What was the largest cavalry battle in history?
Counted by horsemen engaged, the largest cavalry battle in history was probably Panipat in 1761, where by our reckoning 60,000 to 97,000 Maratha and Afghan riders fought. Every figure for it goes back to one eyewitness, so the number is uncertain. Liebertwolkwitz in 1813, the battle most often named, had about 13,000 to 14,000.
This page answers one question: which battles decided or dominated by cavalry drew in the most horsemen? The fifteen below are ordered by the number of horsemen engaged, largest first, from Panipat in 1761 down to Kircholm in 1605. Numbers for cavalry are rarely recorded on both sides, and old chroniclers inflated them, so the counting rule matters as much as the count: we take the horsemen of both sides who fought mounted, use the middle of the range modern sources support, and say when only one side can be counted; see how we chose and counted them. Single famous charges have their own guide, the greatest cavalry charges.1
1 Panipat, 1761
- Where
- Panipat, on the plain north of Delhi, India
- War
- Maratha war with Ahmad Shah Durrani (Abdali)
- Sides
- Maratha Empire under Sadashivrao Bhau vs Ahmad Shah Durrani with the Rohillas, Najib-ud-Daula and Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh
- Strength
- At the October 1760 musters 55,000 Maratha horse and 15,000 foot vs 41,800 horse and 38,000 foot with Abdali (Kashiraj); in the battle about 45,000 Marathas vs 60,000 (Sarkar's estimate)
- Result
- Decisive Afghan victory; Sadashivrao Bhau and Vishwas Rao killed
On 14 January 1761 the Maratha army of Sadashivrao Bhau, starving in its camp at Panipat, came out to fight Ahmad Shah Durrani, called Abdali, and his Indian allies. Kashiraj Pandit, an eyewitness writing from memory years later, gave the musters of October 1760 as 55,000 horse and 15,000 foot with the Bhau, and 41,800 horse and 38,000 foot with Abdali: about 97,000 horsemen (our sum). Those were men in camp, not riders in line: Jadunath Sarkar reckons that about 45,000 Marathas, 8,000 of them Ibrahim Khan Gardi's musketeers, faced some 60,000 on Abdali's side, where the Rohillas fought mostly on foot. So the riders who fought numbered somewhere between about 60,000, our count of the horse in Sarkar's figures, and the 97,000 of the musters, our reckoning but still more than anywhere else here.2
From morning till noon the Maratha horse had the better of the fight and broke into the grand vizier's line in the center. Then Abdali sent about 10,000 fresh troops to his grand vizier, who charged "sword in hand, in close order, and at full gallop," while squadrons of his mounted slave guard rode around the Bhau's division firing their muskets. Vishwas Rao, the Peshwa's heir, fell; the Bhau rode back into the fight and was killed, and the whole Maratha army turned and fled "as if by enchantment." The pursuit became a massacre. Sarkar writes of the eclipse of Maratha power in the north in the eleven years that followed.3
Why it ranks here: The largest on the list by far: we count the middle of a range from about 60,000 riders on Sarkar's reckoning to the 97,000 of the musters. Scale and consequence put it on the list; it is less known outside India, and every figure goes back to one eyewitness, so certainty is middling.
2 Berestechko, 1651
- Where
- Near Berestechko on the Styr, Volhynia (now Ukraine)
- War
- Khmelnytsky Uprising
- Sides
- Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (King John II Casimir) vs the Cossacks of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Crimean Tatars of Khan İslam III Giray
- Strength
- Polish army: 18,000 Polish horse and 2,800 reiters and dragoons at the June muster, about 80,000 with the noble levy; Tatars 50,000 by the official Polish report, 80,000 to 100,000 in other accounts (estimates vary)
- Result
- Polish victory; the khan fled and the Cossack camp was broken
In June 1651 King John II Casimir marched against the Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and his ally, Khan İslam III Giray of Crimea. They fought near Berestechko in Volhynia from 28 to 30 June. The historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky gives the king's early June muster as 18,000 Polish horse and 2,800 reiters and dragoons, before the noble levy arrived; Bogusław Radziwiłł put the whole camp at 80,000, half of them the levy. The Tatars were all horsemen: some accounts made them 80,000 to 100,000, which Hrushevsky calls exaggerated, while the official Polish report gave 50,000, as does the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Added up, the 20,800 Polish horse and 50,000 Tatars make about 70,000 riders; since the Tatar number is a round guess and, by Hrushevsky's account, the horde took little part on the last day, we count 40,000 to 70,000, our own reckoning.4
The first two days were a cavalry battle: on 29 June the main horde drove the Polish horse back and was beaten off only at painful cost: Hetman Potocki's guard company was wiped out. On 30 June the king led the army out. In the afternoon Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki took the cavalry of the left wing into the Cossack lines, the Polish center drove the Tatars from the field, and the khan fled, taking Khmelnytsky with him. The leaderless Cossacks held their camp for ten days before most broke out through the swamps, leaving their guns. The war went on: the Treaty of Bila Tserkva on 28 September 1651 halved the Cossack register to 20,000.5
Why it ranks here: We count the middle of roughly 40,000 to 70,000 riders on the sourced figures, more than any battle below it but well short of Panipat. Scale put it on the list; it is little known abroad, and the Tatar and Cossack numbers are guesses, so certainty is low.
