WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.

Great reliance had been placed by the Persian king on the effect of the scythe-bearing chariots. It was designed to launch these against the Macedonian phalanx, and to follow them up by a heavy charge of cavalry, which, it was hoped, would find the ranks of the spearmen disordered by the rush of the chariots, and easily destroy this most formidable part of Alexander's force. In front, therefore, of the Persian center, where Darius took his station, and which it was supposed the phalanx would attack, the ground had been carefully leveled and smoothed, so as to allow the chariots to charge over it with their full sweep and speed.

As the Macedonian army approached the Hersian, Alexander found that the front of his whole line barely equaled the front line of the Persian center, so that he was outflanked on the right by the entire left wing of the enemy, and by their entire right wing on the left.

His tactics were to assail some one point of the hostile army, and gain a decisive advantage, while he refused, as far as possible the encounter along the rest of the line. He therefore inclined his order of march to the right, so as to enable his right wing and center to come into collision with the enemy on as favorable terms as possible, although the maneuver might in some respect compromise his left.

The effect of this oblique movement was to bring the phalanx and his own wing nearly beyond the limits of the ground which the Persians had prepared for the operations of the chariots; and Darius, fearing to lose the benefit of this arm against the most important parts of the Macedonian force, ordered the Scythian and Bactrian cavalry, who were drawn up in advance on his extreme left, to charge round upon Alexander's right wing, and check its further lateral progress. Against these assailants Alexander sent from his second line Menidas's cavalry.

As these proved too few to make head against the enemy, he ordered Ariston also from the second line with his light horse, and Oleander with his foot, in support of Menidas.

The Bactrians and Scythians now began to give way, out Darius re-enforced them by the mass of Bactrian cavalry from his main line, and an obstinate cavalry fight now took place. The Bactrians and Scythians were numerous, and were better armed than the horseman under Menidas and Ariston; and the loss at first was heaviest on the Macedonian side.

But still the European cavalry stood the charge of the Asiatics, and at last, by their superior discipline, and by acting in squadrons that supported each other, instead of fighting in a confused mass like the barbarians, the Macedonians broke their adversaries, and drove them off the field.

Darius now directed the scythe-armed chariots to be driven against Alexander's horse-guards and the phalanx, and these formidable vehicles were accordingly sent rattling across the plain, against the Macedonian line. When we remember the alarm, which the war chariots of the Britons created among Caesar's legions, we shall not be prone to deride this arm of ancient warfare as always useless.

The object of the chariot was to create unsteadiness in the ranks against which they were driven, and squadrons of cavalry followed close upon them to profit by such disorder, But the Asiatic chariots were rendered ineffective at Arbela by the light-armed troops, whom Alexander had specially appointed for the service, and who, wounding the horses and drivers with their missile weapons, and running along-side so as to cut the traces or seize the reins, marred the intended charge; and the few chariots that reached the phalanx passed harmlessly through the intervals which the spearmen opened for them, and were easily captured in the rear.

A mass of Asiatic cavalry was now, for the second time, collected against Alexander's extreme right, and moved round it, with the view of gaining the flank of his army. At the critical moment, when their own flanks were exposed by this evolution, Aretes (lashed on the Persian squadrons with his horsemen from Alexander's second line. While Alexander thus met and baffled all the flanking attacks of the enemy with troops brought up from his second line, he kept his own horse-guards and the rest of the front line of his wing fresh, and ready to take advantage of the first opportunity for striking a decisive blow.