Editor’s Be aware: That is a part of a brand new sequence of essays entitled “Battle Research,” which seeks, via the examine of navy historical past, to reveal how previous classes about technique, operations, and techniques apply to present protection challenges.
The Battle of Cannae, fought on Aug. 2, 216 BCE, the crowning success of Hannibal Barca over the Romans, sits comfortably within the pantheon of nice navy victories. It is without doubt one of the most spectacular examples of adroit techniques enabling a smaller, much less closely outfitted military to defeat a bigger, heavier opposing drive in an open, pitched battle. Nonetheless, although Cannae is ceaselessly described as a “decisive victory,” it was, after all, nothing of the kind: The battle befell two years into the 17-year-long Second Punic Warfare, which Hannibal misplaced. The failure of even the best of tactical victories to change the general strategic scenario is each bit as a lot of the legacy of Cannae as Hannibal’s dazzling double-envelopment techniques.
Three accounts of the Battle of Cannae survive, none of them modern. The oldest is Polybius, writing within the mid-second century BCE. Polybius got here to Rome in 167 and each interviewed surviving witnesses of the conflict and relied on the (now misplaced) historical past of Fabius Pictor, who had been a member of the Roman Senate on the time of the battle. The opposite important supply is the Roman historian Livy, writing on the finish of the primary century BCE. Livy relied on Fabius Pictor and Polybius, but in addition various different lost historical works, together with that of Lucius Coelius Antipater, although his account is hampered by his personal lack of navy expertise and some gildings born of literary pretensions. Lastly, the second century CE historian Appian additionally offers an account of the battle, although it’s confused and usually regarded to be of little worth. Consequently, scholarly debates on Cannae stay centered on reconciling comparatively small variations between Livy and Polybius’ accounts, which stay the bedrock of our understanding of the battle.
The Street to Cannae
The strategic scenario Hannibal confronted was rooted within the consequence of the First Punic Warfare (264–241 BCE). In an actual sense, the Second Punic Warfare (218–201 BCE) was a continuation conflict. After a grinding conflict of exhaustion, the Romans had succeeded in 241 in conquering Sicily, ending more than two centuries of Carthaginian navy exercise on the island. Worse but for Carthage, the mix of troopers whose pay was lengthy in arrears and the exhaustion of the treasury triggered practically speedy major revolt of each its armies and its North African topics in that very same yr. Hamilcar Barca emerged as Carthage’s preeminent basic in the course of the First Punic Warfare and afterwards turned his armies towards expansion in Spain, maybe in search of a useful resource base with which to match Rome. From 237 to 219, the Barcids (first Hamilcar, then his son-in-law Hasdrubal the Honest, then Hamilcar’s son Hannibal) expanded Carthaginian holdings in Spain, conquering all of the Mediterranean coast south of the Ebro River, the folks of which have been identified in antiquity because the Iberians, as distinct from different peoples dwelling on the remainder of the peninsula. This alarmed the Romans, who in 219 demanded Hannibal desist his assaults on the Iberian city of Saguntum, largely as a pretext for conflict. The Romans claimed that Hannibal’s assault was a breach of an agreement to not lengthen Carthaginian energy north of the Ebro, regardless of Saguntum mendacity some 85 miles south of the river. Hannibal, now ready to tackle Rome, seized the city and started to maneuver in opposition to Italy.
Hannibal’s technique seems to have been to strike on the Roman alliance system in Italy. A bit of over half of Rome’s troopers on this interval have been socii (“allies”), drawn from subordinated non-citizen communities of Italy, subdued by Rome both by conquest or diplomacy. These communities have been required to ship troopers to serve in Roman armies in trade for navy safety and a share of the loot of future conquests. It was this technique Hannibal aimed to disrupt, maybe reasoning from Carthage’s personal latest previous in 241 the place navy exhaustion had produced a harmful revolt amongst its personal topic communities in North Africa. Consequently, Hannibal’s operations centered on despoiling allied territory in Italy to entice or compel the allies to defect. Such assaults would additionally draw Roman subject armies, whose destruction Hannibal may need hoped would speed up the collapse of the system.