3 Ain Jalut, 1260
- Where
- Jezreel Valley, near Nazareth (today northern Israel)
- War
- Mongol invasion of Syria and Palestine
- Sides
- Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt (Sultan Qutuz, emir Baybars) vs the Mongols under Kitbuqa
- Strength
- Mongols and allies 10,000 to 20,000; Mamluks about 20,000 (Medievalists.net) or slightly more (HistoryNet); both armies mounted archers (estimates)
- Result
- Mamluk victory; Kitbuqa captured and beheaded
In 1260 Hülegü's Mongols took Aleppo and Damascus. Then news came that the Great Khan Möngke had died, and Hülegü withdrew east with most of his army, leaving his general Kitbuqa in Syria with perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 men. The EBSCO account says his force could not have been more than 20,000, Armenian and Georgian contingents included; Adam Ali, writing for Medievalists.net, has the two sides almost even at about 20,000 each, while HistoryNet gives the Mamluks perhaps a slight edge. Both armies fought the steppe way, as mounted archers, so this was horse against horse, perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 riders in all, our sum of these estimates.6
On 3 September 1260 the armies met at Ain Jalut, "Goliath's Spring." The Mongol horse archers charged, hit the Mamluk archers hard and almost broke through at two points; Sultan Qutuz is said to have thrown off his helmet to rally his men. The Mamluks held; in the EBSCO account troops hidden in the hills struck the Mongol flanks, and Kitbuqa, refusing to flee, was surrounded, captured and beheaded. Myth vs fact: the famous feigned retreat by Baybars that lured the Mongols into an ambush is a claim of some modern historians that HistoryNet doubts. It was one of the first defeats of a Mongol army in open battle, and the Mongols never conquered Syria and Palestine.7
Why it ranks here: The estimates we found give 30,000 to 40,000 riders, all of them mounted archers, and we count the middle; that equals Vienna's figure, and Ain Jalut goes first as the older battle. Stopping the Mongols in the west put it on the list, but every strength is an estimate, so certainty is low.
4 Vienna, 1683
- Where
- The Kahlenberg heights and the Ottoman camp outside Vienna, Austria
- War
- Great Turkish War
- Sides
- Polish, imperial and German relief army (King John III Sobieski) vs the Ottoman army of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa
- Strength
- Relief army 67,000 to 70,000, with about 20,000 horsemen in the final charge; 15,000 Tatars by one account; Ottoman cavalry uncounted
- Result
- Ottoman army routed; siege of Vienna lifted
In the summer of 1683 Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa laid siege to Vienna. On 12 September a relief army of some 67,000 to 70,000 imperial, German and Polish troops under the Polish king John III Sobieski came down from the Kahlenberg heights on his camp. The Poles, about a third of the army, held the right wing. According to the Wilanów Palace Museum, the first attack there came from 15,000 Tatars, who were driven back with great losses.8
Sobieski then sent hussar companies forward on a trial charge, which lost heavily. At about four in the afternoon the horse was ready: the Wilanów museum and the Museum of Polish History both put it at 20,000 riders under the king's command, and the Museum of Polish History says the decisive charge lasted half an hour. The Ottoman army broke and fled, leaving its guns, with about 10,000 dead and 5,000 wounded by the dzieje.pl count. The charge itself is told in our guide to the greatest cavalry charges; here what counts is the whole mounted battle. Nobody counted the Ottoman horse, so the total of riders is an estimate: the 20,000 of the charge and the 15,000 Tatars alone make 35,000, before any sipahis are added. Sobieski reported to the Pope: "Venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit," we came, we saw, God conquered.9
Why it ranks here: About 35,000 riders can be counted: the 20,000 of the allied charge and 15,000 Tatars by the Wilanów account. The Ottoman horse is uncounted, which keeps the figure low; it equals Ain Jalut's and comes after it as the younger battle. Top marks for recognition, consequence and memory put it on the list; the uncounted Ottoman side lowers certainty.
