"The battle of Granicus, 334 BC. " Topic

"When Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon after the murder of his father Philip, he inherited a kingdom which had just come to dominate the affairs of mainland Greece. The position of Alexander was instable at first, but he reinforced it with a successful expedition against Thracian tribes at the Donau. Subsequently he was recognized as the leader of the Corinthian League after he had ended a revolt in Hellas by taking Thebes of the map. Now the time had come to fulful Philips of a combined attack of Hellas and Macedon on the Persians to punish them for their violent deeds 150 years earlier.

Not much had changed in the Persian army. They still had massive numbers of cavalry and archers. One thing that they had learned of the Persian wars was that the Greek hoplite was absolutly superior to the Persian infantery. Luckily for them was the beginning of the fourth century the time of mercenaries, and many Greeks were willing to serve in a foreign army as long as they got their share of the booty. The experienced Greek phalanx combined with the motivated Persian cavalry made the Persian army not only a huge army, but also a fearsome army.

The Macedonian army also used lots of mercenaries. The biggest problem with mercenaries was their morale, and that they did not a shared goal besides money. An army that only consisted of citizens always had ideals, and because of these ideals was the morale often high. Alexander managed to keep his army together thanks to his leadership, but most of all because of his bravery…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

There is a glaring error in the article: The writer calls Alexander's infantry "Hoplits." Should they not be called Phalangites or Pikemen?

I thought ancient Greek citizen soldiers were called "Hobbites". After all, "You shall not pass" would be a pretty good slogan for one of their most famous battles.

Very poorly written, I have to add.

The artwork has been pilfered from Warry…….the internet is a two edged sword – on the on hand great source of info on the other downright plagiarism all the way :(

Armand please do not provide anymore links to these hokey websites unless they have given full acknowledged copyright to the respective owners….it's not fair on those who originally created / written the work. Thank you.