Posted on 02/01/2007 9:08:30 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Gazing at the surrounding mountains of stone and ice, I find it almost impossible to imagine that a large army could have crossed these peaks; so did the ancient Romans, who called the Alps the "Fence of Italy," and for centuries were unable to conquer the Celtic tribes who lived there. But in late October 218 B.C., battling snowstorms, rock avalanches, and bellicose tribes, the Carthaginian general Hannibal marched some 25,000 men, 37 elephants, and scores of pack animals over a narrow pass in the mountain range. Hailed as one of the boldest military maneuvers in history, Hannibal's invasion of Italy almost destroyed the young Roman Republic--and failed only after 15 years of tireless war.
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Didn't a number of Hannibal's elephants freeze to death?
All but one died before he reached Italy
Sure, but think of how many steaks his army must have enjoyed from that.
If memory serves, only a few of the elephants made it, but dealing with elephant warfare was a Roman specialty, such that the whole idea was pretty much abandoned. There's an interesting anecdote about the last use of them, at the Battle of Thapsus, in the HBO series "Rome".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant
Elephant taming (not full domestication, they were still captured in the wild) began in the Indus Valley civilization around 4,000 years ago. The first species to be tamed was thus the Asian elephant, for agricultural ends. The first military application of elephants dates from around 1100 BC in Vedic India, which is mentioned in several Vedic hymns from this era. Shang China may have primitively used elephants for military purposes around the same time as it is known that elephants lived around the Yellow River[1], and were tamed.
Ba'al deree, Ba'al derah, I'll sing my hiking song.
I love to go out plundering along the Appian Way
And when I do, I'm wondering if I'll need my sword today
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, I sing this merry song each day
Ba'al deree, Ba'al derah, I'll sing my hiking song.
> Hailed as one of the boldest military maneuvers in history, Hannibal's invasion of Italy almost destroyed the young Roman Republic--and failed only after 15 years of tireless war.
As a military feat of surprise, it probably ranks up there with TE Lawrence's taking of the town of Aqaba from the desert side.
Or for that matter, Pearl Harbor or the Japanese sacking of Singapore.
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