MISTAKES THAT CHANGED HISTORY THAT
THE RECKLESS RULERS, MONUMENTAL MISHAPS AND DISASTROUS DECISIONS THAT HAVE SHAPED OUR WORLD
10 MISTAKES THAT CHANGED HISTORY
10 MISTAKES THAT CHANGED HISTORY
The Reckless Rulers, Monumental Mishaps and Disastrous Decisions That Have Shaped Our World
Paul Coulter
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For my mum. Thanks for inspiring my passion for history.
WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES
We all make mistakes, but rarely do they alter the course of human history. While overcooking your dinner or messing up that work assignment may seem like a monumental error in the present, with hindsight it’s hardly going to change the world.
So what exactly is a mistake? We seemingly know when we’ve made one, not while we’re making one. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a mistake as ‘an action, decision, or judgment that produces an unwanted or unintentional result’. Click on the news and there are scores of them happening every day. A quick perusal just brought up a story of a helicopter pilot mistakenly dropping sewage on a crowd of people in Western Australia (one person interviewed said ‘at the time it felt lovely’); another click served up a late own- goal in a critical football game. When it comes to politics, from the White House to 10 Downing Street, we are convinced our world leaders are making mistakes in real time.
With so many disastrous decisions in the news today, why write a book about mistakes from history? Firstly, because they make the best stories. Secondly, in our oversaturated world of social media, we’re sick of seeing everyone’s perfectly curated, successful lives. If someone brags about their multi-week European
holiday, their promotion or how wonderful their dog is, I begin to tune out. Take your self- glorification somewhere else. We humans want to hear about the flaws. Tell me about that time you dropped your phone down a lift shaft, fired off an email accidentally cc-ing the entire company in on a rant describing your boss as an idiot, or got on the wrong train and headed non-stop to Edinburgh when you were already twenty minutes late for an important meeting in London. Give me the good stuff. The higher the stakes, the better the story!
Mistakes are relatable. We all make them. You’re probably making a few right now. I personally am delighted to learn about other people’s mistakes as they make me feel a little less embarrassed about my own. And trust me, I’ve made plenty. I called a colleague Peter for an entire year before finding out he was actually called Brad and was too polite to correct me. I’ve wrapped Christmas gifts, put the wrong labels on them and then doubled down, telling my aunty exactly why I had thought she would love a pair of Manchester United socks and my teenage cousin why a floral bath bomb reminded me of him.
But however bad it gets, there’s always the comforting thought that someone before us has made a bigger mess of things than we have. Sure, I’ve lost my house keys: at worst, I’m late for work. In 1216, King John dropped the crown jewels in a marsh and we’ve still not found them 800 years later. Burned your toast? The whole city of London burned down in 1666 when someone allegedly left bread in the oven too long. Misread the invitation and turned up in ripped jeans to a formal black-tie work dinner? The Roman emperor Julian died in 363 after he forgot to wear armour to a critical battle.
Walk down the street and eavesdrop on a few conversations and you’ll soon realize that we’re obsessed with other people’s mistakes. You may think your cousin is making a mistake by moving to Bali, living in a guitar-strumming hippy commune, but she probably thinks you’re making a mistake by dedicating your life to being a mortgage broker in Stowe and marrying a bloke named Ted. We all make decisions and we all, generally, believe we’ve made the right ones.
YOU KNOW THESE PEOPLE
Ultimately, we are all characters in history, leaving our mark on the world. But some humans leave larger marks than others. You will probably be familiar with the names in these pages, but unless you’ve read one of those heavy tombstone-sized books that require two weeks’ annual leave to get through, and a First from Cambridge to comprehend, you are unlikely to know the full story.
History has an accessibility problem. Governments are cutting back on it in favour of STEM (why does science always insist on an acronym?) and universities and schools are trimming the curriculum. Depending on who you are, history today means a collection of national myths, a series of tragedies or Russell Crowe in Gladiator.
