Why is Alexander the Great considered a great military commander?
Alexander never lost a single battle in his life and yes, he died young, but his first major battle under his father was at the age of 16 when he led the Macedonian cavalry against Thebes’ elite infantry, the Sacred Band, arguably the best military unit in Greece at that moment. Such spotless record must account
for something. Any comparison with any other military captain has to take his unblemished record of victories with not a single defeat into account.
He was a genius in strategy, able to make quick decisions in the thick of the battle. He was able to snatch victory from the claws of certain defeat, time and again, always against overwhelming enemy superiority in numbers, always in a terrain that his enemies had carefully chosen to maximize their advantages. Any city he ever attacked he conquered. His own father the great Philip II failed to take Byzantium, and was defeated by Thracian tribesmen, but not Alexander. He made land out of a sea and conquered the heavily fortified island city of Tyre, and he used rock climbers to take the Sogdian Rock in Bactria/Afghanistan, an impregnable citadel that was compared to an eagle’s nest. He almost killed himself jumping into the Indian city of the Malians alone, a wound which weakened his body and eventually probably contributed to his death.
He was simply FEARLESS! Like the Carthagenian Hannibal, and all ancient Greek military leaders, Miltiades, Epameinondas, Philipos II, etc, and Romans, like Caesar (but unlike Napoleon, Genghis Han and others after him), Alexander was always leading from the front line.
His soldiers adored him to death for another reason too: He was always winning decisively, decimating his opponents in battle, with only a handful of losses on his own side. They would follow him blindly knowing not only that victory was theirs, but that very few of them would die in battle.
He was a competent manager of an army on the move who was able to keep his army of 40 to 100 thousand men plus horses, plus thousands of auxiliary trades (including prostitutes, girlfriends, Asian wife's and trades en) fed, supplied and rearmed on the move, even in places such as Bactria/Afghanistan, which says volumes about his logistics organization. While in India, he received new shields, helmets, and body protection gear for all his army, which was manufactured in Greece and traveled from Greece to be delivered intact to his soldiers in India without any incident.
He was a brilliant politician and knew what it would take to create a new empire. Defeating the enemy on the field of battle was only the beginning. The Greeks were too few compared to other peoples, like Indians, Thracians, Egyptians of
Persians. But tge Greeks were well educated and had proven their worth in battle,. Alexander knew that without the cooperation of the Persians, the Egyptians, the Indian allies and the tribes of Bactria/Afghanistan, etc the Macedonians could never manage to keep the new empire together. He angered his own Macedonians by adopting Asiatic “proskynesis”, Persian clothing and “barbarian” customs but he was light years ahead of his time in understanding that you can defeat a state but you have to co-opt the locals into accepting you. The Mongols and the Turks did it using terror. He had a culturally tolerant approach. he respected the local religions and customs and elevated the locals to the highest positions. Compare this with how the Nazis treated their own Ukrainian collaborators (they called them “niggers” for not being Germanic) which led to their alienation. Alexander even married a tribal girl, Roxanne, besides marrying two Persian princess, Darius’ daughter Stateira and her cousin Parysatis. In this way he was able to not only win battles but win wars and secure the peace behind him.
