In the fierce preliminary battle for the hill, both sides took heavy casualties, but Thorismund's heavily armored cavalry finally prevailed and took possession of that key terrain feature. By then the main lines had closed. Details of the battle's progress are unclear, but Attila seems to have swiftly overwhelmed the Alans in the center, driving them off the field. That left Theodoric's Visigoths in a very exposed position, with Walamir's Ostrogoths to their front and Attila's victorious Huns attacking their left flank. There was a moment of panic in the Visigoth line, but Theodoric quickly checked it. Potential disaster struck soon afterward when, in the thick of the fight, the old Visigoth king was knocked off his horse and crushed under thousands of flying hooves. Far from causing his followers to lose heart, however, Theodoric's death seemed to inspire them. They held off the Huns and pushed the Ostrogoths back.

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None of the sources mention the progress of fighting on Aetius' flank. Quite possibly he was anxious to preserve the only existing Roman army and refused to commit his legionaries against the outnumbered Gepids to his front. It is also likely that the Romans, who had been hastily assembled, were of doubtful quality, and Aetius was nervous about committing them to a fight. Whatever the facts, they had little impact on the battle's outcome.

Back on the right of the allies' line, the Visigoth–Ostrogoth fight continued. Then Thorismund, having regrouped his forces on the hill, launched a decisive charge into the flank of the Hunnic army, and the Ostrogoths fled. The mobile Huns managed to extricate themselves, and Attila, realizing that the battle was lost, quickly withdrew into his wagon laager as night fell.

The following dawn revealed the ferocity of the conflict and Attila's precarious situation. Eyewitnesses reported thousands of bodies piled up across the plain. Attila's army was besieged within its camp, with no prospect of succor or escape, and it seemed as if the allies needed only to sit and wait for his surrender. But this proud Hun warrior would never yield. He prepared an enormous funeral pyre for himself should capture be inevitable.

Aetius the general had won the battle. Now Aetius the consummate politician emerged to exploit the victory. Still fearing the strength of the Visigoths within the empire, he was concerned lest a total defeat of the Huns would see Visigoth power swell. Anxious to preserve some sort of balance of power, he decided to let Attila withdraw. Thorismund, now king of the Visigoths, opposed that plan, but the wily Aetius convinced the young monarch of a pressing need for him to return to Toulouse to consolidate his position against his jealous brothers. The Visigoths withdrew from the Châlons battlefield, and Attila was allowed to slink back over the Rhine, defeated and humiliated, but with his power still intact.

The Battle of Châlons has often been described as critical in the history of the Western world in that it saw the old Rome and the new Gothic people, both settled cultures, defeat the raiding nomads of Central Asia, thereby saving Western Europe from Hunnic domination. Perhaps, however, historians have given the battle too much stature. Attila had defeated Roman armies repeatedly on each of his three invasions of the Eastern Empire, leaving it virtually defenseless. But the Huns had never stayed in the regions they devastated, unlike the Mongols who invaded Europe 750 years later. They were not equipped to take large, well-fortified cities, and their purpose was not conquest but rather large-scale looting. There is no reason to think that the long-term effect on Western Europe would have been any different had Attila triumphed at Châlons. Certainly the West would have faced ravaging on a larger scale than it previously had, but otherwise the Huns' stay would have been relatively short. Possibly the Western Empire would have collapsed a little earlier than it did, but as it was, Rome's period of influence had already waned–the last Western Roman emperor would be deposed within 25 years of the battle.

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