When coterminous Pakistan fought Alexander the Great and almost brought him down to his knees.

[Joe Shearer]

There have been bad posts by some members, some really embarrassing moments, but this one must be among the top three that I've read over the years, eight years.

What is in the name? It is to do the narrative, build by the Greeks on how their poster boy, the blonde chap defeated the son of the soil and somehow handed over his land back to him. What a utter load of BS. LOL. You are not getting it do you? Its imperative for the west to keep the narrative and image of Alexdendar "the great" , the undefeated one, alive and kicking. For your gullible lot, it makes sense.

It is really surprising that this cavalier sneer, not even a comment, just a rank amateur's completely inept assessment of an acknowledged military genius, even sees the light of day. Only an utterly arrogant and self-obsessed personality could come out with this.

Alexander fought four important land battles, set pieces. There is little to distinguish this from the others, other than the lack of movement. It boiled down, on a wet, muddy battlefield, to a slugging match, and it ended with a clear 'Greek' victory. If the idiot view that the Indian - sorry, @Kaptaan , the coterminous Pakistan side - had won, there would have been no 'Greek' army marching down and facing off the numerous tribes that they faced on their march to the sea. They would have been smashed on the battlefield, and rolled over by the elephants and cavalry that Porus had in full measure.

For the 'gullible', who are not swayed by a retrograde need to prove their identity as unconquerable warriors (other than the Bactrian Greeks less than a generation later, the Scythians, their Pahlava allies, the Kushans, the Ephthalites or White Huns, the Turks, the Afghans, the Mongols, the Turks again), the facts are clear. There are accounts all tending to the same conclusion, there are the circumstances, of a supposedly beaten army making settlements on the ground that persisted until the successor empire walked on, marching down the Indus, fighting fierce battles and winning every one, and then facing a death march across the Makran coast, ending up an exhausted band of survivors in Babylon. All this after a defeat at the Hydaspes?

Aryan theory of invasion is the thing of past my gullible Indian, invented by the colonials to keep the people confused about the history of this region. Get out of it. If there was anything like Aryans, it was the people of Indus themselves. Nazi Germans were looking for their roots here and they were no mugs. Aryan invasion theory is so fked up and for it to lived out all these years has to be one hell of biggest propaganda in the history. Some random nomads from central Asia will just turn up and challange the biggest empire/civilization of its time stretching all the way to Turkmenistan, with them having no trace of their own civilization/infrastructure in central asia!! Who would believe this BS?? IVC was the humanity first civilization/empire/one governing unit. Rest came off it.

Yeah, right.

It is interesting that the right wing morons (not you; you don't qualify, I would NEVER say that you are as bright as a moron, that would be rude to one of you) on both sides of the border have almost identical views; both based on an inarticulate, incoherent, purple-faced hatred of foreigners, hatred of the humiliation of having been subdued, for the umpteenth time (yes, it happened), and the need to deny anything and everything that the foreigner represents, or, and this is it, what YOU think they represent. In this case, your linguistic heritage.

Your linguistic heritage would have been Brahui, except that some scruffy, beaten-up losers stepped through the passes, pushed out by winners in a sectarian scuffle (yes, that was part of the heritage, too, for coterminous Pakistan: recognise the modern version?), and making their sorry way into the plains down past the hills. The civilisation that coterminous Pakistan loves so dearly was decaying to the point where people built in the earlier cities' well-regulated streets. So much for the civilisation stretching all the way to Turkmenistan. Which, by the way, is another inept, ill-read, ill-informed comment: a river civilisation stretching all the way to Turkmenistan? Really? A few beads, a few seals, a few artifacts, and we suddenly have coterminous Turkestan (the name given to five former Soviet republics now independent and desperately searching for an identity - odd situation, innit?) becoming part of coterminous Pakistan (yes, the name exists).

You lot were civilized by the original people, the elites, you should be proud if it.

Oh, absolutely. No civilisation, no cities, no towns, only forest dwellers and small agricultural villages producing a kind of pottery very similar to the last days of the great civilisation that marked the end of civilisation in coterminous Pakistan. These original elites composed the Vedas, did the philosophical bits of the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads (terms, please note, that roll smoothly off the tongues of the original coterminous elites).

Right! a midget who actually never fought the battles on the ground one to one , and was always protected by his bodygaurds, getting his favorite horse killed in the battle which he was riding, with his bodyguards no where to be seen. You need to wake up and smell the coffee.

Have you slipped the coca leaves in yet?

Alexander fought every battle at the head of his troops. Known to any half-read student of history. To be half-read is of course a reach for some of us.

At Granicus, he led his troops, personally, at the head of the Bodyguards, at the tip of the wedge. So much for the fighting the battles on the ground; in a cavalry charge, that would truly be a curious situation to be in. But then that comes in the second half of the history lesson, the half that we didn't get to do. He was injured by Rhoisakes, and Spithridates sought to kill him when he was half-stunned, and Alexander (never actually fighting on the ground, one to one, according to our military history genius) was saved by Cleitus the Black, who swung at the extended sword arm and severed it. Quite an exciting day in the life of a never actually fought the battles on the ground.