Even when we do read history, often the best stories are drowned in well-intentioned yet mind-numbing detail. It can feel like being at a party and constantly being introduced to guests, desperately trying to memorize one name before being introduced to another person with the exact same name but a
different roman numeral after it. How many numerals before they all blur into one? How many medieval kings before they all become an identical dude in a crown waving a sword? Then there are the place names, the weird customs. They say the past is a foreign country, but it can often feel like a different planet. No wonder we only remember Spitfires and Henry VIII.
Yet history needn’t be that complicated. It’s about fascinating stories, populated by incredibly relatable people with very human motivations and characteristics. We may not personally know anyone who has led a vast army into war or fought a dynastic battle over an ancient throne, but we sure know people who are greedy, ambitious, deceitful, messy and thoughtless. We share a world with them, and – whisper it – maybe even a workplace or home.
Why should we bother learning about what happened in the past? In our twenty-first- century world – chronically obsessed with the ‘now’ with its AI-powered lawnmowers, TikTok dancing dogs (with more followers than the Pope) and celebrity-themed matcha boba tea – history sometimes can feel irrelevant. But a knowledge of history can help us make sense of how we got here and gives us the tools to understand the present and plan for the future. As Mark Twain was alleged to have said, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.’ Sometimes, when you read today’s headlines, history feels less like it’s rhyming and more like a concerto choir with full orchestral accompaniment.
I would love to tell you that reading this book will make you less likely to make mistakes. (That’d be the ultimate sales pitch. History + self-help book? What a publisher’s dream – we wouldn’t be able to print enough copies.) Yet unless you plan on
commanding a sixteenth- century galleon circumnavigating the globe, leading an ancient empire through an existential succession crisis or purposely marooning yourself in outer space on board a broken command module, this book may not provide the ‘teachable moments’ to help fix your life’s problems. There are, regrettably, a distinct lack of era- defining mistakes related to forgetting to take the bins out, missing a work deadline or skipping leg- day at the gym. Reading history is not a cheat code to avoiding life’s stuff-ups. In fact misconceptions about history (especially rose-tinted nostalgia) can lead to further mistakes. As the great historian A. J. P. Taylor cynically put it, ‘Men only learn from history how to make new mistakes.’
This book tells some of the most fascinating stories of human error in history, featuring many of the biggest characters, events and episodes of the last two and a half thousand years. I won’t claim to have made a definitive list of the ‘greatest mistakes from history’, because that is an impossible argument to win. And there’s also only so many times I can write about people trying and failing to invade Russia. (Note to self: don’t invade Russia. The only major force to do that successfully were the Mongols who knew a thing or two about the cold and used frozen rivers as highways.) But I have gathered some of the most fascinating and consequential mistakes in human history, following the footsteps of armies, explorers and mad scientists to every corner of the planet, from the ancient world to the present day. My goal is to inspire, or reignite, your passion for the past.
This is not your usual history book so please do not treat it like one. You do not need to read chronologically. You don’t need
to read it in hushed Shakespearean tones, or be a member of some heritage institution or historical re- enactment society to enjoy it. If you know Latin, wear tweed or like quoting pretentious Roman generals, I’m happy for you, but none of that is a prerequisite. This book is focused on real people just like you, facing real problems. We can only hope their errors had immeasurably larger consequences than ours ever will.
Treat me as your tour guide, your nerdy best friend who is embarrassingly obsessed with history. I love it. I adore those thick tombstone books. I read all the plaques in the museums. I am such a history obsessive that aged eight I dressed as an English Civil War soldier for a week. That’s not normal. Then again, the best bits of history are rarely normal either. History can be funny, it can be weird and it can be wonderful, because ultimately it’s about people. And humans, as a species, are nuts.
With ten chapters from ten geographically and historically diverse time periods, there is something for everyone, from every era of history. A historical pick and mix. Read a chapter on an episode in history you know nothing about, choose a wildcard or maybe surprise yourself by reading about something you thought you knew. Sometimes history isn’t quite what we learned back at school.
Dive in. If the high and mighty can stumble, then I think you can forgive yourself for that error on page three of that spreadsheet, the time you left the oven on or the wedding speech where you got the bride’s name wrong. As Alexander Pope wrote, ‘to err is human’, and sometimes it’s nice to know that no matter how badly your day has gone, the greatest names in history stuffed up too.
