Back to the Battle of the Granicus River

Last week was the last battle of the Gallic Wars so, instead of sticking with the Romans, I decided to switch to Alexander the Great, who had a not so different way of commanding in comparison to Caesar. I did consider starting a series covering some of the Second World War but I find that there were more longer campaigns without any single battles that I could have written about. Alexander was also, as I’m sure many of you know, one of the greatest generals of all time, conquering land that was 5.2 million square kilometres in size, stretching from modern-day Serbia to modern-day Pakistan in just twelve years.

I am going to skip out Alexander’s conquering of the Greeks, simply because its quite a short campaign and did not contribute as much to his Empire as other, later campaigns and battles. 

It was in 334BC that Alexander started his campaign into Asia with 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. He immediately marched towards the river Granicus (called Bigha Tschai now) where anything up to 20,000 Persian horses and 20,000 Greek mercenaries under many different satraps (a governor of a Persian province)  had set up camp.

Alexander approached the Persians’ position from the other side of the river and instead of moving up river and crossing at a less dangerous spot he decided to attack head on, straight away. The Persians had created a front 1.4 miles wide, with their cavalry in the front line. This has often been thought of as the reason they lost their first battle. Placing the cavalry so close to the river didn’t allow it any time to charge and build up speed and resulted in their own infantry not being able to engage the Macedonians due to the cavalry blocking any attack they could make. Alexander on the other hand placed his troops in a more conventional way, with heavy infantry in the center in two columns and heavy cavalry on each flank. His army was divided into two halves, Alexander commanding the right, and Alexander’s general Parmenion commanding the left.

The Persians noticed Alexander on the Macedonian right flank and presumed that the main attack would come on their left, so they transfered the majority of their cavalry to that flank from the centre. Alexander sent 950 horsemen and 1,000 infantry to the Persian left flank in a feint that was designed to draw the Persians towards the left, weakening the right and centre. It was at this time that Alexander attacked the centre, leading his Companion cavalry, the elite of his already very strong army, himself. He led the seven Companion cavalry squadrons across the river and up its bank. The fighting became individuals against other individuals rather than coordinated movements as a unit; Arrian, the Greek historian, wrote that ‘Though the fighting was on horseback, it was more like an infantry battle, horse entangled with horse, man with man in the struggle, the Macedonians trying to push the Persians once and for all from the bank and force them on to the level ground, the Persians trying to bar their landing and thrust them back again into the river.’ It was during this fighting that Rhoesaces, who was a Persian nobleman, rode up and with his scimitar sliced off part of Alexander’s helmet, causing a minor wound. Then Alexander drove his sarissa, which is a 4 foot long spear, through Rhoesaces’ breastplate, killing him. Another Persian, called Spithridates, was about to strike Alexander from behind but Cleitus, who was another of Alexander’s commanders, cut off Spithridates’ arm, saving Alexander’s life.

Just after the Companion cavalry engaged the Persians the rest of the Macedonian line all advanced as one, slaughtering the chaotic Persians. Their centre completely caved in and caused the routing of the two Persian flanks. Once the centre has collapsed then the battle is over, unless of course it was a planned ‘collapse’, see Hannibal Barca for more details.

According to Arrian Macedonian deaths numbered just 115, as opposed to the Persian’s 4,000 killed and 2,000 taken prisoner. The attack of the centre by Alexander caused the death of many Persian leaders, crippling their army in that area of the empire for the time being. The way was clear for Alexander to move further south towards the riches of Egypt.