At Issus, the 'Greeks' were faced by a large Persian army led by the emperor himself barring the way back to Greece (it was still assumed that the Greeks were looking for significant defeats of the Persians and would ultimately return to Greece; nobody suspected that Alexander was looking to overthrown the Achaemenids and take over the empire himself). Alexander led the charge leading the 'hinge' soldiers, the Hypaspists, who formed the 'hinge' between the solid, immovable phalanx and the light infantry and cavalry that formed the mobile element of a Macedonian army, struck the Persian elite infantry, the Cardaces, and broke them, and then got back on horseback and led the Companions in a charge through the disorganised Persian centre towards the emperor, who fled. Fairly good going for one who, according to the local resident coterminous not-a-moron, never fought his battles on the ground one to one, and was always surrounded by his bodyguards. In this battle, he fought both on foot and on horseback.

I really dislike instant experts with tumescent opinions and no reading, no knowledge, no information.

The only major resistance was put by marhattas and they were sorted in Panipat, thousands were killed, pursed even after the defeat, and their heads where chopped off. And marhattas are considered to be the "warrior" kind of gangiyates. You lot are not warrior kind. Focus on what you are good at, being a banya.

The Marathas were the warrior kind? What are you smoking? They were light cavalry and never fought pitched battles if they could help it, until they were in very large numbers against very small and isolated forces. The Rajputs, the Jats, the Sikhs, much later on; the Marathas sliced up the unwieldy Mughal armies of their times, and salami-sliced their way through the over-expanded empire, until they faced their first major challenge from an effective cavalry force, completely isolated from their supply lines, half-starved and cut off from their bases. And their game was up.

I am proud of Porus , the son of soil , kicking the hell out of the tyrant and arrogant of his time.

Sublime in his arrogance and ignorance. What an exhibition.

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

Interesting thoughts.

You might like to look up the impact of elephants in European warfare, from Alexander onwards (strangely enough, his enemies, the Achaemenids, never used them against the Greeks).

• One of the peace settlement articles between Seleucus and 'Sandracottus', a non-coterminous non-Pakistani, was the provision of elephants to Seleucus. You might like to read up on the devastating effect that these had in the wars of the Diadochi, Alexander's successors, the generals of his army. As some might notice, coterminous Pakistan inherited a lot of political ideas from Alexander and his successors.
• Hannibal was the next to use elephants, and he used them to tremendous effect against the Romans. Whether these were Indian elephants or African is not really certain; there is a view among animal trainers that African elephants are not really trainable.
• Pyrrhus of Epirus (he of the Pyrrhic victory fame), a distant descendant of Alexander, was another effective user of elephants. His battle-craft was of a high order and he gave the Romans no end of trouble.

Coming to camels, other than the battles of the Arabs, in Arabia and in the Sahara, there is no record of the use of camels in warfare. I am not aware of any such use outside the Arabs and their emulative adversaries, very loosely slubbering the Berbers among the Arabs, which is strictly wrong. In India, there was some desultory use in the Thar Desert. It is true that Babur used them in Panipat I. Perhaps @AUSTERLITZ can tell you about more such uses.

Finally, about cavalry: why do you think Porus had insufficient cavalry? That last line of your comment was confusing. Are you making the mistake of thinking that the Greeks, actually, the Macedonians, were an infantry force? The whole point of Philip II's reforms and of Alexander's battles was the use of cavalry, light infantry and heavy infantry (the Macedonian phalanx, a modification of the Theban phalanx) in a tightly coordinated manner. Alexander won major battles; Granicus, for instance, was almost entirely a cavalry battle, turned inside out, because the breakthrough was by cavalry, the exploitation by infantry, not, as usual, the other way around. Issus, too, was a significant cavalry victory; the oblique charge by Alexander opened up the Persian centre, Darius fled, and the 'Greek' cavalry wheeled left and crashed into the back of the Greek mercenaries fighting for the Persians and broke them. This time, the exploitation was by cavalry, and caused mass slaughter.

At Gaugamela, tactically the most interesting battle of the three, Alexander was again mounted, and beat the Persians by first pinning their infantry with his own infantry in the left and centre, while he drew the large Persian cavalry forces way off into the right, fought them to a standstill and then broke through. However, even as he broke through, he had to disengage to rescue his left wing, isolated and under severe attack by the Persian cavalry - now wait for this - mainly, at that place, the best of the Persians, the Indians and the Parthians.

I hope you get the point.

I hope you also recall that Porus' son led the frantic cavalry dash to stop the 'Greeks' at the river bank, where they had crossed the Hydaspes far up-river and caught Porus' army off guard.

Both Granicus and Issus involved the 'Greeks' crossing a river to fight the Persians; Hydaspes was the third of Alexander's four major battles to be cross-river.

I don't think there was much lacking in cavalry tactics among the 'Greeks', though they were admittedly depleted by the long and exhausting campaign across the length of the Persian Empire.

