All language subtitles for Battles BC s01e06 Alexander Lord of War

He is ruthless, determined, and deadly.

He is one of the greatest military
tacticians the world has ever known.

A brilliant strategist, he leads men who
gladly kill for him and die for him.

All for the greater glory of Greece.

He is Alexander the Great.

In the 4th century BC, Alexander rules
more than half the known world. But it's

not enough.

He wants more.

Hungry to expand his empire, Alexander
looks forward to his newest conquest,

India.

All that's preventing the Greek leader
are two immense rivers and three

of a million Indian soldiers.

331 BC, the Battle of Arbella.

Nearly 50 ,000 Greeks fight their long
-time enemy, the Persians.

For hundreds of years, these two
superpowers have spilled each other's

The Greeks are outnumbered two to one.

But on this October day, they emerge
victorious.

and change the course of history.

Credited to the tactical brilliance of
the 25 -year -old commander, Alexander

the Great.

It's his time now.

Alexander has a kind of larger -than
-life aura about him.

He's handsome with a muscular build, and
he's extremely charismatic.

His troops pretty much worship him.

In less than five years, he had managed
to carry out a major strategic plan from

Greece to invade Persia and destroy the
Persian Empire.

In five years, he managed to suppress
his own domestic opposition.

and then finally was able to force a
cataclysmic battle in modern -day Iraq

the plains of Arbela, where he destroyed
the last remaining Persian army, and

then by right of conquest became emperor
of all of Persia.

Some say Alexander's pedigree destined
him for greatness.

They believe he's a descendant of
Hercules on his father's side and

his mother's.

Alexander's empire now stretches from
Greece to Egypt to modern -day

Afghanistan, one of the largest in the
history of the world.

But Alexander's appetite for power and
glory is insatiable.

Five years after he defeats the
Persians, Alexander is ready to take on

opponent.

He stands with his 32 ,000 battle
-tested soldiers along the banks of the

River.

poised for his next conquest, India.

It's been a busy eight years for
Alexander, who's not even 30 years old

He's now emperor of Persia after
defeating the mighty Persian empire in a

bloody campaign.

He's pharaoh of Egypt.

Didn't even have to raise a sword there.
They just gave up. Now he's knocking on

India's door.

From a geographic and tactical
perspective, the problem is to get to

have to cross two major rivers, the
Indus and the Hadassah River.

For most armies, these rivers would be
too great to overcome.

But not for Alexander, whose foresight
and planning are legendary.

A couple of years in advance, two years
in advance, he ordered shipwrights to

come from the coastal area of Syria and
to build boats to ferry his troops

across the Indus River.

Once Alexander crosses the Indus, he
must contend with King Ambi, ruler of

Taxila.

Taxila is the capital of the country of
Punjab, which sits between the Indus and

the Hadaspis rivers.

Ambi can do one of two things.

He can fight.

and see a city annihilated and probably
get strung up.

Alexander was known to have made
examples out of opposition leaders with

painful, very public deaths.

Or he can play ball, preserve his city,
and maybe even save his throne.

Alexander crosses the river and easily
commandeers Toxilla, turning it into a

base of operations for Indian invasion.

The next hurdle is reaching and crossing
the second river, the Hidaspis.

It's 100 miles away, but Alexander has
anticipated this as well.

The army can't carry entire boats 100
miles across India to the Hidaspis, so

they break them into parts and haul them
piecemeal.

What they were were these kind of
collapsible boats where the frames could

built and the skins transported and the
buckets of tar individually, and then

when you're going to cross the river,
you assemble them a couple of days in

advance.

It takes two months for Alexander to
reach the Hadaspis River.

He leads 23 ,000 infantry and 9 ,000
cavalry, a loyal, committed army.

Many have been with Alexander from the
beginning.

drawn by the power of his personality
and his dreams of glory.

They fought for honor and individual
glory. And all their myths were of great

warriors from Agamemnon a thousand years
before to Achilles and Hercules. All of

these are great warriors.

They get everything because they're
great warriors. So essentially, being a

for Alexander, being a professional
warrior, perpetually seeking more and

glory, I think psychologically became
what amounted to a way of life.

Alexander's adversary, once he crosses
the Hadaspis River, is an equally proud

and brave warrior, the Indian king,
Porus of Puraver.

Porus descends from a long line of
soldier kings.

