Alexander the Great Occupier
More than 2,300 years ago, Alexander the Great and a pan-Hellenic army conquered the Persian empire in less than a decade, never losing a battle. Before he died at the age of 32, Alexander ruled an empire that extended from Greece to India.
As we anticipate how Alexander will be brought to life again in a film that opens today, it is worth considering not only how Alexander won his major battles but how he achieved the strategic victory of being accepted as the legitimate ruler of Asia.
Some have argued that Alexander was so successful in battle because the Persian empire was in decline and King Darius III relied on poorly motivated mercenaries. But the Persian empire on the eve of Alexander's conquest was actually a well-organized and lucrative imperial enterprise. Moreover, its kings had long employed mercenaries who usually fought very well. Rather, Alexander's tactical vision and the fighting qualities of the Macedonian soldiers were the keys to his victories.
At the decisive battle of Gaugamela (near Mosul in modern Iraq) in 331 BC, for instance, the primary danger to the Macedonians was that they would be enveloped by the numerically superior Persian cavalry on the open plain of the battlefield. Identifying the threat, Alexander arrayed the Macedonians in an unprecedented hollow, rectangular formation. From that formation the Macedonians could repel attacks from any direction. The well-trained and motivated Macedonian infantry fought with ferocious determination until Alexander himself led the decisive cavalry charge into the enemy line. The outcome was the annihilation of Darius' million-man army. Only Napoleon has rivaled Alexander's incredible ability to read the topography of a battlefield.
However, it is Alexander's strategic victory over the Persian officers and governors who led an insurgency campaign against him (after they murdered Darius within a year of the Persian defeat) that may be most enlightening.
Because they were not strong enough to fight Alexander's army in a set-piece battle, the rebel governors retreated into one of the eastern provinces, where they initiated a guerrilla war. After hitting Alexander's forces, the insurgents would scamper up into the mountains or flee across the Jaxartes River (modern Syr Darya). There they found aid and comfort among sympathetic nomads.
