What was the most important British naval battle?

Trafalgar in 1805, where Nelson's fleet took 17 French and Spanish ships and began a century of British naval supremacy, though Nelson was killed in the battle. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, eighth on our list, is the other great naval name in British history.

Did Britain win every battle on this list?

No. Hastings in 1066 was a defeat for Anglo-Saxon England, Yorktown in 1781 cost Britain the thirteen American colonies, and Dunkirk in 1940 was an evacuation after a lost campaign. Bannockburn, Scotland's victory over England in 1314, was scored too and is the closest call outside the fifteen.

What was the Battle of Britain?

The air campaign of 1940, officially dated in Britain from 10 July to 31 October, in which RAF Fighter Command held off the Luftwaffe over southern England. Without command of the air Hitler could not invade, and on 17 September he postponed the invasion indefinitely.

Where can I read about the commanders?

Each battle links to its full story, and the guide to the greatest British commanders collects the generals and admirals, from Henry V and Nelson to Wellington and Montgomery.

The Greatest Battles in British History

Q: What is the most important battle in British history?

In our ranking it is Waterloo in 1815, which ended Napoleon's rule and a war of 23 years. Normandy in 1944 has the same full score and comes second as the younger battle, and Hastings in 1066, Trafalgar in 1805 and the Battle of Britain in 1940 complete the top five.

Q: Which British battle had the most casualties?

Of the battles on this list, the Somme in 1916: the National Army Museum counts 420,000 British Empire, 200,000 French and at least 450,000 German casualties over four and a half months, over a million in our sum, with 57,470 British casualties on the first day alone.

At a glance
Rank	Battle	Date	Armies	Result
1	Waterloo	1815	68,000 and 48,000 Prussians vs 72,000 French	Allied victory; Napoleon abdicates
2	Normandy (D-Day)	1944	Nearly 160,000 landed on D-Day vs 58 German divisions	Allied victory; Paris freed
3	Hastings	1066	5,000 to 7,000 a side; up to 8,000 Normans (estimates)	Norman victory; Harold killed
4	Trafalgar	1805	27 British vs 33 French and Spanish ships of the line	British victory; Nelson killed
5	The Battle of Britain	1940	768 to 1,400 RAF fighters vs just over 1,000 German, plus bombers	Invasion postponed for good
6	Agincourt	1415	6,000 to 8,500 vs 12,000 to 30,000 (disputed)	English victory
7	El Alamein	1942	190,000 to 195,000 vs 104,000 to 116,000	Allied victory; Rommel retreats
8	The Spanish Armada	1588	130 to 138 Spanish vs 136 to 200 English ships	English victory
9	Quebec	1759	About 4,000 British vs about 4,500 French	British victory; Canada won for Britain
10	Yorktown	1781	About 8,300 to 9,000 British vs about 19,900 allies	British surrender; thirteen colonies lost
11	The Battle of the Atlantic	1939 to 1945	Up to nearly 300 U-boats vs Allied convoys and escorts	Allied victory; U-boats defeated
12	Culloden	1746	About 9,000 vs about 5,000	Government victory; Jacobite cause ended
13	The Somme	1916	14 British divisions on day one, with the French	No breakthrough; about 7 miles gained
14	Dunkirk	1940	338,226 Allied troops lifted by nearly 900 vessels	Defeat in France; army evacuated
15	Plassey	1757	About 2,100 to 3,000 vs about 50,000	Company victory; Mir Jafar made Nawab

Quick answer

What is the most important battle in British history?

Waterloo tops our ranking: on 18 June 1815 Wellington's army and Blücher's Prussians ended Napoleon's rule for good. Normandy in 1944 has the same full score and comes second as the younger battle, followed by Hastings, Trafalgar and the Battle of Britain. The fifteen run from Hastings in 1066 to Normandy in 1944, defeats such as Yorktown and Dunkirk included.

Britain's history has been fought out at home and across the world, in triumphs and disasters alike. This list takes fifteen battles and campaigns fought by England and Scotland before the union of 1707 and by Great Britain after it, from Hastings in 1066 to World War II, and ranks them by score: recognition counts most, then decisiveness, consequence and memory, and certainty least (see how we chose them). Defeats count as well as victories, battles between the two kingdoms count from either side, and Britain's commanders have their own ranking in the greatest British commanders.¹

This page ranks fifteen battles. For the whole story, from 1066 to the present, with every battle on this site grouped by era, defeats included, see our guide to the military history of Britain; the war that produced Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt has its own page on the Hundred Years' War.