5 Manzikert, 1071
- Where
- Near the fortress of Manzikert (Malazgirt), eastern Turkey
- War
- Byzantine-Seljuk wars
- Sides
- Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes vs Sultan Alp Arslan of the Seljuk Turks
- Strength
- No reliable figures survive (Britannica); Paul Markham reckons about 40,000 effective Byzantine fighting men, some 20,000 of them absent from the battle, and the Seljuks perhaps half as many, horse archers above all
- Result
- Seljuk victory; the emperor captured
In 1071 the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes marched east to win back the frontier fortresses the Turks had taken. No reliable figures survive for either army, Britannica notes; Paul Markham, writing for De Re Militari, reckons about 40,000 effective fighting men. Markham adds that some 20,000 under Tarchaneiotes withdrew before the battle and never fought. Romanos's reports put the sultan's army at 10,000 to 15,000; Markham makes it probably about half the size of the Byzantine one, and it fought as mobile horse archers. So the horsemen on the field, Byzantine cavalry wings and Turkish archers, were perhaps 20,000 to 35,000, our estimate.10
On the second day of battle, in late August, Alp Arslan's horsemen fell back in a crescent before the Byzantine advance, shooting into the flanks. At dusk Romanos turned back for camp; the Seljuks swept forward against his retreating cavalry, the right wing broke, and the reserve under his rival Andronikos Doukas marched off instead of covering the retreat. The left wing fought its way clear, but the center was surrounded and Romanos taken prisoner. Myth vs fact: the army was not wiped out; Markham puts Byzantine losses at no more than about 8,000. The disaster came afterward, when civil war let the Turks spread across Anatolia.11
Why it ranks here: We count the middle of 20,000 to 35,000 horsemen, a range that every source builds from estimates. Opening Anatolia to the Turks put it on the list, and its fame is wide, but certainty is low.
6 Mohi, 1241
- Where
- Muhi, by the Sajó river, northeastern Hungary
- War
- Mongol invasion of Hungary, 1241 to 1242
- Sides
- King Béla IV of Hungary vs the Mongols under Batu and Sübe'etei
- Strength
- No figures in the sources; the Hungarian army perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 horsemen (modern estimates), the Mongols fewer
- Result
- Mongol victory; Hungarian royal army routed
In spring 1241 the Mongols of Batu and Sübe'etei broke into Hungary. Their vanguard drew King Béla IV's army from its camp near Pest to the Sajó river in the northeast, where Batu's main army was already waiting across the water. Here the numbers are at their worst. Lajos Négyesi, a Hungarian military historian, notes that the sources give no strength for either army; he sizes the Hungarian camp for about 20,000 horsemen and quotes another estimate of about 15,000. Juvayni and Thomas of Split, both writing within a few decades, agree that the Hungarians outnumbered the Mongols, Juvayni by two to one. On those terms the horsemen of both sides came to something like 22,000 to 30,000, our reckoning rather than any count.12
In the night before 11 April 1241 a first Mongol crossing at the bridge was beaten back. Batu then held the bridge while Sübe'etei crossed farther downstream, and, as planned, the Mongols came at the Hungarians from several directions; at dawn they had surrounded the camp, packed so tightly that Batu likened it to a sheepfold. The Hungarians panicked and fled, and the flight turned defeat into disaster. The royal army was not wiped out to a man, but its losses were great and fell on the king's own and the church's contingents. The Mongols held the land east of the Danube for months and withdrew only in 1242.13
Why it ranks here: No source of the time gives a figure, so we count the middle of our own reckoning of 22,000 to 30,000, built from the Hungarian camp's size and the chroniclers' two-to-one ratio. The destruction of the royal army put it on the list; little fame abroad and numbers that are pure estimate hold it down.
