The phalanx was a magnificent formation in many ways.
Made of around two hundred and fifty men, the soldiers would be usually armed with a bronze helmet, a bronze cuirass, and leather hands and legs greaves, while being packed as tightly together as possible to enhance unit cohesion.
They would be armed with around two meter-long spears and large, around a meter in diameter, shields, making their frontal attack capacity devastating.
The spears from the first four to five rows would point out of the front of the formation, intended to skewer the enemy, while the rest of the rows would point their spears upwards at a slanted angle, in an effort to ward off any incoming projectiles.
This bristle of spears were nigh invincible in frontal attacks, except against other phalanxes and the formation proved so effective that it was the standard and mostly the only infantry formation of the time.
But like any and all other things in the world, this thing also had its disadvantages.
While it was unmatched in frontal combat, the tight packing of the soldiers meant that it was virtually defenseless against flanking and rear attacks.
It was also not possible to reduce the packing of the soldiers as it would dilute the forest of spears and thus lower its deadliness.
Of course, the people wielding these formations were not stupid and knew of these shortcomings, and to compensate for this, they made sure to add more and more phalanxes together, to cover the flanks and make the whole army act in concert and with cohesion.
And that was the key word- cohesion.
Because while a phalanx with cohesion was one of the deadliest military formations of its time, a phalanx without cohesion was like a pack of loose sands.
And this phenomenon where the phalanx started losing cohesion was what Alexander asked his subordinates to look out for.
As the royalist army was lured into rocky, uneven terrain, the individual phalanxes were unable to maintain the same kind of packed cohesion with their neighbors as they would on flat ground, and soon, gaps began to appear between separate phalanxes.
This was particularly evident in Amenheraft’s flanks, which were composed of zealous nobles eager to hunt the ‘fleeing’ enemy down quickly.
To encourage this chase, Alexander had purposefully thinned his wings by recalling his cavalry and instructed the rest to orderly retreat like they had practiced, giving the impression that they were close to routing and only needed one last attack to break them.
And the enemy took the bait, hook, line, and sinker, as soon the bloodthirsty nobles began to veer off on their own, leaving the safety of their brother units and opening their soft underbelly or more accurately their soft flanks to the enemy.
And though most in Amenheraft’s army missed this, as all were on the same level ground as the others, the captains of Alexander’s army, with their elevated positions on top of a horse, did not.
Two particular people who had been hawkishly looking for gaps and spotted them immediately were Grahtos and Remus, who were the leaders of the two cavalry wings Alexander had created.
After Alexander had called them back from the flanks to regroup, they were instructed to wait and then on their initiative lead their cavalry into the opened gaps of the phalanx and jump on the defenseless sides of the soldiers.
Remus recalled Alexander describing the phalanx as an ‘armored fist’ that is used to punch through the enemy, with its strength being derived from how closely the units or in this analogy the fingers are clenched tightly together.
Alexander said that if the fingers were tight and compact, it would be a devastating punch, but if the knuckle became loose or gaps formed between the fingers, just like how a punch would lose its power, similarly, the phalanx would become vulnerable.
And to Remus, it appeared that the phalanx, at least those in the flanks of the enemy had become just that – vulnerable.
So he took his fifteen hundred horsemen in a lightning charge towards the right flank of the enemy, while Grahtos followed suit with the left flank, slipping in between the gaps of the enemy’s ‘fingers’ and slicing each down.
And the result of all this was as Alexander had expected.
These horsemen appeared to the royalists like hyenas pouncing on them, smashing into their undefended flanks and cutting them down by the hundreds per minute.
Many died without even understanding how they died, by what magic their brother units that were supposed to protect their side had disappeared, or even where these horsemen had come from.
While the massacre of the flanks was occurring, the center of the royalist army had also begun to lose cohesion.
Because of the large concentration of soldiers, it had taken them a bit longer to become sufficiently spread out, but once they did, the individual captains of Alexander, from their horses, recognized the weak points immediately, and then skillfully led their men through these narrow gaps, causing devastating losses to the royalist army.
The royalist commanders and especially Amenheraft watched this horror show unfold with stunned disbelief as he repeatedly urged his commanders and particularly Manuk to find a way to save his army.
But the king…former king, only got a wall of silence and a look of terrified, dejection from the latter as Manuk informed the king with a slow shake of his head that there was nothing he could do.
Manuk was truly helpless to stop the collapse of the army, as, from his perspective, the events of the war folded like this- they were winning one moment, and then suddenly a bunch of horsemen had somehow got in between their phalanxes and now they were getting mowed down.
As Manuk confirmed the enemy penetrating themselves within his own army’s ranks, he understood the battle was over and with Amenheraft’s permission, blew the horn of retreat.
Though it was largely redundant by that point, as the army had already begun to rout.
Amenheraft, Manuk, and his royal entourage then swiftly evacuated the battlefield, soon crossing the river and running not south toward Zanzan but east, toward Ankoot.
But while this small amount of people on horseback could run away without much problem, the rest of the army could not.
Alexander’s army, especially the light cavalry had a field day chasing down the fleeing infantry, they being spoiled for choice on who to stab in the back next.
But it was not Alexander’s men that claimed the most lives- it was the deep river that Amenheraft had crossed to meet Alexander that did most of the killing.
Soldiers in blind panic waded into the deep, river in full armor, only to be swept off their feet by the blinding current of the mountain river.
Three days later, Alexander would be informed of a dam formed of metal, leather, and rotting human flesh that had built itself downstream and he would order the clearing and proper burial of the deceased.
But that would be later, as currently, the soldiers were erupting into jubilant cries of ecstasy.
They won!
They had finally won!
The Cantagenans rejoiced at finally having vindicated themselves after their two consecutive defeats and the Adhanians rejoiced at being able to drive away the ‘evil rebel.’
Alexander too breathed the biggest sigh of relief to date as he felt becoming a landlord was just around the corner.
In his eyes, the battle was closer than it appeared and there were a few times he feared the battle might be lost.
Amenheraft’s wings, even when outnumbered had threatened to break his own multiple times, and only by sending his best units, the mercenaries along with people with Menes and Menicus to inspire the troops could he hold the line till the fated time.
Alexander could find little fault with Manuk’s strategy as using a stronger center to break the opponent’s one was a time-tested classic.
His decision to put his most experienced troops on the flanks was also practiced regularly, the idea being to use the experienced soldiers to break the opponent’s flanks and then clamp down on the flanks of the center, launching a three-pronged- left, right, and center attack and destroying the enemy
The only small criticism that could be laid on Manuk was not using his best troops in the center, or not giving the flanks enough support to scatter Alexander’s.
But the latter could be countered by the fact that if Manuk had done that, his center’s attack power would diminish, meaning Alexander could redeploy some of his troops from the center to the flanks, balancing the forces out.
The arguments against the former could be that elite units work best in small numbers.
For example- a knight could kill a similarly armed and armored peasant any day of the week, a hundred percent of the time.
But if that number would be increased to hundred vs hundred, it is likely the knights will suffer some casualties. 𝑜𝘷𝑙.𝘰𝑟𝑔
Change that to a ten thousand-man battle, the battle would be much more even, as the peasants together would be able to far better make up each other’s deficiencies.
So, ultimately Manuk lost this battle, not because of poor tactics, but poor terrain.