ALEXANDER'S RETREAT
After hydaspes,Alexander built a city named
bukephalia near the battle site in memory of his favourite horse bucephalus which had died of wounds in the battle.(or of old age..sources uncertain).This town grew to be a considerable hub and corresponds to modern jhilum town.His other foundation,the town of nicea soon declined and disappeared.From here the macedonians moved inward
crossing the chenab and ravi rivers[acesines and hydraotis] with scant resistance but with increasing weariness on part of the rank and file.Enroute alexander came across the village of sages with whom he
engaged in philosophical debates as he had done in greece as well.Results were uninspiring,his claims to godhood were rebuffed that every man was descended from god,and his contention to being lord of the earth was answered laconically
''Soon you'll be dead,and own no more of the earth than would suffice to bury you''..
Nonetheless one sage Calanus(Kalyan) joined alexander's entourage and would accompany him hereafter.
It had been
raining non-stop for 70 days now.And mosquitos and mud added to the demoralization of the macedonians.Here on reaching the Beas river (Hyphasis) they recieved further bad news which finally snapped their patience.A local prince informed the macedonians that beyond the beas lay 11 days march through barren lands after which they would face the obstacle of the ganges,
the widest and largest in india -even more so than the indus.And on the other shore
Agrammes(dhanananda- mahapadma nanda was called 'ugrasena' or master of a terrible army -greek sources regularly mistook dhananada with the title of his famed father.From ugrasena is derived agrammes),king of the
prasii(magadha) had blocked all crossing points and awaited with an army of
200,000 infantry,20,000 cavalry,2000 chariots and most imposing of all no fewer than 3000 war elephants!And beyond them the gangaridai with another vast army were waiting and would probably join the prasii.These numbers seemed incredible to alexander who asked porus of the truth,porus however confirmed all this.
''As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants''
At this stage the army simply refused to advance further.Alexander's attempts to rouse them with stirring speeches were in vain.Finally coenus,one of the heroes of hydaspes spoke up.
He urged his sovereign to remember that out of the Greeks and Macedonians who had crossed the Hellespont eight years earlier, some had been invalided home, some were unwilling exiles in newly founded cities far from their own land, some were disabled by wounds, and others, the most numerous, had perished by the sword or by disease.
Few indeed were those left to follow the standards, and they were weary wretches, shattered in health, ragged, ill-armed, and despondent. He concluded his oration by saying:–
“Moderation in the midst of success, 0 king! is the noblest of virtues, for, although, being at the head of so brave an army, you have naught to dread from mortal foes, yet the visitations of the Deity cannot be foreseen or guarded against by man.”
The words of Koinos were greeted with loud applause, which left no doubt about the temper of the men. Alexander, deeply mortified and unwilling to yield, retired within his tent,
but emerged on the third day, convinced that farther advance was impracticable.The soothsayers conviniently stated bad omens,and to not advance further was declared the will of the gods to everybody's satisfaction thus saving the king's prestige.Alexander build 2 stone altars on the river bank and promise done day to return.He never would.However within a few weeks
coenus mysteriously died.
What if he had continued?
A controversial question long debated.Alexander's main problems at this stage were
logistics( he was thousands of miles into alien territory and very far from home),
exhaustion and lowering morale and the erosion of the macedonian military machine.The splendid instrument that he had inherited from philip and led into persia had by now been
worn down and reduced through constant attrition and detatchment as garrisons/sent home.Taking its place were increasingly mercenaries,auxillaries and local troops.It was simply very difficult for alexander to conquer such a vast area with his dwindling forces while garrisoning his huge empire.To make a serious effort
he would have to return to his core empire,raise an all new massive army and start on a new expedition.Curiously though this he never did,despite his promise to return.From babylon he envisioned instead a march west,first into arabia,then through egypt and into carthage.Perhaps sicily and italy would follow?We will never know.(Interestingly the envoys to him at babylon included carthage,whom he threatened and that of a rissing italian city state -Rome).That he didn't seek to return to india was probably due to the last factor -the
war elephants acc to some greek historians.
''Gangaridai, a nation which possesses a vast force of the largest-sized elephants. Owing to this, their country has never been conquered by any foreign king: for all other nations dread the overwhelming number and strength of these animals. Thus Alexander the Macedonian, after conquering all Asia, did not make war upon the Gangaridai, as he did on all others; for when he had arrived with all his troops at the river Ganges, he abandoned as hopeless an invasion of the Gangaridai when he learned that they possessed four thousand elephants well trained and equipped for war'' -Megasthenes.