1 Waterloo, 1815

Where: Ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean, south of Brussels, Belgium
War: Napoleonic Wars, the Hundred Days
Sides: Wellington's Anglo-allied army and Blücher's Prussians vs Napoleon's French army
Strength: 68,000 Anglo-allied troops and 48,000 Prussians vs 72,000 French
Result: Allied victory, 18 June 1815; nearly 40,000 French killed, wounded or captured and 22,000 Allied casualties (National Army Museum); Napoleon abdicated

Napoleon escaped from exile and was back in power in March 1815. On 16 June he beat Blücher's Prussians at Ligny while Wellington held Quatre Bras, and Wellington fell back to the ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean to stand on 18 June, with 68,000 men and 156 guns against Napoleon's 72,000 and 246, because 48,000 Prussians had promised to come.²

British Guardsmen and German light infantry held the château of Hougoumont all day, and when French infantry crested the ridge, British heavy cavalry charged them down. The Scots Greys rode on too far and were cut up by lancers and cuirassiers, losing 102 killed and 98 wounded of 391 men, but Sergeant Charles Ewart came back with the eagle of the French 45th. Wellington's squares stood against massed cavalry while the Prussians pushed in on Napoleon's right, and at about 7 pm the Imperial Guard broke under the fire of British guardsmen and light infantry. The National Army Museum counts nearly 40,000 French and 22,000 Allied casualties; other accounts give far higher totals. Napoleon abdicated and died on St Helena, and Wellington's verdict stuck: “nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.” Ewart's eagle is on show in the regimental museum at Edinburgh Castle, and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards still keep 18 June as Waterloo Day.³

Why it ranks here: Full marks on all five criteria: it ended Napoleon's rule and a war of 23 years, it is the British victory best known far beyond military history, and it is richly documented and still kept alive by its regiments. Level with Normandy on points, recognition and consequence, it is No. 1 as the older battle.

Read the full story of the Battle of Waterloo ›

2 Normandy (D-Day), 1944

Where: The Normandy coast and its hinterland, France; the British landed on Gold and Sword, the Canadians on Juno
War: World War II, Western Front
Sides: Britain, the United States, Canada and 12 other Allied nations vs Germany
Strength: Nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed on 6 June and over 850,000 by the end of June, vs 58 German divisions in the West, most of them near Calais
Result: Allied victory; Caen taken in July, the Germans trapped at Falaise in August, Paris liberated on 25 August 1944

The Allies chose Normandy over the shorter crossing to Calais for its good beaches, weaker defenses and fighter cover from England, and a deception plan, with double agents and a dummy army in eastern England, kept the Germans watching Calais. Most of their 58 divisions in the West stood there. The American Dwight Eisenhower was Supreme Commander, but the British General Bernard Montgomery commanded all the land forces in the assault.⁴

Around midnight British airborne troops seized Pegasus Bridge, and on the morning of 6 June, an hour after the Americans, British troops landed on Gold and Sword and Canadians on Juno. By the National Army Museum's figures about 450 men were lost on Gold and 650 on Sword, while the Canadians lost about 1,000 on Juno. Nearly 160,000 Allied troops came ashore that day and over 850,000 by the end of June. Caen, a first-day objective, held out until July, but the fighting around it drew in the best German troops and most of their tanks and let the Americans break out at Avranches on 31 July. In August Canadian and Polish troops closed the Falaise gap, and 60,000 Germans were killed or captured inside it; Paris was liberated on 25 August. The British Normandy Memorial above Gold Beach, opened in 2021, lists 22,540 men and women under British command who died there.⁵

Why it ranks here: Full marks on all five criteria: the greatest amphibious operation in history put British, Canadian and American armies back in France and within three months had broken the German army there. Level with Waterloo on points, recognition and consequence, it is second only because the tie goes to the older battle.

Read the full story of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy ›

3 Hastings, 1066

Where: On the ridge at Battle, East Sussex, 7 to 8 miles from Hastings, England
War: Norman conquest of England
Sides: King Harold II of England vs William, Duke of Normandy
Strength: About 5,000 to 7,000 men a side by English Heritage's estimate; up to 8,000 Normans by others (no one counted)
Result: Norman victory, 14 October 1066; Harold killed, William crowned on Christmas Day

Edward the Confessor died on 5 January 1066 and Harold Godwinson was crowned, but Harald Hardrada of Norway and William of Normandy both claimed the throne. Harold destroyed Hardrada's army at Stamford Bridge on 25 September, then heard that William had landed at Pevensey. He rode south by forced marches and on the evening of 13 October stood on a ridge 7 to 8 miles from Hastings.⁶

English Heritage puts each army at 5,000 to 7,000 men; other estimates give William up to 8,000. The English shield wall held off assault after assault up the hill, and the battle lasted all day, very long for a medieval fight. It ended with Harold dead. Myth vs fact: the arrow in his eye on the Bayeux Tapestry was added in 19th century repairs, and the accounts closest to the battle suggest that four Norman knights hacked him down. William was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, ending 500 years of Anglo-Saxon rule, though crushing resistance took five more years. He took the land and the great offices of state and church from the English for his Normans, and Norman French poured into the language: poor, letter, age and pork all came with the conquerors. The high altar of Battle Abbey was set where Harold fell, and much of the battlefield became part of the abbey's great park.⁷

Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, decisiveness, consequence and memory: one afternoon killed an English king and replaced the ruling class of England, and Battle Abbey and the Bayeux Tapestry keep the day in view. It drops a point for certainty, because the size of both armies is a modern guess.

