How can Alexander conquer India?
- Thread starter Alcsentre Calanice
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I dunno about that. India had a massive chunk of the world's population, even larger than today.
And I dunno about whether Chandragupta Maurya was less competent than Alexander. He was the one man in all of history who was able to conquer almost all of the Indian subcontinent in a lifetime. Even the British needed a century to do that.
In a straight up military fight where Alexander is bringing the might of his empire to bear in a planned expedition he could be able to fight him to a standstill. And by standstill I mean enough to eep his territories in India but not anything more.
Skallagrim
Banned
One thing to consider is whether Chandragupta would try to annex (all of) the areas he grabbed up in the west after Alexander died in OTL. If Alexander lives on, Chandragupta may simply decide not to poke that particular hornet's nest. I've always considered it more likely that he'd push Alexander's vassals east of the Indus around a bit, forcing them to pay tribute to him as well (in addition to what they owe Alexander), but nothing beyond that.
In truth, Chandragupta can probably take from Alexander what he took from Seleukos in OTL. Alexander is in the far west, after all. The key difference is that such an act would compel Alexander to head east again at once, and set matters in order. Which he'd be able to do. In fact, such an attack would galvanise Alexander's "we should have taken India when we had the chance!" attitude, and would probably make his troops willing to follow his lead this time around. I agree with @SlyDessertFox that such a scenario would not result in a conquest of India. Alexander could probably retake what Chandragupta took - at vast cost to both of their armies - before they'd agree on peace terms, since neither would be able to best the other completely. Considering the crafty way Chandragupta operated in OTL (he knew exactly when to strike which enemy, and what to take from him), I rather feel that he would be able to foresee this kind of problem. He may even overestimate Alexander's strength, and fear that Alexander may drive deep into India. That's why I feel Changragupta would be quite careful in his approach.
If he Chandragupta can get a tribute deal set up with Alexander's vassal states, and meanwhile establish cordial relations with Alexander, he can then turn his attention to fully subduing the only areas that remained outside his direct grasp in OTL: the far southern Tamil states, and Kalinga. That seems like the logical course to me.
A decade or more later, Alexander might want a rematch. I personally have some doubts as to that, but assuming - since it's the OP's central point - that Alexander tries for India again, he'll find that the Maurya Empire is fully consolidated and in charge of the entire subcontinent. Alexander will no doubt have better logistics by this time, and his (presupposed) conquest of Arabia and the western Med will have gained him quite some revenue. In addition, Arabia makes a good springboard for naval support when it comes to invading India. Nevertheless, the simple factors of the vast distance, the terrain of India (largely unknown to the Hellenes), the very big armies Chandragupta can command (and his way better logistical position) all combine to make me doubt Alexander's chances of success.
Perhaps, if he is very well-prepared, he could push his borders east to some extent. But the further east he goes, the more difficult his logistical position becomes. The longer the campaign stretches out, the greater the risk of instabilities arising in his even-larger-than-in-OTL empire. Worst case scenario, Alexander dies in his second Indian campaign, while his son is still to young to reign, and his empire splinters apart. Best case scenario: Chandragupta dies in the war instead, the Maurya empire splinters, Alexander pushes his borders east, annexing parts of northwestern India, and several other Indian successor states become autonomous tributary states. Middle-of-the-road scenario: Alexander makes some very minor gains, but then he and Chandragupta fight to a standstill, before signing a peace treaty. Everybody goes home bloodied, and Alexander has simply gained some minor border areas at a far too high blood-price.
In truth, Chandragupta can probably take from Alexander what he took from Seleukos in OTL. Alexander is in the far west, after all. The key difference is that such an act would compel Alexander to head east again at once, and set matters in order. Which he'd be able to do. In fact, such an attack would galvanise Alexander's "we should have taken India when we had the chance!" attitude, and would probably make his troops willing to follow his lead this time around. I agree with @SlyDessertFox that such a scenario would not result in a conquest of India. Alexander could probably retake what Chandragupta took - at vast cost to both of their armies - before they'd agree on peace terms, since neither would be able to best the other completely. Considering the crafty way Chandragupta operated in OTL (he knew exactly when to strike which enemy, and what to take from him), I rather feel that he would be able to foresee this kind of problem. He may even overestimate Alexander's strength, and fear that Alexander may drive deep into India. That's why I feel Changragupta would be quite careful in his approach.