Well over six feet tall, Porus is a
giant by 4th century BC standards.

In his usual style, Alexander first
tries conquest by diplomacy.

He sends for Porus and invites him to a
meeting.

Alexander's basically offering him a
chance to avoid destruction if he pays

tribute and gives up his throne
peacefully.

Horace doesn't just refuse to surrender.
He actually challenges the legendary

Alexander the Great to fight. He says,
yes, I'll meet you on the battlefield.

Horace is prepared to defend his kingdom
at any cost.

Horace has under his command about 30
,000 infantry troops.

2 ,000 cavalry, and 300 chariots. But
he's got one thing that neither

nor the Greeks have ever seen.

He has 200 war elephants ready for
battle.

The elephant was a highly developed
instrument of war in the Indian Army. It

took about 10 years to train the
elephant, and they were exceedingly well

trained. They responded to name calls,
they responded to whistles, and they

fought.

So, if we imagine what's going on now,
you have Porus on the far eastern side

the Hadespis River, ready to oppose
Alexander's crossing.

On the western bank, you have
Alexander's army.

And in between flows a fairly wide...

fairly deep, and fairly rapid, Hadespas
River.

Alexander is faced with a great
challenge.

How to get his 32 ,000 -man army across
the raging river while maintaining the

critical element of surprise.

But how? If he just crosses right under
Porus's nose, his troops are going to be

sitting ducks.

The Indian army will easily pick them
off with their arrows midstream or when

they try to reach the other side.

So Alexander needs... a tactical plan.

And he puts into motion what would be an
unbelievable game of cat and mouse with

Porus. When in doubt, deceive and
dissemble. And he begins with the simple

of ordering up grain from his logistics
supply lines. Grain shipments begin to

arrive. And the reason for this is
psychological.

It's late spring, early summer.

What you conclude is that they have no
intention of crossing until later in the

campaign season, when the river's
current and depth are lowered.

Now that Porus is convinced that the
crossing won't take place until the next

season, Alexander mobilizes his men.

The second piece of deception was to
begin to move his elements of his army,

mostly cavalry, but some infantry. He'd
march them up and down the riverbank,

upstream, downstream, upstream,
downstream.

Initially... What does this tell you if
you're Porus? He's looking for a place

to cross. He may use it in the future,
but he's looking for a place to cross.

This is good. I'll find out where he's
going to cross, and what I'll do is I'll

deploy my forces against it. So Porus
takes his army and starts following

Alexander on the opposite bank.

Porus mirrors the Greek troop movements
with his entire force.

And this goes on for a week or two, and
Alexander always returns to camp.

At which point, Porras concludes that
this is pointless.

He may be looking for a place to cross,
but in any event, there's no need for me

to move my entire army up and down the
field. So what he does is instead of

doing that, he just posts pickets on the
other side of the river.

This is exactly what Alexander wants.

Next, he commands his men to initiate
step two in his well -planned campaign.

Their mission, light fires, make noise,
draw attention to themselves every

single night. What Alexander's doing,
again, is he's conditioning Porras' army

to the noise along the riverbank.

Alexander has now achieved a very
important tactical advantage. What is

The ability to move his army around on
his side of the riverbank without

provoking a major tactical response on
the part of the enemy. In essence, he's

low it.

lowered the anxiety level, lowered the
attention level of Porus and his army.

Finally, after two months, under cover
of darkness, Alexander leads a

of troops away from camp.

Because of how he's been conditioned,
Porus hardly notices.

Alexander never intended on waiting to
cross the river. Everything he's done up

until now is to set up a scenario to
cross the river without alerting the

Indians and thereby gain the tactical
advantage.

It's absolutely brilliant.

He already knows exactly where he's
going to cross, and he's going to cross

night. What he does, he takes a force of
some 10 ,000 infantry and about 6

,000 Greek cavalry and another 1 ,000
horse archers, light cavalry, and moves

up the bank 17 miles.

But Porus will not be the only one
surprised by the crossing tonight.

For Alexander, the Hadaspis River is
about to reveal some surprises of its

Midnight, 326 B .C.

Alexander the Great is about to lead
nearly 20 ,000 soldiers across a raging

river in India.

It's a surprise two months in the
making.

Hours earlier, Alexander had led his
force 17 miles away from his main camp,

the Hadespis River. This is where he
will cross.

Alexander's army is a well -oiled,
experienced fighting machine.