Read the full story of the Battle of Hastings ›

Embroidered scene of Norman horsemen and falling English soldiers beneath a Latin inscription — The death of King Harold at Hastings in 1066, scene 57 of the Bayeux Tapestry, embroidered in the 1070s. The Latin reads: here King Harold is slain; the arrow in his eye was added during 19th century repairs. Public domain

4 Trafalgar, 1805

Where: Off Cape Trafalgar, south-west Spain
War: Napoleonic Wars
Fleets: British fleet (Nelson, Collingwood) vs combined French and Spanish fleet (Villeneuve)
Strength: 27 vs 33 ships of the line; about 18,000 vs nearly 30,000 men
Result: British victory, 21 October 1805; 17 enemy ships captured and one burned; Nelson killed

In 1805 Napoleon was weighing an invasion of Britain, which needed command of the Channel, so destroying the French fleet became Britain's first priority. In October Vice-Admiral Villeneuve sailed from Cadiz with 33 French and Spanish ships for Naples, and Nelson was waiting with 27. His plan, “the Nelson Touch”, was to attack in two columns, one under himself and one under his friend Cuthbert Collingwood, gambling on better British gunnery at close range against a fleet with nearly 30,000 men to his 18,000.⁸

At 11.45 on 21 October Victory flew the signal “England expects that every man will do his duty”. In the light wind the two leading ships, Collingwood's Royal Sovereign and Nelson's Victory, took the enemy broadsides almost alone before they broke through. Victory raked Villeneuve's flagship Bucentaure and locked with the Redoutable, and at about 1.15 pm a shot from the French ship's rigging struck Nelson on his quarterdeck. He died at 4.30, with the battle won: when the firing stopped at 5.30, 17 enemy ships had been taken and another was a blazing wreck. Britain lost 449 killed, the French and Spanish 4,408. Trafalgar ended Napoleon's hopes of invading Britain and began a century of British naval supremacy, and Victory is still open to the public.⁹

Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, decisiveness, memory and certainty: it settled who ruled the sea for a century and made Nelson Britain's great naval hero. Consequence is 4, because it ended no war: six weeks later Napoleon won at Austerlitz, and Royal Museums Greenwich judges that Trafalgar had little overall impact on the course of the war.¹⁰

Read the full story of the Battle of Trafalgar ›

5 The Battle of Britain, 1940

Where: The skies over southern England and the English Channel
War: World War II
Sides: RAF Fighter Command, with airmen from 16 nations, vs the German Luftwaffe
Strength: Fighter Command: about 768 aircraft in July 1940 and some 1,400 within weeks; Luftwaffe: just over 1,000 single-engine fighters plus its bombers
Result: British victory; the German invasion of Britain postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940

After the fall of France Britain rejected Hitler's last offer of a negotiated peace, and in July 1940 he ordered planning for Operation Sealion, an invasion that first needed command of the air. Between 10 July and 31 October the Luftwaffe went first for Channel shipping and ports, from 13 August for Fighter Command's airfields and from 7 September for London. On 20 August Churchill told the Commons: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”¹¹

Myth vs fact: the few were not so few. Fighter Command began with about 768 aircraft, but British factories built some 500 fighters a month, and within weeks Fighter Command had some 1,400 against just over 1,000 German single-engine fighters; its roughly 1,400 fighter pilots outnumbered the Luftwaffe's 1,200. One in five of its aircrew came from overseas, among them 145 Poles, and the Polish No. 303 Squadron became the top scoring unit in the RAF. On 15 September, now Battle of Britain Day, the Luftwaffe lost 56 of the 1,700 aircraft it sent, by the German Historical Museum's count, and its mass raids were soon called off. On 17 September Hitler postponed Sealion indefinitely. The losses are still argued over: one reference work gives 788 British and 1,294 German aircraft. In History Hit's judgment, the unbeaten island became the base for the liberation of Western Europe.¹²

Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, consequence and memory: it ended the threat of invasion in 1940 and kept Britain in the war. Decisiveness is 4, because it prevented a campaign rather than ending a war, and certainty 4, because the loss figures differ widely.

Read the full story of the Battle of Britain ›

Spitfire Mark I fighters of No. 610 Squadron flying in vic formation on 24 July 1940, during the Battle of Britain — Spitfire Mark I fighters of No. 610 Squadron, based at Biggin Hill, flying in vic formation on 24 July 1940, during the Battle of Britain. RAF official photograph. Public domain

6 Agincourt, 1415

Where: Near Azincourt, northern France, about 75 km (45 miles) south of Calais
War: Hundred Years' War
Sides: Henry V of England vs the French army under the Constable, Charles d'Albret
Strength: About 6,000 to 8,500 English vs 12,000 to 30,000 French (Britannica, Anne Curry; disputed)
Result: English victory, 25 October 1415; about 6,000 to 7,000 French dead, a few hundred English (about 400 by Britannica's estimate)

Henry V invaded Normandy in August 1415 to press his claim to the French crown. The siege of Harfleur took more than five weeks, and disease, death and desertion thinned his army; he was marching for English-held Calais when a French army barred his road near Azincourt on 24 October.¹³

