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Alexander the Great as a Military Leader

heir own fighting, the Macedonians had a highly militarized state centered around the king and the King's Men under arms. Philip emphasized constant drill, maneuvering and strict discipline. He reorganized his battle formations to include the concept of concentration of force first developed by the Theban general Epaminondas through his oblique order of battle. Basically, the Macedonians used combined arms, really the forerunner of artillery, catapults, cavalry, which were armed with 16 feet long lances or sarissas attacked on an angle and were lined up in a delta-shaped, wedge-formation, and were supported by dense and solid phalanxes (the Hypaspists), eight rows deep and armed with pikes, lighter infantry, archers and others. Alexander further refined this formation which Devine described as follows: "Alexander's wedge was a complex of units arranged en echelon with two oblique lines, slanting in opposite directions but meeting in a broad point" (121).

After Alexander became king in 337 following his father's assassination, he had to eliminate opposition within palace circles and quell revolts in the Balkans among the Illyrians (Albanians) and Thracians. In these northern campaigns, Alexander displayed the same courage he had displayed in 338 where at the battle of Chaeronea he had led the cavalry charge which enabled Philip's forces to defeat decisively the Thebans and their Athenian allies. He also showed his uncanny ability to launch surprise operations on the enemy's flank such as his night crossing of the Danube.

After Chaeronea, Philip had succeeded in imposing an uneasy peace on all the major Greek city-states other than Sparta and inducing them at Corinth to join a Hellenic League and to subscribe to the cause of a war of revenge against the Persian Empire. When some of them became restive, Alexander put down a revolt in Thebes and then appeared before them and forced them to declare him Hegemon. He wisely let the Le...

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Alexander the Great as a Military Leader. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 14:49, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690604.html