If he Chandragupta can get a tribute deal set up with Alexander's vassal states, and meanwhile establish cordial relations with Alexander, he can then turn his attention to fully subduing the only areas that remained outside his direct grasp in OTL: the far southern Tamil states, and Kalinga. That seems like the logical course to me.
A decade or more later, Alexander might want a rematch. I personally have some doubts as to that, but assuming - since it's the OP's central point - that Alexander tries for India again, he'll find that the Maurya Empire is fully consolidated and in charge of the entire subcontinent. Alexander will no doubt have better logistics by this time, and his (presupposed) conquest of Arabia and the western Med will have gained him quite some revenue. In addition, Arabia makes a good springboard for naval support when it comes to invading India. Nevertheless, the simple factors of the vast distance, the terrain of India (largely unknown to the Hellenes), the very big armies Chandragupta can command (and his way better logistical position) all combine to make me doubt Alexander's chances of success.
Perhaps, if he is very well-prepared, he could push his borders east to some extent. But the further east he goes, the more difficult his logistical position becomes. The longer the campaign stretches out, the greater the risk of instabilities arising in his even-larger-than-in-OTL empire. Worst case scenario, Alexander dies in his second Indian campaign, while his son is still to young to reign, and his empire splinters apart. Best case scenario: Chandragupta dies in the war instead, the Maurya empire splinters, Alexander pushes his borders east, annexing parts of northwestern India, and several other Indian successor states become autonomous tributary states. Middle-of-the-road scenario: Alexander makes some very minor gains, but then he and Chandragupta fight to a standstill, before signing a peace treaty. Everybody goes home bloodied, and Alexander has simply gained some minor border areas at a far too high blood-price.
And that has nothing to do with his subordinate Generals and Officers? Not to mention the refined formation and technique that his father engineered.
Part of that was because of blind luck and points said in the above reply. Sure Alexander had some pretty damn good people under him and his father built layed out refined strategies far above what anyone in the ancient world could match but that isn't to say Alexander himself was all that.
Not to mention a good portion of the battles he fought were against the crippled remains of the Achaemenids. Beating up an Old man when you're in your twenties isn't really a feat of strength or cunning.
In my Opinion Alexander 'The Great' was one of those people that was so hilariously lucky that whatever higher being in the universe exists and has control must have made his fate of conquering a good portion of the Ancient world as a big Joke.
In short, Alexander sounds like something out of a ridiculous ASB thread.
Yeah like "Ensure you're Empire doesn't go to poop before you're body is even cold".
I don't really think the Competence of the Commander matters too much, it's the competence of the Generals, Officers, and training of the Soldiers which Alexander's army excelled at.
While I'm not overly educated in ancient Indian history Chandragupta Maurya seems like he would be competent enough to at the very least give Alexander Pyrrhic Victories over and over until Either his army does what they did OTL and tell Alexander 'we're going home' or they get into a Teutenoburg Forest like situation.
Though because Alexander died of Malaria OTL, exerting himself in India would probably cause him to die much sooner maybe.
The world doesn't work that way. You're lucky one or two times, maybe three. Hitler was a very lucky man in his time. But at some point you stop being lucky, and then you lose if you haven't real forces to field.
Alexander however never was defeated. How can this be? Luck? No. Alexander certainly had chance on his side at some moments, but you can't reduce all of his victories to blind luck.
You have to acknowledge that, since pure luck can't explain his success, Alexander was a skilled commander, a military "genius". And he was competent enough to choose the right generals and to lead them into battle.
