The example of Alexander the Great has mesmerised generals, historians, and artists for 2,300 years. Dead at the age of 32, he had conquered an empire that extended for 3,000 miles across Asia in the space of just 13 years. The Romans eventually conquered a similar expanse, but it took them 300 years.
In our special this time, we analyse the Macedonian military system and the character and brilliance of Alexander as strategist and tactician. We then take a detailed look at the Battle of Gaugamela of 331 BC, Alexander’s greatest victory and an all-time tactical masterpiece.
Elsewhere in this issue, Andrew Mulholland analyses Sir John Moore’s masterful defensive battle against French troops at Corunna in 1809, and Chris Peers explains why ‘rifle-and-bayonet’ defeated ‘spear-and-shield’ in the iconic colonial encounter at Rorke’s Drift in 1879.
Following on from his article last time on the fraught history between President Lincoln and General McClellan, Nigel Jones takes a critical look at Winston Churchill’s relationship with the British generals in the early part of the Second World War.
Finally, Graham Goodlad analyses Operation Anthropoid, when the Czech Resistance assassinated SS butcher Reinhard Heydrich, the so-called ‘Hangman of Prague’, in the summer of 1942, and its bloody aftermath.