The Ancient Battle Generals Still Love To Copy (Cannae)

Daily Beast ^ | January 27, 2016 | Robert Bateman

[C19fan]

I went to the most famous battlefield in Western History, and had a surprise. Not a good one.

It is a stomp, well off the path, to get to Cannae.

The main train lines in Italy run up and down the coasts. Going inland, particularly in southeast Italy, is somewhat more episodic. My train had two cars. At the fourth stop, “Battle”, I got off.

[C19fan]

The Germans were obsessed with Cannae. One can think of the Schlieffen Plan as trying to replicate Cannae on a strategic level.

[ichabod1]

Haven’t read the article, but... the double envelopment - that is Cannae, nay?

[KC_Lion]

We could argue about Cannae and The Punic Wars for Days and not get anywhere.

Cannae was an almost perfectly Executed Battle, but Hannibal Still lost the War because the Romans set aside their arrogance, employed the Fabian Strategy, went after The Carthaginian Cities and Reinforcements in Spain.

They defeated Hannibal over time without directly engaging him until they were outright winning the War.

[LS]

Yes, Victor Hanson writes about Cannae-—the most interesting thing is that Hannibal did something almost impossible to do: he staged an orderly withdrawal without trained troops.

On a larger geographic scale, it’s what Sam Houston vs Santa Anna and George Washington after Brooklyn Heights did.

[Pollster1]

Possible GGG ping - almost unmarked historic “grave”-site of 50,000 at Cannae.

Interesting contemporary visit. I’ve been to the main battlefields from our Revolutionary and Civil War, as well as Sparta, Thermopylae, and even Zama, but I never bothered to visit Cannae, and now I’m wondering why I never thought of going there.

[sphinx]

Hannibal’s problem was that while he was a great tactician and battlefield commander, he sucked when it came to strategy. Following this crushing victory he was unable to finish the war.

Not quite. The Romans simply refused to quit, no matter how heavy their losses. The remarkable thing is that their Italian allies also stood firm. Conquering Italy would therefore have required an endless series of costly sieges. This would have required far more men than Hannibal had, as he needed a mobile field army to maintain control of the operational area and did not have enough troops to detach for endless siege warfare. Nor did he have enough men for the continuous garrisons that would have been required. He was simply too far from his bases in Spain and North Africa, and it's not clear that Carthage could have mustered sufficient force (or been able to hire enough mercenaries) even had he been closer.

The familiar American analogue is the Revolutionary War, where the British, with a handful of celebrated exceptions, won most of the battles but could never maintain control of the countryside or towns without a continuous garrison, for which the British lacked men.

[rstrahan]

The two classic strategies were created. The double em elopment was used by the Russians in WWII against the Germans, but only succeed by the German high command demanding a ‘stand at all costs’ strategy. Shattered the Eastern Front for the Germans.

The second was that an exposed ‘tail’ of an army is highly vulnerable. Hannibal at the head was winning, or at least not losing. But by severing the tail, it cut off the head.

[CharlesOConnell]

The Phoenician civilization’s ethics made the Romans seem pro life in comparison. The Romans only committed infanticide by exposure upon the unwanted. The Phoenicians ritually killed infants of the elites as on the red hot arms of the moloch demon statue, an old world analogue to the 100,000s of living hearts torn from bodies dumped down pyramid steps.

[bboop]

We went to see the site of Hannibal’s battle at Lake Trasimeno, a bit east of Orvieto. Same thing - dirt roads, absolutely no markers. There were streets named ‘sangria’ and ‘osso’ (blood, bones) throughout the area, though. I kind of liked it that way. We had just read a book about Hannibal, in homeschooling, and I was captivated.

[bboop]

You went to Thermopylae? Recommended??

[Don Hernando de Las Casas]

I WANTED to go, but if I recall correctly, I did not go because the sea claimed the site hundreds of years ago. Am I wrong?

[Sans-Culotte]

Not quite. The Romans simply refused to quit, no matter how heavy their losses. The remarkable thing is that their Italian allies also stood firm.

When I was a kid and reading about Hannibal for the first time, he was a hero of mine. I totally admired the way he inflicted such crushing defeats on the Romans. Over time, my admiration has gone to the Romans. I love how they held firm and after Cannae basically told Hannibal's emmisaries to go eff themselves. Then they slowly ground the Carthaginians down. No Matter the opponent, the Romans would eventually grind them down. Winning the Punic Wars made Rome a great nation.

[teeman8r]

Hehe. You said Punic.

[Rufii]

The battle was so famous that it even inspired a song--I Can Dream, Cannae!

[Rufii]

In that final battle, at a place called Zama, Hannibal finally lost. Which is sort of why you can visit Rome, but not Carthage, now.

Under Roman rule, Carthage once again became a great city. Several conferences were held there that contributed greatly to shaping the Christian religion. In the seventh century AD, when Constantinople was threatened by Muslims and barbarians, the emperor Flavius Heraclius even considered moving the capital of the Roman Empire to Carthage. However, thanks to urban redevelopment and population management programs instituted by the Arabs in AD 698 and the Crusaders in 1270, Carthage has been considerably downsized.

St. Louis Cathedral, Carthage

[ameribbean expat]

See also Lee at Chancellorsville. Cannae is my favorite,tho. A map hangs in my office.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Pollster1.

Eventually the Romans cleaned out his backfield in Spain, crossed over into Africa, and threatened Carthage itself, which meant that his family was rehabilitated (there was a lot of political infighting in Carthage among the 'noble' families, same as went on in Rome) and he was recalled for the city's defense, his army evacuated by sea, and ushered into battle. He lost.

Hannibal stayed in Italy for sixteen years without being able to take one walled city. I've never seen it discussed, but his loss of so many of his elephants during the crossing of the Alps (and remember, he also brought them over, ultimately, from Africa, and crossed the Rhone before he reached the Alps) probably helped him in his ability to stay put. Elephants eat a lot. And methods to cope with the ancient world's "tanks" were well-developed, such that the last use of them in a large battle was Thapsus, which broke the back of the Pompeian faction in that phase of the civil war.

Imagine, Hannibal and his army managed to live off the land for sixteen years, with but a little resupply by sea -- but in Italy, where such a thing is obviously not that difficult. The Romans kept him out of southern Italy by using a scorched-Earth approach to create a barrier, and alas they never went back to fix it (no one has to the current day).

Cannae was an outlier, despite the hero worship that has gone on -- it was due more to the stupidity of the Roman field leadership and a couple of lucky breaks for Hannibal than it had to do with some kind of genius.

There ya go -- have at it! Hell, let's make this week a double-topic ping to the Digest list. This should be good!

[Monkey Face]

Interesting.

Thanks! :o]

[bboop]

Isn’t Thermopylae on a mountain pass? Trasimeno is inland, not claimed by sea. Not sure which you are referring to.

Yes, I at first liked Hannibal but admired more the Romans who beat him back and built a marvelous civilization. I did want to go over the pass Hannibal and the elephants took over the Alps, but that no longer exists, due to landslides and elephant remains (haha, not really. Due to things I do not know).

Do go to Valle d’Aosta outside of Turin, tho. Amazing wonderful Roman ruins, roads, bridges, etc. up that way.