47,000 vs 250,000 How Alexander Broke the Persian Line at Gaugamela (3D)

Darius chose the ground at Gaugamela himself, levelled it with work parties, and drew up a line twice the width of Alexander's — and he still lost it by nightfall. This episode follows the whole campaign on the war table: Granicus, Issus and the two years Darius spent raising eastern levies, scythed chariots and elephants, then the 1st of October 331 BC hour by hour, from the oblique advance and the hollow rectangle with no rear to the cavalry wedge that went straight at the king. You will see exactly how Alexander turned a front that was too short into a weapon, feeding in his cheapest troops on purpose to stretch the Persian left until a seam opened. The battle nearly came apart on the other flank, where Parmenion was pinned and Persian horsemen reached the baggage camp, and that story is here too. We finish with the ledger, the fall of Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, and the murder of the last Achaemenid king by his own officers. The hole Alexander rode through was not a Persian mistake — it was a hole he built.