Posted on 04/05/2011 6:11:27 PM PDT by neverdem
With the world melting down and the Bard semester heating up, I’ve fallen behind in my grand strategy posts; apologies to all and I hope to catch up with a post next week (during Bard’s spring break) on Machiavelli. But today’s business is still the Second Punic War, the conflict between Carthage and Rome that engulfed most of the Mediterranean world in what would prove to be the most important war in the history of what would, thanks to Rome’s victory, one day become western civilization.
In the last post I wrote about how Rome had a grand strategy that was bigger and deeper than tactical questions like where you put your cavalry and your Balearic slingers in the battle. It was a strategy of state construction and institution building. Carthage could defeat Roman armies in Italy, Gaul and Spain, massacring troops, capturing standards and killing consuls. But Rome could always produce more — even coming up with a third Scipio after two successful generals of that family were killed in Spain.
This is clearly one of the strengths that the British and the Americans brought to the last three hundred years of world history in which we’ve established a global hegemony as strong and as influential as the great empires of old. There was a social and an economic resilience to the two English speaking great powers of the modern world that enabled them to outlast competitors like Louis XIV, Napoleon, Hitler and the Soviet Union. “England loses every battle but the last,” they used to say. Hannibal and Napoleon (and for that matter Robert E. Lee) were brilliant commanders, but their brilliance could not overcome the deeply rooted institutional and economic disadvantages they faced.
More than resilience, there was something about the Anglo-American world that kept it at...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.the-american-interest.com ...
Hannibal never had a plan for breaching Rome’s walls.
Interesting take on history (and current events).
Hannibal never had a plan to infiltrate Rome and have a Roman who was philosophically opposed to all that made Rome great, take over as Caesar.
The following day Hannibal crossed the Anio and led out the whole of his force to battle; Flaccus and the consuls did not decline the challenge. When both sides were drawn up to decide an action in which Rome was the victor's prize, a tremendous hailstorm threw the two armies into such disorder that they had difficulty in holding their arms. They retired to their respective camps, fearing everything rather than their enemy. The following day, when the armies were drawn up in the same position, a similar storm separated them. On each occasion, after they were once more in camp, the weather cleared up in an extraordinary way. The Carthaginians looked upon the occasion as preternatural, and the story runs that Hannibal was heard to say that at one time he lacked the will, at another the opportunity, of becoming master of Rome. His hopes were further damped by two incidents, one of some importance, the other less so. The more important was his receiving information that while he was actually in arms near the walls of Rome a force had marched out fully equipped, under their standards, to reinforce the army in Spain. The other incident, which he learnt from a prisoner, was the sale by auction of the spot on which he had fixed his camp, and the fact that, in spite of his occupation of it, there was no abatement in the price. That any one should have been found in Rome to buy the ground which he was holding in possession as spoil of war, seemed to Hannibal such an insulting piece of arrogance that he instantly summoned a crier and made him give notice of the sale of the silversmiths' shops round the Forum of Rome.
I always thought Sparta had the right idea of no walls. They basically trap you inside as much as keeping the enemy out.
Also Rome had a real weakness in the aqueducts.
Livy is completely unreliable in the recounting of the history of Hannibal V Rome.
An ancient version of CBS reporting the war news.
Yes. And he was roundly castigated for his failure to march on Rome after Cannea.
“You have the ability to be victorious in battle but not the wisdom to exploit them.”
The most surprising thing to Hannibal was the Roman will. The Romans had suffered stunning losses at the hands of Hannibal. The normal response, the Grecian way, was surrender.
Instead, the Romans raised another Army and kept fighting. Hannibal was doomed from the start and eventually the Romans beat Carthage in Carthage.
Sorry—this is the one I meant to post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OgbfYwUgeA&feature=related—this is the one I meant to post:
Good article and apt analogies.
Unfortunately, after escaping from Rome, he gave in to poor advice from those who wanted to return to Rome for the simple act of revenge. You know the rest.
Thanks for the link, but my computer is too old.
The Vulnerability of Peripheries of Eurasia
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
good analogy, though of course there were no Caesars during the Punic wars, it was 200+years before Julius.
Another analogy are the actions of Jugurtha, a Numidian king (from what is now Algeria and maybe a bit of Tripolitana) who consistently bribed the Romaoi Senate.
psychological war :-)
a state in which 70%+ were slaves (Helots) doing the work and indentured for generations
Where there was no family life - boys from 7 were separated from their families and all young men lived together until 30 when they could start a family. The boys were continuously trained as soldiers
homosexual relations, pederastry etc. were encouraged as a means to keep the unity of the military units
They had no inkling of culture or trade, unlike the Athenians (who had their own problems of course, but imho, not as severe).
Spartan society was one-dimensional, purely dedicated to war, a dead-end society that could not even innovate -- Philip the Great of Macedon was able to smash their phalanx with the clever use of cavalry and side-attacks.
The Roman way was simpler -- "on this side of the line (the Servian walls) is Rome. Outside that is not Rome. We got no problem with those outside, but there is friction on the border, so we'll expand a little bit, then a little bit more..."
The Roman way is exemplified in the difference between the armor and strategy of the Romans and their enemies -- the Romans had huge shields protecting their soldiers and smaller offensive weaponry. They worked as a team.
Does anyone think that Hannibal could have played ANY strategy which would enable him to win against Rome? I can't think of any -- Carthage seems to be to be doomed right from the time Rome pushed through to the Naples area.
Carthage was a Punic/Phoenician/Canaanite enclave in Berber/Imazhigen/Numidian territory. It was a mercantile, sea empire, not a land one. They could not defeat this awe-inspiring organization that was Rome, imho
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