The Campaigns of Alexander

since Alexander's army grew in size over the course of his campaign, possibly reaching up to 120,000* during the Indian Campaign, according to Arrian, Curtius, and Donald Engels' troop calculations from the Hellespont to India in his Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army...
... Engels' count is to add the number of reinforcements whenever they are mentioned as coming by any of the major ancient sources, and to subtract permanent garrisons and battle losses, from the initial total of 42,000 infantry and 6,100 cavalry. He doesn't compensate for attrition. Also, not all of the "troops" that are being brought along would have been in fighting condition, with many having been wounded or being sick. That all said, it does seem that the size of Alexander's invading force into India was larger than 48,100.
Hm, when you speak of "reaching up to 120,000" I am afraid your memory fails you once again and you mix up two different things:
1) number of Alexander's troops in one place under his immediate, direct command as an invading army
2) number of all Alexander's troops in Asia throughout all his Asiatic empire including garrisons, troops of his local commanders in Egypt in Babylonia in Asia Minor etc.

Alexander's conquest of Asia is one of the best documented one (comparatively), so you may check your sources again to make sure.

there are instances with larger invading forces around that general time period.
Do not believe everything ancient sources say. They say that the invading army of the Persian King of kings Xerxes into Greece was about 1 000 000 (one million) people.
Do you believe that number?


though the Romans did pretty much keep the different ethnicities separate....
Well, you certainly do not need me to answer some of your questions.
Because the answers are so obvious... :)

Any ideas on how to create a compromise?
As a suggestion:
There might be a contingent of 5-20 thousand where one part was Macedonian veterans and three parts were Persians. And they were supposed to fight together as a combined force on the battlefield. But no mixed two-ethnic units of 12-16 people, that's for sure.
 
slydessertfox said:
I don't think you need to go as far as to do a reboot.

OK, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try and figure out, pencil and paper style, the best way for Alexander to get 70,000 troops (plus another 20,000 servants, and a few thousand animals) around the Arab Peninsula without straying from known plans; I'll then rewrite the first three updates and throw them all back on here in one giant post. I won't make a new thread. We'll then go from there, pretending this whole mess never happened.

Hm, when you speak of "reaching up to 120,000" I am afraid your memory fails you once again and you mix up two different things:
1) number of Alexander's troops in one place under his immediate, direct command as an invading army
2) number of all Alexander's troops in Asia throughout all his Asiatic empire including garrisons, troops of his local commanders in Egypt in Babylonia in Asia Minor etc.

Alexander's conquest of Asia is one of the best documented one (comparatively), so you may check your sources again to make sure.

Engels' chart is titled "Approximate Troop Numbers in Alexander's Army: Hellespont to Gaugamela", and the purpose of the chart is to work out the carrying capacity of the army on the march and to demonstrate the magnitude of Alexander's campaign. Quoting from Engels:

Engels said:
Both Arrian (Ind. 19.5) and Curtius (8.5.4) record the greatest number of trooops in the Macedonian army in India as 120,000. Our Table 6 lists a total of 120,055 troops or a difference of .04%.

Before India, while Alexander is passing through the Hindu Kush, Engels estimates the total number of troops in the army is 64,000 (54,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry), with another 36,000 followers:

Engels said:
We estimated that by the time Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush, he had approximately 64,000 troops and 10,000 cavalry horses. The remaining 36,000 that crossed may have been follwers, who by this time totaled about one-half the number of combatants.

The big spike from 64,000 at the Hindu Kush to 120,055 at the end of the Indian campaign seems to have come from reinforcements on the Hydaspes River; Diodorus Siculus claims that Alexander received 30,000 Asian reinforcements there, and Curtius claims 7,000 Greek infantry reinforcements and 5,000 Greek cavalry reinforcements came. All together, Engels adds them up as 42,000 reinforcements tacked on to the Macedonian army, which almost brings the army's total to the 120,000 men that Arrian and Curtius claim. My gut says that that 42,000 shouldn't be added (or at least, the 30,000 easterners), because I would tend to agree that Alexander having an army of 120,000 does seem a bit farfetched - as I said in that post. Certainly, he did not use all these men to fight at the Hydaspes River, as Arrian has only 30,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry fighting for Alexander at the Battle of the Hydaspes. But whatever the case, it does seem pretty clear to me that the army was considerably larger than 48,100, which is basically the point which you claim is the maximum amount any invading ancient army could control and maintain, and what we're really arguing about, though it's not really that relevant - I agree that 70,000 troops, plus animals and servants and other followers, is a bit too many for Alexander to feed and keep watered on a daily basis for the year-long march around a desert peninsula without any rivers and little fertile farmland. The extra 20,000 that I initially missed makes a big difference.