AFAIK, Granikos was against a Satrap ruling a province larger than Macedon, and Issos and Gaugamela against the Persian King of Kings. The Persian Empire may have been on the decline, but it was still richer and more populous than any other state on the world.
Beating Persia as Macedon wasn't fighting a crippled old man.
What makes you think it would be a Pyrrhic victory?
The numbers: the Indian Empires might field some troops superior in quantity, but Alexander had proven that he could win even in a situation of numeric inferiority.
The troops: Alexander's army had already defeated an Indian army, so why shouldn't they succeed a second time?
Yes. He had the luck to die before he could be defeated.
For one, Porus was a minor king, and yet Alexander still found it a difficult battle to win. Against Chandragupta Maurya, himself a great man, stuff can only going to get harder for Alexander.
Now, if you removed Chandragupta Maurya from the situation by having his coup against the Nanda fail, a quite difficult conquest of India is in the cards for Alexander.
Skallagrim
Banned
Alexander certainly had a great advantage in being preceded by a king who made such eminently useful preparations. On the other hand, Alexander was a brilliant commander in the field, who excelled at leading from the front, co-ordinating with his officers very directly-- which was possible because he knew them so well. Which had a little something to do with the fact that he had in fact hand-picked the vast majority of his officer cadre. And he had picked rather wisely, all in all.
To pretend that Alexander simply succeeded because of his officers and his father's work is preposterous, of course. He excelled at preparing excellent battle plans, and was clearly better at it than his father had ever been. One might also note the crucial command positions his father gave him at a young age, in which he acted not only with competence, but with evidently rare talent.
A myth that needs to be done away with. The Achaemenids had just had an internal war, but were far from a crippled 'sick man'. This was an empire that fielded vast armies against Alexander, considerably outnumbering him again and again, logistically outclassing him in every conceivable way, and he still won every battle. That's not something you get to do by sheer luck.
Kleitos saving him from a chance spear-blow. That's luck. Because getting cut down is a risk you take when you lead from the front. But winning those battles wasn't a matter of luck. Alexander won because he was one of the most talented battlefield commanders in recorded history.
I could not disagree more if I tried.
Because dying at 32 was evidently the plan, right? I'll give you this: he should've put some effort into producing an heir earlier on. Even if he'd done so at 20, however, it would have left an heir too young to rule when Alexander died at 32. The age-old messiness of the Macedonian succession isn't Alexander's fault. Whatever he had done... dying before his heir was an adult would have doomed the empire, and not through his fault.
Who trained right alongside those officers? Who appointed them? Who knew them so well that he could decide who would excell in which position? Who chose which of the old guard to keep and which to dismiss? Who got the officers to trust his leadership so much that they'd literally follow him beyond the borders of their known world?
Chandragupta Maurya was indeed a highly competent ruler, and as I outlined earlier, I don't see Alexander beating him outright, if at all. But one might want to consider that an inability to conquer far-away India on top of conquering just about everything else in the neighbourhood doesn't really equate to "so this Alexander guy must be a loser".
I never said it was Entirely on luck. He had excellent people serving under him which helped.
Though to be fair I suppose I did exaggerate the amount of luck he was having. I suppose I find it funny that someone who wasn't as good as people might think has been regarded as one of the greatest men in history. But his father Phillip? never heard of him.
There is a difference in Numeric Inferiority and "if every one of the enemy soldiers just spit in our direction we would drown". Not to mention (as OTL) his soldiers were getting tired of his insistence of going farther and farther so dying in droves (even if victorious you still loose soldiers, especially if you're in an environment far away from you're resupply and reinforcements) wouldn't make their morale any better. Not to mention getting Malaria like Alexander himself (probably) did.
Yeah and that was one of the Hardest battles in Alexander's career. And that was a relatively minor Indian King. (though to be fair a lot of that had to do with the terrain of the battlefield).
Picking officers themselves I suppose is a somewhat useful talent. But it doesn't make you the greatest General there ever was.