On St Crispin's Day, 25 October, the French came on through rain-soaked plowland between two woods, into the arrows of archers sheltered behind sharpened stakes. As the field narrowed they were packed so tightly that many could barely lift their weapons, and the dead lay heaped in front of the English line. Britannica estimates the French dead at about 6,000 and the Pas-de-Calais tourist board at 7,000, many of them nobles, against about 400 English by Britannica's estimate; the Dukes of Alençon and Brabant were killed, and the Dukes of Orléans and Bourbon were taken to England as prisoners. The odds are disputed: Britannica gives the common estimate of about 6,000 English against 20,000 to 30,000 French; Anne Curry of the University of Southampton, working from muster rolls and pay records, puts them at about 8,500 English and around 12,000 French. Myth vs fact: the two-fingered V sign did not begin with English archers taunting the French; Curry calls the story almost certainly a 20th century urban myth. The victory opened Normandy to Henry, and the Treaty of Troyes of 1420 made him regent and heir of France. Shakespeare's Henry V did the rest: its speeches boosted troops' morale in both world wars, and in Curry's words the battle became tied up in the national identity of Britishness.¹⁴

Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, memory and certainty: Shakespeare made it the most quoted battle in English, and the muster rolls name many of Henry's soldiers. Decisiveness and consequence are 4, because by 1453 England had lost everything in France but Calais; level with El Alamein on points, recognition and consequence, it goes first as the older battle.¹⁵

Read the full story of the Battle of Agincourt ›

7 El Alamein, 1942

Where: El Alamein, western Egypt, between the Mediterranean and the Qattara Depression
War: World War II, North African campaign
Sides: Britain's Eighth Army, with Commonwealth, Greek, Polish and French troops, vs Rommel's German and Italian army
Strength: 190,000 to 195,000 men and over 1,000 tanks vs 104,000 to 116,000 men and about 500 tanks
Result: Allied victory, 23 October to 4 November 1942; about 13,500 Eighth Army casualties; the Axis driven from Egypt

In the summer of 1942 Rommel beat the British at Gazala, took Tobruk and drove the Eighth Army deep into Egypt. It stood at El Alamein, where the sea and the impassable Qattara Depression ruled out any outflanking, and stopped his last push there. Montgomery took over in August and built up more than 190,000 men from across the Empire, Greece, Poland and France, with over 1,000 tanks, against 116,000 Germans and Italians with 540; World History Encyclopedia gives 195,000 against 104,000.¹⁶

The battle opened on the night of 23 October with a huge barrage, and engineers cut lanes through the minefields Rommel called the devil's gardens. After ten days of attrition Operation Supercharge broke through on 4 November. The Eighth Army suffered about 13,500 casualties. The National Army Museum calls it the first clear-cut and irreversible victory of the British Army over the Axis. Churchill called it “perhaps, the end of the beginning”, and wrote in The Hinge of Fate, volume four of his war history: “It may almost be said, ‘Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.’” Myth vs fact: “almost” is his own hedge, since Britain had beaten the Italians in 1940 to 1941, and the museum calls Alamein's fame as the turning point of the whole war an overstatement, North Africa being a sideshow.¹⁷

Why it ranks here: Recognition 5, as Britain's land battle of the war, and decisiveness 5, as it turned the desert war for good; consequence and memory 4, the first for a theater far smaller than the Eastern Front. Level with Agincourt on points, recognition and consequence, it follows as the younger battle.

Read the full story of the Battle of El Alamein ›

A field gun firing at night, lit by its muzzle flash — A British 25-pounder gun fires during the night artillery barrage that opened the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. Army Film and Photographic Unit. Public domain

8 The Spanish Armada, 1588

Where: The English Channel and off Gravelines, near Calais; then the coasts of Scotland and Ireland
War: Anglo-Spanish War (1587 to 1604)
Fleets: English fleet (Lord Howard of Effingham, Drake) vs the Spanish Armada (Duke of Medina Sidonia)
Strength: 130 to 138 Spanish ships with 25,000 to 29,000 men vs about 136 to 200 English ships with about 16,000 men
Result: English victory, 8 August 1588 off Gravelines; only about 67 of 138 Spanish ships got home; estimates of Spanish dead from 11,000 to 15,000

Philip II of Spain meant to overthrow Elizabeth I. His Armada left Lisbon on 30 May 1588 to carry the Duke of Parma's army over from Flanders: 138 ships and over 25,000 men by the count of Royal Museums Greenwich, about 130 ships and more than 29,000 men by World Book's. Lord Howard of Effingham, with Francis Drake as his vice-admiral, gathered about 136 English ships, some 200 by another count, with around 16,000 men.¹⁸

The Armada fought its way up the Channel and anchored off Calais, but a Dutch fleet kept Parma's army blockaded in Bruges. That night the English sent in eight fireships; the Spaniards cut their cables and scattered, and on 8 August, off Gravelines, the English fought them all day at close range and sank at least three. The Armada fled north around Scotland and Ireland, where storms wrecked about 19 ships. Only about 67 of the 138 got home, and perhaps up to 11,000 men died; HISTORY.com gives some 15,000 deaths. Myth vs fact: English guns did not destroy the Armada; disease and weather did most of the killing. At Tilbury Elizabeth told her waiting army she had “the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too”, though scholars still debate what exactly she said. The war dragged on to 1604, but the threat of invasion was over for the foreseeable future.¹⁹

