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

LOSSES AND RESULTS. 245panic-stricken, incapable of any resistance, collectively orindividually. There was in ancient days no artillery withwhich to cover the retreat of a beaten force.In this case theMacedonians bore the twenty-one foot sarissa, the Greeks buta twelve-foot pike ; and the cavalry attacked them on bothflanks. Look at battles so late as Crccy (134G) and Agincourt(1415). At the former, the English loss is stated tohave been one squire, three knights, and very few soldierswhile the French are said to have lost eleven princes, twentyeighthundred knights and nobles, and thirty thousand soldiers.At the latter, the English lost sixteen hundred men totwenty thousand French. The experience of nineteenth centurywarfare makes it all but impossible to comprehend thisbut the numberless examples of history vouch fully for itstruth. It has been claimed that Macedonian losses wereunderstated as a matter of braggadocio. But even grossexaggeration wiU not alter the vast excess of losses by thevanquished, nor would the many enemies of Alexander inGreece have failed to record the truth.There are few things more curious than the comparison oflosses in given battles in all ages with their military and politicalresults. At Cunaxa, in the Greek phalanx, not one manwas killed, and but one man wounded. At the Granicus therewere one hundred and fifteen killed ; at Issus, four hundredand fifty ; at Arbela, five hundred. These three battles decidedthe fate of Persia. At the battle of Megalopolis, however,Antipater, mth forty thousand men, defeated Agis, withtwenty thousand, the Macedonians losing thirty-fivehundredkilled, and the Spartans fifty-three hundred. Important asthe battle was, it is the fierceness of the fighting, especiallyon the Spartan side, which is the noteworthy fact.We are wont to imagine a greater gallantry in olden timesthan in our own so-called degenerate days. Courage is said