Afghanistan a military history from alexander the great to the fall of the taliban

[marwat]

The Behistun list of ca. 520 B.C. provides the oldest written
description of Afghanistan; yet it would be skimpy to the point of
meaningless had not the Greek historian Herodotus—who traveled
widely and had sources of his own—elaborated with greater detail. It
is from Herodotus, the "Father of History," that we learn of the
Paktuyke, the northernmost and "most warlike" of Indians, who
dressed and armed themselves much like the Bactrians. It is also from
him that we know Darius commissioned a naval party to explore the
Indus to its mouth. Led by an Ionian Greek named Skylax, the expedition
first proceeded east on the Kabul River, probably starting near
Peshawar, and then headed south to the Arabian Sea at present-day
Karachi. Upon receiving a report, Darius immediately conquered the
area, modern Sind, up to the Indus. His subsequent inscriptions, referring
to the new province as Hindush, provide the first distinction
between the peoples we now know as Indians and Afghans. The new
province, of "by far the most numerous people in the world," was
ordered to pay a yearly tribute of 360 gold talents while the region
around Gandhara, including the Paktuans, was taxed 170 talents of
silver, or its equivalent.

[Samandri]

The founder of the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great, did lay claim
to Afghanistan, though in at least two separate marches, and he may
never have crossed the Hindu Kush. In his first invasion, his army
stumbled out of the Masht-i-Dago (Desert of Death) in terrible shape
and was given succor by a people called the Ariaspians, who lived
along the Helmand River. Cyrus called them "The Benefactors," and
he proceeded through Kandahar and then north to the Kabul River
valley. Near Bagram at the foot of the Hindu Kush he founded a garrison
city, Kapish Kanish, or Kapisa, but whether he proceeded across
the mountains is unknown.
The evidence of Cyrus's conquest of northern Afghanistan, or
Bactria, is scanty. But one of his first, and certainly his last, campaigns
was against Scythian tribes dwelling between the Oxus and Jaxartes
Rivers,

Westerns assume that illiterate villagers in remote villages of Afghanistan, have traditions and folklore about Alexander the Macedonian , but the 'Sikander' in our folklore is Sikander Zolqarnain, i.e Cyrus the great.......

[marwat]

Herodotus described the Areians (herati) from today's western
Afghanistan as "equipped like the Bactrians, except that their bows
were in the Median style." The Gandharans, like the Parthians and
Chorasmians who lived by the Caspian Sea, were also fitted out like
the Bactrians. The Paktuans, he said, "wore cloaks of skin and carried
the bow of their country and the dagger." The Indians wore cotton
clothing and carried "cane bows and cane arrows with iron heads."
The Bactrians, Scythians, and Paktuans contributed cavalry, with arms
identical to their infantry counterparts.
The largest contingent of cavalry, eight thousand, was provided by
the Sagartians (or Sagartioi), whom Herodotus described as "a nomadic
people who are ethnically Persian and who speak Persian, but dress in
a combination of styles from Persia and Paktuyke." He said they were
armed with no bronze or iron weapons except daggers, relying instead
on leather ropes with a noose at one end. They evidently fought like
rodeo riders. The Sagartians were mentioned on only one of Darius's
lists of conquered peoples, and after the invasion they disappeared from
Greek commentaries. They may have rebelled against Persian control,
or as mounted nomads were simply too difficult to pin to a territory and
were instead included in other satrapal domains. Caroe theorizes that
these people—half Persian and half Paktuan—may have been ancestors
of the Abdali tribe, later called the Durranis, who for centuries have
been the dominant tribe of western Afghanistan.

[marwat]

they fought only with rope with a noose on head like this

[Temur]

Timur Invades India - 1398 - YouTube

[marwat]

Timur Invades India - 1398 - YouTube

hello you are a new member? open your own thread, don't mess with this one

[Loy Afghanistan]

hello you are a new member? open your own thread, don't mess with this one

A eastern Iranian woman (aka most of modern Pashtuns) killed the poor Koroush-e-Bozorg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomyris

[torkham]

Timur Invades India - 1398 - YouTube

Temur Since you are in Jhelum, have you heard of a recent Mohamadzai community relocated to Sarai Alamgir from Kabul? Trying to trace an old childhood friend with whom I lost contact way back.

[marwat]

The first battle(between macedonian and darius III) came at the Granicus River in northwest Turkey,
soon after the Macedonians had arrived in Asia. The area's Persian
satraps assembled their imperial garrisons, Greek hoplites, and local
levies into as large an army as they could muster. Two thousand
Bactrian cavalry from northern Afghanistan were present, two thousand
miles from their home. These horsemen were held in high esteem
in the ancient world and the Persian kings evidently used them as a
mobile elite.

