The thousand years of Czech history between the ninth and nineteenth centuries are lined by a number of battles, which their contemporaries already suspected to be a crucial historical crossroads. In them, our ancestors shed blood for their homes and families, their faith, oath and way of life, and in doing so they fundamentally contributed to the fact that today we can still live in ours, with ours and to a large extent in our own way. As befits a small nation in the middle of a continent, most often these are defensive battles, when the home team faces the superiority of the invaders, knowing that everything is at stake. To a lesser extent, we come across the bloody clashes of self-destructive civil wars, which, under certain circumstances, could have become the first step towards a more permanent peace and restoration. The book presents a set of thirteen important battles, which are mostly known by name, but their background, broad connections and consequences for the development of our state and nation are covered by a dark curtain of the unknown and unexplored.