![]() ![]() More than anything else, Alexander wanted that title for himself, but there was one hitch in his plan-Bessus. Before Alexander could capture Darius alive, the usurper Bessus had Darius killed and named himself King of Kings. After his remarkable victory at the Battle of Gaugamela, he and his rag-tag band of Macedonians had essentially overthrown Darius III, the Persian Empire’s King of Kings. So why did Alexander enter Afghanistan in the first place? Since this is history, there’s no simple answer to that question, but to boil it down, Alexander brought his army to the land that was then known as Bactria on the hunt for a man named Bessus, who was the only man standing between Alexander and the throne of the Persian Empire.īy all accounts, that throne ought to have been Alexander’s. In fact, historians have claimed that the brutal Afghan campaign marked a shift in Alexander-from infallible Golden Boy to a cruel, paranoid shell of what he once was. The region chewed him up and spit him out, and while he never explicitly “lost” any battles in his time there, it’s hard to so he won much of anything either. Like many other military superpowers would after him, from the British Empire to Russia to NATO, Alexander waltzed into Afghanistan with all the confidence in the world, but he left battered and bruised, with very little to show for it. But while his remarkable conquests in Persia and his far-reaching campaign to India take center stage in the history books, there’s an often-forgotten chapter of Alexander’s legacy that was anything but easy.Īlexander’s campaign in Afghanistan has become a mere footnote in his legacy-perhaps because it was the region where the great warlord saw the least success. With his elite troops and unmatched tactical genius, he started from the unassuming Macedon in Northern Greece and wrought the largest empire the world had ever seen, spanning from Greece in the West all the way to India in the East. ![]() With such a spotless military record, Alexander’s conquests seem almost like they were…easy. He unquestionably earned his moniker-Alexander was Great. Millennia after his death, military geniuses like Napoleon painstakingly studied his battles to learn from his success. As he rampaged across Western and Central Asia, he founded countless cities that stand to this day. ![]() He fought battle after battle, forging the largest empire on earth-all without losing even once. He took over his father’s throne at just 20 years old and immediately began a campaign the likes of which the world has never seen. Alexander the Great was undeniably the greatest military commander in history. ![]()
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