And a good bit of those officers had served under his father and shown their results on the field.
Due to the idea of an unbiased historian not being a thing until relatively recently (even then they're hard to come by) whenever in historical records someone is either being shown as a Marvelous, Competent, and fair ruler or the opposite as an Insane, cruel, incompetent ruler you have to keep in mind the original historian writing it is probably going to have a fait bit of bias going on. Even if what all I'm saying is wrong then even still I doubt Alexander was as great as the records make him up to be.
No offense but it also seems preposterous to play all of it off as him just being so great. The Improved Phalanx formation as well as the training his Father initiated did have some undoubtedly strong points to aid in his son's career.
Yes but the biggest advantages was in Alexander's favor, good core strategies and formations initiated by his Father, good officers (some left over from his fathers time), men trained vigorously in the rotations needed by such advanced formations.
Not entirely I'll admit. I believe when I said he was lucky to the point of ASB I meant it more in the fashion of he was lucky to have such advantages from his father. But he did have plenty of other 'lucky streaks' (some of which may have actual reasons).
No but when 'leading from the front' so often the fact he did not try to have any backup plans (or even try at the very least to build up infrastructure to make his empire last) in the case of his death shows that he most likely did not care much about what happened to the Empire after he died or was just overly reckless. True there is a small chance he could have decided to do so after a few battles in India but for some reason I doubt it, he would probably just want to keep conquering.
Yeah, but he did insist on always 'leading from the front' it leads me to believe that he wasn't all that concerned about that either through the near adolescent view of oneself being invincible or him just relying on his Generals and Underlings to take care of things until his heir was an Adult which worked oh so very well.
While he may have been able to see the potential in his officers I wouldn't call that alone making a competent General. Honestly just looking at the statistics and reports of battle should be enough to get an idea of such.
Part of that is because those officers didn't just 'Bravely followed him into the unknown' they were following him to heighten their career as well get a significant portion of treasure. I highly any of those officers didn't have at least some selfish motives in mind or at the very least didn't enjoy the prestige and wealth gained. I won't deny they had some loyalty to him, but that alone only went so far.
Yes, Alexander had Success in the areas he managed to conquer but India was just to far and just too advanced to take. Let alone adding an even slightly competent ruler in charge of one of the bigger kingdoms.
I suppose I can understand that. My point being like your's compared to Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Trajan, Chingis Khan, Napoleon, and more he was pretty mundane.
Which is why I said he was pretty damn lucky to get as far as he did with all the advantages he had at his disposal.
People he handpicked. He didn't just pick sycophants and loyalists, he had an eye for great commanders, even those he had much personal distaste for-Parmenion being the prime example, a man we are told time and time again Alexander distrusted and heavily disliked, yet who, until he was no longer needed, was Alexander's second in command and the only one to control independent armies separate from Alexander until his death. And regardless, one does not conquer vast territory solely because one has excellent subordinates. All great generals of history have subbordinates that are highly talented in their own right. Caesar had Titus Labienus to run around Gaul with him, and Marc Antony to rescue him in a pinch at Alesia. Napoleon had Murat, Ney, and Soult. Genghis Khan had Subatai and Jebe.
Phillip is underrated by history, this is not in question. But Phillip did not have the ability nor the ambition to conquer the entirety of the Persian Empire. Phillip was arguably the greatest military leader Europe had seen up until that point, and yet he was barely half the general his son was.
This is an insult to the quality of forces the Achaemenid Empire fielded. The empire fielded some of the best cavalry in the world-contrary to what some may think, they also did have a core of heavy infantry (largely propped up by Greek mercenaries, who fought with the same equipment as the Greeks in Alexander's army, and were just as effective), and had otherwise a highly effective army that could very much make a good fight of a matchup with Alexander's infantry. At Gaugamela, the Persian infantry actually broke through the center of Alexander's infantry, which was saved, in part, by the strategic second battle line in reserve.
