ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE GEDROSIAN DESERT 325BC

The Gedrosian desert is the modern Makran, in Pakistan, a largely uninhabited wasteland of salt desert. Arrian describes the route as a “difficult one...no supplies were to be had”. Worst of all, there was very little water. Although the plan was to go along the coast and stay in touch with the fleet led by Nearchus, they had to march huge distances inland at night to find water and for a long period lost touch with the fleet. Arrian makes it clear that Alexander was fully aware of the difficulties in the route, he knew the stories about Cyrus and Semiramis who had crossed with only 7 and 20 survivors respectively. He seems to believe that Alexander wanted to “go one better” than these two legendary monarchs. Modern historians have wondered if he was being deliberately hard on his men because they had refused to go on at the Hyphasis River. Possibly sheer curiosity and “pothos” meant that he was driven on to see if there were new routes to be found.

A scouting party was sent down to the coast but only miserable shell and fishbone huts were found there, hardly any water.

When Alexander got supplies, he had them sealed in the baggage trains. When he discovered that some of the men had broken in to the provisions and shared them out in desperation, he pardoned them.

The next stage of the march was the very worst. Here, his troops suffered more than at any other stage of the campaign. What went wrong? Blazing heat; no water; deep sand; huge casualties amongst the pack-animals – conditions were unbearable. Alexander realised that some of the men were killing the pack-animals for food, but chose to ignore this. Many men were left to die as no one could help them “poor castaways in the ocean of sand”.

The worst single disaster was a massive monsoon rainfall which caused a huge flood while the troops were camped by what had

been a little stream. Most of the camp followers (women and children) were drowned.

Another catastrophe was when, after a long dry march, they camped by a river and many died after drinking too much water too quickly. Alexander learned from this to encamp a couple of miles from water to prevent this.

Arrian tells a story here, which he feels shows to the full Alexander’s leadership qualities (Plutarch tells it but at an earlier part of the story). This is the episode of the helmet of water which he pours out on the sand, showing his men that he can go on without water, and so can they. Arrian “cannot praise this act too highly; it was a proof...not only of his power of endurance, but also of his genius for leadership”.

As well as all of this, they got lost, the guides no longer knew their way. The desert was so “vast and featureless”. Alexander went ahead with a small scouting group and found a route to the sea and some fresh water. Finally, they reached the capital city of Gedrosia and the worst was over.

Plutarch’s account of this episode is much more brief. He says he endured “terrible privations and lost great numbers of men”. He thinks up to three quarters of his camp (probably the majority of the casualties were camp followers). He says heat, disease, hunger were the main causes of death and that the journey took 60 days.