7 Gaugamela, 331 BC
- Where
- Plain of Gaugamela, near Arbela (Erbil), northern Iraq
- War
- Alexander the Great's war against the Persian Empire
- Sides
- Macedonians and Greeks under Alexander vs the Persian Empire under Darius III
- Strength
- Alexander 7,000 horse and about 40,000 foot (Arrian); Persian horse 40,000 in Arrian and 45,000 in Curtius, 12,000 to about 25,000 in modern estimates
- Result
- Decisive Macedonian victory; Darius fled
On 1 October 331 BC Darius III met Alexander in northern Iraq with the last great army of the Persian Empire. Arrian, our main source, gives Alexander 7,000 cavalry and about 40,000 infantry, and Darius 40,000 cavalry and a million infantry; Curtius has 45,000 Persian horse. Myth vs fact: the million is impossible, and modern historians cut the cavalry as well. Karl Julius Beloch put it at 12,000 to 15,000, while G. T. Griffith judged that 25,000 "may not be too high." On those modern figures some 19,000 to 32,000 horsemen fought, a range we worked out from them, not a count.14
The battle was fought out by horsemen on both wings. Darius sent the cavalry of his left around Alexander's right; Scythian riders, better armored than the Greeks, routed the mercenary horse sent against them, and the Bactrians joined in. On the other flank Mazaeus' Babylonian horsemen broke through, but rode for the Macedonian camp instead of the rear of the line. In Arrian's account Alexander led his Companions through a gap straight at Darius, who fled; that charge has its place in our guide to the greatest cavalry charges. Called back by Parmenion, Alexander then fought what Arrian calls "the most obstinately contested cavalry fight in the whole engagement," where about sixty Companions fell, and his army lost more than 1,000 horses in the battle and the pursuit. Babylon, Susa and Persepolis lay open.15
Why it ranks here: Modern estimates give about 19,000 to 32,000 riders, and we count the middle of that range, not the 47,000 that Arrian's figures add up to. A cavalry fight that decided an empire, and Alexander's name, put it on the list, but the Persian number is a guess, so certainty is low.
8 Orsha, 1514
- Where
- On the Dnieper near Orsha (now Belarus)
- War
- Muscovite-Lithuanian War of 1512 to 1522
- Sides
- Polish-Lithuanian army (Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski) vs the Muscovite army (Ivan Chelyadnin)
- Strength
- Polish-Lithuanian horse 16,000 to 30,000 (estimates differ); Muscovites 80,000 by contemporary claims, probably inflated
- Result
- Polish-Lithuanian victory; Muscovite commanders captured; Smolensk not recovered
In 1514, after a siege of more than three months, Muscovy took the fortress of Smolensk from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Hetman Konstanty Ostrogski led a Polish-Lithuanian army east to meet the Muscovite field army. dzieje.pl (PAP) says Ostrogski mobilized about 25,000 men, backed by more than ten thousand horsemen under Jerzy Radziwiłł and 5,000 Polish horse; Culture.pl, describing the famous painting of the battle, gives 16,000 Lithuanian light horse, 14,000 Polish light and heavy horse and 3,000 mercenary foot. So Ostrogski's horse numbered at least about 16,000 on the first count and 30,000 on the second, our reading of the two. Contemporaries put the Muscovites at 80,000; Culture.pl suspects it is inflated by about half, and the Russian historians Bentsianov and Lobin argue that the scale of the battle has been greatly exaggerated. Nobody counted the Muscovite horse, so we count only Ostrogski's.16
On 8 September 1514 the armies met on the Dnieper. Ivan Chelyadnin's men held the bridges, so Ostrogski's horse crossed by a ford and the rest of his army on a bridge built on barrels. Around noon Prince Bulgakov-Golitsa's regiment struck the Polish-Lithuanian right. Part of Ostrogski's force then feigned a retreat toward the ford at Pashyno, and artillery, hussars and infantry working together broke the pursuers. Chelyadnin and Bulgakov-Golitsa were taken prisoner, and King Sigismund I sent an account of the victory to the Pope and several rulers. But Smolensk stayed Muscovite.17
Why it ranks here: We count only Ostrogski's riders, the middle of 16,000 to 30,000, because the Muscovite horse is uncounted; that keeps the figure low. Two cavalry-heavy armies put it on the list, but it is little known abroad, it did not win back Smolensk, and its numbers are uncertain.