1 ALEXANDER THE GREAT
THE GREATEST OF ALEXANDERS
AlexanDer tHe Great never thought much about death. Why would he? He was in his early thirties and one of the greatest generals that had ever lived. In the span of ten years, he had taken Macedon from a small kingdom on the periphery of the world to a global empire stretching from Greece to modern- day Pakistan. When you’re one of history’s greatest winners, you don’t spend an awful lot of time thinking about a Plan B. He had beaten every army he had faced, conquered every civilization he had encountered and marched to the ends of the known world. More of a swords-and-shields kind of guy than the type to stay up all night thinking about life’s ‘what-ifs’. He was invincible, undefeatable, immortal. Alexander began to believe that he was a god who would never die. Except, one day, Alexander did die, and completely stuffed up his succession plan. Alexander was born in 356 BCe , and the story of his and Macedon’s rise is nothing short of extraordinary. His dad, Philip II of Macedon, had already transformed the tiny kingdom from a bunch of goat farmers who were routinely roughed up by the larger Greek states into a dominant force in the ancient world – the equivalent of rising from the lowly pitches of English League Two to contending for the Premier League title. At the heart of
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this transformation was a revolution in battle tactics with new siege techniques and an improved phalanx formation. ‘Phalanx’ is overused by today’s media as a word to describe packs of overly litigious lawyers accompanying celebrity clients into court. The word was originally used to describe a deadly wall of Macedonian spears, which despite what Suits would have you believe is far more effective at decimating opponents than any subpoena.
Philip II ’s favoured weapon was not the spear but the marriage vow. He was a lover and a fighter. This polygamous king had seven wives and several male lovers. He had so many love interests he makes Henry VIII look like a prude. How he had time for them all is a secret lost to history. These marriages, which strategically bound together Macedon’s ruling families and a number of foreign dynasties, politically unified the kingdom but led to raucous family dynamics. Alexander grew up in a royal court of favourites where each of Philip’s wives promoted their own factions. Philip’s promiscuous ways backfired on him. In a historical whodunnit worthy of its own true crime series, he was murdered when Alexander was just twenty years old. Historians are conflicted as to the motivations behind the assassination. It could have been a jealous male lover or a plot by Alexander’s super-ambitious mum, Olympias. The latter is most likely a speculative bit of ancient Macedonian gossip, but Alexander was immediately crowned King of Macedon and inherited his dad’s well-laid plans for an invasion of Asia. The offensive would go ahead, but rather than Philip II , Alexander would be in command.
A mummy’s boy at heart, Alexander was shocked when
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Olympias revealed a huge secret: Philip may not have been his real dad. In hushed tones, she told him she had been having an affair with Zeus – Alexander was the son of a god. Not a sceptical thinker, or one to question the practicalities of how Zeus instigated this hook-up, Alexander became convinced that he was an invincible demigod destined for greatness. With his father’s military and his mum’s propensity for fantasy, he had the means, the justification and the divine protection to become an unstoppable war machine with some serious daddy issues.
Alexander embarked on the world’s greatest conquest spree. Starting in Greece, he fought his way through modern- day Turkey, Egypt and Iran, winning every battle, burning cities down for fun and getting hideously drunk on his days off. Alexander even hooked up with the King of Persia’s daughter. It was the ultimate stag party. A boys’ tour with swords. Alexander never lost a battle, vanquishing everything from snow- capped mountain forts to remote island cities. Each victory convinced him of his own invincibility.
Alexander wanted to keep on conquering for ever – he was not the sort of king to sit around at home tinkering with tax policy – but after ten years of non-stop warfare his troops, having reached present-day India, begged him to stop. They were tired and wanted to go home to their families. Alexander refused. You don’t get to leave the party early. Conquering the world was his destiny.
For a book on mistakes, Alexander is not an obvious place to start. He’s one of history’s greatest winners; he did not make many errors. I mean, he’s literally called ‘Alexander the Great’ – that’s a hard nickname to beat. Some historical figures were not so lucky: spare a thought for King Louis V of France – Louis
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le Fainéant, the ‘do nothing’ – famous for, erm, nothing. The Vikings had a king who was so stingy at feeding his men that they remembered him as ‘King Halfdan the Bad Entertainer’. Maybe the worst historical nickname went to King Halfdan’s dad, who was called Eystein the Fart.