For the better part of a decade, they
have been improving and modernizing with

each military encounter.

One of their greatest challenges was
three years earlier against the Central

Asian nomads.

The battle rages near Batria and
Sagdiana, modern -day Afghanistan and

provinces in the far east of Alexander's
empire.

Alexander's problem with the provinces,
the furthest provinces into the east, is

that they're essentially not really
nation states. What they really are is

conglomerations of tribal, ethnic tribal
units that are at each other's throats,

much as they are today in modern -day
Pakistan and Afghanistan.

And so he sets out to essentially put
down these revolts.

The Central Asians are nomadic pastoral
tribes from around the Caspian Sea.

They're excellent marksmen and they're
tough. You have to be just to survive in

the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.

They are masters of hit -and -run
cavalry.

But Alexander and his men are neither
trained nor equipped to handle this kind

of attack.

The Greeks' style had always been to
move in unison in a phalanx, several

of interlocked warriors.

But this new enemy, these Central Asian
tribal guerrilla fighters, include

archers on horseback.

who deliver lightning -fast arrows of
death.

Everything about these horsemen is light
and mobile.

They harass the enemy with volleys of
arrows or javelins, then they quickly

retreat. To combat this new threat,
Alexander restructures his army and

these light cavalry archers into his
force.

So in the end, he basically reconfigured
his army, basically from Persian

sources, making it much lighter, using
Persian light infantry, some heavy, but

mostly light infantry, and light
cavalry.

This battle -tested, more mobile force
is what Alexander now leads to conquer

India.

At the end of a two -year guerrilla war
in the eastern provinces and having

achieved the modicum of success,
Alexander now turns his covetous eyes

east to India.

But he knows he's facing a formidable
opponent.

The army of the Indian king Porus has a
long and bloody history.

India at the time is divided into 16
regional kingdoms, each constantly

the other for dominance.

War was the normal state of affairs.

As soon as a king gained power, he would
begin attacking his neighbors.

India's tradition of warfare may go back
more than a thousand years, to the

arrival of the Aryan tribes of central
Eurasia.

This is one of the great migrations of
history.

And if you really want to see what these
people look like, turn on your

television set and look at Afghani
tribesmen.

That whole northern tier of mountains
has had no genetic dilution at all since

the 18th century. So that's what the
Aryans looked like. They were big, dark

-eyed, bearded people who had the horse
and the chariot.

And so they made short work of
conquering India.

Much about the Aryans is still debated
among scholars.

We do know that they were fierce
warriors and that they're the ones who

introduced the horse and the chariot to
the Indian subcontinent.

Chariots bring mobility and speed to the
battlefield.

They enable the Aryans to conquer much
of the subcontinent.

We also know that for about a millennium
after the Aryans invade, India is ruled

by a warrior class whose tribes are
constantly at war with each other.

India possesses rich gold and metal
deposits, so they have the resources and

skills to produce weapons as
sophisticated as any army of the time.

In the Ramayana, an Indian epic from the
first few centuries BCE, the villain,

Ravana, is pictured carrying 18
different weapons in his many hands.

He's got a javelin, sickle sword, three
different kinds of battle axes.

You name it, he's got it.

And that arsenal is representative of
what the various Indian armies actually

used at the time.

The ancient Indian kingdoms had really
perfected the art of war.

It's an art Porus has mastered.

Now he waits to defend India against the
latest outside invader, Alexander.

Porus believes he still has time to
discover when Alexander will cross the

Hadaspis. But he's been duped.

Alexander is crossing now 17 miles
upriver.

10 ,000 Greek infantry, 6 ,000 heavy
cavalry, and 1 ,000 light Asian horse

archers all throw themselves into the
wild river.

It's storming. It's the middle of the
night and it's cloudy, so it's pitch

black. And they're just plunging into
these violent waters almost blindly.

Absolutely terrifying.

The raging current tosses the Greeks
flimsy collapsible boats.

Some soldiers use goatskin bags filled
with straw to stay afloat.

Horses would either swim after you or
being led after you by their range.

And it's at night. And so it's a night
crossing of a river. And it's a pretty

difficult maneuver. Worse, it starts to
rain.

And a wind starts to blow. There's a
tremendous thunderstorm going on, which

really to Alexander's advantage because
it keeps the noise down and it keeps

Porus's pickets undercover.

