What if Alexander the Great survived and tried again in India?

What if Alexander not only lived longer, but tried again in India? How long would he have to wait to gather a large enough army? He was young enough (32) at his death that he could wait a whole generation if necessary, and still would have been able to lead troops.
 
He had an army at the ready but at his death it was prepared to Invade Arabia (he was actually about to take command of it when he fell ill) so you have to wait until his Arabian campaign is over then find an excuse for him no to I are Carthage and instead turn to India, which shouldn't be hard.

He had a huge fleet he was building in Egypt so if you can get that to the other side onto the Red Sea that would be of grest help.
 
What if Alexander not only lived longer, but tried again in India? How long would he have to wait to gather a large enough army? He was young enough (32) at his death that he could wait a whole generation if necessary, and still would have been able to lead troops.

It would be more like having to create a whole new army, since the troops he had were his fathers army.

Literally his father army, ie the same men his father recruited when he was a young king, and therefore some of them were grandfathers by the time they reached India. That is one big reason they demanded to go home, men in their 50's and 60's made up the majority of many units.

So the army Alexander would have with him would be recruited from his new empire, and he actually WAS creating a new Hellenistic army of Persian recruits. His Macedonian troops were insulted when the first regiment of them turned up, but any new war would be fought by Persians and others trained in the Macedonian way of war.

Alexander therefore would not have to wait a generation, since he already had new regiments arriving and old ones leaving to go home to Macedonia and see their grandchildren. He and his senior officers - the guys he had gone to school with - had married Persians as part of his plan to create a coherent empire. Continuing his conquests after a wait for enough new regiments to replace the old ones leaving would help with his long term stabilisation plan.

Continued expansion would mean the newly conquored areas providing the resources to support new wars. To 'make war feed war' as it is sometimes called, and india was wealthy and populous enough to do that. So if Alexander does not die after reaching India but pauses, renews his army with new regiments of Imperial citizens replacing the old Macedonians going home, he and his officers Persian wives giving them families - instead of being instantly divorced/murdered at the start of the civil war fought by his generals after Alexanders death - we have an entirely new world.

A world where Alexander the Great's empire maybe actually survived him rather then his generals responding to his death by hunting down his wife and son, murdering them and then declaring war on each other. That would be a different world with butterflies the size of Mothra.
 
It would be more like having to create a whole new army, since the troops he had were his fathers army.

Literally his father army, ie the same men his father recruited when he was a young king, and therefore some of them were grandfathers by the time they reached India. That is one big reason they demanded to go home, men in their 50's and 60's made up the majority of many units.

So the army Alexander would have with him would be recruited from his new empire, and he actually WAS creating a new Hellenistic army of Persian recruits. His Macedonian troops were insulted when the first regiment of them turned up, but any new war would be fought by Persians and others trained in the Macedonian way of war..
Mostly, but not entirely. Many of those same Macedonians would fight in the wars of the successors for the next 20 years. It really doesn't sound like they wanted to go home, just that they wanted nothing to do with India anymore.
 
That would be a different world with butterflies the size of Mothra.

Second Mothra reference I've seen recently :p

Also, what kind of effects do we think an Arabia ruled by Alexander would have had on the development of Islam? Alexander predated Islam by what... nine hundred years? What about Christianity? What kind of effects would extended Macedonian rule in the Levant have had on the Abrahamic religions?
 
Well, those religions simply wouldn't exist. And, really, I doubt Alexander would succesfully rule over all of Arabia. The south-eastern parts would probably go on more or less independently, for one. Who's going to stop them, when there's a whole desert between them and Mesopotamia?
 
Second Mothra reference I've seen recently :p

Also, what kind of effects do we think an Arabia ruled by Alexander would have had on the development of Islam? Alexander predated Islam by what... nine hundred years? What about Christianity? What kind of effects would extended Macedonian rule in the Levant have had on the Abrahamic religions?

OTL, Macedonian direct rule in the Levant lasted over 200 years under the Seleucids. Even the independent Hasmonean kingdoms that rose in the aftermath of the Maccabean revolt were deeply influenced by Hellenistic culture and the Roman rule that followed was itself, of course, deeply influenced by Greek thought. All of this did have an impact on Judaism as we know it. Hellenistic science, logic and philosophy all made their mark in a period that saw many changes in normative Judaism and ultimately led to the rabbinic Judaism that we recognize today.

If Alexander's successors did maintain rule for even longer in the region and possibly controlled Arabia, I don't see it obvious that other monotheistic religions would necessarily be butterflied away. Perhaps they wouldn't be called Christianity or Islam but perhaps something analogous, even recognizable.
 
Well, those religions simply wouldn't exist. And, really, I doubt Alexander would succesfully rule over all of Arabia. The south-eastern parts would probably go on more or less independently, for one. Who's going to stop them, when there's a whole desert between them and Mesopotamia?

You're probably exactly right.

Nope!:D

Well, only partly nope.:p

I would say argue that there is still a very good chance that a religion called Christianity could shoot out of Judaism anyway, even with Alexander going strong.

Since Christ just means annointed, and is a translation of Messiah (meaning the same thing) any evangelizing religion with Judaism as its base that converts lots of Hellenistic peoples might have Christianity as its name.

I mean, hey, the ALT and OTL religion might only have the name in common, but there might still be a Christianity...
 
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