Reaching Italy was no straightforward activity. Roman naval superiority, hard-won within the First Punic Warfare, mandated a treacherous overland march over the Pyrenees, via southern France (then Gaul) and over the Alps into what the Romans referred to as Cisalpine Gaul, “Gaul on this facet of the Alps,” a distance of roughly 1,000 miles. Polybius reports that Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees with 50,000 soldiers and 9,000 cavalrymen, the vast majority of each drawn from Spain. By the point he descended from the Alps into Cisalpine Gaul, this drive had been winnowed to merely 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Hannibal may, nonetheless, depend on the Gallic peoples of Cisalpine Gaul as allies if he may produce victories in opposition to Rome’s scrambling response to his arrival, which he did at Ticinus (218) and Trebia (218). The mixture of casualties at Trebia and the tough winter situations (the battle was fought in December) cost Hannibal all however one of many elephants he had laboriously transported over the Alps. Because of this, elephants would play no additional function in his marketing campaign in Italy. The next yr, Hannibal raided Roman allies in Etruria (trendy Tuscany), realizing that it will lure the Romans into another engagement. He sprung his ambush at Lake Trasimene (June 217), destroying one more Roman subject military.
The catastrophe at Trasimene in flip pushed Roman technique into the political area. Within the speedy aftermath a complex political wrangle ensued that our sources enable us to look at solely imperfectly. Ultimately the Romans determined {that a} momentary supreme commander, a dictator, was required and Quintus Fabius Maximus was elected by the people. Fabius, quickly nicknamed cunctator (“the delayer”), favored a method of containment in opposition to Hannibal, delaying him and avoiding a pitched battle whereas the Romans made positive aspects the place Hannibal wasn’t, elevating recent armies that would stabilize its alliances in Italy, and dismantling Carthage’s abroad holdings, significantly in Spain. Fabius shadowed Hannibal’s military into Campania after which Apulia in southern Italy, interfering with its logistics to comprise Hannibal’s actions, however at Rome the politics remained unsettled.
The political situation got here to a head as Fabius’ brief time period as dictator got here to an finish and elections have been held for 216. The election of Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus (father of the victor at Pydna) as consuls resulted in a renewed technique of confrontation. Because the campaigning season started within the spring of 216, the Romans set out as soon as once more to attempt to defeat Hannibal in pitched battle. By this level, Hannibal had continued his southward motion, maybe hoping to capitalize on anti-Roman sentiment farther south. He skirmished with the Roman military shadowing his actions via the late winter and spring of 216, earlier than shifting in late July in opposition to the Roman provide put up at Cannae. Hannibal nearly actually aimed to attract the Romans right into a battle on floor of his selecting, on this case a plain mendacity adjoining to the river Aufidus (the trendy Ofanto) that supplied ample room for his cavalry. The Roman military, beneath the joint command of each consuls, duly followed, setting the stage for the battle at Cannae.
Tactical Brilliance
Hannibal’s double envelopment at Cannae — involving simultaneous assaults on each flanks of the Roman formation — stands as one of many biggest tactical maneuvers in historical past, enabling his military to nearly totally destroy a far bigger and extra lavishly outfitted Roman drive.
The exact composition of each armies at Cannae stays considerably unsure, though the topline figures for each are comparatively safe. On the Carthaginian facet, Polybius reports Hannibal had by this level 40,000 soldiers and 10,000 cavalrymen, however he didn’t specify the inner divisions of these figures. Working backwards via earlier studies for Hannibal’s power, it’s attainable to give you a comparatively slim vary of believable breakdowns. John Lazenby provides an estimate that by this level Hannibal had maybe 6,000 Iberian infantry and 10,000 African infantry left of his authentic drive, which if we add the roughly 8,000 light missile troops Hannibal had on the Trebia, would depart 16,000 Gauls drawn from the rebellious territories of Cisalpine Gaul to make up the ultimate infantry determine of 40,000 males.
The gear of Hannibal’s drive was diverse. A standard translation error, rendering the sunshine infantry lonchophoroi as “pikemen” as a substitute of the extra correct “javelin males,” has left the lingering false impression that Carthage’s African infantry fought in a pike phalanx akin to the Macedonians, however in actual fact Carthage’s heavy infantry by no means used pikes and fought as a substitute utilizing shields with one-handed spears and swords, whereas the sunshine infantry lonchophoroi fought with the lonche, a light-weight spear that would double as a javelin. By 216, each Polybius and Livy word that Hannibal’s Africans had looted a lot Roman gear as to resemble Roman heavy infantry.
