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(quotation from an incomplete website)
The Battle of Cannae told in many books on military tactics and strategy violates
fundamental principles of war and teaches bad lessons to young officers.
The classic account which I will use, has been widely reworded by modern authors,
is that of Polybius. He describes, in broad outline which is probably correct,
with some details that are surely not correct, how Hannibal tricked into battle
at Cannae a Roman army twice the size of his own and destroyed it, killing or
capturing in two day more than 80,000 of the nearly 90,000 Romans. The feat
is astounding. Properly understood, it is a magnificent example of application
of fundamental principles of war. Unfortunately, Polybius did not understand
it, nor have more recent writers. And we will see that the continuing confusion
and error is a result of Hannibal's genius.
Hannibal misled, mystified, and surprised his enemy. He created a sequence of
real situations and illusions. Some of his deceptions were so good they have
been repeated in histories to this day as if they were facts.
I will describe how the historians and books on strategy have erred in their
description of the battle. Briefly, I will correct these flaws:
1) the failure to penetrate all of Hannibal's deceptions,
2) the suggestion that one army surrounded and beat to death an army twice its
size, and better equipped,
3) the failure to clearly show all four of the major points where Hannibal achieved,
by clever plan, overwhelming superiority of numbers,
4) the claim that 8,000 cavalry blocked the retreat of 70,000 infantry,
5) the failure to explain how Hannibal survived what seems to have been an obvious
blunder in the disposition of his troops and of his own person,
6) Hannibal had no routes of escape,
7) A successful general sacrifices sizable contingents of his army,
8) There were not multiple paths to success,
9) Hannibal's plan risked his total destruction upon the rapid success of just
one contingent of troops.
To understand how military historians could fail to understand Cannae we look
at their sources of information. The main source is a history attributed to
Polybius who, from a well-to-do Greek family was a hostage. He was sent, to
live and tutor in the family of a Roman general. Polybius seems to have made
of himself a kind of military correspondent, historian and traveler to distant
lands. But he probably did not begin gathering information in Cannae until more
than 30 years after that battle. Memories of eye witnesses would have deteriorated,
as we know they do. Worse, due to the nature of the disaster, few Romans at
the part of the battle whose account I dispute, survived the battle. Polybius
was dependent upon dusty conjecture. We will accept the broad outlines of his
account. But, he seems to contradict, in some details, both himself and good
sense, encouraging us to use our reason, our knowledge of men and strategy,
to create a truer picture of the famous battle. We will buttress some of our
reasoning with elementary mathematics of slaughter.
Polybius, through the rheumy eyes of witnesses could see clearly the periphery
of the battle. He could see details that Hannibal led his enemy to see. But,
Polybius could not see the core of the battle, the core of Hannibal's genius
for, at that place, there were precious few Roman survivors to tell the tale.
Notes on the account of Livy, a hundred years later, are to be added at the
end of this article.
Polybius's account contains few details of the battle but contains details related
to speeches, including one allegedly by Hannibal. This suggests that he or his
sources were not adamantly opposed to inventing details. Many details extol
Aemelius though this Roman consul who died in the battle seems, by evidence
given by Polybius, to have contributed to the disaster, as properly understood.
Some of the resulting details of the story suggest that Hannibal was either
stupid or a powerful wizard - neither of which I find plausible.
One of the galling facts about the customary interpretations of the Battle of
Cannae is not just that they are wrong, but they are taught as examples for
students of tactics. The battle as taught ought to be a lesson in actions to
NOT do. It is easy to see that the false story could have led young generals
down the ages to commit deadly errors, violating as it does cardinal principles
of combat such as mass.