As great as the cavalry units of settled civilized populations are, history has shown us again and again that they are no match for the real cavalry of the eternal Eurasian steppe races, who practically live their whole life on horses

So yes if the Hydapses Battle was a strict confrontation between purely Macedonian cavalry vs purely Indo-Aryan cavalry of Porus (with a bit more increased numbers of course) , then Porus would have been victorious

The Steppe component of Alexander's army was the game changer

Will be posting within the hour on the Kshatriya Holocaust thread Sir, with my reasoned speculations

@Joe Shearer ..Weren't the pre-Buddhist Upanishads composed in the Western UP and Northern Bihar region? There is a mention of an incident in Gandhara in Brihadarayanaka Upanishad, but the main action happens in King Janaka's court in Northern Bihar

 

[Joe Shearer]

As great as the cavalry units of settled civilized populations are, history has shown us again and again that they are no match for the real cavalry of the eternal Eurasian steppe races, who practically live their whole life on horses

So yes if the Hydapses Battle was a strict confrontation between purely Macedonian cavalry vs purely Indo-Aryan cavalry of Porus (with a bit more increased numbers of course) , then Porus would have been victorious

The Steppe component of Alexander's army was the game changer

Will be posting within the hour on the Kshatriya Holocaust thread Sir, with my reasoned speculations

@Joe Shearer ..Weren't the pre-Buddhist Upanishads composed in the Western UP and Northern Bihar region? There is a mention of an incident in Gandhara in Brihadarayanaka Upanishad, but the main action happens in King Janaka's court in Northern Bihar

Actually, the Upanishads are being composed even today; there is no theoretical limitation to their time span. But yes, the pre-Buddhist Upanishads were, some of them, composed in Mithila and in Kosala.

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

Actually, the Upanishads are being composed even today; there is no theoretical limitation to their time span. But yes, the pre-Buddhist Upanishads were, some of them, composed in Mithila and in Kosala.

All Upanishads post the Maitrayani Upanishads are pure Horse-manure par excellence...have lost hundreds of hours of my life trying to wade through them and trying to decipher their ponderous nature..and this goes for the Yoga Sutras too (including the Bhasyha)..hours I will not get back..actually All Upanishads other than Brihadarayanaka,Chandogya and may be Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana are pure horse manure...

A level of metaphysical speculation is edifying for the intellect, take it too much and it loses connection with reality......which is what modern Hinduism really is...A tumble-weed with no connection with human and physical reality...and all this because of heavy emphasis on the Puranas and Epics, which are really children's fables

I feel Mahabharata may have some value as it is a folk retelling of the very real historical battle known as the Battle of Ten Kings...what do you think about that,Sir?

 

[Joe Shearer]

All Upanishads post the Maitrayani Upanishads are pure Horse-manure par excellence...have lost hundreds of hours of my life trying to wade through them and trying to decipher their ponderous nature..and this goes for the Yoga Sutras too (including the Bhasyha)..hours I will not get back..actually All Upanishads other than Brihadarayanaka,Chandogya and may be Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana are pure horse manure...

A level of metaphysical speculation is edifying for the intellect, take it too much and it loses connection with reality......which is what modern Hinduism really is...A tumble-weed with no connection with human and physical reality...and all this because of heavy emphasis on the Puranas and Epics, which are really children's fables

I feel Mahabharata may have some value as it is a folk retelling of the very real historical battle known as the Battle of Ten Kings...what do you think about that,Sir?

Yes, yes, you may be right about the Mahabharata, but I am far more interested in your summation of the Upanishads.

[Later] No, not necessarily, there is much more geographical spread in the Mahabharata than there is in the Battle of Ten Kings.

You will argue, of course, that those additional geographical mentions in the Mahabharata are due to the growth of the living space of the Indo-Aryan settlers to include more of the Gangetic Plain. Possibly, but I am not sure, either of the facts, or of the dates.

I am not too sure that Patanjali is horse-manure. Although some of his most ardent western fans are right-wing revisionists, his teaching bobs up through a lot of ancient Indian literature.

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

Yes, yes, you may be right about the Mahabharata, but I am far more interested in your summation of the Upanishads.

[Later] No, not necessarily, there is much more geographical spread in the Mahabharata than there is in the Battle of Ten Kings.

You will argue, of course, that those additional geographical mentions in the Mahabharata are due to the growth of the living space of the Indo-Aryan settlers to include more of the Gangetic Plain. Possibly, but I am not sure, either of the facts, or of the dates.

I am not too sure that Patanjali is horse-manure. Although some of his most ardent western fans are right-wing revisionists, his teaching bobs up through a lot of ancient Indian literature.

Okay then I will make a detailed personal observation why the Upanishads (the Principle 12-13) oare worth going through and as well as are not worth going through

Patanjali the Grammarian is absolutely indispensable in our understanding of Indian History

Now the question is whether Patanjali the Grammarian is same as Patanjali the the careful compiler of various Yogic secrets into 200 bullet points

There are sparks of brilliance in Patanjali, I would admit that....but I tend fly off the handle when Indian texts talk about wielding supernormal powers as if its like making another round of morning tea

I tend to frown upon texts which are heavy on supernormal/supernatural miracles, as I principally believe they are just not possible

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please hear me out on this:

Many people would argue for the existence of supernormal powers among yogic adepts by pointing out that quantum mechanics allows for such miracles and we still have not figured out Dark Energy etc...