In comparison, Alexander the Great gets the best historical nickname, and he got it for creating one of the largest empires the ancient world had seen. If you were drawing up a fantasy league table of ‘greatest generals in history’ he would be right up there. Genghis Khan would be a potential rival for the top spot. He also had a bit of a god- complex, famously telling his victims, ‘If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.’ What is it about men with god- complexes and their need to conquer the world? They haven’t disappeared in the modern era, they’ve just moved
Route taken by Alexander the Great’s army 336 to 323 bce
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to Silicon Valley. Alexander’s achievements reduced other wannabe conquerors to quivering fanboys. Julius Caesar wept on seeing a statue of Alexander the Great. He said he could never match him. Napoleon was also an ardent stan. If some of the greatest names of military history felt insecure in the face of Alexander’s legacy, what mistake could he possibly have made?
THE DEATH OF A GOD
According to legend (historical jargon for unreliable tall tales passed down by Macedonian troopers), while on campaign, one of Alexander’s trusted advisers, an Indian sage named Kalanos, fell seriously ill. Rather than seek out a Macedonian GP and get a prescription, he decided he would go out in a blaze of glory by setting himself on fire. In an example of ancient Macedonian palliative care, the troops built an enormous wooden pyre with a seat on top. As the elder man bade Alexander goodbye, he famously remarked ‘see you in Babylon’ before BBQing himself into oblivion in front of the entire army. None of the Macedonians seem to have thought this self-immolation out of the ordinary, but then again they believed they were being led by the son of Zeus. What did confuse them were the final words of this now- charcoaled codger. What did he mean by ‘see you in Babylon’?
Alexander reluctantly stopped his conquest party in 325 BCe after his homesick soldiers virtually mutinied in India. He chose a journey home via the longest, hardest route imaginable to punish them for wimping out. Retreating to the finery of ancient Babylon, in modern- day Iraq, he spent his days sulking about his
troops lacking the grit to continue fighting. His sojourn there was meant to be respite before renewing his favourite pastime: 24/7 warfare. Meanwhile, he continued to tell everyone who would listen that his dad was a god and indulge in his second favourite pastime: drinking. Several litres of wine was a quiet night out. On the campaign, Alexander’s men had thrown parties where multiple participants died of alcohol poisoning. These sozzled Macedonians treated their livers with the same disrespect they showed their enemies of war.
One night in Babylon, Alexander held one of his legendary drinking competitions. Unsurprisingly, the next day he was not feeling so great. The following day, he was worse. Soon this titan of history was barely able to lift his head to greet his men. This was not just the hangover to end all hangovers, Alexander was dying. We are not sure what killed him. It could have been alcohol poisoning, or malaria – some even speculate poison. But as a heavy- drinking thirty-two-year- old suffering from multiple war wounds owing to a penchant for leading from the front, he was a high-risk individual who would have been uninsurable today.
As Alexander declined, his generals were horrified. They had never contemplated that this demigod could be laid low by one night on the lash. These generals are sometimes called his companions, or the Diadochi (Greek for ‘successors’). They were his seven closest advisers, his best mates, his ride- or- die boys, his lads, mostly in their twenties to forties. Many of them had grown up with Alexander, or had been friends of his father, and had served on his campaigns and fought alongside him. They depended solely on Alexander’s whim for advancement, often harbouring bitter rivalries amid intense competition for his
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approval. They were mini-Alexanders, clones of Alexander who commanded his armies and shared his oversized ego.
With Alexander on his deathbed, a huge question mark hovered over the fate of the empire. Alexander had made the mistake of leaving no will, no heirs and no plan for who should take over. Alexander failed at basic succession planning 101. He was history’s greatest when it came to storming forts or outflanking Persian cavalry, but when it came to the drudgery of basic admin, he failed. And while it is the most human thing to procrastinate over perfidious paperwork, it’s not as if Alexander didn’t have an inkling he could die one day. By the age of thirty-two he’d already suffered an arrow through the lung, been whacked on the shoulder by a catapult missile and suffered more cuts, slashes and grazes than a drunken sashimi chef. He should have known there would be anarchy if he died but he refused to plan for it. Maybe he genuinely believed he was an invincible god?
