[My impression from the series was that they also thought they could act like the Tsar was still around and hold expensive balls while at war. Fancy uniforms. Disunity for sure.]
*No one* goes to war to unite the population. Wars are by definition unpredictable. The sequence of events is the reverse - to engage in war, the ruler must first unite the country (possibly by slaughtering his internal opponents) and generally engage in systematic repression that eliminates his internal enemies, with the unwanted side effect of increasing the number of people alarmed at his cruelty and caprice. While in the short run, this iron-fisted approach might paper over differences with his underlings, as Alexander did with a number of dissenters, in the long run, this can lead to regime collapse, which is what happened to Alexander’s ruling house when he died:
Most of the members were rather drunk, and Alexander announced a reorganization of commands. Specifically, Cleitus was given orders to take 16,000 of the defeated Greek mercenaries who formerly fought for the Persian King north to fight the steppe nomads in Central Asia.[citation needed]
Cleitus knew that he would no longer be near the king and would be a forgotten man. Furious at the thought of commanding what he saw as second-rate soldiers and fighting nomads in the middle of nowhere, he spoke his mind. To make matters worse, when Alexander arrogantly boasted that his accomplishments were far greater than that of his father, Phillip II, Cleitus responded by saying that Alexander was not the legitimate king of the Macedonians, and that all of his achievements were due to his father.[12] Alexander called for his guards, but they did not want to intervene in a quarrel between friends.
The quarrel between Alexander and Cleitus
Alexander threw an apple at Cleitus’ head and called for a dagger or spear, but the party near the two men removed the dagger, restrained Alexander, and hustled Cleitus out of the room. The Hypaspists had conveniently left the vicinity of Alexander. Alexander then called for his trumpeter to summon the army; the alarm was not sounded. Nevertheless, Cleitus managed to return to the room to utter more grievances against Alexander (it is possible that Cleitus had not even left the room). But sources agree that at this point Alexander got hold of a javelin and threw it through Cleitus’s heart.[2][5][7]
In all of the four major known texts, it is shown that Alexander grieved for the death of Cleitus.[6] Alexander may have genuinely not wanted to kill Cleitus. However, Cleitus was a member of Philip II’s generation and Alexander had been removing that generation from power to keep his own peers in power.
The motives of Cleitus in this quarrel have been interpreted in various ways. Cleitus may have been angered at Alexander’s increasing adoption of Persian customs. After the death of King Darius III, Alexander was legally King of the Persian Empire. Alexander was now employing eunuchs and was tolerant of such Persian customs as proskynesis, which was considered degrading by many in the Macedonian army.[3]]
“without the carnage”
Why the Russian armed forces were in disarray and much less willing to fight. The Eastern front is less well known in both WW1 and WW2