Battle of the Jhelum

Preface

It was an early June of 326 B.C. Both armies were huddled on either banks of the river ‘Jhelum’, the north-western outline of the house of Paurava’s. Soon they were to fight a ferocious battle of all times. India at that time was divided into many small kingdoms & republics. They used to fight amongst each other frequently, many times for the territorial sovereignty. The king ‘Ambhi’ amongst them who was ruling the kingdom of ‘Gandhar’, the Indian borderland, succumbed to the Alexander. But his neighbor & enemy ‘Puru’, king of Paurava’s, decided to forbid the advance of this foreign invader. He had a full confidence in his huge ‘chaturang sena’ but he was aware that sovereignty & independence of his kingdom spread between the river ‘Jhelum’ & ‘Chenab’ was at bet.

Alexander, the king of Macedonia having conquered whole of the Greece had already subdued many of the kingdoms from Africa & central Asia. He was under the impression that he will be at earth’s edge once he will reach the river ‘Indus’. When he subjugated the Persian Empire under ‘Darius III’, he came to know about the region ‘Indica’ across the river ‘Indus’. The local Persians told him about splendor & wealth of the Indian kingdoms, rich & fertile northern plains & powerful ‘Maharajas’. The mad Greek king with his ambition to conquer the world marched towards the Indian border.

Before the battle

Having ‘Ambhi’ in his pocket, there were two obstacles in front of Alexander. First was the river ‘Jhelum’ ( known as ‘Hydaspes’ to Greeks ) now swollen to the great extent due to monsoon & the other was the Puru’s army guarding eastern bank of the river. Alexander knew that crossing the river in front of the opponent would be like a suicide especially considering bulge of the river. The enemy would have doomed the Macedonians before they reach other side of the river. The cunning commander planned to play his cards in a different manner. He moved his troops up & down side of the river during night. He also sent some of his men to the middle of the river inside & then brought them back. War trumpets were kept blaring purposely & troops themselves were made to make a lot of noise. The scenario continued for several nights. Puru’s troops who were also moving accordingly from the eastern bank soon got fed up and gave up following a hostile from the other bank. They were baffled & couldn’t judge the place from where enemy will cross the river. Alexander also spread a rumor that he is planning to withdraw his army & come back when the water level would be more manageable & let Indians became complacent & lethargic.

Under a cover of one dark, stormy night Alexander with a contingent of his army moved upward side of the river silently. Greeks left their tents as it is at their camp. Some of the force was also kept behind at the camp itself, exactly in front of Puru’s army on the other bank, making him feel that it’s a main Greek force. Soon he was to experience a surprise. When the dawn broke, Puru’s scouts brought the information that Macedonians had
crossed a river. With an apparent main Greek force on the other bank in front of him, he thought that it must be a small platoon performing reconnaissance. Under the command of his son ‘Puru junior’ he sent a small troop of horsemen & chariots to handle the situation. Soon he regretted his decision. Small Indian troop was easily annihilated by the actual main Greek force managed to cross the river. Puru junior got killed. Indians now awakened, marched towards the enemy with all of their force. Looking at the tents on the other bank they also kept some of their force at the camp itself fearing landing of the Greeks at the rear end.

For diagrams one may refer the following link -
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/History/Battles/Hydaspes.html

Face off

Puru fielded his infantry at the centre with elephants in front of them while half of the cavalry was kept at each of the wing along with the chariots. Greek companion cavalry stood in front of the Indian left & phalanxes besides them were in front of Indian elephants. Alexander opened a battle with a heavy companion cavalry on his right flank. Puru’s horsemen at his left wing were facing this attack. Apart from having numerical edge over Indian cavalry Macedonians were technically superior. They were guarded with metal greaves, armors, shields & helmets whereas Indians wore cotton turbans & held shields made up of hide which got easily punctured by Greek lances. Moreover, cushions or blankets tightly tied on a horseback gave better grip to Greek horsemen & horse archers & they proved accurate than their Indian counterparts who rode on bare horses. Well trained Greek cavalry arranged in successive lines performed superior than chaotic Indian cavalry & started retreating. Puru looking at his left wing getting collapsed decided to reinforce the same with a cavalry on his right flank leaving chariots as a guard for the right side. This proved to be a terrible mistake on Indian part. Alexander was the supreme General indeed. Reading these movements he changed strategies right at the battlefield. He asked his troop of Scythian horse archers to encircle the Puru’s army & attack Puru’s left wing from the rear end. Lumbering Indian chariots couldn’t stop these troopers. Their wheels got bogged down in a swampy, soggy ground & were shot easily by Scythian arrows due to immobility.