I counter to that point is that quantum mechanics are certainly true but only for tiny scales that are not relevant for everyday human experience.....and Dark Energy exert their influence on scales so huge that they are beyond the comprehension of the mind in everyday logical sense, (but not in the mathematical sense, just as n-dimensions are beyond human comprehension in the logical sense but not in the mathematical sense)

The scales that are relevant for everyday human experience range from 1mm to a few thousand kilometres

In that scale of length, area and volume---Physics is completely well understood and it doesnot leave any room for supernormal miracles that defy the laws of Physics..the Quantum level has no effect on this scale.. Schrödinger's cat may come in and out of existence at the sub-atomic level, but it won't come in and out of existence at the Cat-size level ...THIS ALSO MEANS Ghosts are not possible
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that doesnot mean that I donot believe there is an underlying unified spiritual reality shadowing all of existence, but I am extremely conservative as to how that shadow can interplay with the material world..I am as conservative as the earliest Vedic Aryans

I feel that the earliest Upanishadic sages, Yajnavalkya et al., had genuine insights into the nature of Reality and understood that all of this reality is ultimately ensconced in Nothing, and the purest identity of Being is nothing...They stared into the Great Abyss and came back to tell the tale...not unlike the observations and insights of Nietzsche, Heidegger,Satre but a few orders of magnitude more intense and profound.............


This shook the later Upanishadic sages to the core, frightened the daylights out of them, and since then these later Upanishadic sages (post Buddha and pre-Mauryan collapse) were trying to construct things/entitities out of Nothing, or sub-dividing Nothing.....You can clearly see that Katha Upanishad onwards...This fright also meant that Upanishads start out atheistic/agnostic/non-theistic and become theistic within 3-4 centuries of Yajnavalkya




okay Final Closing thoughts:

Indo-European spirituality wherever it went resisted vigorously the incursion of supernormal miracles and magical events at the human level...They had to, as IE sprituality is very close connected with proto-warrior mentality, cattle raids,loot and occupation of lands and grazing fields...That's why their spirituality could not afford to completely lose connection with the real world and the limitations of physics


But pre IE sprituality of the subcontinent had a strong magical element, a worldview that allowed supernormal miracles to happen..you see the first incursion of this worldview in the Kesin Sukta.......by the time first Puranas were being composed , this supremely magical spritual worldview of pre-Aryans of India had completely displaced the much more austere spirituality of Aryans (which more concerned with welath,power and strength in this life--an inner-worldly asceticism of Max Weber if you will)

@Joe Shearer Thank you again for these amazing conversations,Sir

@Joe Shearer I think my observations on the Hydapses Battle were immature..rereading through your posts

 

[Joe Shearer]

Okay then I will make a detailed personal observation why the Upanishads (the Principle 12-13) oare worth going through and as well as are not worth going through

Patanjali the Grammarian is absolutely indispensable in our understanding of Indian History

Now the question is whether Patanjali the Grammarian is same as Patanjali the the careful compiler of various Yogic secrets into 200 bullet points

There are sparks of brilliance in Patanjali, I would admit that....but I tend fly off the handle when Indian texts talk about wielding supernormal powers as if its like making another round of morning tea

I tend to frown upon texts which are heavy on supernormal/supernatural miracles, as I principally believe they are just not possible

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please hear me out on this:

Many people would argue for the existence of supernormal powers among yogic adepts by pointing out that quantum mechanics allows for such miracles and we still have not figured out Dark Energy etc...

I counter to that point is that quantum mechanics are certainly true but only for tiny scales that are not relevant for everyday human experience.....and Dark Energy exert their influence on scales so huge that they are beyond the comprehension of the mind in everyday logical sense, (but not in the mathematical sense, just as n-dimensions are beyond human comprehension in the logical sense but not in the mathematical sense)

The scales that are relevant for everyday human experience range from 1mm to a few thousand kilometres

In that scale of length, area and volume---Physics is completely well understood and it doesnot leave any room for supernormal miracles that defy the laws of Physics..the Quantum level has no effect on this scale.. Schrödinger's cat may come in and out of existence at the sub-atomic level, but it won't come in and out of existence at the Cat-size level ...THIS ALSO MEANS Ghosts are not possible
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that doesnot mean that I donot believe there is an underlying unified spiritual reality shadowing all of existence, but I am extremely conservative as to how that shadow can interplay with the material world..I am as conservative as the earliest Vedic Aryans

I feel that the earliest Upanishadic sages, Yajnavalkya et al., had genuine insights into the nature of Reality and understood that all of this reality is ultimately ensconced in Nothing, and the purest identity of Being is nothing...They stared into the Great Abyss and came back to tell the tale...not unlike the observations and insights of Nietzsche, Heidegger,Satre but a few orders of magnitude more intense and profound.............