Against this, each the Gauls and Iberians have been clad in their very own customary fashion: Gallic warriors fought largely unarmored however with giant oval shields, spears, and longer one-handed straight swords, whereas Iberian warriors fought with a mixture of giant oval and smaller round shields, spears, and a harmful forward-curved sword, the falcata. Much more calmly armored than Roman heavy infantry, each would have been at a drawback in a protracted melee. Hannibal’s cavalry consisted of Gallic and Iberian cavalry, in addition to Numidian horsemen. The Gauls and Spaniards represented heavier and lighter “shock” cavalry variants, respectively, whereas the Numidians fought as skirmishing light javelin cavalry and have been thought of the best horsemen within the Western Mediterranean.
On the opposite facet, the Roman military was considerably bigger and extra uniform. Polybius and Livy differ on whether or not the drive consisted of both extra legions or just overstrength legions, however each come to comparable complete strengths, with roughly 80,000 soldiers and 6,000 cavalrymen, cut up nearly evenly between Roman residents and socii, each of whom used the identical gear and techniques. The good power of the Roman military was in its heavy infantry, fashioned in three successive battle traces, the triplex acies. The Romans aimed to overwhelm by infantry frontal assault, grinding down enemies with successive traces of heavy infantry whereas cavalry screened the flanks. And most Roman commanders, Fabius Maximus however, in search of to notch a victory earlier than their yr in workplace expired, could possibly be relied on to assault if given even a modest alternative.
It was this predictable aggression and direct tactical strategy that Hannibal would use in opposition to Varro and Paullus. He placed his lighter Iberian and Gallic infantry within the middle, flanked by the heavier Africans. His Iberian and Gallic cavalry held the left flank and his Numidian cavalry the proper. Somewhat than refuse his susceptible middle, Hannibal bent it ahead, inviting the Romans to assault. The following battle performed out in keeping with Hannibal’s plan: The Roman heavy infantry pushed his middle again, advancing into the pocket created by the positioning of the African infantry on the flanks. The closely armed Africans in flip pivoted and fell on the Roman flanks. In the meantime, the Roman socii cavalry on Hannibal’s left was held at bay by the skirmishing Numidians, whereas the Iberian and Gallic cavalry overwhelmed the Roman citizen cavalry on the proper. That completed, Hannibal’s cavalry officer, Hasdrubal (no relation to Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal Barca), moved a part of his drive to the left, scattering the remaining socii cavalry and, having accomplished the encirclement, charged the Roman infantry within the rear.
The slaughter within the middle of the sphere was horrific. Engaged on all sides, the Roman infantry may no longer respond in a unified, efficient vogue, however fought in a determined, uncoordinated battle inside a steadily shrinking area. The Roman fashion of preventing required reasonably large intervals to be efficient and the Romans will need to have ended up pressed so tightly collectively as to be unable to struggle successfully. Livy offers terrible anecdotes of males discovered after the battle having suffocated themselves with heads buried in useless efforts to dig out of the horror, or wounded Carthaginian troopers scratched and gnawed as Romans, now not in a position to elevate their weapons, had died gouging and biting within the press.
Picture: Battle of Cannae (United States Military Academy Ancient and Medieval Warfare Atlas)
The Victory That Didn’t Matter
The digital annihilation of a large Roman drive at Cannae constituted Hannibal’s biggest victory. Polybius studies 70,000 Roman lifeless and solely 3,000 survivors however, as Lazenby notes, Polybius has disregarded a considerable camp guard, prisoners, and fairly just a few escaping troopers from his tally of survivors. Livy’s casualty figures for the Romans are extra dependable: 47,700 Roman troopers killed, one other 19,300 taken prisoner, and 14,550 escaped. However given the size of the slaughter and completeness of Hannibal’s victory, probably the most stunning factor concerning the battle is that it wasn’t sufficient.
Hannibal has been faulted since antiquity for not doing extra together with his victory. Certainly, Livy reports a rebuke from considered one of his officers that, “You understand how to win, Hannibal, however not how you can use victory.” In follow, Hannibal had few choices. A lightning march on Rome, usually proposed, was hardly sensible. Rome was a walled metropolis that also had two legions to defend it and the logistics of a siege have been not possible with out first decreasing many different walled cities within the neighborhood. Hannibal usually averted besieging giant cities throughout his marketing campaign in Italy and his military could not have introduced a lot in the best way of catapults and different siege gear, although such specialised engines have been hardly obligatory for historical sieges that tended to be extra centered on earthworks than artillery. Much more importantly, Rome’s wide-reaching conscription and enormous alliance system left the Romans with super navy sources nonetheless obtainable: The Romans would still have 110,000 males within the subject in 215, rising to 185,000 by 212. A Carthaginian military settling all the way down to besiege Rome would have been swiftly remoted and surrounded.