9 Brandy Station, 1863
- Where
- Around Brandy Station and Fleetwood Hill, Culpeper County, Virginia
- War
- American Civil War
- Sides
- Union Cavalry Corps (Alfred Pleasonton) vs Confederate cavalry division (J.E.B. Stuart)
- Strength
- About 8,000 Union cavalry, plus some 3,000 infantry we do not count, vs Stuart's 9,500 horsemen (10,000 by one count)
- Result
- Inconclusive, Stuart held the field; 866 Union and 433 to 575 Confederate casualties
In June 1863 Robert E. Lee began the march north that would end at Gettysburg, and J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry, camped around Brandy Station in Virginia, was to screen it. On 9 June the Union cavalry chief Alfred Pleasonton crossed the Rappahannock against him with some 8,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry. Stuart's division numbered about 9,500 horsemen; John Rickard puts it at 10,000. Leaving out the Union infantry, that makes 17,500 to 18,000 horsemen, a sum we have added up ourselves; the Brandy Station Foundation itself counts about 17,000 of the 20,000 men engaged as mounted.18
The crossing caught Stuart's camps by surprise. John Buford's division pushed back Rooney Lee's brigade for four hours, and Buford's brigade commander Grimes Davis was mortally wounded. When David Gregg's second Union column reached Fleetwood Hill, Stuart's headquarters ridge, a single howitzer was holding it, and the two sides fought for the hill in mounted combat. After about fourteen hours Pleasonton withdrew. Union losses were 866; Confederate losses were 433 by the American Battlefield Trust's count and 575 by the Brandy Station Foundation's. The National Park Service calls the day a slim Confederate victory and the largest cavalry engagement ever fought on the North American continent.19
Why it ranks here: We count the middle of 17,000 to 18,000 horsemen, between the Brandy Station Foundation's count of the mounted men and our sum of the two cavalry forces. It made the list as the largest cavalry battle in the Americas and the best documented here, but it changed little: Stuart held the field and Lee marched on.
10 Cannae, 216 BC
- Where
- Plain by the Aufidus river, Apulia, southern Italy
- War
- Second Punic War
- Sides
- Hannibal's Carthaginian army vs the Roman army of the consuls Aemilius Paullus and Terentius Varro
- Strength
- About 10,000 Carthaginian horse vs a little over 6,000 Roman and allied horse (Polybius); infantry not counted
- Result
- Carthaginian victory; Roman army destroyed, about 70,000 dead by Polybius, 45,500 foot and 2,700 horse by Livy
Cannae is remembered for its infantry: a Carthaginian center that bent back and African foot that closed in from both sides. But the trap needed horsemen to shut it, and Hannibal had more of them. Polybius gives the Roman army about 80,000 foot and a little over 6,000 horse, and Hannibal about 10,000 horse, a figure Livy repeats. Hasdrubal led the Spanish and Celtic horse on the left, by the river, and the Numidian light horse faced the Roman allied cavalry on the other wing.20
On the river flank the horsemen met head on, many dismounted to fight on foot, and Hasdrubal's men cut up nearly all the Roman cavalry. He then rode behind the battle to help the Numidians, and the allied horse broke before he reached them. Leaving the pursuit to the Numidians, he turned on the rear of the legions. Of the Roman horse, Polybius says, only seventy riders escaped with Varro and about 300 allied horsemen got away; Hannibal lost about 200 cavalry. Polybius counts about 70,000 Romans dead, Livy 45,500 infantry and 2,700 cavalry; both are ancient figures and disputed. Polybius drew the lesson himself: it is better to fight with half as many infantry as the enemy and an overwhelming force of cavalry than to be his equal in everything.21
Why it ranks here: About 16,000 horsemen by Polybius' count make it mid-sized as a cavalry battle; the figures are ancient but widely followed. Hasdrubal's cavalry closing the most famous trap in history is what put it on the list.
11 Carrhae, 53 BC
- Where
- Near Carrhae (Harran), upper Mesopotamia
- War
- Crassus's invasion of Parthia
- Sides
- Parthian army of Surena vs the Roman army of Marcus Licinius Crassus
- Strength
- About 10,000 horse archers and 1,000 cataphracts (modern estimate) vs nearly 4,000 Roman horse; Roman infantry not counted
- Result
- Parthian victory; Crassus killed; 20,000 Romans dead and 10,000 captured in the campaign (Plutarch)
In 53 BC Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, invaded Parthia. Plutarch says he marched with seven legions, nearly 4,000 horsemen and about as many light troops, and that 1,000 of the horsemen were Gauls whom his son Publius had brought from Caesar. The Parthian general Surena met him with an army made entirely of horse: about 10,000 mounted archers and 1,000 cataphracts, armored lancers, by the World History Encyclopedia's estimate. Plutarch says only that Surena's own following of horsemen, vassals and slaves came to no fewer than 10,000.22
The archers rode around the Roman square and shot into it, and the hope that they would run out of arrows died when the Romans saw camels laden with fresh supplies. Publius charged with 1,300 horsemen, 500 archers and eight cohorts to break the ring and was drawn away and destroyed. His Gauls seized the Parthians' long lances and crawled under their horses to stab them, but the heat and the armored lancers wore them down. Crassus was killed during the retreat, and Plutarch puts Roman losses in the whole campaign at 20,000 dead and 10,000 prisoners.23
Why it ranks here: We count the middle of 14,000 to 15,000 horsemen: Plutarch's nearly 4,000 Romans against Surena's 10,000 horse archers and, by the modern estimate, 1,000 cataphracts. It made the list as the classic case of an all-mounted army destroying legions, but the numbers rest on Plutarch and modern estimates.
