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Mystic
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Topic: If Alexander had faced a unified Indian empire Posted: 01-Jun-2005 at 22:18 |
Although Alexander retired undefeated, one can argue that the main
reason for such was because he had died early at the ripe age of 32.
His furthest conquest as everyone know was a northwestern Indian state
which by many historians agree proved to be his toughest. But what if
Alexander had faced a unified India? My bet is he would have been
crushed the way he should have been. If anyone reads furthers into
history, Alexander's general Seleucus who had followed Alexander in all
of his early conquest and had inherited the Asian portion of
Alexander's empire had a dream to conquer the whole Indian
subcontinent, however the problem was that the Indian subcontinent was
unified for the first time under the Mauryan empire in which the
Macedonians were easily defeated. While Seleucus was nowhere near the
commander that Alexander he was, it should be noted that he still used
the same Macedonian tactics that Alexander had used but was crushed by
united Indian empire. My argument then is that if Alexander had lived
longer and if he had dared to venture further into India and eventually
Mongolia or China, he would have easily been crushed. To be honest,
Alexander is pretty overrated if you ask me. The only thing Alexander
ever did was overthrow the Persian empire. He was a great military
commander but defeating an incompotent Persian leader under Darius who
had an army of subjected people unmotivated to fight for him is really
not all that impressive. Also keep in mind, it was his father Philip
who reformed the Macedonian military tactics. Alexander simply
inherited it after his father died.
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strategos
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Posted: 01-Jun-2005 at 22:36 |
I think after he took over part of India, his next conquest i heard was of Arabia, i do not think he was going to go much further.
Anyways, you are talking of a huge unified place, while alexanders army was still far away from Hellas.. he could not raise as many men as perhaps the Unified India could of
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Perseas
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Posted: 02-Jun-2005 at 11:38 |
Mystic,
You start from a false premise. You are assuming somehow, just because Mauryan empire defeated Seleukos army there would be the same result with Alexander.
Its the same faulty logic to assume from the other side that just because Alexander defeated Poros he would defeat easily every Indian army OR as i have heard elsewhere, just because much later, Phillip V was using the same macedonian tactics against Romans and they crushed him, they would have done the same with Alexander.
All these leaders, even if they used the same tactics didnt shared the same military skills and in fact Seleukos and Phillip V were extremely inferior in comparison with Alexander's authentic military talent. Remember also back in that times, a leader's military brilliance during a battle was perhaps the most determinant factor for the outcome of a battle and Alexander had proved it in many battles.
I also dont see the point, if i was in Alexander's shoes, why should i march against a large and well-trained army like the Mauryans. I would simply used diplomacy by bribing one or two Indian leaders and turn them against Mauryans. Remember greed is always one very effective weapon.
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Anujkhamar
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Posted: 02-Jun-2005 at 17:11 |
I reckon Alexander would have lost and sources say that he knew it. He
found it was difficult to defeat Porus, and there were larger more
stronger indian nations at the time.
Indian's were too numorous to be conquered as a whole, even around the
time of alexander we had 1/3 of the worlds population living within our
borders.
If Alexander faced a unified India he would loose and be forced to hand over the eastern parts of his empire.
edit: although this website is a bit extreme it is interesting to read (don't let it take over the thread though):
http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/miscarti cles/ato.html
Edited by Anujkhamar
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vulkan02
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Posted: 02-Jun-2005 at 18:00 |
Originally posted by strategos
I think after he took over part of India, his
next conquest i heard was of Arabia, i do not think he was going to go
much further.
Anyways, you are talking of a huge unified place, while alexanders
army was still far away from Hellas.. he could not raise as many men as
perhaps the Unified India could of |
i thought he wanted to conquer the west, Italian Peninsula, Dinaric region etc
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Mystic
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Posted: 02-Jun-2005 at 18:13 |
I somehow doubt Alexander would have tried to use diplomacy to defeat the Mauryans but that's just a personal opinion. Anyways in response to your comment, I believe I made it clear that Seleucus was not the commander Alexander was. However he did undoubtedly use the same tactics the Macedonians did in all of their conquests. Say whatever you want about Alexander's military brilliance, I don't deny it but my contention still remains the same. Alexander had difficulty defeating a single Indian state. While I do agree that he would have undoubtedly put up a better fight than Seleucus, judging by the larger massive Indian army and their more numerous war elephants he would have been crushed. Personally I think Alexander's early death was perhaps the greatest thing to happen to him as it saved him face as an undefeated military leader. Had he continued to push towards India against the Chandragupta Maurya or further into Mongolia against the Xiongnu or China, he most likely would have been easily defeated.
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Berosus
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Posted: 03-Jun-2005 at 08:42 |
Alexander was in the Punjab, near modern Delhi, when his troops forced
him to turn around. If he had gone much farther, he would have
reached Magadha, which at the time controlled the entire Ganges
valley. Never mind the Mauryans; their predecessor state would
have been nearly as tough, in my opinion. With an estimated
population of 25 million, Magadha had more people than any other state
at that time, more than even the Persians (China was split into warring
states at the time, and would remain so for another century).