This shook the later Upanishadic sages to the core, frightened the daylights out of them, and since then these later Upanishadic sages (post Buddha and pre-Mauryan collapse) were trying to construct things/entitities out of Nothing, or sub-dividing Nothing.....You can clearly see that Katha Upanishad onwards...This fright also meant that Upanishads start out atheistic/agnostic/non-theistic and become theistic within 3-4 centuries of Yajnavalkya




okay Final Closing thoughts:

Indo-European spirituality wherever it went resisted vigorously the incursion of supernormal miracles and magical events at the human level...They had to, as IE sprituality is very close connected with proto-warrior mentality, cattle raids,loot and occupation of lands and grazing fields...That's why their spirituality could not afford to completely lose connection with the real world and the limitations of physics


But pre IE sprituality of the subcontinent had a strong magical element, a worldview that allowed supernormal miracles to happen..you see the first incursion of this worldview in the Kesin Sukta.......by the time first Puranas were being composed , this supremely magical spritual worldview of pre-Aryans of India had completely displaced the much more austere spirituality of Aryans (which more concerned with welath,power and strength in this life--an inner-worldly asceticism of Max Weber if you will)

@Joe Shearer Thank you again for these amazing conversations,Sir

@Joe Shearer I think my observations on the Hydapses Battle were immature..rereading through your posts

Aah, so very deeply satisfying.

Thank you very much. I shall return to this to think about what you have written. Your grip on the proto-historical has to be developed further, for the benefit of us all.

 

[defence_analyst]

@Juggernaut_is_here why do you think ancestors of mongols and turks utterly dominated steppe warfare and forced IE speakers to migrate elsewhere? Do they have higher level of testosterone? IE speakers from steppe basically overwhelmed sedentary population in south central asia, Greece, Iran, coterminous Pakistan and coterminous India which wasn't that big of a deal looking at their life style.

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

@Juggernaut_is_here why do you think ancestors of mongols and turks utterly dominated steppe warfare and forced IE speakers to migrate elsewhere? Do they have higher level of testosterone? IE speakers from steppe basically overwhelmed sedentary population in south central asia, Greece, Iran, coterminous Pakistan and coterminous India which wasn't that big of a deal looking at their life style.

The ancestors of Mongols and Turks came of Age post-400 AD...The last great Indo-European Steppe Warrior empire was that of the Hepthalites..which fizzled out by 562 AD.....please keep these dates in your mind


It basically comes down to the fact that horses were being bred systematically since 4000 BC till this time and beyond to be be useful in warfare...and by 400 AD cavalry hit a sweet spot and was decisively better than any combination of Infantry...and also there is the issue of stirrups becoming widespread 350 AD onwards in the steppes ...Horses went from small donkey size to the magnificent beasts you see today

and during this period Ancestors of Mongols and Turks happened to be in control of the steppes, and therefore were supremely poised to attack neighbouring settled civilizations

only Indo-European nomadic confederacies that held promise during this time were the Hepthalites in various forms , but they were wiped out by Sassanid and Göktürks and were also simultaneously driven out of India


Another reason I feel is that the Indo-European soul is not that agreeable to authority..and the Indo-European soul has a much more daring inquisitive nature...This is also the reason why Indo-European Pakistan and Iran lead other Islamic nations in scientific accomplishments inspite of being much poorer than the top Muslim nations
This is also the reason why dictatorships are much harder to pull off in Indo-European lands than in other cultures...Remember the Greeks ´gave us Democracy......A paltry number of 78 deaths in Indo-European Iran in 2009 drew much harsher outcry than the persecutions in the Arab world....

But the downside of this individualistic mindset among Indo-Europeans mean that an Indo-European warlord has to be far more charismatic and much more of an übermensch in order to raise the same number of warriors as a middling Turkic or Mongol warlord can...

This is exactly the reason why Alexander is studied in much greater detail in military colleges than Chinggis Khan ever will be

and also means Hepthalites may not have had the sufficient number of warriors to counter the Göktürks



regarding testosterone I am not sure Turks have anymore than the best of Indo-Europeans
even the poorer Indo-Europeans like Iran and India are highly competitive in fight sports against the Turkic nations

 

[Taimoor Khan]

It is really surprising that this cavalier sneer, not even a comment, just a rank amateur's completely inept assessment of an acknowledged military genius, even sees the light of day. Only an utterly arrogant and self-obsessed personality could come out with this.

Alexander fought four important land battles, set pieces. There is little to distinguish this from the others, other than the lack of movement. It boiled down, on a wet, muddy battlefield, to a slugging match, and it ended with a clear 'Greek' victory. If the idiot view that the Indian - sorry, @Kaptaan , the coterminous Pakistan side - had won, there would have been no 'Greek' army marching down and facing off the numerous tribes that they faced on their march to the sea. They would have been smashed on the battlefield, and rolled over by the elephants and cavalry that Porus had in full measure.

For the 'gullible', who are not swayed by a retrograde need to prove their identity as unconquerable warriors (other than the Bactrian Greeks less than a generation later, the Scythians, their Pahlava allies, the Kushans, the Ephthalites or White Huns, the Turks, the Afghans, the Mongols, the Turks again), the facts are clear. There are accounts all tending to the same conclusion, there are the circumstances, of a supposedly beaten army making settlements on the ground that persisted until the successor empire walked on, marching down the Indus, fighting fierce battles and winning every one, and then facing a death march across the Makran coast, ending up an exhausted band of survivors in Babylon. All this after a defeat at the Hydaspes?

1) The depictions by Curtius, Justin, Diodorus, Arrian and Plutarch are quite consistent and reliable in concluding that Alexander was defeated by Porus and had to make a treaty with him to
save his and his soldiers` lives. He was a broken man at his return from his mis-adventures.

