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

AN ALPINE ROUTE. 395and Persepolis lay a rugged Alpine country, traversed by buta single practicable road, and with defiles easily held by ahandful. But the Greeks were always good mountain fighters.They were mountaineers by birth, and had had trainingin mountain warfare from their earliest campaigns. It isdoubtfid if any modern nation has ever come near to equalingthe mountain tactics of Xenophon or Alexander. Mountainshad no terrors for the Macedonian army.It is perhaps difficult to give an adequate idea of the tremendousdifficulties to be surmounted in this march fromSusa to Persepolis, which some of the ancient historians dismisswith a sentence. There is to-day a plentifid lack of informationabout this rarely visited region. From the lowlandswhere stood Susa, to the uplands of Persepolis fivethousand feet higher, Alexander had to cross a mountainrange as well as several large and rapid rivers. The Copratesand Kuran or the Passitigris, the Heduphon, the Arosis, theAraxes were among these, not to mention scores of good-sizedaffluents. The ancient names of some of these rivers areuncertain, but they stood in his path then as now. The mountainchain which separates Susiana from Persis was so highand rugged as to make the march much like a passage of theAlps. Perhaps no mountains with which we are familiar canconvey the idea of these snow-clad heights except the Alps,no passes show the difficidties of the road he had to follow sowell. This is no figure of speech. It was winter, and whileon the plains a winter campaign might be preferable to one'under the midsummer sun, in these mountains even summerscarcely mitigated the severities of the march.It has been claimed by excellent authority that this mountainbarrier is the worst which any army has ever crossed.This is probably inexact. The passage of the Parapamisusmust have been more difficult. And no similar feat will ever