The Battle of Gaugamela: When Alexander Forced History to Call Him the Great

On this day in 331 BC, Alexander the Great defeats the king of the Persians, Darius III, at Gaugamela, and completes the conquest of the Persian Empire. Bucephalas, the favorite horse of the great soldier is killed in this battle.

It was a day like today, October 1, 331 BC. when the 25-year-old Alexander from Macedonia, which a few years ago was a weak state in the north of Greece, defeated the army of the most powerful empire in the world at the time and became the Lord of Asia!

When Alexander saw a gap forming in the Persian lines he knew he would not get a second chance. Brandishing his sword on his unruly horse he led the greatest cavalry charge in history. Opposite him was the Great King the King of the World Darius III called Kodomanos, the king of Persia.

Alexander himself in charge!

The key to the great success was Alexander’s very presence among his warriors. On the battlefield of Gaugamela, somewhere in today’s Kurdistan, it quickly became clear who would emerge victorious. Darius’s army was three times that of Alexander’s, but it was passion and tactics that made the difference.

What if against the Macedonians there were arrayed fearsome elephants, sickle-bearing chariots, well-armed soldiers, and the terrible and terrible Immortals, the military body of 10,000 elite soldiers, who when someone was killed, immediately replaced him so that the number would be fixed. Alexander had in mind the way to destroy his rival: an overwhelming attack against the king himself, with the same head of the army.

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He had been lucky to escape in his first battle in the inhospitable lands of Asia, by the Granicus River, leading an attack on the center of the enemy’s line, when a blow from an ax shattered his helmet and just enough to rest on his skull.

At Gaugamela, it took only a few minutes for Alexander’s military genius to spot a fatal gap in the center of the Persian military lines; it was then that the Macedonian general ordered his horsemen to turn to where King Darius was with his elite soldiers. The Great King thought nothing of it: he fled. The Persian army collapsed and Darius during his disorderly flight to the depths of the east was murdered by the satrap Byssus.

Alexander did not stop at Gaugamela; he continued to advance and conquered most of the then known world to the east: Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt…, reaching the edges of India, and indeed without being defeated in a battle in which he participated.

The total territory of Alexander’s empire, at its greatest extent in 323 BC, is estimated at 5,200,000 square kilometers, and included parts of 26 present-day countries: Greece, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania , Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, India, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Alexander was master of the largest empire that had existed up to that time and that is why History kneeled reverently beside his successes and named him Great!

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