Why it ranks here: A household name with full marks for recognition and memory, it ended Philip II's invasion of England. Decisiveness, consequence and certainty are 4: the war ran on to 1604, Spain rebuilt its fleet, and the Spanish losses rest on estimates that differ by thousands.²⁰

9 Quebec, 1759

Where: Plains of Abraham, outside the walls of Quebec, New France (now Quebec City, Canada)
War: Seven Years' War (French and Indian War)
Sides: Britain (Major General James Wolfe) vs France, Canadian militia and Indigenous allies (Marquis de Montcalm)
Strength: About 4,000 British landed vs about 4,500 French in the battle
Result: British victory, 13 September 1759; about 650 British and 640 French killed or wounded; Quebec surrendered on 18 September

By 1759 a new government in London was pouring reinforcements into the war with France in North America. In June James Wolfe, a major general of 32, came up the St Lawrence with a fleet of 150 vessels and an expedition of 5,000 men to take Quebec, the main French settlement in North America. About 13,000 French regulars, militia and Indigenous allies under the Marquis de Montcalm held the city, and for nearly three months bombardment and a failed landing got the British nowhere.²¹

On the night of 12 to 13 September some 4,000 soldiers landed at a cove west of the city and climbed a steep path to the Heights of Abraham. Montcalm attacked at once with about 4,500 men, and disciplined British volleys drove his line back inside the walls; the City of Quebec says the battle lasted twenty minutes. Wolfe and Montcalm were both mortally wounded, and Quebec surrendered on 18 September. When the news reached Britain on 16 October, Wolfe became the hero of the age: Benjamin West painted his death in 1770, and at Pitt's call a national monument to him was raised in Westminster Abbey in 1772. Montreal capitulated in September 1760, and the Treaty of Paris of 1763 gave Britain almost all of France's North America east of the Mississippi.²²

Why it ranks here: Consequence and certainty take full marks: Quebec made Canada British. Decisiveness is 4 because Montreal held out until September 1760; of the four battles on 43 it goes first, level with Yorktown and the Atlantic on recognition and consequence and the oldest of them, while Culloden scores lower on consequence.

10 Yorktown, 1781

Where: Yorktown and Gloucester Point, Virginia
War: American War of Independence
Besiegers: About 19,900 American and French troops under Washington and Rochambeau, with de Grasse's French fleet offshore
Defenders: About 8,300 to 9,000 British and German troops under Lord Cornwallis
Outcome: Surrendered 19 October 1781; 7,416 British missing and captured

By 1781 Britain had fought in America for six years and was also at war with France and Spain; at home the war was unpopular. That summer Lord Cornwallis brought his army of some 8,300 to 9,000 men to Yorktown to refit and wait for the Royal Navy. On 5 September a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse beat the British fleet at the mouth of the Chesapeake, and Cornwallis was cut off by sea while Washington and Rochambeau marched south.²³

The allies dug their siege lines ever closer and on the night of 14 October stormed two key redoubts. A night escape across the river was scattered by a storm, and on 17 October a drummer beat for a parley. On 19 October the garrison laid down its arms: a third of all British forces in North America, the National Park Service notes. When the news reached London on 25 November, Lord North said, by the American Battlefield Trust's account, “Oh God. It is all over.” Parliament voted to make peace on 5 March 1782, and the Treaty of Paris of 1783 confirmed American independence. Britain could have fought on, but its leaders had lost the will to fight. Myth vs fact: the British band playing “The World Turned Upside Down” is a later tale the Trust calls apocryphal.²⁴

Why it ranks here: Britain's most consequential defeat: it cost the thirteen colonies, so decisiveness and consequence 5. Britain keeps no day for it and its lists rarely name it, so recognition 4 and memory 3; level with Quebec and the Atlantic on recognition and consequence, it follows the older Quebec and leads the younger Atlantic.

Read the full story of the siege of Yorktown ›

British officers surrendering between lines of French and American troops — Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, 19 October 1781, painted by John Trumbull in 1820 for the Rotunda of the US Capitol. Public domain

11 The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939 to 1945

Where: The Atlantic Ocean, from the Arctic convoy routes to the Caribbean
War: World War II
Fleets: Royal Navy, RAF and Merchant Navy with Canadian, US and other Allied forces vs German U-boats, aircraft and surface raiders
Strength: Up to nearly 300 U-boats at the peak in autumn 1942, vs Allied convoys, escorts and aircraft
Result: Allied victory; about 3,500 Allied merchant ships and 783 U-boats sunk, by the Atlantic Council's count

The Battle of the Atlantic ran from September 1939 to May 1945, the longest campaign of the war. What hung on it was simple: just to stay in the war, Britain had to import a million tons of food and materials every week, with Liverpool as the hub of the fight. After the fall of France the U-boats worked from French ports and hunted convoys at night in wolf packs. By the autumn of 1942 Karl Dönitz had nearly 300 submarines and could send 20 or more against a single convoy, and in March 1943 his boats sank 108 Allied ships.²⁵

Then stronger escorts, new tactics and new technology such as radar turned the tide. In May 1943, Black May to the U-boat crews, 41 boats were lost and Dönitz had to change course in the North Atlantic. Julian Lindley-French, writing for the Atlantic Council, counts some 3,500 merchant ships sunk and some 30,000 sailors killed, most of them British, against 783 U-boats lost with ninety per cent of their crews. In the second volume of his war memoirs, published in 1949, Churchill wrote: “The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.” The Churchill Archive for Schools reminds readers that he wrote it after the war and was known for exaggerating to make a point.²⁶

Why it ranks here: A six-year campaign rather than one battle, kept because it decided whether Britain could eat and the Allies could land in France, so consequence 5; decisiveness is 4 because no single action decided it. Level with Quebec and Yorktown on recognition and consequence, it follows both as the youngest.