By now, Indian armored elephants at the centre had started crumbling the Greek phalanxes. Many of the phalangites were lifted & flange by the trunks of the huge creatures. Others were trampled down under pillar like legs & some were impaled by tusks & iron spikes attached to the metal plates covering the tusks. While both of the Indian wings were being crushed, the situation was somewhat stabilized by these giant beasts. But now Greek infantrymen started stabbing elephant legs & eyes making them crazy with pains. They also shot many of the mahouts with their javelins. The trumpeting animals now mostly without mahouts fall back on Puru’s infantry creating havoc. As such Indian infantry fighting with the support of the elephants had already started retreating. They could not stand their ground in front of the organized, disciplined phalanxes. Greek phalangites arranged in rows drilled their troops using drums & vanquished chaotic Indian infantry. They wore metallic armors, helmets & held ‘sixteen feet long’ spears (called ‘Sarissa’) along with the metal shield. Before Indian swords could reach their opponents, Sarissa’s slew Indian soldiers without armors & helmets. Actually Indians had powerful huge bows ‘five feet long ’. To shoot their long arrows which could penetrate even the strongest of the armors, archer had to press the bow on the ground using his leg. But it had rained heavily the earlier night. Indian archers couldn’t hold their bows on a swampy, sticky & slippery surface firmly, losing their accuracy. They lost the strongest weapon they had.

All this was no less when invaders hammered their final stroke. Encircling platoon of Scythian horse archers carrying light composite bows, attempting to traverse the Indians reached at the back of the Indian cavalry now gathered at the left wing. They were crushed between the companion cavalry from the front & horse troopers from the back. Indian horsemen were finished. Most of the elephants being cordoned by Alexandrian infantrymen were captured by now. With Indian pikes already annihilated Indian defeat became merely clear before the dusk fell. But Puru was not going to give up. Truly he was a man of courage. He had already lost his son & now his entire army was being shattered in front of him. Still the ‘seven feet tall’ graceful figure rode on the elephant kept on fighting valiantly. Wounded badly in the right shoulder & with his ‘mahout’ slain, finally he was captured by the enemy. When taken in front of Alexander & asked that how he wished to be treated, he famously replied ‘As befits a king’. Alexander spared life of the king Puru for political reasons & assigned him as a ‘Satrap’ (Governor) of his own kingdom.

The battle was extremely difficult for the Alexander & probably the toughest one he had ever fought. Macedonians had never seen such lethal use of war-elephants here before. It is said that the situation was somewhat similar to infantry fighting with tanks. The fact that they pulled a victory was an aftermath of their tremendous discipline, bravery & off course their superb leader. The casualty figures & number of soldiers each of the opponents had, remains unknown. Some saying Puru’s force contained 22000 infantry, cavalry, chariots & 200 elephants & Alexander equipped with 35000 soldiers & 11000 more on the other bank as a diversionary force. Some claim that Puru fielded approximately 40000 people with a contingent of 15000 Macedonians in front of him. Each of the references gives its own figures of casualty & number of combatants. It is better to leave the dispute for the historians.

Alexandrian retreat

Having defeated Puru, Alexander marched ahead towards the Indian heartlands but when he reached the river ‘Beas’, his soldiers refused to move forward. They heard about the powerful armies & elephant forces of the Indian kingdoms ahead. Rumors spread about the strange Indian weapons. Unwilling to face the elephants in the battlefield again, frightened soldiers simply rejected to go ahead. They had been away from their homeland for more than eight years. The men had done too much. Alexander hardly had any choice rather than to move back towards Greece. On his way back through the river Indus, kingdoms situated on the banks preferred to dispute his Advance than to surrender. Alexander himself got severely injured in one of those combats. We are not to discuss those battles. Over here it is sufficient to say that almost none of the kingdoms on the banks of the river ‘Indus’ spared him without a battle. Indian valor taught him an unforgettable lesson.

Undoubtedly, Alexander was one of the best commanders of all times. But his depiction as a ‘conqueror of the world’ is entirely untrue. Despite the fact that he didn’t even turned towards countries like China, he could hardly manage to subdue small north-western strip of the Indian subcontinent. That too immediately got restored back after his death in 323 B.C. in Babylon. King Puru got assassinated after some years.

At last

‘Battle of the Jhelum’ is one of the earliest recorded battles of the Indian king with a foreign invader. It proved supremacy of ‘disciplined, organized & professional full time army’ over the ‘troops of part time soldiers & peasants’. Importance of quick maneuvers of a mobile army was marked. Limitations of lumbering chariots got highlighted. Indian warfare underwent remarkable changes. Irrespective of military limitations Indians came to know that country broken into small kingdoms couldn’t defend itself effectively from the foreign invaders. Probably that itself was the inspiration behind the revolution in 321 B.C. which gave rise to ‘Maurya’ dynasty.

SAURABH JOGLEKAR
E-mail - saurabh.a.joglekar@gmail.com
Date - 12th September, 2009