uh, really?
which only proves Hannibal had a good PR guy to tell his story and leave out the embarrassing parts.
So you take your army over the Alps (losing one third of them, but never mind they were local Celtic peasants), complete with elephants (all of which died except one) you get a glowing story in the history books.
Then you get credit for beating the Romans at Cannae and other battles (never mind that the Roman generals were untested, chosen from political leaders not for their battle experience).
Again, he got a good press because hey, the Romans would rather write him up as brilliant than write up their own generals as nincompoops.
But you know, Hannibal never conquered Rome, because he, like Napoleon, or like Xerxes for that matter, forgot two things: He underestimated his enemy's stubbornness, and he forgot to secure his supply line.
History lesson:
Napoleon figured he'd live off of Russia and that the Russians would give up when they lost Moscow. Instead, the Russians pulled a scorched earth policy, evacuated the people, and let winter (and irregular attacks by cossacks and peasants) attack his fleeing and starving troops.
and history lesson number two:
If Napoleon had read history, he would know the Athenians did the same thing: the Persians captured Athens (whose people had been evacuated), but their supply lines were destroyed in the naval battle of Salamis. so Xerxes left and the next year the Greeks managed to destroy the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea.
So for Hannibal, the next step should have been to destroy Rome (which, after all, was the reason for his invasion of Italy).
Ah, but he couldn't do that because those cowardly Romans refused to come out and
from Wikipedia:
Crossing the Alps, Hannibal reached the Italian peninsula in 218 BC and won several major victories against the Roman armies. The Romans failed to defeat him in the field and he remained in Italy...
well yes the Romans failed to defeat him, but on the other hand, Hannibal never managed to conquer Rome either, which a lot of people who fell for his PR meme about his glory fail to notice.
so Hannibal was an expert at military tactics, but the Romans thought "outside the box" and eventually changed tactics and hit him in his weakest spot: his supply chain. enter Scipio Africanus:
But the Romans didn't stop there. Scipio trained his own army, took them to North Africa and managed to destroy Carthage's allies (and caused many to change sides because he bribed them to do so. Again, thinking outside the box)...and Carthage, now in danger of being destroyed, called Hannibal back to defend the city.itself, meaning Hannibal, who despite his brilliant reputation didn't see this coming, had to leave Italy without destroying Rome.
The Battle of Ilipa was an engagement considered by many as Scipio Africanus’s most brilliant victory in his military career during the Second Punic War in 206 BC... in which he forever broke the Carthaginian hold in Iberia, thus denying any further land invasion into Italy and cutting off a rich base for the Barca dynasty both in silver and manpower.
Then came the Battle of Zama, where Hannibal's brilliant skill as a general should have led to a victory.
His army was huge, and included those weapons of terror: 80 elephants. The mere sight of Elephants usually caused soldiers to flee when the elephants charged the line.
Except here, the tactic didn't work:
So why does Hannibal get the PR for being the greatest general, but few moderns even know the name of Scipio Africanus who beat Hannibal by out maneuvering him?
Hannibal had a good Press agent.
Proving the truth of the ditty:
The codfish lays ten thousand eggs,
The homely hen lays one.
The codfish never cackles
To tell you what she’s done—
And so we scorn the codfish
While the humble hen we prize.
It only goes to show you
That it pays to advertise!
No comments:
Post a Comment