Russian said:
Do not believe everything ancient sources say. They say that the invading army of the Persian King of kings Xerxes into Greece was about 1 000 000 (one million) people.
Do you believe that number?

Well obviously not; though I'm not sure that helps your overall case (that no ancient invading army could be over 50,000 troops), seeming how modern estimates for that army range from 80,000 up to 500,000, with 80,000 to 200,000 being considered the most likely range. For the record, I'd guess low, either at 80 or 100,000. I have yet to see anyone claim that Xerxes' invasion force was 50,000 men or smaller.

As a suggestion:
There might be a contingent of 5-20 thousand where one part was Macedonian veterans and three parts were Persians. And they were supposed to fight together as a combined force on the battlefield. But no mixed two-ethnic units of 12-16 people, that's for sure.

That's probably the best option; I'll see if I can come up with any alternative compromises, but that's the model I'll probably use. Thanks for the suggestion. :)
 
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Certainly, he did not use all these men to fight at the Hydaspes River, as Arrian has only 30,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry fighting for Alexander at the Battle of the Hydaspes.
Ask yourself: Why didn't Alexander use his "100 000 soldiers" in this crucial battle? Why did he use only 38 000 warriors instead?

Was it an utter contempt of his Indian formidable adversary?
Was he stupid not to wait for the reinforcements which you claim he had at hand?

I think the answer is simple - Alexander had only 38 000 combatants in India whom he could gather together in one place for the battle.

I have yet to see anyone claim that Xerxes' invasion force was 50,000 men or smaller.
Hans Delbrück was one of the first modern military historians, basing his method of research on the critical examination of ancient sources, the use of auxiliary disciplines.
A hundred years ago he came to the conclusion that Xerxes' invasion force was about 20-30 thousand men or smaller.
Delbrück showed that the figures for armies in antiquity were inflated in the original sources, and that, contrary to what is stated in most writings, the winner in a battle usually had more troops than the loser.
 
Russian you are stealing the magic and glory of this timeline. Continue to assault us with your insane amount of logistics and I'll boycott you.
 
Ask yourself: Why didn't Alexander use his "100 000 soldiers" in this crucial battle? Why did he use only 38 000 warriors instead?

Was it an utter contempt of his Indian formidable adversary?
Was he stupid not to wait for the reinforcements which you claim he had at hand?

I think the answer is simple - Alexander had only 38 000 combatants in India whom he could gather together in one place for the battle.

Again - I don't know how many times I have to say this - I don't buy that Alexander's army was 120,000 in India. As I said before, Engels doesn't account for attrition beyond losses in battle, which I think over time results in an exaggerated total for the army. The point I've been trying to make is that the army's size was over 50,000 men.

As to why an army of over 50,000 wasn't used at the Hydaspes River... well, there are several points why the army for the battle wouldn't have been at full strength: disease (which really would've been rampant in India), injuries, and an inability gather literally every healthy man he had for the battle.

In addition... Arrian is the source for both the 38,000 Macedonians in the battle, and 120,000 during the campaign. Why would he add 82,000 men for no reason? Granted, I haven't read Indica (I should), but I assume that there is some reasoning for claiming a larger amount for the overall campaign than the number in the battle.

Hans Delbrück was one of the first modern military historians, basing his method of research on the critical examination of ancient sources, the use of auxiliary disciplines.
A hundred years ago he came to the conclusion that Xerxes' invasion force was about 20-30 thousand men or smaller.
Delbrück showed that the figures for armies in antiquity were inflated in the original sources, and that, contrary to what is stated in most writings, the winner in a battle usually had more troops than the loser.