Alexander's certain he's chosen his
crossing point wisely.

But what he thinks is the far bank of
the river is actually an island that

bisects the river.

He crosses the river, gains the island,
crosses the island in a narrow defile

where he can hide his troops from Porus,
and discovers to his horror that's not

the other bank.

It's not the far bank. It's just another
island.

Hidden behind the first island, they
discover another island.

The Greeks still have two more crossings
ahead of them, and time is running out.

Alexander has made one of the few
tactical errors of his career here.

When he scouted the crossing point, he
didn't send swimmers all the way across.

He just saw an island and the far bank
behind it.

It turned out that what he saw was not
the far bank, but simply another island.

So now, God, what are we going to do?

It's too deep. So we go up and down the
island until they find a place to cross

where the water is chest deep.

And they cross chest deep water,
swimming, dragging their equipment to

island, and then finally to another
island. But by dawn, you know, cold,

and soaking wet, they gain the other
bank.

A very short time, the pickets pick it
up, and a rider is sent to Porus, and

Alexander has successfully made the
crossing, and he's moving in force

you. Now Porus faces a dilemma.

His scouts say Alexander had crossed the
Adaspas, but across the river from his

camp is a large Greek force.

Cleverly, Alexander had divided his
troops the previous night.

Some 15 ,000 crossed the river, but 12
,000 stayed back at the camp.

This is called a fixing or a pinning
force.

It keeps Porus in place because he has
no idea whether Alexander is the main

force or a feint.

If he moves to deal with this feint,
then the main force crosses right in

of him, catching him between a hammer
and anvil?

Or is this the main attack?

Faced with this dilemma, Porus makes his
decision.

He only launches a small force to
confront the Greeks who have crossed the

river.

By keeping its main force in place, he's
basically hedged his bet into thinking

the main Greek force is still right in
front of him across the river, and

coming is a smaller force.

Porus only sends 2 ,000 of his 4 ,000
heavy cavalry and 200 of his 300

north to meet the enemy.

That force is commanded by Porus' son,
also named Porus.

At the same time, Alexander musters his
exhausted men and charges south, leading

with his heavy cavalry. Behind them are
light Asian horse archers. The infantry

follows. But as soon as Alexander sees
Porus's advanced force of heavy cavalry

and chariots, he stops, and under the
immense pressure of the battlefield,

reconfigures his troops on the fly.

Alexander is brilliant at knowing
exactly how and when to change his

defense at a moment's notice.

He sees how Porsche's army is configured
and immediately withdraws his heavy

cavalry. Heavy cavalry against chariots
and other heavy cavalry does not give

him the best advantage.

What would be better tactically is to
send his light cavalry to harass and

the movement of the army.

That's what he does.

He sends in his Iranian horse archers.
It's a trick he learned from fighting

these very same people in the eastern
approaches of the Persian Empire.

Alexander's light cavalry collides with
young Porus's small force.

And with that, the Battle of Adaspis
River begins.

326 BC, the Battle of the Adaspis River,
one of history's most brutal battles,

has begun.

Alexander the Great's light infantry
showers the approaching Indians with

arrows.

The Greek archers strike with a light,
high -tech composite bow.

Crafted from animal horn, the bow is
layered with sinew from the legs of wild

deer or antelope.

The M .O. for Alexander's horse archers
is hit and run, hit and run. They don't

wear armor. They don't really need to.
They don't get close enough to the enemy

to need it. And here they actually don't
need it because the Indians don't have

archers.

Thick cotton turbans protect their
heads.

Their torso is protected by a
surprisingly strong wilted armor.

It was probably like a modern -day flak
jacket, which you would imagine.

You know, two layers of cotton, perhaps,
or even wool, and in between those

layers would be raw, unprocessed cotton.

Well, believe it or not, the fibers of
raw, unprocessed cotton are sufficient

stop an arrow.

Alexander's horse archers stop the
Indian force and strip them of their

mobility.

Their object is to take the steam out of
the Indian cavalry attack and force

them together.

That's exactly what happens.

Once they're gathered together, almost
immobile, that's when Alexander commits

his heavy squadrons of heavy Greek
cavalry, and they just smash right

the gathered Indian cavalry, scattered.

The copus is designed for slaughter.

It has a forward -sloping blade for
maximum impact on a downward strike.

Once a butcher's tool, it works well on
meat.

And enemy.

