Humanity is known for war, and for trying to find anything that will give them an advantage. One advantage that can be found is not with technology, but with nature: animals. From horses and chariots to even carrier pigeons, animals have been used for war and other responsibilities since the birth of fighting. It is no surprise that humans would try to use the biggest land animal as a weapon of war. 

The elephant is a massive animal and one that is capable of much destruction. However, what makes it less conventional is its unruly behavior, as an untrained elephant is just as likely to gore you instead of your opponent. Elephants are very smart animals, able to make connections and correlations. Humans exploited their mindset and made them tamer by taking a young elephant and chaining it with chains then staked it into the ground. Of course, a fully grown elephant could rip the stake from the ground with no problem, or even a pole, but the younger elephant would struggle, futile. Eventually, the elephant would become docile at the feeling of constraining around the leg, so even a cloth could tie an elephant in place since it thinks that it cannot move whenever something is around its leg. 

After an elephant had been successfully molded, mentally and physically, to the needs of war, many empires would use them to battle. Alexander the Great had one general, Seleucus Nicator, who is known for establishing the Seleucid Kingdom, with a capital at Babylon. It was he who attempted to foray into the territory of Chandragupta Maurya, who was one of the utilizers of war elephants. Needless to say, it didn’t go well for Seleucus. A Greek phalanx may be effective against men, but going up against elephants is another story. Chandragupta had archers positioned in boxes atop the elephants, sniping at people below, while the elephant charged the enemy. Seleucus had to give up some land, which was annexed, but in return, received his own 500 war elephants, which he used to battle-turning effect in the Battle of Ipsus. 

As effective as elephants are, and as good at psychologically suppressing instincts humans are, the elephants are, at the heart, a wild beast. Hannibal of Carthage found out about this, though his bringing of 80 elephants over mountain ranges to battle is legendary. Most animals are easily scared and frightened by loud sounds, which the Roman troops that Hannibal faced found out. They would blow horns to scare the elephants, making them charge with abandon, at their lines, then part their troops so the elephant charge would go past, then attack. It was in this manner that Hannibal suffered his greatest defeat.