Alexander the Great
The Conquests of Alexander the GreatOne of the greatest and most successful generals in all of history was Alexander the Great. He was a brilliant, patient and often devious man that never struck without careful planning. Alexander make decisions with great speed and took extraordinary risks, his success was achieved by his show of sheer force and will to overcome. During his lifetime, he defeated the Persians and Greeks, conquered Egypt and Asia Minor, and secured the Mediterranean Sea. Alexander was born in 356 BC to King Phillip II and his wife Olympias. In the summer of 336 BC Phillip was assassinated, and Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne. He found himself surrounded by enemies from near and far, and disposed of these people by ordering their execution. He quickly marched to Thessaly, where partisans of independence had gained ascendancy, and restored Macedonian rule. By the end of the summer he had re-established his position in Greece, and was elected head of the Greek forces for a war against Persia by a congress of states in Corinith.Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 BC by crossing the Hellespont with an army of 50,000 troops from Macedonia and Greek City states (Milns, 45)
Now, at last, Alexander was officially the great king of Persia. Alexander expected to reach Ocean and explore it as the climax of his long campaign. In his new role he headed east to take possession of the remaining Persian provinces and after two long years he reached and subdued Bactria and Sogdiana. Nevertheless, the ingeniousness tactics and strategies that he created brought him the great success that he rightfully deserved. At the river Granicus, near the ancient city of Troy, he attacked and slaughtered an army of Persian and Greek mercenaries, according to tradition, lost only 110 men. During the intervening two years since the battle of Issus, Darius had assembled some 25,000 horseman from his eastern satrapies, an untold number of infantry, 200 scythed chariots, and even 15 elephants. Following his glorified success at Issus, Alexander set his sights further south into Phoenicia and on Tyre, a strongly fortified seaport that was on an island half a mile from the shore. Continuing south, Alexander encountered the main and much larger Persian army at a mountain pass near the city of Issus, commanded by King Darius III. With Darius dead, Alexander could now freely move into Egypt. His siege on Tyre lasted seven months, during which he built a solid causeway over the water, half a mile long and two hundred feet wide along with siege towers 150 feet in height (Milns, 90). In December of the same year he entered the summer capital at Susa. Both cities were taken relatively quickly and without major problems. He treated his captures with both dignity and respect which enabled him to maintain order for so long. His adversary was the Indian King, Porus, whose army was several times larger than Alexander's and superbly trained.
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