The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: from Marathon to WaterlooCreasy, Edward Shepherd, Sir
History
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: from Marathon to Waterloo
Creasy, Edward Shepherd, Sir
Battles
therefore hold that such a man, who was like no ordinary mortal was not
born into the world without some special providence." [Arrian, lib. vii.
AD FINEM.]
And one of the most distinguished soldiers and writers of our own
nation, Sir Walter Raleigh, though he failed to estimate justly the full
merits of Alexander, has expressed his sense of the grandeur of the part
played in the world by "The Great Emathian Conqueror" in language that
well deserves quotation:--"So much hath the spirit of some one man
excelled as it hath undertaken and effected the alteration of the
greatest states and commonwealths, the erection of monarchies, the
conquest of kingdoms and empires, guided handfuls of men against
multitudes of equal bodily strength, contrived victories beyond all
hope and discourse of reason, converted the fearful passions of his
own followers into magnanimity, and the valour of his enemies into
cowardice; such spirits have been stirred up in sundry ages of the
world, and in divers parts thereof, to erect and cast down again, to
establish and to destroy, and to bring all things, persons, and states
to the same certain ends, which the infinite spirit of the UNIVERSAL,
piercing, moving, and governing all things, hath ordained. Certainly,
the things that this king did were marvellous, and would hardly have
been undertaken by any one else: and though his father had determined
to have invaded the Lesser Asia, it is like that he would have contented
himself with some part thereof, and not have discovered the river of
Indus, as this man did." ["The Historie of the World," by Sir Walter
Raleigh, Knight, p. 628.]
A higher authority than either Arrian or Raleigh may now be referred to
by those who wish to know the real merit of Alexander as a general, and
how far the commonplace assertions are true, that his successes were the
mere results of fortunate rashness and unreasoning pugnacity, Napoleon
selected Alexander as one of the seven greatest generals whose noble
deeds history has handed down to us, and from the study of whose
campaigns the principles of war are to be learned. The critique of the
greatest conqueror of modern times on the military career of the great
conqueror of the old world, is no less graphic than true.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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