Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

THE OBLIQUE ORDER. 241The p?ean was intoned, the trumpets blared, the war - cry," En} alius I " an Homeric name for Mars, was shouted, andthe attack was be^un with true Macedonian elan. In theorder given the army entered the fords with the confidencebred of many victories.such foes as the splendid Persian horse,But they had never yet encounteredAlexander was leaning his right on Ptolemy and his lefton the phalanx. This whole wing, by the advance of theextreme right, was, as stated, thrown into a sort of obliqueorder, and the right still kept on edging to the right, partlyon account of the way the main fordran, and partly so as toprevent the enemy from outflanking it in that quarter. Theleft wing, under Parmenio, was operating lower down, so asto fall on the Persian right. The two wings were separated,— not the error then which it now would be. The phalanxof the riglit wing was to make its way across the ford whenthe horse under Alexander had opened the way by its vigorousonset ; the phalanx of the left to follow Parmenio.The oblique order of the right wing was thus partly intentional,partly owing to the greater rapidity of onset ofthe hetairai and light horse, and the inability ofthe phalanxto get over the fords as soon as they did. But it was nonethe less effective. Alexander's excessive ardor, and the factthat he always commanded the right, gives the appearance inall his battles of a premeditated oblique order. But, as willhereafter appear, it was sometimes accidentaland due to hisown tremendous energy. At the Hydaspes, no doubt, theoblique order was intended. Here it was not so. Manybooks on the history ofwar portray Alexander's battles withthe troops as regularly echeloned in oblique order asFrederick'sarmy at Leuthen ; but the careful comparison of theoriginal authorities by no means sustains this view.The regularorder in echelon is of late creation, though Epaminon-