12 Culloden, 1746

Where: Culloden Moor, about five miles east of Inverness, Scotland
War: Jacobite Rising of 1745 (the 'Forty-Five')
Sides: British government army (Duke of Cumberland) vs Jacobite army (Prince Charles Edward Stuart)
Strength: About 9,000 government troops vs about 5,000 Jacobites
Result: Government victory, 16 April 1746; 1,000 to 1,500 Jacobites killed, 50 government dead and 259 wounded

Culloden settled a contest for the British throne that had run for almost 60 years, since Parliament deposed the Catholic James II in 1688. In 1745 his grandson Charles Edward Stuart landed in Scotland, took Edinburgh and marched as far as Derby before turning back. By April 1746 his army was hungry and losing men to desertion, and a failed night march on the Duke of Cumberland's camp at Nairn left it exhausted on the morning of the battle. It mustered about 5,000 men, with some 2,000 more away elsewhere; Cumberland, King George II's son, had about 9,000.²⁷

On the open moor the Highlanders stood under Cumberland's guns for twenty minutes to nearly half an hour before they charged. On the right Clan Chattan smashed into Barrell's and Munro's regiments and was thrown back hand to hand, and dragoons riding round both flanks turned defeat into rout. The fighting lasted less than an hour, and between 1,000 and 1,500 Jacobites were killed against 50 government dead and 259 wounded. The government then banned Highland dress and broke the clan system; the excesses of his troops earned Cumberland the name “the Butcher”. Myth vs fact: it was never England against Scotland; the National Army Museum reckons that more Scots fought against the prince than for him. Its clan graves draw tens of thousands of visitors a year.²⁸

Why it ranks here: Decisiveness and memory take full marks: it ended the Stuart cause for good, and its clan graves are a place of pilgrimage. Its effects stayed inside Britain, so consequence 3, and that puts it last of the four battles on 43, all equal on recognition.

Read the full story of the Battle of Culloden ›

13 The Somme, 1916

Where: A 25-mile front on the river Somme, Picardy, France
War: World War I, Western Front
Sides: Britain and its Empire, with France, vs Germany
Strength: 14 British divisions in the first assault on 1 July, with the French Sixth Army to the south
Result: No breakthrough, 1 July to 18 November 1916; Allied advance about 7 miles; 420,000 British Empire, 200,000 French and at least 450,000 German casualties

The Somme was the Allies' “Big Push” of 1916, launched where the British and French lines met. When Germany attacked at Verdun in February, the British went in earlier than planned to take the pressure off their ally. Most of the men were inexperienced volunteers of the New Armies, recruited in 1914 and 1915. A seven-day bombardment fired 1.5 million shells, but the guns were spread too thin, many shells failed to explode and much of the German wire stayed uncut.²⁹

At 7.30 on the morning of 1 July 14 British divisions went over the top into machine-gun and artillery fire. By nightfall the army had lost 57,470 men killed, wounded and missing, 19,240 of them killed, the bloodiest day in its history. The offensive ground on, with the first tanks in battle on 15 September, until Douglas Haig closed it down on 18 November, seven miles from where it began. The National Army Museum counts 420,000 British Empire, 200,000 French and at least 450,000 German casualties. Myth vs fact: it was not for nothing; it relieved Verdun and cost the German army experienced officers it never replaced. At home nearly 20 million people saw the film The Battle of the Somme in its first six weeks, and every 1 July the battle is remembered at the Thiepval Memorial to 72,000 men with no known grave.³⁰

Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, memory and certainty: no battle defines World War I in British memory more. But four and a half months of slaughter decided nothing, so decisiveness 2; level on 42 with Dunkirk on recognition and consequence, it goes first as the older.