12 Liebertwolkwitz, 1813
- Where
- Around Liebertwolkwitz and Wachau, south of Leipzig, Saxony
- War
- War of the Sixth Coalition
- Sides
- France (Marshal Joachim Murat) vs Russia, Prussia and Austria (advance guard of the Army of Bohemia)
- Strength
- About 7,000 French vs 6,000 Allied horse by one count; 14,000 riders on the memorial stone at the site
- Result
- Draw; both sides held their ground
In October 1813 Napoleon was gathering his army around Leipzig. On 14 October he sent Marshal Joachim Murat, with more than 32,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry, to slow the advance of Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia south of the city. Its advance guard of Russians, Prussians and Austrians under Wittgenstein, Kleist and Klenau, about 60,000 foot and 6,000 horse, ran into him around the village of Liebertwolkwitz, and the delaying action became a day-long battle.24
Most of it was fought on horseback. Squadrons charged, were thrown back, rallied and charged again, each side feeding in reserves whenever the other's attack ran out of breath. By evening neither side had moved the other: the French had lost 1,500 killed and wounded and 1,000 prisoners, the Allies about 2,500 casualties and 500 prisoners, and the day ended in a draw.25
The claim attached to the day needs care. HistoryOfWar.org calls it the largest cavalry battle in European history and the Napoleonic Guide the largest cavalry clash of the Napoleonic Wars, while the Leipziger Internet Zeitung, reviewing a 2023 book by Reinhard Münch and Thomas Nabert, calls it probably the largest cavalry action of its time and notes the memorial stone at Liebertwolkwitz to the 14,000 riders who took part. That holds for cavalry against cavalry in Napoleonic Europe, not for horsemen engaged across history.26
Why it ranks here: About 13,000 to 14,000 horsemen, a well-attested figure, while Panipat, Berestechko and Vienna each had two to six times as many. Its fame as the largest cavalry battle in Napoleonic Europe is what put it on the list.
13 Eylau, 1807
- Where
- Preussisch Eylau, East Prussia (now Bagrationovsk, Russia)
- War
- War of the Fourth Coalition (Napoleonic Wars)
- Sides
- Napoleon's French army vs Bennigsen's Russians, joined by L'Estocq's Prussians
- Strength
- About 45,000 French vs 67,000 Russians at the start, about 75,000 a side by nightfall; Murat's charge 10,700 to 11,000 horsemen; total cavalry uncounted
- Result
- Bloody draw; the Russians withdrew in the night
On 8 February 1807, in a snowstorm, Napoleon fought Bennigsen's Russians at Eylau in East Prussia with about 45,000 men against some 67,000; by nightfall Davout, Ney and L'Estocq's Prussians had brought both sides to about 75,000. Augereau's corps, blinded by the blizzard, ran into the Russian guns and was wrecked, leaving a hole in the French center.27
Napoleon filled it with horsemen. Murat had about 10,700 by HistoryOfWar.org's count, mostly dragoons with 1,900 cuirassiers and 1,500 Guard cavalry, and about 11,000 by the World History Encyclopedia's. They crossed some 2.3 kilometers of open snow, split into two columns, broke through Sacken's infantry and reached the great Russian battery before they rode back. It cost about 1,500 horsemen and bought time for Davout to arrive; the single charge is ranked in our guide to the greatest cavalry charges. The cavalry battle as a whole was larger, since the Russian and Prussian horse and the cavalry of the French corps fought too, but no source we checked counts them, so we count only Murat's riders. The fighting died away by ten at night, and the Russians withdrew in good order; with 15,000 to nearly 30,000 casualties on each side by various counts, the result was at best a stalemate.28
Why it ranks here: Only Murat's 10,700 to 11,000 riders are counted, by two sources; the Russian and Prussian horse are uncounted, which keeps it low on this list. Saving Napoleon's center put it on the list, but the battle was a draw and is little known beyond the charge.
