Battle of Cannae

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Battle of Cannae
Part of the Second Punic War
Date August 2, 216 BC Location Cannae, Italy Result Decisive Carthaginian victory
Belligerents
Carthage	Roman Republic
Commanders and leaders
Hannibal	Lucius Aemilius Paullus† Gaius Terentius Varro
Strength
30,000 heavy infantry 6,000 light infantry 8,000 cavalry	86,400—87,000 men (sixteen Roman and Allied Legions)
Casualties and losses
About 16,700 killed and wounded	Perhaps 50,000-60,000 killed, 10,000 captured

The Battle of Cannae, August 2, 216 BC, was a significant battle of the Second Punic War. Although the Carthaginian army under Hannibal, destroyed a numerically superior Roman army under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro near the town of Cannae in Apulia (SE Italy), it failed to decide the outcome of the war in the favour of Carthage. Despite this, the battle is today regarded as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history. In terms of the number of lives lost within a single day, Cannae is among the costliest battles in all of human history.

Strategic Background

At the start of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian general Hannibal boldly crossed into Italy by traversing the Alps during winter-time and quickly won two smashing victories over the Romans at the Battle of Trebbia and the Battle of Lake Trasimene. After these disasters the Romans appointed Fabius Maximus as dictator, who set about fighting a war of attrition against Hannibal, cutting off his supply lines and refusing to engage in pitched battle. However, these tactics proved unpopular with the Romans. In fact, the more the Roman people recovered from the shock of Hannibal’s initial victories, the more they began to question the wisdom of the Fabian strategy, which had given them the chance to recover ^[1]. Fabius’s strategy was especially frustrating to the mass of the people, who were eager to see a quick conclusion to the war. Moreover, it was widely believed, that if Hannibal continued plundering Italy unopposed, the terrified allies, believing that Rome was incapable of protecting them, might defect and pledge their allegiance to the Carthaginians.

Once the Roman Senate resumed their Consular elections in 216, they appointed Caius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus as Consuls. In the meantime, the Romans, hoping to gain success through sheer strength in numbers, raised a new army of unprecedented size. “They decided”, Polybius writes, “to bring eight legions into the field, a thing which had never been done before by the Romans, each legion consisting of about five thousand men...Most of their wars are decided by one Consul and two legions, with their quota of allies; and they rarely employ all four at one time and on one service. But on this occasion, so great was the alarm and terror of what would happen, they resolved to bring not only four but eight legions into the field^{[2]. About 2,400 Roman cavalry and 4,000 allied horse completed the army, for a total strength of 86,400—87,000. As each legion was accompanied by an equal number of allied troops, both infantry and cavalry, the total strength of the army which faced Hannibal could not have been much less than 90,000 Cottrell. Some estimates have the Roman forces as large as 100,000 men, though this figure cannot be completely validated. This massive army, certainly the largest army Rome had ever organized, outnumbered Hannibal’s army of a little more than 40,000 men, by a factor of more than two to one.}

Prelude

In the Spring of 216 B.C. Hannibal took the initiative and seized the large supply depot at Cannae in the Apulian plain. Thus, by seizing Cannae, Hannibal had placed himself between the Romans and their crucial source of supply. As Polybius notes the capture of Cannae “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 that it commanded the surrounding district”. The Consuls, resolving to confront Hannibal, marched southward in search of the Carthaginian general. After a two days’ march, they found him on the left bank of the Audifus River, and encamped six miles away. Ordinarily, each of the two Consuls would command their own portion of the army, but since the two armies were combined into one, the Consuls had to alternate their command on a daily basis.

Consul Varro, who was in command on the first day, was a man of reckless nature and hubris, and was determined to defeat Hannibal. While the Romans were approaching Cannae, a small portion of Hannibal's forces had ambushed the Roman army, but Varro, who was in command during the engagement, successfully repelled the Carthaginian attack and continued on his way to Cannae. This victory, though essentially a mere skirmish with no lasting strategic value, greatly bolstered confidence in the Roman army, perhaps to over-confidence on Varro's part. However, the other Roman consul, Paullus, was opposed to the engagement as it was taking shape. Unlike Varro, he was prudent and cautious, and despite the army’s numerical strength, he believed it was foolish to fight on open ground, especially when Hannibal held the advantage in cavalry (both in quality and numerical terms). Despite these misgivings, Paullus thought it unwise to withdraw the army at this point, and on the day of his command, camped two-thirds of the army east of the riverbank, and sent the remainder of men to fortify a position on the opposite side to the Aufidus. The purpose of this second camp was to cover the foraging parties from the main camp and harass those of the enemy ^[3].

The two armies stayed camped in their respective locations for two days. During the second of these two days (August 1), Hannibal, well aware that Varro would be in command the following day, left his camp and offered battle. Paullus refused. When his request was rejected, Hannibal, recognizing the importance of the Aufidus' water to the Roman troops, sent his cavalry to the smaller Roman camp to harass water-bearing soldiers that were found outside the camp fortifications. According to Polybius, Hannibal's cavalry boldly rode up to the edge of the Roman encampment, causing havoc and thoroughly disrupting the supply of water to the Roman camp ^[4]. Varro was enraged by this foray, as Hannibal had hoped, and on August 2nd, marshaled his forces and crossed back over the Aufidus to do battle.