[marwat]

Darius's army( in second Macedonian persian battle) was far larger than Alexander's, which consisted of about 48,000 men, though by choosing such a confined battlefield he
negated much of its superiority. It consisted of forces from Persia and
the empire's western domains. The Roman historian Curtius said, "As
for Bactrians, Sogdians, Indians and others . . . some of whose names
were unknown even to Darius, the hurried mobilization precluded
their being summoned." Darius did hold two major strengths: in addition
to empire troops he had assembled all his Greek hoplite soldiers,
perhaps thirty thousand strong; plus he had more cavalry, up to twenty
thousand compared to Alexander's sixty-five hundred. And the Persians
had a river as a defensive barrier, with a steep bank at parts and
barricaded at others.
Darius fled the battle field upon seeing alexander and when one of his commander was killed in front of him.

[marwat]

Third Macedonian persian battle

Alexander thus felt apprehension in September 331 B.C. when he
rode onto a hillock and caught a glimpse of Darius Ill's new army.
Darius had been energetic during the two years Alexander had spent
in Palestine and Egypt. Having abandoned much of the west, he had
summoned the strength of the eastern provinces of his empire to resist
the invasion. The new troops were not infantry conscripts from the
farms of Mesopotamia but horse warriors from Afghanistan and its
surrounding territories: Bactrians, Scythians, Parthians, Arachosians,
Areians, and Indians. Attrition in Alexander's force had been made
good from Macedonia so that his army still stood at about 48,000
men, nearly 7,000 of them cavalry. But Darius's cavalry alone numbered
35,000, and he still had Greek hoplite infantry, his 10,000 heavily
armed Immortals, and other trained troops along with the huge
mass of conscripts that lent bulk, if not discipline, to Persian hosts.

The Persian right was led by Mazaeus, satrap of Syria, while the
left, opposite Alexander, was led by Bessus, satrap of Bactria. Bessus
placed units of his own cavalry and Scythians ahead of his main
mounted force, which consisted of more Bactrians, Arachosians,
Dahae (a Scythian tribe), and others. The entire Persian front line bristled
with cavalry and, toward the center, elite armored infantry; the
conscript infantry was placed behind the first echelons in what we can
assume was an amorphous mass.

Chariots, even such as the Persians possessed, had long been considered
anachronisms in the Greek world. And the Persian charioteers
were on an unenviable suicide mission. Due to the speed necessary for
their effectiveness, they could not be supported by troops from their
own line; instead, they had to charge alone against the grim ranks of
thousands of armored Macedonians. Alexander had anticipated the
chariots by placing archers and javelin-men in advance of his main
line, and these light troops aimed at the horses or charioteers, causing
many a vehicle to halt, veer, or flip over in the open field. Those chariots
that made it past Alexander's skirmishers found that the Macedonians
simply opened their ranks to let them speed by. In the rear the
charioteers were pulled down and killed; it was impossible for them to
turn around, their backs exposed, to regain their own lines.

On the Macedonian right, the well-armored Bactrian and
Scythian horsemen began getting the better of Alexander's flank
guard. Success breeds success, so the Persian left wing flowed in that
direction. But Alexander had masked infantry behind his cavalry on
the right so that instead of the wide fluctuations of a cavalry battle,
the flank remained stiff. On the exposed Macedonian left, however,
Parmenio was in serious trouble, assailed by overwhelming numbers
of cavalry followed by foot troops. In the center the Macedonian phalanx
advanced to close with its Greek and Persian Immortal counterparts.
As the Macedonian left clumped to resist overwhelming numbers
on its flank, a gap opened between Parmenio and the center, into
which several thousand Persian and Indian cavalry charged. They gotthrough to the Macedonian baggage and became temporarily distracted
with looting.
Alexander-legend has it that Darius's queen mother, Sisygambis,
refused to be rescued by her kinsmen at this stage, but ancient sources
fail to resolve the distinction between Alexander's base camp, where
the Persian royal family (and his own treasury) were being held and
the usual baggage area of a mobile army where troops lay down their
packs. At this point the baggage of common Macedonian soldiers,
filled with plunder and trinkets from Asia Minor to Egypt, were worth
scavenging. Given the days they'd been kept waiting before the battle,
the Persian troops may also have been desperate for food. In any case,
if the queen mother had indeed decided not to be rescued by wild-eyed
cavalry in the midst of a battle, her decision indicated prudence more
than affection for her captor.
As his right flank fought against increasing pressure and
Parmenio's nearly surrounded left wing barely held on, Alexander saw
his opportunity. The Persians had charged en masse across open
ground against Parmenio, even as the eastern cavalry on the Persian
left had spilled into the apparently successful battle on the Macedonian
right. And a vulnerability had now opened between Darius's
center and his left. Alexander and the Companion Cavalry had not
been conspicuous in the battle so far. But now Alexander charged, at
the head of his wedge of heavy cavalry, from the Macedonian right
straight toward Darius. The Macedonian phalanx in his vicinity, as if
sucked into a vacuum, followed.
Nearly blinded by dust and deafened by noise, the Great King in
the center of the Persian line must have felt that his battle plan had
succeeded, as indeed it had. The Macedonian line had been flanked on
both sides and cut through on its left. But suddenly his own guard
began to cave in from an unexpected attack. Darius would fight if he
could identify an enemy. Instead, he was suddenly surrounded by fallen
or fleeing men. And a sudden onset of hoofbeats, clangs of metal,
and shouts to his left informed him that Alexander was caving in his
guard and heading straight for him.