As an alternative, Hannibal sensibly moved to consolidate revolt amongst Rome’s socii in southern Italy. However the construction of the Roman alliance system proved tough to interrupt aside. On the one hand, the Roman supply of safety for navy assist led many communities to associate with Rome. Alternatively, as Michael Fronda has noted, Roman management had frozen many native conflicts, such that the revolt of 1 neighborhood may lock within the loyalty of its neighbors, limiting the unfold of Hannibal’s assist.
In the meantime, Rome recovered. Shifting again to the Fabian technique of delaying Hannibal whereas specializing in different fronts, the Romans used logistical denial to bottle Hannibal up in southern Italy whereas different Roman armies, for Rome may assist many, started mopping up the revolting socii and rolling again Carthaginian management in Spain. Carthage’s sources have been nearly as huge as Rome’s — the Carthaginians would subject an astounding peak of some 165,000 males in 215 — however absent Hannibal’s generalship, confined as he was to southern Italy, the Romans tended to win the battles with their more heavily equipped forces. The final of Carthaginian rule in Spain collapsed in 206 and the Romans started preparations in 205 to invade North Africa in 204. The Carthaginians, dealing with defeat at residence, recalled Hannibal to command the protection, resulting in a decisive battle at Zama in 202, with the recalled Hannibal dealing with Publius Cornelius Scipio. Hannibal’s defeat there spelled the tip of each the Second Punic Warfare and Carthaginian imperial ambitions.
The Warnings of Cannae
The Battle of Cannae, after all, serves because the dominant mannequin for the effectiveness of double-envelopment techniques. Alfred Schlieffen famously wrote a treatise on the battle as head of the German Normal Workers, in flip reverently translated into English in 1931 by the U.S. Military: The affect on the envelopment idea in each the Schlieffen Plan and later German Bewegungskrieg is evident. Research of the battle stay commonplace in officer schooling and military field manuals masking techniques for instance the place envelopment was used to offset numerical disparity. With this, after all, equally comes a warning in opposition to Varro and Paullus’ ill-considered aggression, which allowed Hannibal to find out the time and place of the engagement and draw the Romans into battle on favorable phrases.
Nonetheless, Hannibal’s tactical victory at Cannae didn’t yield strategic success. The canonization of the battle thus dangers lionizing flashy tactical success over attaining strategic aims. Certainly, Hannibal’s daring operational plan that led to Cannae compelled harsh strategic realities that might spell break for each Hannibal and Carthage. Roman management in Italy was the product of practically three centuries of sluggish work that resisted unraveling. Against this, the Barcid empire in Spain was barely 20 years outdated and started to unravel almost immediately as soon as the Carthaginians confronted setbacks on the battlefield. Hannibal had appropriately assessed that the Roman “middle of gravity” was its reliance on the navy sources of the socii, however the Barcid navy system was equally reliant on Iberian manpower and much more susceptible, as Roman victories in Spain may peel away Hannibal’s Iberian vassals much more readily than Hannibal’s victories in Italy had picked off Rome’s Italian allies.
As such, regardless of Hannibal’s spectacular tactical success, within the speedy aftermath of Cannae the general steadiness of navy energy nearly instantly started reasserting itself: The hole in sources between Rome and Carthage was just too broad for even a expertise like Hannibal to bridge. The Carthaginians would win additional battles, significantly a crushing double victory on the Higher Baetis in 211 that halted, for a second, the Roman advance in Spain, however they may not equalize the steadiness of energy. Cannae thus additionally serves as a grim reminder of the supremacy of the strategic over the tactical and the problem of translating even probably the most super tactical successes into new strategic realities.
Bret C. Devereaux is a educating assistant professor at North Carolina State College and a historian whose analysis focuses on the intersection of the economic system and navy of the Roman Republic. He additionally writes a weekly historical past weblog, A Assortment of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.weblog), and has an upcoming e-book, Of Arms and Males: Why Rome All the time Received, a comparative examine of mobilization and the prices of fielding armies within the Mediterranean in the course of the third and second centuries BCE.
Picture: Yale College Artwork Gallery through Wikimedia Commons
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