Chapter 874 The Retreat from Lilybee
874 The Retreat from Lilybee
Hemicus's sudden cavalry charge and the destruction it wrought once again paid homage to the immense danger heavy cavalry carried if it was not properly dealt with and allowed to act as they pleased.
Even with just 1,000, the man was able to cripple a force 7 times his size.
It just went on to show that there was indeed a reason why European cavalry, like the famed covered in plate armor French knights on horseback, was one of the most if not the most deadly thing on a medieval battlefield.
Thus it was very conceivable to know that by Hemicus's fourth cavalry charge, Philips's units on the flanks had been decimated, with blood, bodies, and corpses strewn all about, while Hemicus did not even have a single dead, just one wounded on the arm.
And facing such dire odds, that wing was no longer able to take the full brunt of the attack and they finally broke.
"Escape!"
"It's too much."
"We can't hold on!"
"Run for your life!"
Such shouts started to first emanate in small corners of the formation, before spreading like wildfire across all the ranks, until the Thesian contingent of Perseus's army was no more, as it fled, scattering into the winds like a pile of loose sands.
And among these escapees was included the Crown Prince- Philips too!
The man had tried for a few desperate moments to hold the line, but no one was in their right mind to listen to this 'foreigner'.
After all, to the Thesians, he was no prince of theirs.
In fact, given the political philosophy of the Thesians, they actually disliked titles such as prince.
So with his formation crumbling, Philips's bodyguards quickly urged him to escape while he still had the chance, and taking one last look at Hemicus's thundering attacks and hearing the fearful rumble of the hooves of the horses kicking against the ground, the prince prudently heeded the advice of these experienced men.
It was also fortunate that the man was right in the middle of his formation so Hemicus could not get to him in time, thus having to let the big fish escape.
But at least this captain of the bodyguards could claim to have accomplished what he had been commanded to do- not let the enemy pursue the retreating units.
Because with the enemy's right wing having been clipped, and the phalangites too tired to give chase, the retreat of the legionaries on at least this side of the battlefield was guaranteed to be smooth.
Furthermore, on a more personal note, Hemicus could also take solace in the fact that he had managed to badly maul a certain section of the enemy army and make them draw some blood.
In fact, seeing all the fleeing soldiers, all juicy targets in his eyes, the man even contemplated giving chase and inflicting the finishing killing blows, truly raking up the casualties and making the enemy suffer.
'Perhaps after the legionaries have safety retreated,' However the man eventually restrained himself.
For he was aware that although Alexander might not object to his prior little 'excursion' as if obtained results, if Hemicus were to go glory hunting at this crucial moment, then, no matter what the results were, or how great the rewards he was able to obtain, Alexander would surely severely reprimand him.
So Hemicus, with a tinge of bitterness in his heart, decided to those men escape, his eyes looking longingly at all those delicious prey.
Until suddenly he had another thought!
Just like last time!
Hemicus felt he did not need all 1,000 men to guard the retreating legionaries, notably since the enemy's attacking potential had been greatly diminished.
So turning to his second hand man, he tasked him with taking 300 men to chase the stragglers down, while he stayed behind and carried out Alexander's directives, thus achieving the best of both worlds.
And things truly did develop just like that, the legionaries retreating to their camp in good formation and with very little harassment.
While it was quite splendid on this side of the battlefield, for Alexander, on his own side, things were a bit more difficult.
The retreating signal of the trumpet had first echoed in that part of the battlefield, and like Hemicus's side, the legionaries also started to retreat in good order all things considered, but to help the men maintain this order, Alexander's rear guard had to put in some effort unlike their counterpart.
Primarily, the 1,000 men found themselves riding their horses expertly back and forth, whirling around the battlefield and letting out arrows from the 'Instant bows' they carried, unleashing large volleys in rapid succession to compensate for their lack of experience and accuracy.
Here, the rear guards' main target was actually not any infantry trying to catch the tail of the retreating legionaries, as those formations were too bulky and the men too tired to accomplish that effectively.
But instead, it was the 12 elephants.
These behemoths, armored with thick leather hide, and having many swords tied to their tasks had repeatedly tried to charge Alexander, but the rear guard always made sure to keep at least 100 meters gap from these beasts, only willing to engage them in long range and swiftly retreating if the beasts tried to charge.
They were also aided in this endeavor by the fact that for many of the horses in that unit, this was the third time they were seeing these lumbering, four legged giants.
So by now, these animals had gotten sort of used to their presence.
Although not completely immune to the smell and size of these Indian elephants, the steeds were at least not quite as jittery and hard to control as before.
So the mahouts controlling the elephants, seemingly unable to confront Alexander in a head to head battle, had little option other than to shoot arrows and throw javelins to try and inflict some damage.
But having just 12 elephants, and tasked with facing 1,000 men, these sporadic attacks were really inadequate, almost akin to a mosquito bite.
While Alexander too did minimum damage to the elephants since they were heavily armored and Alexander's long ranged shots lacked enough strength to penetrate them.
As a last ditch effort, Perseus had urged the mercenaries to try and do something about these, these men had already suffered and were unwilling to break out of their formation and risk taking casualties.
So they restricted their attack to only the periphery of Alexander's flanks, launching one or two opportunistic attacks and reaping a few unlucky lives.
In this way, once the legionaries managed to retreat about two kilometers, Alexander and his company too then broke contact and started to fall back, leaving their dead and wounded behind.
And Perseus could only watch them leave with regretful eyes.
Alexander would return to his camp later than most of the soldiers, the wooden barricaded structure being almost five kilometers away from the battlefield, situated alongside a pristine lake.
And upon entering, he would immediately issue the order,
"Get the wounded treated. Tally the dead. And start serving meals for the soldiers."
The battle had been a hard, brutal slog, with the entirety of the fighting having lasted about six hours, from around mid morning to late afternoon, so all the soldiers were undoubtedly tired.
Thus the following night the men would have little energy to cause any commotion, causing an unusual stillness to descent upon the camp, as the only sounds that came were the snores of the men, the pained groans of the wounded as they were treated in the infirmary, and the officers reflected on the happenings of the past few hours to try and figure out there they went wrong.
This was especially true for the top brass, like Alexander, who found the quietness of the camp like a quagmire where his thoughts could descent into, as the man paced back and forth for hours trying to determine why they lost, what he could have done differently and what the current results meant for him.
And it was only very late into the night that the man would finally let his tired body know the comfort of rest.
Over the next few days, Alexander would still camp where he was, spending most of his time listening to combat casualty reports, enemy troop movement and if they were marching towards him, and most important of all, the post battlefield analysis.
And regarding that, the group would come to all the similar conclusions that Alexander already had made on the battlefield, such as the mistakes of making the wings entirely out of Tibians, not properly armoring the oxen, and that the enemy's morale in that fight was too high.
Regarding that oxen strategy, it was also determined that the use of ox pulled wagons as barricades from behind which crossbowmen could safely shoot as being an unviable tactic.
The military officers would claim the oxen and their handlers were too squishy to be able to be reliably protected in the heat of the battle, and thus the future of having a mobile line of safe barricades that could aid the archers any time anywhere had to be scrapped.
Alexander was certainly deflated by that news as it had seemed like a very good idea in his head.
But like how there were many things that sounded good on paper but were found to be unviable in real life. this was one other example.
But hey! If you try new things, some things work, some don't.
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