Which brings me to the qualities that make Alexander a fantastic general. Time and again, he shows himself capable of exploiting the weaknesses of his enemies and using their strengths against them. At Granicus his bold cavalry charge completely caught the Persians off guard and threw them into utter chaos, winning the battle before their infantry could even join the fight. At Issus he turned what was a bad position into a crushing victory, personally leading an assault that punched through the Persian lines, then leading the cavalry to chase off Darius and swing around and smash into the Persian lines. He followed this up at Gaugamela by turning the Persian cavalry's strength and unwillingness to let him get around their flank against them-again plunging through a gap, causing Darius to flee, and turning around and smashing the Persian infantry in the ensuing chaos. The Persian cavalry was completely neutralized, their king fleeing caused the expected chaos, and his cavalry charge delivered the coup de grace. I can point to similar outcomes at Tyre and the Hydaspes, and Alexander's willingness to adapt in the unforgiving terrain of Baktria.
All of these battles have one thing in common: Alexander personally drawing up and orchestrating the decisive blow. It is Alexander who launches the decisive assaults at Issus and Gaugamela, it is Alexander who leads his ad hoc navy against Tyre and devises up the causeway, it is Alexander who outsmarts Porus, rolls up his right flank, and orchestrates a brilliant pincer movement. In every one of these battles (well, Tyre is a bit different, being a siege), if Alexander falters, gets held up, or makes a mistake, the rest of the army is doomed. Alexander had great generals no doubt, but they're primary purpose in these battles is to hold the pieces together for Alexander to deliver the decisive maneuvers.
There is not a single great general in history who was not surrounded by highly talented subordinates. That isn't an accident-great commanders have an eye for great talent. Is Genghis Khan's achievements any less because of his excellent subordinates?
This is not really true. Most of Phillip's old guard was cleared out when Alexander took power, and most of the rest were replaced early in the campaign, with Parmenion and Cleitus the Black probably lasting the longest (excepting those who were left behind as satraps while Alexander continued on his campaign, such as Antigonus). All of the most prominent of Alexander's officers-Perdiccas, Craterus, Ptolemy, Hephaistion, and many of those who rose to prominence quite late and would turn out to be very talented in their own right-Seleucus, Peukestas, Peithon etc.) were Alexander's men, not his father's. They were people who came of age with Alexander, and were given their first major commands under him. To give one particularly illuminating example of Alexander's knack for noticing talent, take Eumenes of Cardia, his court secretary. Eumenes had no military background to speak of, yet towards the end of Alexander's reign, he gave him minor commands, slowly growing in importance-by the time of Alexander's death, he had risen to command his own regiment of companions. After Alexander's death, Eumenes would turn out to become one of, if not the most, talented of the generals to fight in in the succession wars. The man knew talent when he saw it.
You can say the same for virtually any commander in history. By this logic, any great commander can be dismissed as highly overrated simply because of historical bias. There is plenty to criticize Alexander The Great for-his temperament, his megalomania, his mismanagement of his empire (even though I would dispute the last a bit). But his military record speaks for itself.
Sure, Phillip gave him an army, but Alexander took it to heights Phillip could have never been capable of achieving.
While there are some similarities of his own strategies to that of his father, once you get beyond the basics, Alexander is a lot better and more sophisticated than his father was. Phillip more resembled Antipater in fighting style than Alexander, and as later history would attest, this was far less effective. In fact, it is Alexander's signature strategy-the perfectly timed cavalry charge to change the course of battle-that was used to save the day at Chaeronea.
At some point it stops being luck and starts being talent. Genghis Khan did not create the Mongol army that was so brutally effective-it was honed through literally hundreds of years of evolving steppe warfare, and merely built on similar military tactics and strategies used by steppe nomads for centuries. Julius Caesar inherited one of the greatest fighting forces in the ancient world, that had been made into the finely tuned machine it was through four centuries of trial and error. The armies of Cyrus The Great merely improved on the military innovations of the Assyrians, and so on. Even Phillip, whom you hold in such high esteem (and rightfully so), did not create his army from scratch. Phillip modified the lightly armored and longer spear phalanx from the Athenian Iphikrates, and his military tactics were modified from that used so effectively by the Thebans under Epaminondas and Pelopidas-the echelon formation, which would become Phillip's signature strategy, was first used to great effect by the Thebans that Phillip watched and learned from as a hostage.