Read the full story of the Somme ›

Soldiers of the Royal Irish Rifles in steel helmets resting in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916 — A ration party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme, believed to have been taken on the first day, 1 July 1916. Public domain

14 Dunkirk, 1940

Where: Dunkirk harbor and beaches, northern France, and the Channel crossing to England
War: World War II, Battle of France
Sides: British Expeditionary Force and French troops, with the Royal Navy, RAF and civilian boats, vs the German army and Luftwaffe
Strength: 338,226 Allied troops lifted by nearly 900 vessels
Result: Evacuation, 26 May to 4 June 1940; the British army saved but most of its equipment lost, including 2,500 guns

In May 1940 the German panzers broke through at Sedan, reached the Channel coast at Abbeville on 19 May and cut off the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium. On 26 May, with Belgian resistance collapsing, Lord Gort was ordered to bring as much of the BEF as he could out through Dunkirk. Rearguard actions bought time, and so did Hitler's order of 24 May halting his tanks, with the 1st Panzer Division only 15 miles from the port.³¹

Royal Navy ships and civilian craft took the men off the harbor and the beaches. The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships counts about 850 private boats among them; HISTORY gives 800 to 1,200. By 4 June 338,226 soldiers had been rescued, 139,997 of them French, Polish, Dutch and Belgian, at the cost of 243 ships sunk by one estimate. The army came home without its equipment: 64,000 vehicles, 20,000 motorcycles and 2,500 guns were left in France. On 4 June Churchill warned the Commons that “wars are not won by evacuations”, and in the same speech promised that “we shall fight on the beaches”. Britain remembered the rescue rather than the defeat: an association of the surviving Little Ships still exists to preserve the “Spirit of Dunkirk”, and HISTORY calls the evacuation an iconic symbol of the British spirit.³²

Why it ranks here: A defeat that ended in rescue: the Dunkirk spirit is still a British phrase, so recognition and memory 5. But the Battle of France was lost, so decisiveness 2; level on 42 with the Somme on recognition and consequence, it goes after it as the younger, and ahead of Plassey, also on 42, as the better known.

Read the full story of the Dunkirk evacuation ›

15 Plassey, 1757

Where: Plassey (Palashi) on the Bhagirathi-Hooghly River, about 160 km (100 miles) north of Calcutta (Kolkata), Bengal
War: East India Company's war with the Nawab of Bengal, during the Seven Years' War
Sides: East India Company (Robert Clive) vs Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal
Strength: About 2,100 to 3,000 vs about 50,000, a round estimate; some two thirds of the Nawab's army never fought
Result: Company victory, 23 June 1757; Clive reported 22 killed and 50 wounded; Mir Jafar made Nawab

In 1756 the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, angered by the East India Company's unauthorized fortifications at Calcutta and its abuse of trade passes, took the city. Robert Clive won Calcutta back in January 1757, and the Company and the Jagat Seth bankers secretly offered the throne to the Nawab's commander Mir Jafar.³³

On 23 June Clive's army, about 3,000 by the National Army Museum's count or about 2,100 by our sum of World History Encyclopedia's 1,400 sepoys and over 700 Europeans, faced around 50,000 men. About two thirds of the Nawab's army, under Mir Jafar and his allies, stood by and watched. A downpour put the Nawab's guns out of action while the British gunners covered theirs with tarpaulins, and when a cannonball killed the loyal Mir Madan at about three, Mir Jafar advised the Nawab to break off and the British attack turned into a rout. Clive reported 22 killed and 50 wounded, against about 500 enemy dead. Mir Jafar became a puppet, and in 1765 Clive won the Company the right to collect Bengal's revenues. Myth vs fact: World History Encyclopedia calls Plassey not much more than a skirmish, yet for later Britons it marked the birth of their Indian Empire, and until 1947 almost every schoolchild had heard of Clive of India.³⁴

Why it ranks here: Consequence 5: British rule in India grew from this afternoon. Decisiveness 4, as Mir Jafar's bargain decided as much as the fighting; recognition and memory 4, below our Indian guides; certainty 4, as the Nawab's 50,000 is a round estimate. It ties Bannockburn on 42 and on recognition and wins the last place on consequence.

Read the full story of the Battle of Plassey ›

How we chose and ranked these battles in British history

We counted every battle fought by England and Scotland before the union of 1707 and by Great Britain after it, won or lost, from Hastings in 1066 to World War II. Battles between the two kingdoms count from either side, which is why Bannockburn, a Scottish victory over England, was scored and missed the fifteen only on the tie rule, and we let in sieges and sea or air campaigns when they decided a war or the fate of the country, which is why Yorktown, the Battle of the Atlantic and the Battle of Britain are here. Each period has its own deeper guide: the greatest medieval battles, the greatest early modern battles, the greatest Napoleonic battles, the greatest naval battles, the greatest battles of World War I and the greatest battles of World War II. The men who led Britain's armies and fleets are ranked in the greatest British commanders.³⁵

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 battles, triumphs and disasters alike, are the greatest and best known in British history; decisiveness, consequence and memory count twice and certainty once:

Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of its kind, 1 if only specialists know it.
Decisiveness (×2). 5 if it decided a war or the fate of a state, 1 if it settled nothing beyond the day itself.
Consequence (×2). 5 if it changed borders, dynasties or the balance of power for generations, 1 if the map looked the same a few years later.
Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living tradition (a national day, a monument, a proverb, a song), 1 if it is forgotten.
Certainty (×1). 5 if the numbers and events are confirmed by independent sources, 1 if they rest on one source or are disputed.

The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better known battle, 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 Waterloo is first and why Crécy, one of the battles on the old version of this page, now sits just outside the fifteen: it was the longbow's great day, but it won Edward III Calais and did not decide the Hundred Years' War (see Close calls).

