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.
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.