Battle

The combined forces of the two consuls totaled 70,000 heavily-armed infantry, 2,400 Roman cavalry and 4,000 allied horse (involved in the actual battle) and, in the two fortified camps, 2,600 heavily-armed men, 7,400 lightly-armed men (a total of 10,000), so that the total strength the Romans brought to the field amounts to 86,400 men. Opposing them was a Carthaginian army composed of 30,000 heavy infantry, 6,000 light infantry, and 8,000 cavalry in the battle itself, irrespective of detachments.

Tactical Deployment

The conventional deployment for armies of this time was to place infantry in the centre and split the cavalry between the wings. The Romans followed this fairly closely, but chose extra depth rather than breadth for their infantry (resulting in a front of about equal size to the numerically inferior Carthaginians) in the hopes of quickly breaking through Hannibal's centre. As Polybius wrote, “the maniples were nearer each other, or the intervals were decreased... and the maniples showed more dept than front” ^[5]. Varro was nearly certain of victory. To Varro, Hannibal had seemingly little room to maneuver and no means of retreat, since there was a river located to his rear. Pressed hard by the Romans’ superior numbers, his men would gradually fall back onto the river, and, while losing room to maneuver, would be cut down in panic. Bearing in mind the fact that Hannibal’s two previous victories had been largely decided by his trickery and ruse; Varro had sought an open battlefield from which to give battle. The field at Cannae was, indeed, clear—so there was no possibility of surprise, and there could be no threat of hidden troops. In addition, it was well known to him, how, the Roman Infantry had managed to penetrate Hannibal’s center during the Battle of the Trebia. Varro would therefore, attempt to recreate this on an even greater, more deliberate scale.

Hannibal in his turn modified the conventional deployment by placing his lowest quality infantry (Iberians, Gauls and Celts) in the middle, and his better quality infantry (Libyan-Phoenician mercenaries) either just inside or behind his cavalry on the wings. Hannibal had cleverly positioned the various races within his army according to their particular fighting qualities, intending to use both their strength and weakness to carry out the maneuver he intended ^[6]. His plan called for his cavalry, positioned on the flanks, to defeat the opposing Roman cavalry and attack the Roman infantry from the rear as it pressed upon Hannibal’s weakened center. Then, his African troops were to press from the flanks at the crucial moment, and finally complete the encirclement. He then gradually extended the center of his line, as Polybius describes: “After thus drawing up his whole army in a straight line, he took the central companies of Spaniards and Celts and advanced with them, keeping the rest of them in contact with these companies, but gradually falling off, so as to produce a crescent-shaped formation, the line of the flanking companies growing thinner as it was prolonged, his object being to employ the Africans as a reserve force and to begin the action with the Spaniards and Celts.” ^[7]. Polybius describes the weak Carthaginian centre as deployed in a crescent, curving out toward the Romans in the middle with the African troops on their flanks en échelon, but some historians have called this fanciful, and say it represents either the natural curvature that occurs when a broad front of infantry marches forward, or else the bending back of the Carthaginian centre from the shock action of meeting the heavily massed Roman centre. Hannibal also made sure that the Romans would face southerly, while his men would face northerly, so that not only would the morning sunlight face towards the Romans, but the southern-easterly winds would blow sand and dust into their faces as they approached the battlefield. In addition, by anchoring his army on the Aufidus River, Hannibal prevented the ends of his line from being overlapped by the larger, more numerous Romans. Hannibal’s deployment of his army, as well as his perception and understanding of the capabilities of his troops, would be the defining factors in ensuring his victory at Cannae.

Events

When the battle was joined, the cavalry engaged in a fierce exchange on the flanks. Polybius describes the scene, writing that “When the Spanish and Celtic Horse on the left win came into collision with the Roman cavalry, the struggle that ensued was truly barbaric.” ^[8]. Here, the Carthaginian cavalry quickly overpowered the inferior Romans on the right flank and routed them. A portion of the Carthaginian cavalry then detached itself from the Carthaginian left flank, and made a wide circling pivot to the Roman right-flank, where it fell upon the rear of the Roman cavalry —dispersing them and “cutting them down mercilessly” ^[9]. While the Carthaginians were in the process of the defeating the Roman Cavalry, the mass of infantry on both sides advanced towards each other in the center of the field. As the Romans advanced, a hot west wind blew dust in their faces and obscured their vision. Hannibal stood with the weak centre and held them to a controlled retreat. The crescent of Spanish and Gallic troops buckled inwards as they gradually withdrew.