The Indian chariot archers release a
torrent of arrows against Alexander's

infantry.

But a small wooden shield covered with
bronze protects the Greek infantry.

The Indian arrows take their toll.

But the conditions of the battlefield
favor Alexander.

The rain the night before makes the
battlefield a mud pit.

These heavy, heavy chariots cannot
maneuver their iron -shod wheels.

They're absolutely useless in the mud.

The Indians are outnumbered and
outmaneuvered.

Close to 500 Indian cavalrymen are
killed.

The chariots apparently never got into
the battle, or if they did, they were

completely ineffective. And they would
be ineffective, essentially, against

cavalry that could ride around it.

Among the dead is young Port.

So Alexander is essentially now
destroyed and brushed aside that

force that Porus has sent.

The survivors retreat back to the senior
Porus's camp.

They tell him his son is dead and that
Alexander is indeed leading the main

force. And they're heading this way.

By now, Porus understands that the Greek
contingent across the river is just a

fixing force meant to paralyze him.

What Porus does at this point, he...
still in danger of a cross -river

So he leaves a strong rear guard there
to deal with that attack if it comes.

He pulls the rest of the army out of the
camp and starts to move it upstream to

meet Alexander.

About three hours later, they stop at a
good battle site.

What the techs say is that a place
where...

He found the first firm ground is where
Porras deployed his army. Why would he

be looking for firm ground? Well, there
were two reasons. One is he had 200

chariots at his disposal.

The second thing is elephants.

Elephants are heavy, and you don't want
them slipping and sliding all over the

battlefield.

Porras positions his army a few miles
north.

Alexander picks up reinforcements.
Before he crossed the Hydaspis,

addition to splitting his forces, had
also stationed a reserve force midway

between his main camp and the crossing
point.

So he hadn't divided his army into two
the night before.

He divided it into three forces.

And these reserves of about 4 ,500
infantry and 3 ,000 cavalry are fresh

They've gotten some sleep. They've
marched half as far as Alexander's

and they haven't seen combat yet.

The reinforcements cross the river and
join Alexander's contingent.

So now when you look at the force
strength that Alexander commands,

the vicinity of 8 ,000 cavalry and
somewhere in the vicinity of perhaps 15

or 16 ,000 infantry.

But Alexander's men are too spread out.
The cavalry is in front, with the

exhausted infantry dragging ours behind.

So as Alexander approaches the
battlefield, sees Porus's army,

he's in a situation where he has to
delay the battle. How do you do that? He

takes his Iranian horse archers and
throws them forward. And they begin

up and down the line, shooting arrows.

Now is the time when Porus should have
attacked.

Maybe he wasn't ready.

Maybe he wasn't in an aggressive frame
of mind. We don't know. But it looks

he was going to accept the battle that
Alexander presented.

Porras has allowed Alexander the time
for his infantry to arrive and to study

the formation of Porras' troops.

In front, a line of 200 battle -tested
war elephants.

Behind the elephant, an even longer line
of 30 ,000 infantry troops.

and on each wing a brigade of a thousand
cavalry to protect the flank.

Alexander's infantry is outnumbered two
to one, so what he wants to do is turn

this into a cavalry fight rather than an
infantry fight.

There's one problem.

Elephants.

Roman historian Curtius captures the
scene.

The beasts, stationed between lines of
armed men, at a distance look like

towers.

While Porus himself had almost exceeded
the measure of human stature, the beast

on which he rode seemed to add to his
height. The Greek Macedonians had never

seen them in large numbers. Now, the
individual fighting men wasn't too much

a problem. It was the horses.

The horses had no exposure to these
elephants, and the smell and sound

them panicked the Macedonian cavalry.

Alexander must revise his tactical plan
to make effective use of his cavalry, or

this battle and his best chance to
conquer India will be lost.

Alexander has accomplished a difficult
night crossing of the Hadassus River.

He's defeated a small Indian advance
force.

And now he's about to launch his attack
against the full might of the Indian

army.

The Indian infantry is twice as large as
the Greeks.

Alexander knows his strength as cavalry,
where he outnumbers Porus four to one.

So the game is now how to fight a battle
that's not an infantry battle.

Alexander had a phenomenal ability to
very quickly read a battlefield and

formulate a strategy to gain the
advantage.

Alexander deploys his 4 ,000 -strong
cavalry squadron toward Porus's left

Porus only has a total of 2 ,000
cavalry, 1 ,000 on each wing.