2) Mr E.A.W. Badge has included an account of "The Life and Exploits of Alexander" where he writes inter alia the following:

"In the battle of Jhelum a large majority of Alexander`s cavalry was killed. Alexander realized that if he were to continue fighting he would be completely ruined. He requested Porus to stop fighting. Porus was true to traditions and did not kill the surrendered enemy. After this both signed treaty, Alexander then helped him in annexing other territories to his kingdom".

Mr Badge further writes that the soldiers of Alexander were grief-stricken and they began to bewail the loss of their compatriots. They threw off their weapons. They expressed their strong desire to
surrender. They had no desire to fight. Alexander asked them to give up fighting and himself said,
"Porus, please pardon me. I have realized your bravery and strength. Now I cannot bear these agonies. WIth a sad heart I am planning to put an end to my life. I do not desire that my soldiers should also be ruined like me. I am that culprit who has thrust them into the jaw of death. It
does not become a king to thrust his soldiers into the jaws of death."


3) Alexnder is known to be a cruel man in history. He was neither a noble man nor did
he have a heart of gold. He had meted out very cruel and harsh treatment to his earlier enemies. Basus of Bactria fought tooth and nail with Alexander to defend the freedom of his motherland. When he was brought before Alexander as a prisoner, Alexander ordered his servants to whip
him and then cut off his nose and ears. He then killed him. Many Persian generals were killed by him. The murder of Kalasthenese, nephew of Aristotle, was committed by Alexander because he criticised Alexander for foolishly imitating the Persian emperors. Alexander also murdered his friend Clytus in anger. His father`s trusted lieutenant Parmenian was also murdered by Alexander.
These facts emerge from most historical accounts. 1. Alexander encountered stiff resistance; 2. Porus retained his kingdom and remained its king after the battle. In fact, Alexander even ceded some territory to him.

Gifting back a "defeated" Porus back his kingdom to honor his bravery after losing plenty of Greek soldiers in the battle!! Whats the expression? Kiss my arse??

4) The events that followed this battle, clearly showed that the acts of Greek army was of one with tails firmly tucked between their legs and of a defeated army. They only stuck to the indus in their retreat, did not follow the same path where they came from i.e. Afghanistan, their path to Arabian sea without venturing out on lands. Thoughout their journey down indus, they were picked off. I was watching a documentary long time ago in which a historian was tracing the track of so called "victorious Alexander army". They were showing the skeleton of the Greek army Littered around the coast of Pakistan, which btw can still be found. They presented those as the ones died of "thrust" and "hunger". That is laughable. how can a victorious army die of hunger and thrist?? It more like a case of being "picked off" what remained of it.


5) Another most intriguing side of this whole thing is, that before the battle, the Persian queen cum wife of Alexander, Roxanne, went to Porus personally and begged him for not to slay her husband during battle. Perhaps the reason why Alexender was "spared". Some "persuasion" it was . lol

6) Greek historians went silent about this battle and its only after 300 years have gone by, when the bones of Alexder and Porus went to dust, they wrote the account of battle on how the "gracious" Alexdener give Porus his lands back admiring his bravery!! Anceint Pakistan was his last and fatal campaign where his juggernaut was brought to a rather rude and brutal stop. Have a moment , think hard, reflect on how long is 300 years. Its a case of embarrassment to die down with time and when on one is left to challange, bring the narrative of mighty undefeated Alexander.

7) Handing victory to Alexander is like describing Hitler as the conqueror of Russia because the Germans advanced up to Stalingrad. According to Marshal Gregory Zhukov, the largely Macedonian army suffered a fate worse than Napoleon in Russia. So if Zhukov was comparing Alexander’s campaign in Indus to Napoleon’s disaster, the Macedonians and Greeks must have retreated in an equally ignominious fashion. Zhukov would know a fleeing force if he saw one; he had chased the German Army over 2000 km from Stalingrad to Berlin.


8) In the first charge, Porus’s brother Amar killed Alexander’s favourite horse Bucephalus, forcing Alexander to dismount. This was a big deal. In other battles the elite Macedonian bodyguards had not allowed a single enemy soldier to deliver so much as a scratch on their king's body, let alone slay his mount. Yet in this battle Porus troops not only broke into Alexander’s inner cordon, they also killed Nicaea, one of his leading commanders.

9) According to the Roman historian Marcus Justinus, Porus challenged Alexander, who charged him on horseback. In the ensuing duel, Alexander fell off his horse and was at the mercy of the Porus spear. But Porus dithered for a second and Alexander’s bodyguards rushed in to save their king.

10) On its way south towards the sea, Alexander's army was constantly harried by partisans, republics and kingdoms.

In a campaign at Sangala in Punjab, the attack was so ferocious it completely destroyed the Greek cavalry, forcing Alexander to attack on foot. In the next battle, against the Malavs of Multan, he was felled by an warrior whose arrow pierced the Macedonian’s breastplate and ribs.

Says Military History magazine: “Although there was more fighting, Alexander’s wound put an end to any more personal exploits. Lung tissue never fully recovers, and the thick scarring in its place made every breath cut like a knife.”

Alexander never recovered and died at the age of 33.