Alexander was 32 when he died-many great rulers in history were just starting their careers at this age. He was just returning from what was a neverending campaign through the Persian lands (and I think its important to remember, the part of India Alexander traversed had once been at least nominally a part of the Achaemenid Empire). By the time of his return, he was showing some signs of maturing and showing interest in governing. He made several shakeups to remove corrupt and ineffective satraps, and, though this is just speculation on my part, I believe his reasoning for summoning Antipater may have been to give him a similar role to that he had held in Macedon, that as effective administrator and caretaker of the state while Alexander was away on campaign.
For Alexander's later plans, these are somewhat disputed, but even if we are to assume they are true, they are not just the machinations of a grandiose megalomaniac out for nothing else but his own glory. While Alexander would have been better served campaigning in areas where his administration was weak or non-existent due to having to chse the Persians across the map (Cappadocia, Bithynia), invading Arabia, and then potentially Carthage, made some strategic and economic sense. The naval expedition of Nearchos back home from India was meant, in part, as an exploratory mission to prepare trade routes and such. Similar preparations were put in place for the invasion of Arabia-Nearchos was to circumvent the peninsula. Arabia itself (at least what is Yemen and Oman) was fairly wealthy, and sat on the lucrative frankincense and myrrh trade-it would make sense to cut out the middleman and establish direct control over this area. Indeed, this is something Augustus considered doing centuries later, before thinking better of it after an abortive expedition.
There is a similar logic to invading Carthage (and Magna Graecia) and controlling that territory. Carthage had a monopoly on trade into the Western Mediterranean. They sat on a strategic location straddling the straits between Sicily and North Africa, and conquering them would complete his domination of the trade in and around his empire. That's not to say that grandiose ambitions were not a part of it-certainly Alexander must have been allured by the prospect of reaching the Pillars of Heracles-but to say that they were tied together with sensible economic and strategic goals.
Going back to the management side of things, we can see more steps Alexander was taking towards the future stability of his empire in his last years besides those mentioned above. The Susa weddings are one example of this-his goal appeared to be to create a mixed Greco-Persian ruling class to rule the empire together-time and again we see evidence that Alexander was moving towards dealing with the antagonism between Greeks and Persians and trying to syncretize the cultures. That the Susa weddings IOTL turned out to not have much of an effect (only Seleucus kept his wife after Alexander's death) is only due to Alexander's unexpected early demise. And of course, by the time of his death Alexander already had one son on the way, and very likely had another child on the way as well by his Persian wife Statira.
What I am trying to say is, you are indicting Alexander for the crime of dying early. Had Phillip II died at age 32, Macedon would have imploded at that point as well. His only heirs at the time were his mentally incapable son Arrhidaius (probably still a child himeslf), and his 4 year old son Alexander. That would have only left his nephew, Amyntas IV, to sit on the throne, a relative non-entity who was not even considered important enough to be a serious rival for the throne by Phillip. As Macedonian successions usually were, it would have been a chaotic bloodbath, and would have been so IOTL had it not been for Alexander's rapid movements in the wake of his death.
Alexander is hardly the only general in history to lead from the front. Phillip did so as well, and so would his successors. The only difference is, Alexander was better at it-he placed contingencies to deal with possible holes in his plan ahead of time-the best example being the double line at Gaugamela. Crucially, unlike his successors, Alexander was able to maintain strong discipline in his cavalry-it is far too easy for cavalry to get caught up in the chase, and not have the cohesion and discipline to gather themselves and wheel around to slam into the infantry in time. History is riddled with commanders who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because of this. In an army so reliant on the cavalry as the main battle winning strike force, leading the cavalry himself was probably vital to Alexander's success-as mentioned above, the cavalry had to have the discipline, cohesion, and awareness to be able to swing around and win the day. This required Alexander to be personally leading it, and given his track record, he was excellent at this job. Look to the likes of Demetrius and Antiochus III (just off the top of my head in Hellenistic warfare) to see what happens when a Hellenistic commander cannot wheel around their cavalry in time.