14 Komarów, 1920
- Where
- Near Komarów, east of Zamość, Lublin region, Poland
- War
- Polish-Soviet War
- Sides
- Poland (1st Cavalry Division, Colonel Juliusz Rómmel) vs Soviet Russia (1st Cavalry Army, Semyon Budyonny)
- Strength
- About 1,500 Polish vs more than 6,000 Soviet horsemen at Komarów (PAP); 5,600 cavalrymen in all by an IPN count; the whole Soviet army reported 11,581 sabers on 25 August
- Result
- Polish victory; the 1st Cavalry Army broke out east with heavy losses
After the Polish victory at Warsaw, Semyon Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army turned north toward Lublin. It had reached the Polish front with about 18,000 sabers; by its own report of 25 August it was down to 1,352 commanders and 11,581 sabers. For three days it attacked Zamość, held by Polish and Ukrainian troops under the Ukrainian colonel Marko Bezruchko.29
Not all of it fought at Komarów. Budyonny sent one division against Grabowiec and the 11th Cavalry Division toward Komarów, and fed in the 6th and the 4th as the day went on. On 31 August Colonel Juliusz Rómmel's 1st Cavalry Division, two brigades strong, fought them from morning to dusk. A charge by the 8th Uhlans and the arrival of the 6th Cavalry Brigade decided the day. PAP put the forces at Komarów at about 1,500 Polish and more than 6,000 Soviet horsemen, and an IPN infographic gives 5,600 cavalrymen in all. Myth and fact: Budyonny's army was not destroyed; it broke out east, but was so badly mauled that it was later withdrawn from the front.30
A Biuletyn IPN article and a PAP report call Komarów the largest cavalry battle of the twentieth century; the IPN historian Marek Kozubel says one of the largest. The other claim often made, the largest cavalry battle since 1813, which the Lithuanian national encyclopedia repeats, does not survive a count: Brandy Station in 1863 had some 17,000 to 18,000 horsemen.31
Why it ranks here: With 5,600 to 7,500 horsemen by the sourced counts it is one of the smallest battles here. Fame, consequence and memory put it on the list: it took the most feared Soviet army out of the campaign and is still marked at Komarów every year.
15 Kircholm, 1605
- Where
- Kircholm on the Daugava near Riga (now Salaspils, Latvia)
- War
- Polish-Swedish War
- Sides
- Lithuanian army of Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz vs the Swedish army of King Charles IX
- Strength
- About 2,600 Polish-Lithuanian vs 2,500 Swedish horse (HistoryOfWar.org); armies about 3,600 vs about 11,000
- Result
- Swedish army destroyed; 8,000 to 9,000 Swedes dead (estimate)
In September 1605 King Charles IX of Sweden was besieging Riga, and the Lithuanian hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz marched to relieve it with about 3,600 men against a Swedish army of about 11,000. The horse on the two sides was almost even. By HistoryOfWar.org's count Chodkiewicz had 2,600 cavalry and 1,000 infantry, Charles 2,500 cavalry; the Museum of Polish History names the winged hussars as the elite of Chodkiewicz's horse.32
On 27 September the Swedes held strong ground. Chodkiewicz drew them off it by having part of his force fake a flight, and when the Swedish line came forward the hussars charged into it. The Swedish cavalry was driven off; the infantry, left alone, was cut to pieces, and after three hours the army was smashed. The Museum of Polish History puts Swedish dead at perhaps 8,000 to 9,000 and Commonwealth losses at 100 to 200, only 13 of them hussars. The victory was used for propaganda, but it brought no strategic gain: some unpaid soldiers left the hetman soon after, and the war paused only in a truce. The charge itself has its place in our guide to the greatest cavalry charges.33
Why it ranks here: The smallest battle on the list, about 5,100 horsemen, but the horse of both sides is counted and the day was decided by horse alone. Consequence, memory and well-attested numbers put it on the list; on scale alone it would not be here.
How we chose and counted these cavalry battles
We counted a cavalry battle as a whole battle that cavalry decided or dominated, with horsemen fighting on both sides. Single famous charges, such as the Light Brigade at Balaclava, belong to our guide to the greatest cavalry charges. Battles that simply had a great deal of cavalry but were won by infantry and guns, such as Borodino and Leipzig, are left to their own articles, and so is Megiddo in 1918, where the horsemen met almost no enemy cavalry.34
We scored 25 candidates on five criteria to decide which fifteen belong here; the list is then ranked by the number of horsemen engaged, largest first. That number counts the horsemen of both sides who actually fought mounted, so cavalry held in reserve and troopers who fought on foot do not count. We take the middle of the range the sources support, and where only one side's horsemen are counted anywhere, we count that side only and say so, which keeps those battles low. In the scoring, scale counts four times, recognition and certainty of the numbers twice, consequence and memory once:
- Recognition (×2). 5 if the battle is known far beyond military history and named whenever the largest cavalry battles come up, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Scale: horsemen engaged (×4). Horsemen of both sides together who fought mounted at the battle: 5 = 30,000 or more, 4 = 20,000 to 30,000, 3 = 12,000 to 20,000, 2 = 5,000 to 12,000, 1 = under 5,000. Cavalry left in reserve or far from the field, and mounted infantry or troopers who fought on foot, do not count. Where estimates differ we score the range most modern historians accept, not the chroniclers' figure.
