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Important battles fascinate us. What constitutes an important battle? What can it teach us about the influence of leadership, motivation and morale, technology, and such factors as terrain and climate? What are the consequences for the war in which it has occurred, and what if the battle had gone the other way? Numerous books have sought to identify and dissect the important military battles in human history. The classic work is Sir Edward Creasy’s The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World (originally published in 1851). Usually these books present 50 or 100 or so battles. Jeremy Black’s edited work The Seventy Great Battles in History (2005) is one example. More recently, Tony Jacques has assembled a three-volume Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles of Antiquity through the Twenty-first Century (2007), but most are dealt with in only a few sentences. This study falls between the two extremes. It was to be limited to 200 battles, but others crept in. I have sought to include a wide chronological and geographical range of engagements, although most are modern (half are drawn from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries). I have sought to include not only those battles that most would agree are decisive but also those that are influential or interesting because of generalship, because of the play of chance, or perhaps because they witness the introduction of new weapons or tactics. Clearly, some battles are truly decisive. The First Battle of the Marne in 1914, for example, denied Germany its best—and perhaps only—chance to win World War I. The outcome of the Battle of Britain (1940) prompted Adolf Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union. The Battle of the Somme (1916), the greatest battle in terms of casualties of World War I, while not in itself decisive was certainly influential for its great human cost and for the consequences this held for both the British and Germans in 1917. The Battle of the Somme also saw the introduction of the tank in warfare and helped bring changes in tactics. The American Revolutionary War Battle of Saratoga (1777) and the World War II Pacific theater Battle of Midway (1942) are both turning-point battles. The Battle of Saratoga saw the surrender of an entire British army and brought France into the war openly on the American side, while the Battle of Midway largely wiped out the trained Japanese naval air arm and was, in the words of Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Chester Nimitz, “the engagement that made everything else possible.” Both of these battles also illustrate the dangers inherent in an overly complicated polycentric plan, as does the Battle of Leyte Gulf (1944). The Battle of Midway also clearly shows the role played by chance. Some battles reveal the importance of charismatic leadership, such as that of Edward III at Crécy (1346) or Joan of Arc in the siege of Orléans (1428–1429); others hinge on technological innovation or ingenuity, such as Alexander the Great’s siege of Tyre (332 BCE), the Battle of Hampton Roads (1862), the Battle of Cambrai (1917), and the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II. Some battles demonstrate tremendous human will and sacrifice, such as the sieges of Rhodes (1522) and Leningrad (1941–1944). Others may truly be described as the birthright of a nation, such as the siege of Pleven (1877) for Bulgaria. Small battles can have exaggerated impact, such as two engagements on Lake Champlain (1776 and 1814) and Guernica (1937). Some battles have unforeseen salutary consequences. Thus, the bloody Battle of Solferino (1859) is notable not only for its impact on Italian unification but also because the suffering of the wounded after the battle prompted the establishment of the International Red Cross. For the most part I have tried to let the facts speak for themselves, but on occasion I have indulged in “what if” speculation. While each battle entry stands on its own, I have tried to place each in the context of the war in which it occurs so that the reader might indeed be able to construct a rough outline of world military history from reading the whole work chronologically.