The scores behind the ranking
Rank	Name	Recognition ×3	Decisiveness ×2	Consequence ×2	Memory ×2	Certainty ×1	Total
1	Waterloo	5	5	5	5	5	50
2	Normandy (D-Day)	5	5	5	5	5	50
3	Hastings	5	5	5	5	4	49
4	Trafalgar	5	5	4	5	5	48
5	The Battle of Britain	5	4	5	5	4	47
6	Agincourt	5	4	4	5	5	46
7	El Alamein	5	5	4	4	5	46
8	The Spanish Armada	5	4	4	5	4	45
9	Quebec	4	4	5	4	5	43
10	Yorktown	4	5	5	3	5	43
11	The Battle of the Atlantic	4	4	5	4	5	43
12	Culloden	4	5	3	5	5	43
13	The Somme	5	2	4	5	5	42
14	Dunkirk	5	2	4	5	5	42
15	Plassey	4	4	5	4	4	42

Close calls

Six battles came close and did not make the fifteen:

Bannockburn, 1314. On 23 and 24 June 1314 Robert the Bruce's Scots, about 6,000 to 7,000 spearmen and 500 horse by Historic Environment Scotland's estimate, routed Edward II's army of up to about 20,000, and the king escaped by boat from Dunbar. Scotland's great victory, sung in Scots Wha Hae and Flower of Scotland, counts here as part of the history of both kingdoms, but England recognized Scottish independence only in 1328, so decisiveness and consequence 4. It ties Plassey on 42 and on recognition and misses the fifteen on consequence, 4 against 5.³⁶

Crécy, 1346. On 26 August 1346 Edward III's army, perhaps 12,000 strong, beat about 25,000 French under Philip VI in the first great battle of the Hundred Years' War, the longbow's great day, and in 1347 the English took Calais after a long siege. It was on the old version of this page, but the war ran on until 1453, so decisiveness 3, and it misses the fifteen by one point. It ties Bosworth and Blenheim on 41 and goes first on recognition.³⁷

Bosworth, 1485. On 22 August 1485 Henry Tudor defeated Richard III, the last English king killed on the battlefield, in a decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, and became the first king of the Tudor dynasty. Until 2009 even the site was disputed; the Battlefields Trust now places the fighting some two miles south-west of the traditional site on Ambion Hill, and it gives the armies only as ranges, so certainty 3. It follows Crécy on recognition and goes ahead of Blenheim as the older.³⁸

Blenheim, 1704. On 13 August 1704 the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy, with 56,000 men, destroyed a Franco-Bavarian army on the Danube, saved Vienna and knocked Bavaria out of the war, and Blenheim Palace, built for Marlborough as his reward, keeps the name alive. The War of the Spanish Succession went on until 1713, so decisiveness and consequence 4; it is the youngest of the three battles on 41.³⁹

Gallipoli, 1915 to 1916. From 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916 British Empire and French troops tried and failed to take the Dardanelles from the Ottomans; the Gallipoli Association counts some 559,000 Allied personnel committed, 420,000 of them British and Empire troops. Yet the campaign is remembered above all in Australia and New Zealand, where 25 April is Anzac Day, so recognition 4 and memory 3 here.⁴⁰

Naseby, 1645. On 14 June 1645 Sir Thomas Fairfax's New Model Army destroyed the field army of King Charles I north of Naseby in Northamptonshire; Charles escaped, but his final defeat was now only a question of time, and in 1649 he was tried and executed. It decided the First English Civil War, decisiveness 5, but it is little known outside Britain, so recognition and memory 3.⁴¹

Why did Crécy and Bannockburn miss the top fifteen?

Crécy and Bannockburn missed by the narrowest margins on the page: Crécy, one of the battles on the old version of this list, scores 41, one point short of the fifteen, because it won Edward III Calais but did not decide the Hundred Years' War, and Bannockburn scores 42, level with Plassey, and loses the tie on consequence.⁴²

The tie rule looks first at recognition, where Bannockburn and Plassey both score 4, and then at consequence: Plassey began British rule in India, while England recognized the independence Scotland won in 1314 only in 1328. Both battles keep their place in our guide to the greatest medieval battles, where Bannockburn is sixth and Crécy seventh. The road to Bannockburn began at Stirling Bridge in 1297, where William Wallace and Andrew Moray won a famous victory over an English army, but Edward I won at Falkirk the next year, so Stirling Bridge scored too low for this list.⁴³

Why is Dunkirk here when our World War II list leaves it out?

Because the two lists ask different questions: our greatest battles of World War II ranks the war as a whole and tells Dunkirk inside its entry on the Battle of France, so the evacuation is not counted twice, while this page asks which events matter most in British history, and there Dunkirk stands on its own.

For Britain the story of 1940 is the rescue, not the fall of France: nearly 900 vessels brought out 338,226 men, 139,997 of them French, Polish, Dutch and Belgian, and the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships still exists to preserve the Spirit of Dunkirk. We still score it as the defeat it was. On 4 June Churchill warned the Commons that wars are not won by evacuations, and the army left 2,500 guns in France, so decisiveness 2; recognition and memory 5 carry it to 42, level with the Somme and one place above Plassey.⁴⁴