11) Plutarch wrote his biography over two hundred years after Alexander’s death using oral legends as his source. It is possible that he may also have had access to a personal diary kept by Alexander’s physician, but that is about it. Plutarch wrote the biography of Alexander as part of a series of biographies that contrasted the different styles of great Greek leaders, and in his view, Alexander was possibly the greatest of the greats, flawed only by youthful indiscretions. But otherwise, the tale came from legends spread by Alexander’s friends after he came back from Indus and died.So the story of how Alexander met and defeated the Porus and released him because Porus asked to be “treated like a king” in defeat did not come from any documented source. It was a legend.
The story, then, of Alexander’s triumphant march into subcontinent, finally only giving up at the urging of his soldiers who were tired after years of fighting and who wanted to return to their loved ones (in Persia?); the odyssey down the Indus, defeating various kingdoms but sustaining a deadly wound; and, finally splitting his army in two so that they would have a better chance of returning with the news in case of further conflicts; returning with a fraction of his army to the seat of his empire in Persepolis and his death from his wounds; all based on legend. No documents, no sources, just myth.So did Alexander really venture successfully into subcontinent and turn back at the urging of his men? spin?

Yeah, right.

It is interesting that the right wing morons (not you; you don't qualify, I would NEVER say that you are as bright as a moron, that would be rude to one of you) on both sides of the border have almost identical views; both based on an inarticulate, incoherent, purple-faced hatred of foreigners, hatred of the humiliation of having been subdued, for the umpteenth time (yes, it happened), and the need to deny anything and everything that the foreigner represents, or, and this is it, what YOU think they represent. In this case, your linguistic heritage.

Your linguistic heritage would have been Brahui, except that some scruffy, beaten-up losers stepped through the passes, pushed out by winners in a sectarian scuffle (yes, that was part of the heritage, too, for coterminous Pakistan: recognise the modern version?), and making their sorry way into the plains down past the hills. The civilisation that coterminous Pakistan loves so dearly was decaying to the point where people built in the earlier cities' well-regulated streets. So much for the civilisation stretching all the way to Turkmenistan. Which, by the way, is another inept, ill-read, ill-informed comment: a river civilisation stretching all the way to Turkmenistan? Really? A few beads, a few seals, a few artifacts, and we suddenly have coterminous Turkestan (the name given to five former Soviet republics now independent and desperately searching for an identity - odd situation, innit?) becoming part of coterminous Pakistan (yes, the name exists).

Your right wingers, liberals or whoever, not my problem neither I am interested in their diatribes. What is the connection here you loud fart? Your shit belongs to you, keep it to yourself. Non of my concern.

Humiliation is for you gangiyates, dont share your pain and agony with us. We just look down upon you, nuisance , like pest invading your home, uninvited guests , claiming history and men who got no relevance to you, cringeworthy certified glory hunters.

We do curse ourselves however that our ancestors didnt keep their stuff tucked in their pants and gave birth to your "elite class" which went on to rule which is now India. Self inflicted damage.

Your ignorance is not my issue. However its amusing to observe your insistence upon it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortugai

Shortugai (Shortughai) was an Indus civilization trading colony established around 2000 BC on the Oxus river near the lapis mines in northern Afghanistan.[1][2] According to Sergent, "not one of the standard characteristics of the Harappan cultural complex is missing from it".[



I sincerely hope you didnt miss your geography classes. Pardon my efforts, its the best I can do, hope you got your reading glasses on and can spot its location on the map? Do you know where Turkmenistan is? and how far this outpost is from the "river"? River civilzation? Fking dickhead, has it not dawned upon you that all mighty civilizations of ancient were centered, originated, governed from the main river system basin? Indus, Euphratus, Nile, Yangtze , they are not the names of continents or regions. Your lout farts are stinking this whole forum mate, have some self control.

Indus was three times bigger then contemporary Babylon and Egypt, COMBINED. Have a ponder over it.

Oh, absolutely. No civilisation, no cities, no towns, only forest dwellers and small agricultural villages producing a kind of pottery very similar to the last days of the great civilisation that marked the end of civilisation in coterminous Pakistan. These original elites composed the Vedas, did the philosophical bits of the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads (terms, please note, that roll smoothly off the tongues of the original coterminous elites).

I already conceded graciously the mistake of Pakistani ancients. They didnt keep their manhood under control and result was your elites, the barhamans. Its was a mistake which is not only coming back to haunt us but caused so much misery and subjucation to the original inhabitants of gangaland. As per Advani when he visited his place of birth in karachi, "Hum apki hi aulad hain".

Have you slipped the coca leaves in yet?

Alexander fought every battle at the head of his troops. Known to any half-read student of history. To be half-read is of course a reach for some of us.

At Granicus, he led his troops, personally, at the head of the Bodyguards, at the tip of the wedge. So much for the fighting the battles on the ground; in a cavalry charge, that would truly be a curious situation to be in. But then that comes in the second half of the history lesson, the half that we didn't get to do. He was injured by Rhoisakes, and Spithridates sought to kill him when he was half-stunned, and Alexander (never actually fighting on the ground, one to one, according to our military history genius) was saved by Cleitus the Black, who swung at the extended sword arm and severed it. Quite an exciting day in the life of a never actually fought the battles on the ground.

