List of battles involving war elephants
Encyclopedia
Some notable battles involving war elephants
include:
War elephant
A war elephant was an elephant trained and guided by humans for combat. Their main use was to charge the enemy, trampling them and breaking their ranks. A division of war elephants is known as elephantry....
include:
- 331 BC, Battle of GaugamelaBattle of GaugamelaThe Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. The battle, which is also called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a massive victory for the ancient Macedonians and led to the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.-Location:Darius chose a flat, open plain...
- 326 BC, Battle of the Hydaspes RiverBattle of the Hydaspes RiverThe Battle of the Hydaspes River was fought by Alexander the Great in 326 BC against King Porus of the Hindu Paurava kingdom on the banks of the Hydaspes River in the Punjab near Bhera in what is now modern-day Pakistan...
- 317 BC, Battle of ParaitaceneBattle of ParaitaceneThe Battle of Paraitacene was a battle in the wars of the successors of Alexander the Great between Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Eumenes. It was fought in 317 BC.-Background:...
- 316 BC, Battle of GabieneBattle of GabieneBattle of Gabiene was a second great battle between two of Alexander the Great's successors: Antigonus and Eumenes in the wars of the Diadochi.-Background:...
- 312 BC, Battle of Gaza Battle of Gaza (312 BC)The Battle of Gaza was a battle of the Third war of the Diadochi between Ptolemy and Demetrius .Ptolemy launched an invasion of Syria...
- 301 BC, Battle of IpsusBattle of IpsusThe Battle of Ipsus was fought between some of the Diadochi in 301 BC near the village of that name in Phrygia...
- 280 BC, Battle of HeracleaBattle of HeracleaThe Battle of Heraclea took place in 280 BC between the Romans under the command of Consul Publius Valerius Laevinus and the combined forces of Greeks from Epirus, Tarentum, Thurii, Metapontum, and Heraclea under the command of King Pyrrhus of Epirus....
- 279 BC, Battle of Asculum
- 275 BC, Battle of Beneventum
- 265-264 BC, Kalinga WarKalinga WarThe Kalinga War was a war fought between the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka the Great and the state of Kalinga, a feudal republic located on the coast of the present-day Indian state of Orissa. The Kalinga war is one of the major battles in the History of India. Kalinga put up a stiff resistance,...
- 262 BC, Siege of Agrigentum
- 255 BC, Battle of TunisBattle of TunisThe Battle of Tunis, also known as the Battle of Bagrades, between the Roman Republic and Carthage occurred in the spring of 255 BC during the First Punic War. The battle ended in a decisive Carthaginian victory.-Prelude:...
- 252 BC, Siege of Panoramus
- 238 BC, Battle of UticaBattle of UticaThe Battle of Utica was the first major engagement in the Mercenary War between Carthaginian forces and the combined forces of Carthage's former mercenary armies which it used to conduct the First Punic War and those of rebelling Libyan cities...
- 238 BC, Battle of "The Saw"
- 239 BC, Battle of the Bagradas RiverBattle of the Bagradas River (239 BC)The Battle of the Bagradas River was a battle in 239 BC between Hamilcar Barca of Carthage and rebel mercenaries and Libyans. It marked Carthage's first major victory in the Mercenary War...
- 219-218 BC, Siege of SaguntumSiege of SaguntumThe Siege of Saguntum was a battle which took place between 219 BC and 218 BC between the Carthaginians and the Saguntines. The battle is mainly remembered today because it triggered one of the most important wars of antiquity, the Second Punic War....
- 218 BC, Crossing of the Alps and the Battle of Trebia
- 217 BC, Battle of RaphiaBattle of RaphiaThe Battle of Raphia, also known as the Battle of Gaza, was a battle fought on 22 June 217 BC near modern Rafah between the forces of Ptolemy IV Philopator, king of Egypt and Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid kingdom during the Syrian Wars...
- 207 BC, Battle of the MetaurusBattle of the MetaurusThe Battle of the Metaurus was a pivotal battle in the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, fought in 207 BC near the Metauro River in present-day Italy. The battle gets a chapter in the classic The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World by Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy...
- 202 BC, Battle of ZamaBattle of ZamaThe Battle of Zama, fought around October 19, 202 BC, marked the final and decisive end of the Second Punic War. A Roman army led by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus defeated a Carthaginian force led by the legendary commander Hannibal...
- 190 BC, Battle of MagnesiaBattle of MagnesiaThe Battle of Magnesia was fought in 190 BC near Magnesia ad Sipylum, on the plains of Lydia , between the Romans, led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio and his brother, the famed general Scipio Africanus, with their ally Eumenes II of Pergamum against the army of Antiochus III the Great of the...
- 167-160 BC, Revolt of the MaccabeesMaccabeesThe Maccabees were a Jewish rebel army who took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel and reducing the influence...
- 164 BC, Battle of Beth-zur
- 153 BC, Roman siege of NumantiaNumantiaNumantia is the name of an ancient Celtiberian settlement, whose remains are located 7 km north of the city of Soria, on a hill known as Cerro de la Muela in the municipality of Garray....
(SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
) - 149-146 BC, Siege of Carthage
- 108 BC, Battle of Muthul
- 46 BC, Battle of ThapsusBattle of ThapsusThe Battle of Thapsus took place on April 6, 46 BC near Thapsus . The Republican forces of the Optimates, led by Quintus Caecillius Metellus Scipio, clashed with the veteran forces loyal to Julius Caesar.-Prelude:...
- 451, Battle of VartanantzBattle of VartanantzThe Battle of Avarayr also known as Battle of Vartanantz, was fought on May 26, 451 on the Avarayr Plain in Vaspurakan, between the Armenian Army under Saint Vartan and their Sassanid rulers...
- 636, Battle of al-QādisiyyahBattle of al-QadisiyyahThe Battle of al-Qādisiyyah was fought in 636; it was the decisive engagement between the Arab muslim army and the Sassanid Persian army during the first period of Muslim expansion. It resulted in the Islamic conquest of Persia, and was key to the conquest of Iraq...
- 738, Battle of RajasthanBattle of RajasthanThe Battle of Rajasthan is a battle where the Gurjar clans defeated the Arab invaders in 738 CE and removed the arab invaders and pillagers from the area east of the Indus River. the final battle took place somewhere on the borders of modern Sindh-Rajasthan...
- 1214, capture of CremonaCremonaCremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
by Frederick II, Holy Roman EmperorFrederick II, Holy Roman EmperorFrederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous... - 1277 After the battle of NgasaunggyanBattle of NgasaunggyanThe Battle of Ngasaunggyan was fought in 1277 between Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty of Mongol Empire, and their neighbors to the south, the Pagan Empire led by Narathihapate. The battle was initiated by Narathihapate, who invaded the Yunnan, a province of Yuan Dynasty of Mongol Empire...
, Kublai KhanKublai KhanKublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...
captured his first war-elephants. - 1526, First Battle of Panipat
- 1556, Second Battle of Panipat
- 1659, Battle of KhajwaBattle of KhajwaBattle of Khajwa was a battle fought on January 5, 1659, between the newly coronated Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb and Shah Shuja who also declared himself Mughal Emperor in Bengal.-Background:...
- 1761, Third Battle of Panipat