Führung von vorne. That's how Rommel and Guderian broke Poland and France.
And I think that Alexander's tactics really relied on leading on the front. Commanding his superb cavalry* wouldn't have been possible from behind the infantry.
*Yes, he had inherited it from his father, and nobody denies that his father was an intelligent man.
And how often did you mention Pompey when you said Caesar? Or Julian the Apostate? There were some fine generals in history who were victims of bad luck and aren't remembered by the masses even if they deserve it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't most Hellenistic rulers disregard the cavalry? You often read that the Macedonian Phalanx was inferior to the Roman Legion, but the Phalanx was only one element of the Macedonian army. The cavalry was essential for Alexander's victory, and had Hellenistic states maintained a strong cavalry, they might have defeated the Romans.
Not to forget Fredrick the Great, who inherited its army from his father, the Soldatenkönig, and Napoléon, who took over the armies of the French Revolution. Both didn't create their own fighting force, both were sometimes (very) lucky, but both are regarded as excellent generals.
It wasn't necessarily that they disregarded cavalry. In Macedon for example, it wasn't that they didn't care much for cavalry, but that Macedon was so depopulated after Alexander and the successor wars that gathering up a 25,000 man army was a major feat-cavalry wasn't that numerous. Where it was, they used it. Antiochus III is famous for this, but the Seleucids in general had strong cavalry. But yes, the phalanx became the main offensive component in Hellenistic armies, in large part because they were battling other phalanxes. It diminished the importance of cavalry. Also, the phalanxes became far less maneuverable as the length of the sarrissa was increased over time.
You don't get much luckier than "Tsar of Russia dies and is succeeded by Tsar friendly to you right when they're about to roll you over". But yeah.
longsword14
Banned
This is also wrong. Most of this starts from distorted information from Polybius.
Ah, so the Hellenistic phalanxes repeatedly lost against Rome because of divine intervention?
But why did he lose against the Romans then?
Skallagrim
Banned
The key reason they lost was because the Hellenistic commanders misused the phalanx, by splitting it up. The strength of the phalanx was that it provided a powerful centre that could literally stop and break a direct cavalry charge. Your own more flexible units could then swing around the sides to flank the enemy when his charge failed. (And, when used best, daring cavalry tactics could land immense flanking blows against such an enemy-- precisely what Alexander turned into his specialty.)
By breaking up the phalanx, its key advantage - the strong unbroken centre - was lost. (I'll grant that to be optimally effective, a phalanx cannot be used on all terrain. If you use a phalanx, allowing your oppoent to choose the site of battle is not wise. On the other hand, if you can get a battle to occur on terrain that allows you to deploy the phalanx as intended, it is pretty much the best formation that exists - in the relevant period - for a good strong centre.)
longsword14
Banned
Pikemen need better drill and control but there is nothing to suggest through the ages that they cannot be used in various scenarios, in combination with light troops and cavalry.
No need to add divine intervention when poor human skill and lack of ability to jump from reversals would be sufficient.
Pikemen need better drill and control but there is nothing to suggest through the ages that they cannot be used in various scenarios, in combination with light troops and cavalry.
No need to add divine intervention when poor human skill and lack of ability to jump from reversals would be sufficient.
So you suggest that the phalanx lost its discipline and its skilled commanders, leading to its destruction by the Roman armies. But if I understand your statement, this means that all Hellenistic states lost their well-trained soldiers and generals, whereas Rome had plenty of both?
In order to return to the thread's topic:
Why do you think would it just be a standstil?