The world's leading conquerors : $b Alexander the Great, Cæsar, Charles the Great, the Ottoman sultans, the Spanish conquistadors, NapoleonBevan, Wilson Lloyd
History
The world's leading conquerors : $b Alexander the Great, Cæsar, Charles the Great, the Ottoman sultans, the Spanish conquistadors, Napoleon
Bevan, Wilson Lloyd
History; Kings and rulers
The old campaigning schedule, which consisted in ravaging the enemy’s
territory for a few months, a set battle in the open country, and
a withdrawal to winter quarters, was no longer observed. If the
Macedonian king did not find his enemy in the field, he besieged his
towns, using siege engines to bring him to terms. Summer and winter
were alike used for operations when the old array of citizen amateur
soldiers had given place to the professional fighters. Alexander’s
victories were won not only on the battlefield, but through the quick
following up of his victories; the enemies’ power of resistance was
annihilated by the rapidity with which a defeated army was pursued and
never allowed a chance to gather itself together again after it was
beaten. These cavalry marches in the rear of a retreating enemy, or the
suddenly delivered attacks on a foe preparing to resist, attacks made
irrespective of mountains and deserts, were as military achievements no
less remarkable than the set battles and the sieges of strongly walled
cities and citadels. Supremely characteristic of Alexander’s strategy
was the pursuit after the battle of Gaugamela, when numbers of horses
fell on the road from exhaustion.
As a general, Alexander did great deeds and did them in an heroic
style. He was a warrior distinguished by personal bravery, filled with
the ardor of combat, eager to be in the thickest of the fight, and
yet the physical passion of the fighter in no way dulled the acute
intelligence of the general, or made him indifferent to the mastery of
details in preparing for battle or in following a victory up after it
had been won. He showed strategical knowledge in approaching the enemy
and knew how to overcome the natural difficulties in his way. So we
see him unhesitatingly marching through narrow defiles and organizing
different classes of troops according to the changing conditions which
confronted him. He showed high capacity in selecting his base, in
looking after his communications, in providing for and provisioning his
men. When all was ready, and not before, these cautious provisions gave
place to the impetuous onslaught in battle and the untiring pursuit
of the defeated enemy. But the duties of generalship, complicated as
they were, were not allowed to interfere with the “joy of fighting.”
Alexander in every fight led his cavalry in person; whenever a breach
was made in a fortification he was in the first rank; whenever a town
was taken he was the first to scale the wall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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