Alexander the great and his military tactics that are used today

Logan Wolschlager
Humanities 134
May 28th 2017

Alexander the great can be observed in almost every world history book written. He was

considered a great leader and that statement can be backed up with the fact that he created one of

the biggest empires the world has seen at the time, he took over the kingdom from his father,

Philip the II, and made it bigger and better with continuously taking new land via fighting in

wars for it. In this paper, we will look at how Alexanders military tactics are still being taught

today.

The first tactic that we can see today is loyalty and brotherhood, I personally have never been

in a military background so I cannot attest to this claim, but whenever I talk to my uncle who

was in the army during the Vietnam war, he always talked about how the leaders would not act

as though they are better but act like they are family, they would bond and share stories like

they were brothers. It was a mutual respect that they had towards each other and they cared

about each other. This is how Alex ran his army, according to changingminds.org, He general

dressed like them and spend time with them. This outward appearance of love and concern,

allied with his courage and determination, evoked great affection from his soldiers. (The

army, Paragraph two). So, it is clear that Alex had a respect for his army that gave them more

of a reason to fight and this transformed into modern day military tactics because we still see a

bond grow between a group of guys and there superior.

His second tactic that found its way into a modern-day role is how he met his enemy, Alex

would take great consideration and planning when facing any enemy, he would not rush

straight in, he would meet his enemy then have flanks come from the sides. This can be seen in

modern war tactics all the time, if you do not have a solid plan and layout of how you want to

move your people it is surly going to be a disaster. Donald L Wasson explains in his acritical,

The army of alexander the great that Alex kept two Calvarys, one would scout and wait to

finish off an enemy by sneaking to the sides and one carvery would play a defensive role to

hold the enemy off. This is a tactic that was lost for a while during the early US revolution but

was surly found during wars like world war two where you needed to keep trick up your

sleeve to defeat your enemy.

The last tactic is his innovation of weapons, his army was able to succeed because they used

new weapons that gave them the upper hand. According to newworldencyclopedia.org, Alexs

army used long spears that measured in 18 feet long so they did not have to get close to the

enemy they could strike from a distance and they also carried shields that could be arranged

with the person next to you to from a wall so it was harder to for them to be hit. The reason I

still see this in todays military is because they are always trying to create the next big weapon

to stay that far ahead of the game. first it was guns then tanks and planes and now we are

moving into the world of robots that can be controlled from hundreds of miles away. In some

way, you can thank Alex the great for that because he was one of the first to stay ahead of the

curve.
 Annotated bibliography

1.) "Alexander the Great." Changingminds.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2017.

2.) Wasson, Donald L. "The Army of Alexander the Great." Ancient History

Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 04 Apr 2014. Web. 28 May 2017.

3.) "Alexander the Great." Alexander the Great - New World Encyclopedia. N.p., 10 Nov.

2016. Web. 28 May 2017.