Succession disputes pour a highly flammable dose of explosive drama on to any situation, whether it be a boardroom intrigue or a hit HBO drama series. Succession planning can turn the most adorably charming families into murderous banshees. If your gran dies without a will, at stake is a bungalow in north Croydon and a cat named Fluffy – nothing a good lawyer and a few mediation sessions can’t work out (let’s face it, who wouldn’t want Fluffy?). An intestate Alexander, by comparison, left a huge cloud over one of the biggest and richest empires the ancient world had ever seen. It was a massive unforced error. This was one time when the pen really would have been mightier than the sword. But then again, Alexander was never really the thinking type.
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His seven generals crowded around Alexander and implored him: who will take over the empire? According to the legend, Alexander muttered, ‘I leave it to the strongest.’ You do not need to be a wills and estates lawyer to realize that ‘to the strongest’ is not a very helpful instruction. It would not even be a good gym slogan, and they are notoriously bad. If there was one word that could describe all of his seven generals it was ‘strong’. They were probably checking out each other’s biceps while attending Alexander’s deathbed. Most historians think Alexander was too incapacitated actually to utter any last words, let alone formulate a bizarre strongman competition. He most likely just gave his ring, a symbol of his power, to Perdiccas, his senior general, as a way of conveying ‘you deal with it’. But by not naming a clear successor, Alexander left a monstrous power vacuum. His seven mates were happy to fight under his command, but none of them was going to take orders from a former colleague. They may have been mini-Alexanders but the empire was not big enough for seven of them and their monstrous egos.
Alexander finally succumbed to his mystery ailment and died in June 323 BCe. We know the exact date as archaeologists have discovered a clay tablet diary belonging to a Babylonian astronomer – less of a ‘dear diary, I have a crush on a Babylonian high priestess’ and more of a dry account as to what the stars were up to. On 11 June 323 BC e , this astronomer opened his observations with ‘today the king died’, and then spent the rest of his diary lamenting that it was cloudy. He was recording one of the most important days in history, yet he was preoccupied with the weather. Ironically, part of his job was to predict the future. Hopefully, it didn’t impact his KPIs.
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This tablet is now in the only museum in the world interested in Babylonian weather chat, the British Museum. Only the British, where meteorological small-talk is the bedrock of the nation, would be fascinated about whether it was cloudy with a chance of rain on 11 June 323 BCe.
SEVEN EGOS, ONE WORLD
The entire empire was stunned by Alexander’s death. Perdiccas called the remaining generals together for a chat. They needed to formulate some sort of succession plan. This was not going to be a tea-and- cupcake type of meeting. Standing in the finery of the throne room of the Babylonian palace – the Mar-a-Lago of the ancient world – the generals launched into their pitches as to who should run the empire. Around fifty hangers- on and lesser officers from the elite of the Macedonian army crowded the room. They had a ringside seat on history’s biggest succession battle. It was reality TV for the ancient era, and things were about to get spicy.
To honour Alexander, his crown, armour and signet ring were laid out in full view. A bit creepy, but a visible reminder of the gaping power vacuum at the heart of the empire. As Alexander’s generals put forward their ideas – and everyone had a say – the whole scene was reminiscent of a final vote in an episode of The Traitors. Macedonian tradition meant that succession should pass to a member of the Macedonian royalty, known as the Argead dynasty. But Alexander had no heirs and few male relatives. He had not just wiped out his enemies, he had also annihilated his own family. The family tree had been
10 MISTAKES THAT CHANGED HISTORY
pruned into oblivion. Cousins, half siblings, anyone with the faintest whiff of a blood tie to Alexander had been eliminated in a frenzied attempt to stop potential challengers. Even friends who had crossed Alexander had ended up on the wrong side of history. One was speared through the chest for drunkenly critiquing Alexander at a party. It’s hard enough being mates with a megalomaniac who thinks he’s the son of Zeus, it’s a whole other level when you’re one bad joke away from being literally and figuratively skewered by the group chat. Power had been centred solely on Alexander, there was no back-up plan. Getting his generals, whose default mode was competition not compromise, to agree on the future of the empire was a teambuilding exercise doomed to fail.