The Battle of Cannae was the culmination of Hannibal's Cannae Campaign wherein
Hannibal attracted to his deadly maw nearly all the mobile forces of Rome in
Italy. Drawing the Romans into the trap took months. Rome, having suffered a
series of defeats and loss of armies, had been avoiding doing major battle with
Hannibal. But, the Roman forces had been growing stronger and the young generals,
one presumes, more cocky. Hannibal captured, in the Fall of 216 BCE, a supply
depot at Cannae (near the Adriatic coast, west of Rome) and his troops were
"plundering" the countryside during harvest. Rome decided to do battle and sent
many of its famous generals and 80,000 infantry and 7,000 horsemen towards Cannae.
The account by Polybius goes something like this:
107: Thus through all that winter and spring the two armies remained encamped facing each other. But when the season for the new harvest was come, Hannibal began to move ... determining to induce the enemy by any possible means to give him battle, he occupied the citadel of a town called Cannae, into which the corn and other supplies from the district round Canusium were collected by the Romans, and conveyed thence to the camp as occasion required. ... the capture of its [the] citadel and the material of war contained in it, caused great commotion in the Roman army; for it was not only the loss of the place and the stores in it that distressed them, but the fact also that it commanded the surrounding district. They therefore sent frequent messages to Rome asking for instructions: for if they approached the enemy they would not be able to avoid an engagement, in view of the fact that the country was being plundered, and the allies all in a state of excitement. The Senate passed a resolution that they should give the enemy battle... [The Senate sent reinforcements and gave] instructions to seek a favorable opportunity to fight a decisive battle..
The Romans had succumbed to the first inducement in Hannibal's Cannae Campaign
- his menacing of something of value. The Romans now wanted exactly what Hannibal
wanted: a decisive battle.
Each of the two Roman consuls ordinarily would command half the army, but since
the halves were joined to fight Hannibal, the Consuls alternated commanding
the whole on a day by day basis. This fact suggests that these Romans (unlike
Scipio Africanus, a young survivor of Cannae, whose cleverness later won the
war) were not given to complex maneuvers.
Approaching Cannae the army was taken by surprise but beat off the Carthaginian
attack. This surely had the effect of increasing the confidence of everyone
in the great mass of troops, including, not insignificantly, the generals. My
own interpretation is that Hannibal gave them a victory, at low cost to himself,
on ground where he had no chance of annihilating them, nor they he. This interpretation
is supported by the fact that the force of Carthage involved lacked the heavy
infantry to face that of the Romans, and could move swiftly -- escaping as need
be. Hannibal's plan was much bigger. He was drawing, first by menace and now
by encouragement, as many of the resources of Rome as he could into a trap.
So far, his plan was working. Encouraged, the Romans marched to Cannae.
Hannibal seemed to be offering battle at Cannae on land that was flat. Italy
has many hills and mountains. The river Aufidus at Cannae came down from mountains,
but its valley at Cannae was broad enough and flat enough to worry the Consul
Aemilius. He knew that the flat land favored cavalry and that the Carthaginian's
main advantage, overlooking Hannibal's understanding of war, was his more numerous
and qualitatively superior cavalry. Hannibal arrayed his troops, offering battle
but Aemilius, in command that day, did not accept. Instead, he left some troops
in a camp down in the valley to threaten or harass Cartheginians, but camped
the bulk of his army in nearby hills whence Hannibal did not follow.
The next day, Consul Varro would be in command and would accept Hannibal's offer.
The Romans at Cannae had many good reasons for confidence. Polybius notes that
Hannibal had formerly faced
raw levies, entirely inexperienced in danger; and what was most important of all, they had been entirely ignorant of their opponents,
...
But recently,
the [Roman] men had not only seen the arms, order, and numbers of the enemy, but had been engaged in almost daily fights with them for the last two years. ...
where the numbers of either side were equal, had for the most part come off victorious.
And now, Hannibal taunted the Romans by offering battle in a position in many
ways unfavorable to himself. Or, so it seemed.