Well I'll have to give you credit, though he seems to disagree with nearly everyone. I presume you accept that estimation?

katchen said:
I'm not sure how dry the climate was 2200 years ago in the Persian Gulf but IOTL, providing water for thousands of troops on the West side of the Persian Gulf is a logistical nightmare when they move. Saddam Hussein had to roll out huge long fire hoses to keep his troops watered when they invaded Kuwait. And we had challenges with Desert Shield and Desert Storm. 50,000 or 12,000, this army moves 10 miles a day and needs a lot of water. There's water at Gerrha and probably not a lot until Abu Dhabi. Then it gets better at Dubai and what we call Oman and through the Monsoon scrublands along the Arabian Sea to Hadramut. But those scrublands can hide quite a few fighters, as the Australians who fought Communist guerrillas found out in 1968.
Then once Alexander gets to Hadramut, there is another distraction. It seems there are a few cities in a place called Punt on the other side of the Gulf of Aden that can't exactly be ignored. Fortunately he has a navy to ferry troops to go after them. But it all takes more time. and is a bit more complicated than he thought it would be....

Oh absolutely; the logistics are pretty tricky with 50,000, but utterly nightmarish with 70,000. It seems that Alexander put quite a bit of thought into it - namely in learning when the wind would be favorable for the fleet to supply the army - but even with the fleet helping, it's a lot of food and water to depend on being imported every single day. It's really, really nightmarish logistics; there are definitely reasons why the Romans and other powers didn't conquer the peninsula.

However, now that I think about it, didn't the Sassanids control most of the Arabian Peninsula for a time? How did that come around? (I'm not much for Sassanid history :eek:)

EDIT: I recognized the name Hans Delbruck, but I couldn't figure out where from, until I now realized that that was from Young Frankenstein! :D Great movie.

More importantly though, I'll have to go and read his book on ancient warfare sometime.
 
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A
sk yourself: Why didn't Alexander use his "100 000 soldiers" in this crucial battle? Why did he use only 38 000 warriors instead?

Was it an utter contempt of his Indian formidable adversary?
Was he stupid not to wait for the reinforcements which you claim he had at hand?

I think the answer is simple - Alexander had only 38 000 combatants in India whom he could gather together in one place for the battle.

It is my understanding that logistics dictated the number of troops Alexander could have potentially used at Hydaspes. Please understand that Alexander had to march the bulk of his forces all night in the middle of a monsoon thunder storm and then cross a river at flood levels- just in order to position himself to be in a position to do battle (and not to give away his location or intentions to the enemy at the same time). So how does he do that with more troops? I believe he used just 38k because that is the most he could have used given the circumstances. So my guess is that he chose to go with his best and/or most experienced 38k troops as a result.

BTW, if Alexanders troops had not rebelled/mutinied and the campaign in India had continued to the extent that he was able to confront the Nanda Empire (and their rumored huge armies) then I can see the 100k+ army being of more use.
 
EDIT: I recognized the name Hans Delbruck...
More importantly though, I'll have to go and read his book on ancient warfare sometime.
Oh, his book Warfare in Antiquity is a must for every fan of military history. That is a definitive work on the subject.
It is not dull, it's a fascinating, un-downable book.
You can preview it on Google Books.

Or you can buy it on Amazon.com

I promise that after reading this book you will laugh your ass off every time when you see huge astronomical numbers of ancient armies in the sources :)
 
A

It is my understanding that logistics dictated the number of troops Alexander could have potentially used at Hydaspes. Please understand that Alexander had to march the bulk of his forces all night in the middle of a monsoon thunder storm and then cross a river at flood levels- just in order to position himself to be in a position to do battle (and not to give away his location or intentions to the enemy at the same time). So how does he do that with more troops? I believe he used just 38k because that is the most he could have used given the circumstances. So my guess is that he chose to go with his best and/or most experienced 38k troops as a result.