Porus orders his cavalry on the right
wing to pull out of position, ride

the battle line, and reinforce the left.

And that's the mistake Alexander's been
waiting for.

Now Alexander orders Conus, one of his
commanders, and 2 ,000 of his cavalry

that had been heading for Porus's left
flank, to change direction and attack

defenseless right.

The 2 ,000 horsemen arrive on the right
wing. There's nobody to fight.

They turn the corner and ride all the
way behind the Indian positions.

It's a bizarre situation that's all but
been brought about by Alexander's

tactical brilliance.

As Conus and the 2 ,000 cavalry ride
behind the Indian line, Alexander orders

his horse archers to bombard the Indian
cavalry with volley after volley of

deadly missiles.

Alexander then leads his elite brigade
of 2 ,000 cavalry on a furious ride,

swinging wide right and out past Porras'
left flank.

What Porras does is he did what any
commander would do. He tries to extend

left flank. So he takes his left wing
and he says, redeploy further to the

which means they come out of their
positions, they turn in column of march,

they begin to move out to the left to
prevent the envelopment.

As the Indians begin to march to the
left, and with Conus also on the move,

Alexander changes direction again.

Instead of sweeping around Porus's left
flank, he suddenly turns inward and cuts

off the left wing from the main body of
the army.

At the same time, Conus, who was ridden
all the way around the battlefield,

arrives at what we call the schwerpunkt,
or the critical point in the battle,

and bang, slams into the left wing of
Porus's army.

Now chorus is exactly where Alexander
wants him. His left wing shattered.

Cavalry destroyed.

Alexander always seemed, whenever every
battle that he fought, always seemed to

be at the crucial point where the
tactics shifted.

The crucial point where instead of going
out, he turned in, where he went

through the gap instead of around the
gap. How you do that and at the same

be right out there with your guys is a
rare talent.

Alexander now moves his heavy infantry
against the Indian center, but Porras is

not about to give up.

He orders his archers to attack.

The Indian bow is six feet of strong,
flexible bamboo.

To extend it fully, the archer must
anchor the bow in the ground and steady

with his foot.

Tremendous size gives it unparalleled
firepower.

Its arrows, with sharp bone or metal
tips, can penetrate any armor.

But because of the weather, the archers
are ineffective.

It was raining the night before, and all
those thousands of horses and men and

elephants, they turned the ground to
mud.

The Indian army wasn't used to fighting
during the rainy season.

Its archers couldn't anchor their bows.

Huge blow to Porus. He'd lost one of his
most powerful weapons.

With his left wing destroyed, Porus's
army is reduced to his infantry, his war

-trained armored elephants, and their
archers.

You didn't just fight the elephant.

The elephant on top was what they call a
hauda, which was an archer or spear

platform. But they deployed with a squad
of 13 infantry around them, the same

way we'd use infantry to protect tanks
today.

But the elephants do have one soft spot,
their eye.

The Greek infantrymen attempt to secure
their target.

I can imagine what would happen if an
elephant's blinded in the eye. I mean,

just goes crazy. I mean, an elephant's a
seemingly big animal.

Through the chaos, Alexander pummeled
the Indian center and pulverized its

flank.

Despite being trapped in a deadly two
-sided attack, Horace fights on.

The center is collapsing on itself into
a giant gaggle of 10 ,000, 12

,000 men, animals, chariots, donkeys,
horses, whatever. It literally can't

and the infantry is pressing against
them.

Cavalry is prepping from the side.

In these kinds of battles, as long as
you're maneuvering on the open plain,

don't take a lot of casualties. But when
you close into close combat, it gets

horrifically bloody because you can't
maneuver.

You can't even run away. I mean, the
problem at the Battle of Hedospis, you

couldn't get away.

Brutal man -to -man combat.

Animals hacked to pieces. The Battle of
Hedospis.

turns into a gruesome massacre.

Alexander and his Greek killing machine
are destroying the Indian army at the

Battle of the Hadaspis River.

Alexander commits what's left of his
cavalry and orders it into a circle

this mass of quivering, frightened men.

Horace's army is caught in a death trap.

It cannot maneuver.

10 ,000 human beings pressed by another
8 ,000 human beings in a cauldron of

slaughter.

Screams of animals, the trumpeting call
of a wounded elephant, for example, the

whinny of a horse in pain.

