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The Virtues of War

• Title - The Virtues of War
  • Author - Steven Pressfield
  • Category - fiction
  • 
  • Queue status - completed

Synopsis

This is the third ancient-historical war novel by Pressfield. The previous novels were The Tides of War, about Alcibiades and the latter part of the Peloponnesian wars, and Gates of Fire about the battle at Thermopylae during the first war betwen Greeks and Persia. All three are terrific reads, though Virtues of War appealed to me least.

As in the previous 2 works, the story is told in the first person, in this case by Alexander to a page named Itanes. I think Pressfield is trying to convey 2 things : first, Alexander's motivations in undertaking such an extraordinary series of conquests, and second, to explain how he could have been so successful for so long. It is very hard to understand how an army of 50,000 men, so far from home and with extraordinarily long lines of communication and supply, could have defeated the Persian army of one million men. And then, having defeated the Persians, to continue through Afhanistan and well into India - if it were fiction we would never believe it.

Pressfield says that Alexander's success was based on relentless training and discipline, simple but effective technology (18 foot lances to penetrate enemy cavalry) effectively used (diamond formations for infantry, able to turn quickly in any direction, and wedge formations for cavalry, able to penetrate enemy defenses and get behind the enemy), and tactical deception - basically the 50,000 man army version of the basketball head fake.

The story is gripping, and Pressfield does a good job of keeping it moving along. But I felt that he spent a little too much time giving detailed orders of battle - he spends nearly two pages listing the deployments of the Persian army in the decisive battle outside Babylon.

In all, though, this book gives insight into the most amazing military conquest in history. Well worth a read.