At Issus, the 'Greeks' were faced by a large Persian army led by the emperor himself barring the way back to Greece (it was still assumed that the Greeks were looking for significant defeats of the Persians and would ultimately return to Greece; nobody suspected that Alexander was looking to overthrown the Achaemenids and take over the empire himself). Alexander led the charge leading the 'hinge' soldiers, the Hypaspists, who formed the 'hinge' between the solid, immovable phalanx and the light infantry and cavalry that formed the mobile element of a Macedonian army, struck the Persian elite infantry, the Cardaces, and broke them, and then got back on horseback and led the Companions in a charge through the disorganised Persian centre towards the emperor, who fled. Fairly good going for one who, according to the local resident coterminous not-a-moron, never fought his battles on the ground one to one, and was always surrounded by his bodyguards. In this battle, he fought both on foot and on horseback.

I really dislike instant experts with tumescent opinions and no reading, no knowledge, no information.

Depends on which version of history you are reading and indoctrinated to. I have said many times, and I will repeat here again, History is a concubine at the hands of those who wrote it.


Alexdaner was a general. He may have faught some early skirmishes and conflicts in his life but certainly not later in his conquest, it will not make sense for him to put his life under risk when the bigger goal was conquer the known earth. And like all general before, he planned, conspired, observed the battlefield from distance, protected by somatophylax, his personal bodyguards. If he was that brave and reckless, he wouldnt need the bodyguards didnt he? You gonna enter the battlefield surrounded by your bodyguards? It reminds me the wadayras or feudals we got in Pakistan with army of bodyguards bearing AK47s, you should see the arrogance these people exhibit.

So cut the crap, and stop kissing your gaylord Alexender butt. And yea, he exhibited gay tendencies as well. You are not gay by any chance are you? Apologies if I have hurt your feelings.

Sublime in his arrogance and ignorance. What an exhibition.

I dont suffer trolls, they follow me, unfortunately. Its a shame.

 

[trident2010]

Pakistan at 326 BC

It was mighty Indians / Hindu kings fought and defeated Alexander

 

[defence_analyst]

only Indo-European nomadic confederacies that held promise during this time were the Hepthalites in various forms , but they were wiped out by Sassanid and Göktürks and were also simultaneously driven out of India


Another reason I feel is that the Indo-European soul is not that agreeable to authority..and the Indo-European soul has a much more daring inquisitive nature...This is also the reason why Indo-European Pakistan and Iran lead other Islamic nations in scientific accomplishments inspite of being much poorer than the top Muslim nations
This is also the reason why dictatorships are much harder to pull off in Indo-European lands than in other cultures...Remember the Greeks ´gave us Democracy......A paltry number of 78 deaths in Indo-European Iran in 2009 drew much harsher outcry than the persecutions in the Arab world....

But the downside of this individualistic mindset among Indo-Europeans mean that an Indo-European warlord has to be far more charismatic and much more of an übermensch in order to raise the same number of warriors as a middling Turkic or Mongol warlord can...

This is exactly the reason why Alexander is studied in much greater detail in military colleges than Chinggis Khan ever will be

and also means Hepthalites may not have had the sufficient number of warriors to counter the Göktürks

Interesting, you are right to extent. It was much easier for mongol/turks to rise large army. Though Khilji was Turk and large numbers of Afghans who are IE eventually fought under Turks for centuries. Alexander will always get more attention because he is European. That's why Porus despite being king of small kingdom which literally just consist of 2 districts out of 36 is more well known then anyone else from our part of the world.

 

[UnitedPak]

Pakistan at 326 BC

It was mighty Indians / Hindu kings fought and defeated Alexander

People of the Indus, i.e Pakistani ancestors.

Perhaps you should focus on the people of Ganges or Deccan plateau where you are actually from?

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

Indians why don't you get it, that you guys have Kalibangan, Lothal and Rakhigarhi to call your own civilization while Pakistanis have Harappa and Mohenjo-daro....both of us should be happy with the heritage we have

 

[zain41]

its only Ashkenazi Jews who are High IQ Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews are below white average ..its because of selection pressure in Europe where Ashkenazi (European) Jews were not allowed any jobs other than banking and book keeping...this meant only the High IQ of the Jews were able to hold down jobs or get rich and poor/low-IQ Jews would either be persecuted by the Christians or die Childless..these High IQ jews would marry and have lors of children...within a 1000 years Jews had 10-15 point advantage on whites..it was just unplanned eugenics

The mystery of high IQ of European Jews is a problem that has been completely solved a while back..look at Harvard Jewish scientist Steven Pinker ..as well as the Scandanavian series on race and IQ Brainwashed on Youtube



on the Indian front..If I am made a dictator who ensures only the top 3-4 percent of India reproduces and rest are sterilzed, then within 25-40 years you would be looking at the Greatest country on Earth that has ever existed


But the question is: are you, me or others ready to put up with that level of sacrifice?

but in the end we would end up with a country with as much average IQ as the Jews in USA..ca 115

and population will fall dramatically to stabilize at 50-100 million...I would rather live my last years in a country like that, in an India like that...100 crore Indians are drag on India....the rest 20 crores are somewhat okay[/Quote

You sound like hitler