BTW, if Alexanders troops had not rebelled/mutinied and the campaign in India had continued to the extent that he was able to confront the Nanda Empire (and their rumored huge armies) then I can see the 100k+ army being of more use.

Oh, his book Warfare in Antiquity is a must for every fan of military history. That is a definitive work on the subject.
It is not dull, it's a fascinating, un-downable book.
You can preview it on Google Books.

Or you can buy it on Amazon.com

I promise that after reading this book you will laugh your ass off every time when you see huge astronomical numbers of ancient armies in the sources :)

Well, I have bought it, along with Indica and a couple other books; I look forward to reading it. :cool:

For now though, I maintain my position. An army's size depends on where it is and the relationship the army has with the locals (as well as obvious things like available manpower and organization); the great rivers of India can support much larger armies, whereas the desert sands of Arabia cannot.

OK, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try and figure out, pencil and paper style, the best way for Alexander to get 70,000 troops (plus another 20,000 servants, and a few thousand animals) around the Arab Peninsula without straying from known plans; I'll then rewrite the first three updates and throw them all back on here in one giant post. I won't make a new thread. We'll then go from there, pretending this whole mess never happened.

So I've spent the last couple days looking at this... and I think I want to do a full-scale reboot. Readers of my timelines are probably rather frustrated with my propensity to start, stop, and restart timelines... I am too. But I want to get it right, from the start. (the funny thing is, AH timelines are about the only thing I get perfectionist about :rolleyes:) The next one will be all or nothing; no more restarting, I promise. Expect the reboot to be up in mid-to-late July or so; I hope when it does restart, all the readers of this timeline (and maybe more? :p) will read that one too. Thanks everyone for the kind comments and constructive criticism, I really, really appreciate it.
 
Can't wait for the reboot. Also, I still don't get the idea that 100,000 man armies were impossible. The Nanda as mentioned above, had armies about that size, and even in civil wars the Romans had armies well over 50,000, and this coming after the third century crisis...
 
Can't wait for the reboot. Also, I still don't get the idea that 100,000 man armies were impossible. The Nanda as mentioned above, had armies about that size, and even in civil wars the Romans had armies well over 50,000, and this coming after the third century crisis...
Don't forget the Warring States from Ancient China, which were reputed to have armies in the 400k to 600k range.
 
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Monopolist might restart this timeline pretty soon. It will be our task to keep him on track, as he "has problems staying on track after a month or so", end quote. Let's help him out guys! ;)
 

ctayfor

Monthly Donor
I have just finished reading this and hope it continues. I like how it has gone thus far and hope that only a few tweaks are necessary to make the logistics realistic. Do we know the size of the navy and its capacity regarding food and water?

I can picture most of the Macedonian and Greek troops wearing the large straw hat known as petasos which, with the addition of wings, is associated with Hermes, and was the model for one type of cavalry helmet. That simple measure would be quite literally a life-saver if worn consistently when not actually in battle.

As far as bilingual troops are concerned, look a the Indian Army of the Raj. Indian troops were commanded by British officers and became very efficient. The officers were encouraged to learn Hindi (the junior officers were really encouraged) or Bengali or whatever, and the only native troops who received promotion to NCO ranks (and occasionally even officer rank) were those who showed a talent for picking up a good command of English quickly.

Also, bear in mind that fighting in formation on an ancient battlefield involves a limited number of standard commands which can be picked up relatively quickly and is quite different from the wide range of possibilities in a modern battle environment, such as was faced by the Soviet Army, for example. Thus it is not beyond the range of possibility to create an efficient unit with a bilingual basis. After all, only key personnel need be functionally bilingual, not every man. With men who trained together for a couple of years, there should be no practical problems.

A friend of my father, who was born in the Netherlands, emigrated with his family to New Zealand when he was 18. Very shortly after their arrival, he joined the Royal New Zealand Navy. He spoke no English at the time and was assigned a roommate who was expected to make him functionally fluent in six months. They succeeded and he eventually retired as a Commander. Just as an aside, the roommate was an immigrant too, from Canada and Dad's friend was never able to lose his Canadian accent.:p
 
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