Therefore, if Alexander had kept going with his overextended army, I
believe he would have suffered his first (and presumably last) defeat.
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Mystic
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Posted: 03-Jun-2005 at 15:22 |
The way I see it is Alexander had two choices, he could have continued
marching south towards the Indian subcontinent and face off against
much larger and stronger Indian states or he could have continued
further east into modern day Mongolia facing off hordes of Xiongnu and
if he somehow miraculously gets past them then it would a bloodthirsty
warring state China. None of these options would have been too bright
for him.
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EvilNed
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Posted: 04-Jun-2005 at 12:12 |
As for the Mongolian option, Alexander had fought, and defeated, cavalry heavy armies (including cavalry archers) before.
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Yiannis
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Posted: 05-Jun-2005 at 05:52 |
Let's not forget that the effective range of a cavalry archer of the time was 50m. Alexander used non-Greek (I believe they were from the eastern part of the ex-Persian empire) cavalry archers (Hippotoxotes), against Porus in the battle of Hydaspes, but mainly as a diversion.
As we see he was able to engage different types of troops according to the type of war he was conducting and to the terrain and type of enemy he was facing. A main example of the above was his campaign against Spitamenes, when he had to face a guerilla war, instead of big scale battles.
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Nikas
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Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 21:58 |
Besides Seleucus, there is another not so well known Greek general that may shed some light on martial relations between the Successors and the Indians. From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
MENANDER (MILINDA), a Graeco-Indian dynast. When the Graeco-Indian king Demetrius had been beaten by Eucratides of Bactria, about 160 B.C., and the kingdom of Eucratides (q.v.) dissolved after his assassination (c. 150 n.e.), a Greek dynasty maintained itself in the Kabul Valley and the Punjab. The only two kings of this dynasty mentioned by classical authors are Apollodotus and Menander, who conquered a great part of India. Trogus Pompeius described in his forty-first book (see the prologue) the Indian history of these kings, Apollodotus and Menander, and Strabo, Xi. 516, mentions from Apollodotus of Artemita, the historian of the Parthians, that Menander conquered more tribes than Alexander, as he crossed the Hypanis to the east and advanced to the Isamus; he and other kings (especially Demetrius) occupied also Patalene (the district of Patala near Hyderabad on the head of the delta of the Indus) and the coast which is called the district of Saraostes (i.e. Syrastene, in mod. Gujarat, Brahman Saurashtra) and the kingdom of Sigerdis (not otherwise known); and they extended their dominion to the Seres (i.e. the Chinese) and Phryni (?). The last statement is an exaggeration, probably based upon the fact that from the mouth of the Indus trade went as far as China.
That the old coins of Apollodotus and Menander, with Greek legends, were still in currency in Barygaza (mod. Broach), the great port of Gujarat, about A.D. 70 we are told by the Periplus mans Erythraei, 48. We possess many of these coins, which follow the Indian standard and are artistically degenerate as compared with the earlier Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Indian coins, with bilingual legends (Greek and Kharoshti, see BACTRIA). Apollodotus, who must have been the earlier of the two kings, bears the titles Soter, Philopator, and Great King ; Menander, who must have reigned a long time, as his portrait is young on some coins and old on others, calls himself Soter and Just (~LKmoc). Their reigns may be placed about 14080 B.C. Menander appears in Indian traditions as Milinda; he is praised by the Buddhists, whose religion he is said to have adopted, and who in the Miuindapanha or Milinda Paho (see below), the questions of Milinda (Rhys Davids, Sacred Books of the East, 35., 36.) relate his discourses with the wise Nagasena. According to the Indians, the Greeks conquered Ayodbya and Pataliputra (Palimbothra, mod. Patna); so the conjecture of Cunningham that the river Isamus of Strabo is the Son, the great southern tributary of the Ganges (near Patna), may be true. The Buddhists praise the power and military, force, the energy and wisdom of Milinda ; and a Greek tradition preserved by Plutarch (Praec. reip. ger. 28, 6) relates that when Menander, one of the Bactrian kings, died on a campaign after a mild rule, all the subject towns disputed about the honor of his burial, till at last his ashes were divided between them in equal parts. (The Buddhist tradition relates a similar story of the relics of Buddha.) Besides Apollodotus and Menander, we know from the coins a great many other Greek kings of western India, among whom two with the name of Straton are most conspicuous. The last of them, with degenerate coins, seems to have been Hermaeus Soter. These Greek dynasts may have maintained themselves, in some part of India till about 40 B.c. But at this time the west, Kabul and the Punjab were already in the hands of a barbarous dynasty,, most of whom have Iranian (Parthian) names, and who seem therefore to have been of Arsacid origin (cf. Vincent A. Smith, The Indo-Parthian Dynasties from about I20 B.C. to A.D. 100, in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlndischen Gesellschaft, 1906, lx. 69 sqq.). Among them Manes, two kings named Azes, Vonones and especially Gondophares or }fyndophares are the most conspicuous. The latter, whose date is fixed by an inscription from the Kabul Valley dated from the year 103 of the Samvat era ( = A.D. 46), is famous by the legend of St Thomas, where he occurs as king of India under the name of Gundaphar. Soon afterwards the Mongolian Scyths (called Saka by the Indians), who had conquered Bactria in 139 s.c., invaded India and founded the great Indo-Scythian kingdom of the Kushan dynasty. (See BACTRIA;
Edited by Nikas
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Raider
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Posted: 13-Jun-2005 at 08:19 |
In my opinion Alexander did not want to conquer India which was way to far to be ruled or support the troops. Poros was defeated but he could keep his kingdom. I think Alexander was gonig to create a zone of vassal states around his empire.