One by one, each of the generals stood up and pitched their vision of what Alexander’s empire should look like. Verbal warfare was a new concept for these lads. They were more familiar with storming fortresses than persuasive oratory. Their proposals reeked of self-interest and scantily veiled attempts to grab power for themselves.
Ancient Greek and Macedonian names read as if a madman threw a bunch of consonants and vowels in a blender and left it on blast, but in this ancient succession drama, the two biggest players were Alexander’s best friend Ptolemy (pronounced ‘tol-amee’) and his senior general Perdiccas. These two despised each other and are the two to remember. Even then, as branding goes ‘Alexander the Great’ is far catchier and more memorable.
Perdiccas, who had opened the discussion as the leading general, proposed waiting until Alexander’s wife gave birth. Compared to his father, Alexander was a minimalist with just
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three wives, and one of them, Roxana, was nearly due. If she gave birth to a boy and this boy survived, the empire would have an obvious heir. Problem solved. Simple. Except, this child was not going to come out of the womb as a fully formed baby Alexander the Great; it would take sixteen to eighteen years until he could rule on his own. Perdiccas was manoeuvring to become the child’s regent; in other words, Perdiccas would be ruler of the empire in all but name. It was a cheat code to Alexander’s power and riches. Power by the back door – or in this case, proxy by baby. This plan of course depended on the child being a boy and surviving. Ancient Macedonian infant mortality is not famous for being fantastic. It ranged from shocking to terrible. The assembled officers shouted the plan down. One of them even jeered that if the baby was a girl, Perdiccas would conveniently arrange a switcheroo, swapping it out for a baby boy so he could guarantee his chance of being regent.
Next to speak was Nearchus, not one of the generals but a top navy officer. His bright idea was to crown one of Alexander’s existing illegitimate children. Poor Nearchus didn’t get very far into his speech before he was shouted down by the other generals. They knew he was vaguely related to his preferred child ruler. His motivations were so transparent it was embarrassing. Here was another attempt to become a regent and rule the empire by proxy. Plus, Nearchus was Greek, not Macedonian. The Macedonians did not want some fishy Greek naval officer telling them what to do.
Meleager, an infantry officer, stood up and suggested Alexander’s half brother Arrhidaeus. Aside from having an incomprehensibly difficult name containing an uncomfortable ratio of vowels to
Rs, Arrhidaeus was pure Macedonian and the son of Philip II. Another bonus was that he was already in Babylon. Huge points in his favour. But this proposal was shot down by Ptolemy, Alexander’s best friend since childhood, who pointed out that Alexander’s brother had learning disabilities. Arrhidaeus had the mental capacity of a child and was not fit to be a ruler. He had become a bit of a favourite of the troops, who adored him, but he could not seriously rule a giant empire. If Arrhidaeus was made ruler, he could also be easily swayed or manipulated by those around him. A useful pawn, but not a ruler.
Ptolemy waited for the others to put forward their ideas before he suggested his own plan. He despised Perdiccas and was keen to stop him becoming ruler-by-proxy. In a none-too-subtle jab at Perdiccas’s authority, he proposed a council of generals to make decisions on how to rule the empire. This empire-by- committee would keep things in Macedonian hands and ensure solid leaders of the empire who had actual battle experience. This met with approval from the officers present, who based on their enthusiasm for empire-by- committee clearly had very limited experience with committees. A year or two of daily stand-up meets and pointlessly unproductive Teams calls pontificating over what brand of tea or coffee to serve in the empire’s canteen would have been enough to turn them off committees for life. Being novices to the world of bureaucracy, these meatheads loved the plan.
Perdiccas glared at Ptolemy. This would significantly water down his power. A factional split was widening that would later have deadly consequences.