Arrian's statement that Darius was the first of the Persians to flee
the battle can hardly be believed. Curtius's account, that Darius's chariot
driver was struck down by a spear, making soldiers lose heart at
thinking the Great King was dead, is more plausible. His ears were full
of screams at that moment and his once-formidable guards were
falling beneath the dust in sprays of blood. Darius at Gaugamela, just
as at Issus, suddenly faced a decision whether to die, possibly surrender,
or retreat in order to preserve the Achaemenid empire. Or perhaps
he simply panicked. History would have judged him more kindly if he
had held his ground, come what may; but he again decided to run.

[marwat]

An event in Alexander's life that has been debated by historians
from ancient times to this day is why he set fire to Persepolis, destroying
it before leaving in the spring of 330 B.C. The fact is that by the
time they were able to leave, every man in the Macedonian army—
Alexander foremost—simply hated the place. That winter, instead of
enjoying the spoils of conquest, they'd been forced into a miserable,
windswept existence among stone and marble ghosts. Under the
Achaemenids, Persepolis had been supplied with a constant stream of
varied provisions, but Alexander had wrecked that infrastructure and
the Macedonians were left with only the thirty thousand sheep they
had seized from the Uxians. In the rest of the empire, the Persians continued
to enjoy warmth, commerce, good food, and human relationships,
while the conquering Macedonian army, like a herd of rubes,
had decided to winter in a symbolic capital.

[marwat]

In the eastern provinces of the empire, three of Darius's murderers,
Bessus, satrap of Bactria, Satibarzanes, satrap of Areia, and Barsaentes,
satrap of Arachosia, returned to their capitals in modern
Afghanistan to await the invading army—if it would keep coming.
Alexander soon received word that Bessus, the Achaemenid descendant
who had held the Persian left at Gaugamela, was wearing "his
tiara upright," a symbol of kingship, and he had assumed the royal
name Artaxerxes. Alexander must have welcomed the development
and done his best to spread the news of Bessus's impudence throughout
the army. The Macedonians were not merely marching against
restive fragments of the empire but against a rival who claimed to be
a new Great King.
Bessus, for his part, counted on an alliance of the satrapies that
today comprise Afghanistan, along with the Sogdians and Scythians
north of the Oxus, and perhaps even the eastern Indian principalities,
to join him in resistance. Even more, he counted on the fact that the
Macedonians were marching beyond their knowledge of geography. If
any army in history had overextended itself it was Alexander's, and
Bessus felt that the Greek invaders would soon exhaust themselves.

[marwat]

In the summer of 330 B.C., Alexander rested and reassembled his
army southeast of the Caspian Sea. Athletic games were held, and at
one point the queen of the Amazons came in from the north, hoping
to bear a child by the great conqueror. For centuries historians doubted
the truth of this tale, but modern archaeologists have discovered
gravesites with ample evidence of a female warrior culture in the lower
Eurasian steppes. On balance, the ancient accounts of Amazon warriors
must be accepted, though the formidable Sarmatians—cousins of
the Scythians—of whom they seemed to be a part, may have used
them primarily for diplomacy. As for Alexander siring a child, it was
reported to have taken thirteen days, a length of time that probably
indicates his difficulty with the process more than his enthusiasm.

[marwat]

The Macedonians had proceeded toward Bactria when they
received word that Satibarzanes had killed Anaxippus and the javelin
men and had raised Areia in a revolt. Alexander took the elite units of
his army and sped back to Artacoana, covering seventy miles in two
days. Satibarzanes was shocked at the speed of his arrival and fled the
province for Bactria with whatever cavalry he could muster.
The rest of Alexander's army, under Craterus, surrounded thirteen
thousand Areians who had taken refuge on a "rocky outcrop" with
sheer cliffs on its west side and a somewhat lesser gradient on the east.
It was densely wooded and had a year-round spring at its summit. At
first, this natural fortress defied the Macedonians. But Alexander, as
Curtius said, "had a mind that constantly wrestled with problems. . . .
In a quandary as he was, chance provided him with a scheme when his
reasoning could not." The army had been cutting trees to pile up
against the steep cliffs, and during that hot August a strong west wind
had dried them into tinder. The ancient sources differ on whether the
trees accidentally caught fire or Alexander purposely had them piled
up and ignited, but the result was that the entire mountaintop was
swept by flames and the defenders perished.