Hannibal was protecting the ends of his line from overlap by the more numerous
Romans by anchoring those two ends on the river Aufidus. Consul Varro might
have added other points to the arguments for immediate attack, some related
to Hannibal's present position. It was well to know to them all how Hannibal
had ambushed, with his entire army, an army of Rome, catching it on the march
during a morning fog, and pressing it against Lake Trasimeno not two years earlier,
destroyed it. Now Hannibal himself had is back against water and was offering
fair battle. Some might unwisely assume that Hannibal's genius was to put his
weakest infantry into a do-or-die position -- unless his men could outfight
the Roman line-to-line, they were trapped and doomed. But, this is silly. No
amount of courage would make up for lack of armor or being able, apparently,
to hurl only 1 javelin for each 2 (more probably) thrown by the Romans. To the
Romans, Hannibal seemingly had little room to maneuver. Pressed hard, his men
would fall back onto the river, lose room to shift forces from strong places
to weak, panic, and be cut down -- or they would drown, just as had many Romans
at Lake Trasimeno. The Roman were right, given appearances, to expect rapid
victory.
The Cathaginian infantry was outnumbered here two to one. In no previous battle
had Hannibal faced such overwhelming Roman might. Never before had he met a
Roman army man-to-man, line-to-line, in a fair fight, but had always pulled
surprises. Yet here he was, lined up on parade, backed against a death trap.
Every Roman knew that Roman infantry was, man-for-man, a match for that of Hannibal.
The Carthaginians had superior cavalry, but never was cavalry effective against
any Roman infantry who were arrayed in good order. Varro surely argued that
Rome might never again get such a clear shot at total victory. If, on a later
day, Hannibal met the Romans on ground less favorable to cavalry, he would be
unlikely to be trapped as he clearly was today - and vulnerable to total annihilation.
Varro marched the Roman army towards Hannibal. In the early morning, Hannibal's
army, which was much nearer the river than the Romans, began to cross, in two
spots,
Polybius:
Hannibal brought his Balearic slingers and spearmen across the river, and stationed them in advance of his main body; which he led out of their camp, ..., getting them across the river at two spots
and Varro marched his army so as to face the Carthaginians.
Hannibal's line stretched across a bend of the river The Romans matched the
length of the Carthaginian line and, as they had twice as many foot soldiers,
made a much thicker line. The 70,000 foot soldiers of Rome, spaced 5 feet to
a man, could have spanned 7 miles with a depth of 10 men. That the span, just
of infantry, was as little as 1.75 miles is not impossible, but more probably
it was 3.5. Polybius is vague on about the length of the lines and I reach my
figures by simple arithmetic and this hint from Polybius:
placing the maniples [about 100 men], however, closer together than usual, and making the depth of each maniple several times greater than its front.
But I take the "several times" with a grain of salt. If the factor (implicit
in "times") is 3.5 then we get a span of 1.75 miles but a depth of 40 men (roughly).
Such a depth is not impossible to imagine but would seem to be a great waste
of troops - and be Hannibal's first victory of the day. One wonders what training
the Romans had, if any, in turning such a thick line of troops to face a sudden
threat on a flank.
Polybius fails to mention any consideration being given to extending the span
of the Roman line beyond that of Hannibal's -- just as insurance. It might have
seemed clear that troops in the overlap would have been blocked by the river
and, so, not able to take part in the battle. It seems not known how far apart
the armies were when they lined up. Pressed, I would guess at least four miles
due to the great span of the front and the intent of the Romans to not be attacked
while marching to battle.
After the Romans were in line and facing him, Hannibal, rather than remaining
across the mouth of the river's bend, advanced his center. The Romans could
only be amazed at his audacious race to death, a few thousand men, led by Hannibal
himself, charging to meet 70,000 foot solders of Rome in their good and deep
array and meet them dead in their center. All eyes were on the apparent suicide
and not on the Carthaginian attack against the Roman cavalry on the Roman right.
This distraction is the first hint that the Roman expectations of triumph would
transform within the hour into certainty of defeat and death.
http://fac14.cmps.subr.edu/Cannae.htm - Douglas Moreman
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