War elephants are accorded high importance in the greek journals.Eudemes assasinated porus for control of his meagre 100 odd elephants.One of the objectives of seleucus in his expedition against the mauryas was not only to take back the western satrapies overrun by chnadragupta ,but also to capture war elephants for his army to use in the successor wars.He lost the satrapies but
got 500 war elephants which he used decisively at Ipsus to win his empire.The
seleucid-mauryan war which the seleucus fought with an army identical to alexander's illustrates the difficulties that alexander would have faced.However it also shows the
importance of a capable king in ancient warfare.Seleucus was no alexander ,and dhanananda no chandragupta.
Chandragupta(who is said to have met alexander in his youth) however thought alexander could have defeated the nandas.The reason he cites for this is that the
people were fed up of dhanananda's tyranny.However whether they would have opted for foreign domination of alexander is open to question.This does however raise an important point - Ancient
armies have on many occasions melted away after its leader's death or flight.Darius's huge army did this on 2 occasions.That the performance of porus's army was so impressive had mauch to do with porus's own inspirational conduct.Thus who alexander would have faced would make a big difference.
Finally there is a issue with the incredible size of these elephant armies.There are 2 points to consider here.One greek historians invariably
clump pack elephants with battle elpahants when considering numbers increasing total figure.However we do see chandragupta readily GIFTING 500 battle elphants to seleucus,an adversary with whom he had just made peace.The fact that
he didn't fear that this number could be used against him to any appreciable effect shows that there may be truth to the figures given for the maurya total of 9000 elephants.
Mallian Campaign -
After confirming Ambhi as ruler between the indus and hydaspes,and porus between hydaspes and hyphasis alexander began his retreat.Before this however he decided to secure the flank of his new conquests by subduing the malli.
This campaign is explained in excellent detail,move by move in wikipedia so i'm not expanding it here.
Mallian Campaign - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This involved the siege of multan.It was also in this campaign that alexander was shot in the chest by an arrow that punctured his lung and almost killed him.
After this short,violent but operationally brilliant interlude he resumed his march back to babylon.However so as to not give the impression of weakness to the recently subdued areas by marching back the same route he divided his force into 2 divisions which secured marched back seperately and were to unite later.One under craterus took a northern route,alexander however
opted to march straight through the inhospitable gedrosian desert (modern makran desert) almost as if to prove a point as to fact that he had no limits.This move has been criticized by historians as one of the black spots in alexander's otherwise brilliant military career.Predictably
thousands of macedonian soldiers died during this disastrous march and the accompanying non-combatants suffered even more horribly.This
pointless desert march seems to have been the result of alexander's increasing delusional egomania.However on seeing the suffering of his men
he never shied away from sharing them.
[Alexander famously refusing water]
The army survived the journey,with enormous hardship and reunited with craterus.Alexander's indian adventure was over.It had failed badly in a strategic sense,but for personal glory's sake he partly achieved what he set out to do -the first ever european expedition to reach india.Something even the roman emperors would fail to carry out.(Though crassus and trajan tried.)
Alexander's Legacy -
Politically,the effect of Alexander's invasion was negligible.Its hardly even mentioned in indian chronicles.His satrapies were soon overrun by the mauryas who defeated seleucus's attempt to retake them.An ind0-bactrian kingdom remained for centuries on the fringes of northern india and even penetrated into the heartland for a short period after the maurya decline before eventually being pushed out and disappearing to the twin pressure of the indigeneous indian powers(sunga,satavahana) and the saka and kushan invasions from the steppes.
The most important influence were in
art and trade.
* The routes used by Alexander became trade routes between India and the West. He opened a sea route to the West.
* Alexander brought with him several historians and scientists. These people recorded lot of details about the Indian society thus making a important contribution to ancient history.
* The Gandhara School of art is influenced by the Greek art.A fusion of indo-greek art led to creation of beautiful sculptures.
Militarily influence was very small and periodic.The Greek
kopis weapon however seems to have been adopted in parts of india.The gurkha kukri is derived from this weapon.
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That's all,Thanks for reading.Next Poltava.
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. Still Porus fought to the very end unlike Darius, what an amazing man. 