And remember, if you fell down, if a
horse slipped and went down or was

if a man fell off a, there were no
saddles, but fell off the horse, he

to death.

Human beings being stabbed, being hacked
at.

The noise and the screams and the
battlefield becomes quickly covered with

blood, gore, and entrails, pieces of
human flesh.

And the smell.

The smell, the smell, the smell. I mean,
you know, elephants, when wounded, like

many animals, deprecate.

You can imagine that as well.

The noise and the smell and the human
horror, absolutely terrific.

About seven hours after the battle
begins, Porus's army is nearly

But Porus himself survives.

They're not completely destroyed, but
probably three -quarters of the army is

killed. Porus himself, badly wounded,
continues to fight on.

Alexander admires Porus's bravery and
determination to keep fighting in the

of certain defeat.

Alexander recognizes in Porus a kindred
warrior spirit.

He doesn't want to kill the man he's
grown to respect, so he sends a

to call him for a meeting.

Greek historian Arian records the
conversation.

Alexander was the first to speak.

What, he said, do you wish that I should
do with you?

Treat me as a king ought, Porus famously
replied.

Alexander is so impressed with Horace's
dignity and composure, he decides to let

him remain as king and keep his
territories and his subjects.

So at the end of the day, Alexander, at
the Battle of the Hedispus River, shows

his tactical brilliance. I mean, this is
a guy who can read a battlefield. He

has what Napoleon called the coup de
huile, the strike of the eye.

By looking at the terrain, looking at
the arrangement of forces, he was able

devise very quickly in this case a
tactical plan that played to his own

advantage.

With his victory at Hadaspis, Alexander
the Great has taken his first step

across the Indian frontier.

But it is also his last.

As he advances deeper into India,
several states set aside their own

and now stand united against the
invader.

At the next battle site, Alexander is
confronted by 300 ,000 Indian troops.

In attempting to conquer India, you get
the feeling that perhaps Alexander's

strategic intelligence analysis was not
as good as it had been in the past,

because any reasonable view of what was
going on in India at the time would have

led you to the conclusion that this
would be an almost impossible military

for what amounts to a small Greek army.

By now, Alexander's men can see that
their leader's quest has turned into a

suicide mission.

They've been fighting long and hard, and
mutiny is in the air.

He tries to rally them to keep going.
He's inspirational, his troops are

but they've just had enough.

Alexander, always attuned to his men,
ultimately surrenders to the will of his

troops and heads south, returning to
Babylon in modern -day Iraq.

But his Eastern adventure may have cost
him his life.

The best guess is that he died of
malaria in Babylon, where

history says, or at least the texts say,
because he was considered to be pharaoh

of Egypt. His body was sent to Egypt,
where it was embalmed, and put in a

crystal casket.

Alexander the Great.

one of history's most brilliant military
tacticians, dead at 33.

The conqueror of much of the known
world, his record and his leadership

still stand as the inspiration for great
military minds throughout history.

During the first Gulf War in 1991,
General Norman Schwarzkopf took a page

Alexander the Great's playbook with his
left hook strategy.

Like Alexander, Schwarzkopf...
essentially feigned a main attack on the

forces occupying Kuwait from the south.

But the bulk of his force, modern -day
heavy cavalry, tanks, swam hundreds of

miles due west and came at the Iraqis'
right flank.

There's the left hook, effectively
knocking out the Iraqi army.

Ground war in Operation Desert Storm was
over in 100 hours.

That is a successful feign and envelop
that Alexander would be proud of.

Alexander the Great campaigned for more
than 11 years, over 20 ,000 miles, and

never lost a battle.

Still, he was dissatisfied.

It is one of the more interesting
questions of history of having achieved

the strategic objectives that he set out
to be against all odds, by the way. Why

does Alexander continue to literally
want more? Why is it not enough?

And I think he's a very curious
character psychologically. But

think he's a very traditional Greek. You
know, when you look at the history of

Greece, Greek.

Soldiers didn't fight for strategic
reasons or even political goals. I mean,

that's something that comes in much
later, all right? Because there's no

of being Greek. There's no Greek nation,
per se. So what did they fight for?

They fought for honor and individual
glory.

A forger of empires with an unquenchable
thirst for glory, Alexander spread

Greek culture throughout the known
world.

Yet he died yearning to have conquered
more.