326 BC
Battle of the Hydaspes
The setting
East bank of the Hydaspes (Jhelum) river, Punjab, in modern Pakistan
River line swollen by monsoon rain, with a sandy island and wooded bend upstream that screened a night crossing; beyond it flat ground that turned soft under rain, hampering chariots and bowmen.
Reveal the outcome
Recorded sidePaurava kingdom under Porus (Puru)
Recorded resultdefeated and captured; restored to his throne as a satrap
Macedonian victory. Porus was wounded, captured, and reinstated as a subordinate ruler.
How the atlas explains it
Alexander refused the obvious crossing. He held the army opposite Porus with noisy feints night after night until the watching Paurava force stopped reacting, then crossed upstream in a storm with a picked force. Porus had to fight facing the wrong way with his elephants and chariots on ground the monsoon had turned soft, and the chariots bogged. The elephants, once wounded and driven back, did as much damage to their own infantry as to the phalanx.
What followed
Alexander's last great battle, and the point at which his army refused to go further east. It is also the clearest early case in the atlas of a defeated commander known almost entirely through the account of the people who beat him.