Page 122 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

122 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

egy on seeing the number of his ships. They retreated within the city’s harbors, blocking
the entrance to those harbors by ships arranged close to one another. Alexander did not
proceed to launch an immediate offensive. The Cypriots with their ships anchored to the
north of the city while the Phoenicians moved to the south, thus surveying both harbors
and completing the city’s blockade from the sea. Apart from the decisive reinforcement
and strengthening the fleet, the accession of Cyprus and of the Phoenician cities served so
that several mechanics from those countries join Alexander’s force, aiding to build a large
number of siege engines in a short time. Some of those engines were installed on the pier
while others on horse carrying ships and on other relatively slow ships that were not fit
for a naval battle. The besieged built wooden towers to fight from high above the ground.
They defended by shooting arrows, included flamed ones. To block the enemy ships from
reaching the walls, they threw several large stones into the sea around the walls. After a
surprise attack against his fleet, Alexander rushed to launch an offensive. He coordinated
the battle from aboard his ship, with great success. The superiority of his fleet that was
made even more convincing after the last battle facilitated the use of the siege engines
against the Tyrian walls, not only from the pier – that was extending up the city by that
time - but also from aboard the ships, enabling the perimetric offensive. The ships car-
rying the siege machines approached the most vulnerable part of the walls. After causing
a sufficiently extensive breach on the walls, those retreated letting other ships carrying
bridges to take their place and mount bridges on the breached part of the walls so as to
facilitate their capture.
At the same time, according to the plan, Cypriots and Phoenicians attacked the harbors
they had been assigned, while other ships equipped with catapults and manned with arch-
ers were sailing along the walls at arrow’s distance, not revealing the points they would
use to carry out their offensive. Alexander’s army simultaneously attacked from the pier
and nailed the defenders at that point of the walls. Finally, when the Tyrians withdrew
inside the city, trying to regroup and counterattack, the Macedonians advanced against
them and crashed their resistance in a swift battle. Tyre fell in July 332 B.C., following a
seven-month siege, only after Alexander’s fleet gained the naval superiority. The city’s fall
was ultimately realized by an offensive that was carried out from the sea, even though the
great effort of the besiegers had been concentrated on building the pier to assault the city
walls from the land as well. Nevertheless, its contribution to the ultimate success of the
endeavour was critical, as the day-to-day fighting around the pier to stop, or to ensure its
construction caused the constant attrition of the Tyrians.
The severe threat that the pier comprised for the city forced the Tyrians to use their
elite forces and several of the technical means and resources in the eastern side of the wall,
at the expense of their defensive efforts at the seaside points. In addition, the pier served
as an artificial arm, offering protection to Alexander’s fleet from the winds. The course
and the final outcome of the siege were critically influenced by the craftsmanship and
particularly by the competition between the mechanics for the design and the building of
ever more advanced war machines. The Macedonian superiority in the plain military field
along with the concurrent critical reinforcement of the fleet ensured the fall of the impreg-
nable until then city of Tyre. That was an important war trophy that bolstered and further