Epic Battles Trivia Quiz

Answer: Teutoberg Forest

Rome never replaced the fallen legions. It is said that for years after the battle, Emperor Augustus would wander the streets of Rome, beating his head against walls and muttering, 'Varus, give me back my legions!'

Answer: Chalons-sur-Marne

It was a crushing defeat for Attila by his former ally Aetius. Some sources say 50,000 Huns fell in the battle. Theodoric was killed as well. It saved Gaul from utter ruin and allowed the Latin culture there to survive long enough to later meld with the Franks. An interesting note--the battle site has never been found.

Answer: Anthony McAuliffe

Bastogne was the key to the Bulge, Germany's last ditch effort to knock the Western Allies out of the war. Surrounded, McAuliffe held out in Bastogne despite heavy bombardment until Patton's Third Army relieved the city on December 26, 1944. After Bastogne's relief, Germany had no real hope of winning the war in the west.

Answer: Crecy

The longbow helped hasten the death of medieval knighthood. Although the English first employed the Welsh longbow against William Wallace's Scots at Falkirk (1298), it was at Crecy (1346) where it was first used against armored cavalry. The heavily laden French knights became helpless under the rain of arrows, especially when unhorsed, and many were slaughtered.

However, it was a lesson the French were slow to learn, and they suffered similiar fates at Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415) at the hands of the English.

Answer: Antietam

Although the Battle of Gettysburg saw the highest number of casualties of any Civil War Battle, it was a three-day engagement. Antietam was fought in a single day.

Answer: Cannae

Some 50-60,000 Roman soldiers fell at Cannae (August 2, 216 B.C.) as well as an unknown number of Carthiginians and their allies making it one of the bloodiest single day engagement in world history. Salamis (480 B.C.) may have been the bloodiest sea battle in ancient history and Adrianople (A.D. 378) was a horrific defeat for the Romans, but neither matched the destruction of life at Cannae.

Answer: The Mongols

A Mameluke army scored a resounding victory over an overconfident Mongol army in Palestine. It was the first major defeat ever suffered by the Mongols and destroyed their aura of invincibility.

Answer: Charles Martel

Charles Martel (the Hammer) defeated a large Muslim force as they were loaded with plunder and heading back to Spain. The Pyrenees mountains remained the dividing line between between Christian and Muslim Western Europe until the Reconquesta of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella was complete in the fifteenth century.

Answer: Actium

Actium, a point off of the coast of Greece, was Antony and Cleopatra's last gasp effort at defeating Octavian. Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide a year later. With no one to challenge Octavian, he became Rome's first Caesar, marking the end of the Roman Republic.

Answer: Stamford Bridge

Hastings, one of the truly epic battles of history, was a closely fought match between Harold's Saxons and William the Conqueror's Normans. Many historians believe that had Harold's army not been weakened at Stamford Bridge, they might have beaten the Normans and preserved the Saxon culture in England to this day.