- Consequence (×1). 5 if it decided a war or the fate of a state, 1 if it changed nothing about the outcome.
- Memory (×1). 5 if it is still a living tradition (a day of remembrance, a monument, a unit custom, a song or proverb), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty of the numbers (×2). 5 if the strengths are confirmed by muster rolls or independent reports, 1 if they rest on one late source or on guesses. Ancient and medieval figures, steppe armies above all, are often inflated and score 1 to 3.
The score decides only which battles make the list; the order is by horsemen engaged, largest first, and two battles with the same figure go 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. Ancient, medieval and steppe figures are uncertain because chroniclers inflated them, so for those battles the number is the middle of a modern range, not a count, and the entry says so. That is why Liebertwolkwitz, the battle most often called the largest cavalry battle in history, sits in the lower half of this list: 13,000 to 14,000 horsemen fought there, a well-attested figure, but Panipat, Berestechko and Vienna each had between two and six times as many, and the claim holds only for cavalry against cavalry in Napoleonic Europe.35
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×2 | Scale: horsemen engaged ×4 | Consequence ×1 | Memory ×1 | Certainty of the numbers ×2 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Panipat | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 41 |
| 2 | Berestechko | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 34 |
| 3 | Ain Jalut | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 41 |
| 4 | Vienna | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 46 |
| 5 | Manzikert | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 37 |
| 6 | Mohi | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 30 |
| 7 | Gaugamela | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 39 |
| 8 | Orsha | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 29 |
| 9 | Brandy Station | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 35 |
| 10 | Cannae | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 37 |
| 11 | Carrhae | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 31 |
| 12 | Liebertwolkwitz | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 30 |
| 13 | Eylau | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 26 |
| 14 | Komarów | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 30 |
| 15 | Kircholm | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 28 |
Close calls
Five battles came close and did not make the fifteen:
Klushino, 1610. On 4 July 1610 Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski's hussars broke Dmitry Shuisky's Russian army and its foreign mercenaries and opened the road to Moscow. Only one side can be counted: Przemysław Gawron puts Żółkiewski's force at 2,700 to 4,000 against some 1,830 mercenary horse, and nobody recorded the Russian riders. On what is counted it is too small.36
Marchfeld, 1278. On 26 August 1278 Rudolf of Habsburg and Ladislaus IV of Hungary defeated Ottokar II of Bohemia in a battle fought by the cavalry alone, and Ottokar was killed; it founded Habsburg rule in Austria. Only Rudolf's side is counted, about 2,500 knights with 2,500 to 3,000 Hungarian and Cuman horse, and the Bohemian strength is unknown, so it misses on scale and certainty.37 › Battle on the Marchfeld, 1278
Lechfeld, 955. On 10 August 955 Otto I, hurrying to besieged Augsburg, destroyed a Magyar army on the Lech, which ended the Magyar raids on the West. Widukind of Corvey counts about eight "legions" in Otto's army but gives a size for only one, a thousand chosen men, and for the Magyars there is only the 100,000 horsemen that contemporaries claimed, as EBSCO reports. With neither side reliably counted, it stays off the list.38
Yarmouk, 636. In August 636 Khalid ibn al-Walid led a great mass of cavalry round the Byzantine left and ended Byzantine rule in Syria. But modern estimates of the Byzantine army run from 15,000 to about 100,000, no Arab source is contemporary, and no source we found counts the horsemen of either side.39
Mars-la-Tour, 1870. Late on 16 August 1870, north of Mars-la-Tour, 40 squadrons of German and French cavalry fought a half-hour melee that, as William E. Welsh writes, changed nothing; earlier von Bredow's brigade had made what Michael Howard called perhaps the last successful cavalry charge in western European warfare. Counted in squadrons, a few thousand horsemen by our estimate, that cavalry fight is too small on our scale.40
Why did great cavalry battles end?
By the nineteenth century a battle fought on horseback was already rare. HistoryOfWar.org calls Brandy Station in 1863 one of the few occasions in the American Civil War when the cavalry fought from horseback, with the saber charge dominant. At Mars-la-Tour in 1870 von Bredow's brigade made what the historian Michael Howard called perhaps the last successful cavalry charge in western European warfare, and the larger cavalry melee later that day, William E. Welsh writes, changed nothing. The last great fight of horse against horse came at Komarów in 1920, which, as a PAP report puts it, historians regard as the last great cavalry battle in the history of war.41
