327-326 BC - Campaign of Alexander the Great
In the year 334 BC, Alexander the Great, having settled the affairs of Greece and of Macedonia, marched with an excellently disciplined and equipped army, of a strength of 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry into Persia. In the same year he defeated the Persians before Granica, and in the following year at Issa, and in the year 331 BC, he inflicted a decisive blow on his rival Darius, and caused him to take refuge in Bactria, the modern Balkh, where he was killed.
Subsequently Alexander himself directed his attention to this province (Bactria) to which he took with him only his light troops. He, however, largely availed himself of the offers made to him on all sides of alliance, and in this respect he displayed the wisdom of an experienced diplomatist. This circumstance does much to explain how it was that Alexander, who really had but a very small force of Greeks, conducted in such a short time several remarkable campaigns and effected such vast conquests.
The great conqueror in his advance through the country now called Afghanistan, went by Kandahar and Ghazni into the Logar and Pighman circles of the Kabul plain. Having made the passage of the Hindu-Kush in a period of from 15 to 17 days, he reached the town of Indar-ab. The part of the Hindu-Kush range which the Macedonians crossed was at that time forestless, but there grazed over its slopes vast herds of large and small cattle. The flesh of these animals when seasoned with silfia (a plant of local growth) served as the sole food of the campaigners.
Having now conquered Central Asia from Farghana to the Caspian Sea, Alexander, in the year 327 BC, undertook his famous campaign against India. On this occasion he passed from north to south of the Hindu-Kush by a shorter route, which took him only 10 days. He then came out on the Kabul river, at a point below the junction of the rivers Gorband and Panj-Shir, and so reached the town of Nika on the modern village of Behram, near the town of Jalalabad. He then sent a portion of his army on to Peshawar, ordering this column to prepare every thing for the passage of the river Indus; the rest of his forces he himself led across the mountains, which lie to the north of the Kabul river. He had to cross very rapid rivers and high mountain passes, and at the siege of one town, the ruins of which must lie near Chigi to the north of Bajaur, he was wounded, but not dangerously. From Chigi he went to what is now known as the village of Jandaul, in the principality of Bajaur. Having captured Jandaul, the Greeks marched on the town of Luir.
Not far from Dir, the mountaineers attacked Alexander's forces, bat he obtained a brilliant victory over them, in which he captured 40,000 men, and 230,000 head of horned cattle. After this victory, the Macedonian army passed through Talash into the Sevada valley wherein was the chief stronghold of the Assakani. Here Alexander laid siege to the town of Massaga, the modern Manglaur. This town was defended by a mercenary force of natives of India, and these men, for three days, repelled the Macedonian attack, but on the fourth they had to open negotiations. After agreeing to enter the ranks of Alexander's army, they proved traitors, and so were all condemned to death, and Massaga was occupied by the Macedonians. From the Sevada valley, Alexander turned to the north-east into Buner, crossing the Ailam range by a road leading from Novagai to Sagaden. From here he subdued the provinces immediately adjacent to the Indus. Subsequently he turned his attention to those mountaineers who had taken up a strong position on Mount Aornos. The Macadonian army crossed the river Indus on boats, which they built for themselves from timber in the forests skirting the river banks.
History is are not acquainted with the real reasons which induced Alexander to pass through Kafiristan on his way from Balkh towards India. Of course, in selecting this route, he had to cross a mass of mountain ranges, to pass through terrible gorges, and to get over mountain streams and ravines without number, while there lay open to him the very practicable route along the Kabul river. It is very likely that Alexander wished to reach India without encountering peoples distinguished for their wild and warlike propensities.
From this brief sketch of Alexander's march from Bactria (the modern Afghanistan) to the Indus, it is seen that the HinduKush does not present special difficulties in the passage of troops across it, since Alexander crossed that range in 10 days. This historical and thoroughly authentic circumstance should completely convince those who suppose that the Hindu-Kush range is an insurmountable obstacle, that such a notion is a pure error; for while all the passes of the Hindu-Kush are not equally practicable, none of them are insurmountable by troops. While everybody admits that the route from Kabul to Peshawar, via Jalalabad and the Khaibar pass, is practicable for troops, it is also a fact that in the fourth century BC, Macedonian regular troops, heavily equipped, reached the Indus in two columns by other routes altogether. Thus Alexander himself passed through Bajour, Jandaul, Sevada and Buner, and his other column followed the Karat) route along the left bank of the Kabul river.
Having established his dominion in the valley of this river and of its affluents, where dwelt from of old a group of warlike mountaineers, Alexander, who had surmounted the most difficult obstacles on his route from Bactria to the Indus at Attock, was offered on his entering into the Punjab delta, an alliance by Taxilla against Porus, one of the most powerful of the sovereigns of India.
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