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GENERAL PARMENION
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Posted: 20-Jun-2005 at 10:56 |
If Alexander had faced a unified Indian Army , he would most propably follow a different strategy. He was not an idiot , a genius is a rather more suitable word. He would have crushed them one way or another.
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Anujkhamar
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Posted: 20-Jun-2005 at 12:10 |
Originally posted by GENERAL PARMENION
If Alexander had faced a unified Indian Army ,
he would most propably follow a different strategy. He was not an idiot
, a genius is a rather more suitable word. He would have crushed them
one way or another. |
and the general's of the indian kingdoms weren't idiots either, what's to stop them changing strategy?
As I said before, in that timeframe 1/4 to 1/5 of all people on this
planet lived in India at the time, conquest would have been imposible.
Edited by Anujkhamar
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GENERAL PARMENION
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Posted: 21-Jun-2005 at 05:07 |
Originally posted by Anujkhamar
Originally posted by GENERAL PARMENION
If Alexander had faced a unified Indian Army , he would most propably follow a different strategy. He was not an idiot , a genius is a rather more suitable word. He would have crushed them one way or another. |
and the general's of the indian kingdoms weren't idiots either, what's to stop them changing strategy?
As I said before, in that timeframe 1/4 to 1/5 of all people on this planet lived in India at the time, conquest would have been imposible.
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The number of inhabitants in a land are not the problem when someone is trying to invade that land. Powerful military power , high quality weaponary and above all capable generals are far more important. Exacly what the Greeks had , to far higher extend , than the Indians.
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Lannes
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Posted: 21-Jun-2005 at 10:39 |
Originally posted by GENERAL PARMENION
The number of inhabitants in a land are not the problem when someone is trying to invade that land. Powerful military power , high quality weaponary and above all capable generals are far more important. Exacly what the Greeks had , to far higher extend , than the Indians. |
The Nandas had created a huge professional army. Greek sources claim it at 200,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, 3,000 elephants, and 2,000 chariots! And there was no huge technological gap between the two like you seem to be suggesting.
Edited by Lannes
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τρέφεται δέ, ὤ Σώκρατης, ψυχὴ τίνι;
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Anujkhamar
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Posted: 21-Jun-2005 at 14:00 |
Yep, Lannes beat me too it.
Funilly enough i've never heard of you Lannes, how did i miss your posts?!
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Mystic
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Posted: 21-Jun-2005 at 20:59 |
Hell screw the unified Indian empire like the Mauryans, just one of the
stronger Indian Maghada states further south itself would have been
enough to repel Alexander.
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Mythos_Ruler
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Posted: 21-Jun-2005 at 22:43 |
I don't think Alexander would have even tried. Someone else said it
best when they suggested he would have surrounded the empire with
vassal/buffer states instead.
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GENERAL PARMENION
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Posted: 22-Jun-2005 at 06:43 |
Originally posted by Lannes
Originally posted by GENERAL PARMENION
The number of inhabitants in a land are not the problem when someone is trying to invade that land. Powerful military power , high quality weaponary and above all capable generals are far more important. Exacly what the Greeks had , to far higher extend , than the Indians. |
The Nandas had created a huge professional army. Greek sources claim it at 200,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, 3,000 elephants, and 2,000 chariots! And there was no huge technological gap between the two like you seem to be suggesting.
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Oh yes ! , there was a gap. The only thing Alexander would have to seriously deal with where the elephants. The rest of the indian army was not a match for the Greeks. And come to think of it , Alexander faced elephants for the first time in his life in the battle of Hydaspes. He made a good laugh out of them ! Imagine what would happen if he was prepared for such a clash.
The man was invincible , so stop all that stuff " if that " , " if this " , " had Alexander faced a unified Indian , Chinese , Martian..e.t.c. army "
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"There is no doubt, that Macedonians were Greeks."
(Robin Lane Fox "Historian-Author" In Interview with newspaper TO BHMA)
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