After much debate, the assembled officers agreed to approve
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Perdiccas’s plan to wait for Alexander’s wife to give birth, but with the caveat that instead of having one regent, they would appoint several. Four of the generals would divide up the empire and rule it as guardians until the child was old enough. Then they would hand back power. What could possibly go wrong? The remaining generals carved out smaller kingdoms for themselves. Ptolemy seethed when he discovered he was excluded from being made a regent, but as a consolation prize he did get to rule Egypt. And as consolation prizes go, it was a pretty good one. (I’d have settled for a packet of Maltesers.) Perdiccas had first dibs and took the wealthiest part of the empire; he would rule Asia and Babylon. The generals were slicing up Alexander’s land like a cheap Aldi birthday cake and gorging on the best bits. They all swore an oath of allegiance, a pinky promise, and then set about secretly scheming the downfall of their rivals. The future of the world depended on these ambitious young men essentially signing an IOU promising to return their new kingdoms to an as yet unborn son of Alexander. It was a promise they had no intention of keeping.
It was a great little chinwag in theory, but this entire Babylonian conference overlooked a few crucial details. Alexander’s empire was global. Much of it had been conquered but not consolidated – just another one of Alexander’s ‘to- dos’ he had neglected to get round to. Several of the biggest players were also not in Babylon. This included Antipater, an ageing statesman managing affairs in Macedon, and Craterus, a big-name general who was in modern- day Turkey with 10,000 of the most experienced, hardened troops. There were other soldiers in remote parts of the empire manning forts in dusty outposts.
Everyone was loyal only to Alexander. They had not had a say in the discussion and would not appreciate Perdiccas calling the shots.
Additionally, the rank-and-file troops in Babylon had been excluded from the chat. Even while the discussion was underway, the troops held their own meeting and elected Arrhidaeus, Alexander’s mentally disabled half brother, as king. Meleager, the infantry captain, was sent to inform them of the generals’ decision. In an example of poor stakeholder management, the troops were livid they had not been consulted. Meleager, whose career had languished under Alexander, now sensed an opportunity. He riled up the soldiers. Who were these snobby elitist generals to ignore the wishes of the men who had bled and died for Alexander? If Alexander had left no clear successor, they should be the ones to decide to whom they pledged their loyalty. His words poured gasoline on the army’s smouldering grievances, whipping them into an explosive rage. They chanted and cheered, banged their spears on their shields and marched on the palace. The generals watched aghast as their own troops turned on them.
The army smashed down the doors of the palace and fought their way into the throne room where the body of Alexander lay in state. His troops fought hand-to-hand with the officers who had once commanded them, punching, kicking, stabbing. Meleager came face to face with Perdiccas. An army that had once been invincible had started to devour itself. Just hours after his death, Alexander’s mistake in leaving no instructions had already led to bloodshed. How could the empire survive?
Perdiccas and many of the senior generals fled the city for
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safety. They took with them the cavalry. The city of Babylon and the body of Alexander were now firmly in the hands of the common troops and Meleager. It could have all ended in this bloody proletarian coup, but the cunning Perdiccas had a few tricks up his sleeve. An army marches on its stomach, and he hit the soldiers where it hurt the most by cutting off their food supplies. He then reached out to the troops to offer a compromise. He was prepared to make concessions: he would respect their wishes and make Arrhidaeus joint king alongside Alexander’s soon-to-be-born child. He also offered Meleager a position as joint ruler of the Asian portion of the empire. Wouldn’t they make a great partnership? This juicy prize was irresistible to Meleager, who accepted. A few days earlier they had been enemies, now they were allies. He had traded his way up from a regular toe-the-line officer to second-in-command of Asia. A power move straight out of the plot of Succession. Perdiccas suggested that to cement this new deal and cleanse the troops in the eyes of the gods, the entire army should perform a purification ceremony outside the city walls. It would be a big kumbaya, a mea culpa, a sorry- about-that gathering where everyone could bury the hatchet, get behind the Babylon deal and carry on with ruling the empire. New day, new Perdiccas. He promised Meleager that they could use this event to solidify their new relationship and purge the army of some of their rivals. By executing potential challengers, they would enhance their power. Meleager was like, ‘Um, yeah, that’s weird but OK ’; entranced by the offer of power and promotion, he agreed.
This purification ceremony was anything but pure. The troops