles; sieges belong to the greatest sieges in history, and pitched battles with one hidden detachment, such as the Trebia, are battles rather than ambushes. Monongahela, often called an ambush, was a meeting engagement: the French arrived too late to lay one. Victories of the outnumbered side are told in battles won against the odds.
We considered 26 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which ambushes are the most famous; the purity of the ambush, consequence and memory count twice, and certainty counts once. Many ambushes are known from a single ancient or medieval chronicler, so we marked certainty down wherever the story and the numbers rest on one late source:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of ambushes, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Purity of the ambush (×2). How pure and complete the ambush was: 5 if a hidden force struck an enemy on the march from prepared cover and the victim never formed up; 4 if concealment and surprise on a moving enemy were real but one thing weakens it (a halted column, a retreat under a broken truce, a hasty ambush); 3 if the enemy was trapped on the march but the blow fell on its camp, or the trap was a blockade rather than an attack; 2 if it was mostly a meeting engagement or a pitched battle with a hidden detachment; 1 if there was no concealment at all (a fixed position, a feigned retreat). A 2 or a 1 puts a battle out of scope.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if it decided a war, the fate of a state or the frontier of an empire, 1 if it changed nothing beyond the battlefield.
- Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living memory (an epic, a famous painting, a monument, a saying), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if the numbers and the course of the ambush are confirmed by records or independent sources, 1 if they rest on one late source or are disputed.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better-known ambush, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them, so you can see exactly why the Teutoburg Forest is first and Lake Trasimene, often called the perfect ambush, only second: both were textbook traps, but Rome survived Trasimene and won its war, while after the Teutoburg Forest it gave up its plans for a province reaching to the Elbe.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Purity of the ambush ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Teutoburg Forest | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 48 |
| 2 | Lake Trasimene | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 45 |
| 3 | Cajamarca | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 41 |
| 4 | Roncesvalles | 4 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 39 |
| 5 | Retreat from Kabul | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 38 |
| 6 | Okehazama | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 37 |
| 7 | Maling | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 37 |
| 8 | Fetterman Fight | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 35 |
| 9 | Pliska | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 34 |
| 10 | Cosmin Forest | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 34 |
| 11 | Posada | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 33 |
| 12 | Ia Drang (LZ Albany) | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 32 |
| 13 | Oriskany | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 32 |
Close calls
Five ambushes came close and did not make the list of 13:
Caudine Forks, 321 BC. In Livy's story Samnites posing as shepherds lured the consuls into a valley between two wooded defiles, the far exit was blocked with felled trees and rocks, and the trapped army was sent under the yoke. But no blow was struck, Livy is the only full account and Nicholas Horsfall argues that his description does not fit the ground, so it missed on 31.34
Raate Road, 1940. In the Winter War the Finns cut the road-bound Soviet 44th Rifle Division into encircled pockets, the mottis, and by 7 January had destroyed it as a fighting force. It was a planned encirclement of a column that had already halted, not one sprung ambush, so it scored 3 for purity and missed on 31.35
Beth Horon, AD 66. Judean rebels on the heights of the Beth Horon pass shot down the retreating army of Cestius Gallus in narrow passages where its cavalry could not reach them; Josephus says 5,300 foot and 380 horse were killed, 5,680 men by our sum. A pure ambush, but Josephus is the only account and the name is known mainly to specialists, so it missed on 31.36
Kilmichael, 1920. On 28 November Tom Barry's IRA flying column ambushed two lorries carrying 18 Auxiliaries near Kilmichael in County Cork; 17 of them died and one, H. F. Forde, survived, while three Volunteers were killed. Famous in Ireland but small, and Peter Hart's challenge to Barry's "false surrender" story holds certainty at 3, so it missed on 31.37
Myriokephalon, 1176. Manuel I Komnenos marched against the Seljuk sultan Kilij Arslan II slowed by supply wagons and siege engines, and his generals warned him about the Turks gathered on the hills around a pass; he went in anyway, the Turks closed in, and he had to negotiate his retreat. Because the danger was seen in advance it scored 4 for purity, and on 27 it missed the list.38
Why are Pearl Harbor, Hattin and Ain Jalut not on this list?
Because none of them was an ambush in the strict sense, an attack from concealment on an enemy on the move. Pearl Harbor and the Tet Offensive were surprise attacks on fixed positions, while Hattin and Ain Jalut were won by drawing an army onto chosen ground in the open. All four stood on earlier versions of this page, so here is the case for each.
Pearl Harbor, 1941. Japanese carrier aircraft struck the US Pacific Fleet at its base in Hawaii on 7 December 1941; the National Park Service counts 2,403 service members and civilians killed and 188 aircraft destroyed. A fleet at anchor is not a column on the march, so it was a surprise attack, not an ambush.39
The Tet Offensive, 1968. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces attacked cities and bases across South Vietnam during the truce for the lunar new year. The surprise lay in its timing and scale, not in a hidden force waiting for an enemy on the move.40
Hattin, 1187. Saladin drew the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem away from its water and surrounded it on dry, open ground below the Horns of Hattin. He chose the ground and let thirst do the rest, but he never hid his army, so Hattin ranks instead among the greatest medieval battles.41
Ain Jalut, 1260. The Persian historian Rashid al-Din, writing at the Mongol court, has Qutuz feign a withdrawal and lead the Mongols into a trap sprung from three sides. Gary Rashba doubts that account, since the false retreat was a Mongol tactic of their own. With the ambush itself disputed, Ain Jalut belongs to the medieval battles guide as well.42
What makes an ambush work
The great ambushes share a pattern. The victim was on the move and confident, as Flaminius, Varus, Pang Juan and Charlemagne's rearguard were. The attacker knew the ground better: a lakeshore in fog, a forest track between bog and hill, a narrow road between defiles, a mountain pass. And the trap was sprung all at once, so the victims could never form the order that made them strong. Where one of the three was missing, the result was smaller: at Oriskany some warriors fired too early and part of the column got away, and at LZ Albany the attackers had not been lying in wait at all.
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