Knowing the superiority of the Roman infantry, Hannibal had instructed his infantry to withdraw deliberately, thus creating an even tighter semicircle around the attacking Roman forces. By doing so, he had turned the strength of the Roman infantry into a weakness. Furthermore, while the front ranks were gradually advancing forward, the bulk of the Roman troops began to lose their cohesion, as they began crowding themselves in the growing gap —to the point where they had little space to wield their weapons. In passing so far forward in their desire to destroy the retreating and collapsing line of Spanish and Gallic troops, the Romans had ignored the African troops that stood uncommitted on the projecting ends of this now reversed-crescent ^[10]. This also gave the Carthaginian cavalry time to drive the Roman cavalry off on both flanks and attack the Roman centre in the rear. The Roman infantry, now stripped of both its flanks, formed a wedge that drove deeper and deeper into the Carthaginian semicircle, driving itself into an alley that was formed by the African Infantry stationed at the echelons ^[11]. At this decisive point, Hannibal ordered his African Infantry to turn inwards and advance against the Roman flanks, creating an encirclement of the Roman infantry in an early example of the pincer movement.

No sooner had the Carthaginian flanking-echelons came up and attacked the enemy on the right and left, the advance of the Romans was brought to an abrupt halt. The trapped Romans were enclosed in a pocket with no means of escape, and almost completely slaughtered. Polybius claims that, “as their outer ranks were continually cut down, and the survivors forced to pull back and huddle together, they were finally all killed were they stood.” As Livy describes, “So many thousands of Romans were lying . . .Some, whom their wounds, pinched by the morning cold, had roused, as they were rising up, covered with blood, from the midst of the heaps of slain, were overpowered by the enemy. Some were found with their heads plunged into the earth, which they had excavated; having thus, as it appeared, made pits for themselves, and having suffocated themselves.” ^[12]. Nearly six hundred legionaries were slaughtered each minute until darkness brought an end to the bloodletting ^{[13]. Only 14,000 Roman troops managed to escape (most of whom had cut their way through to the nearby town of Canusium). At the end of the day, out of the original force of 87,000 Roman troops, only about one out of every ten men was still alive [14].}

Casualties

Though the actual casualty figure remains debated, Livy and Polybius variously claim that 47,000—70,000 Romans died (though a more accurate figure is likely to haven been 50,000—60,000 fatalities) with about 3,000—4,500 taken prisoner. Among the dead included Lucius Aemilius Paullus himself, as well two consuls for the preceding year, two quaestors, twenty-nine out of the forty-eight military tribunes, and an additional eighty senators (at a time when the Roman Senate was comprised of no more than 300 men, this constituted 25%—30% of the governing body). Another 10,000 from the two Roman camps and the neighboring villages surrendered on the following day (after further resistance cost even more fatalities). In all, perhaps more than 70,000 Romans of the original force of 87,000 were dead or captured —totaling more than 80% of the entire army. For their part, the Carthaginians suffered 16,700 casualties (with the Celts and Iberians accounting for the majority). The fatalities for the Carthaginians amounted to 6,000 men, of whom 4,000 were Celts, 1,500 Spaniards and Africans, and the remainder cavalry. The total casualty figure of the battle, therefore, exceeds 80,000 men.

Conclusively, this makes the Battle of Cannae one of the single bloodiest battles in all of human history, in terms of the number of lives lost within a day. The total number of lives lost during that single day, surpasses the number of servicemen killed in the Royal Air Force throughout the First and Second World Wars ^[15]. More men were killed at Cannae than in all the four months of the Battle of Passchendaele, which is considered one of the bloodiest battles of World War One ^[16]. So devastating were these losses, that the total number of casualties represents just under one third of the total number of American soldiers, sailors, and airmen killed in fours years of fighting during the Second World War ^[17]. In fact, the losses suffered within a single day at the battlefield of Cannae (no bigger than a few square miles), would not be equaled until the first day of fighting on the Somme in 1916 —which took place on a 25-mile front nearly 2,000 years later ^[18].

Aftermath

Further information: Second Punic War

Never before, while the City itself was still safe, had there been such excitement and panic within its walls. I shall not attempt to describe it, nor will I weaken the reality by going into details . . .it was not wound upon wound but multiplied disaster that was now announced. For according to the reports two consular armies and two consuls were lost; there was no longer any Roman camp, any general, any single soldier in existence; Apulia, Samnium, almost the whole of Italy lay at Hannibal's feet. Certainly there is no other nation that would not have succumbed beneath such a weight of calamity.

— Titus Livius, on the Roman Senate's reaction to the defeat

For a brief period of time the Romans were in complete disarray. Their best armies in the peninsula were destroyed, the few remnants severely demoralized, and only one of the remaining consuls alive but discredited. It was a complete catastrophe for the Romans, comparable, in modern times, to the fall of France in 1940^[19]. As the story goes, Rome declared a national day of mourning, as there was not a single person in Rome who was not either related to or knew a person who had died. The Romans became so desperate that they resorted to human sacrifice, the last recorded human sacrifice that the Romans would perform, killing a few slaves and burying them in the forum.

Hannibal, having yet gained another victory (following the battles of Trebia and Lake Trasimene), had defeated the equivalent of eight consular armies ^{[20]. Within three campaign seasons Rome had lost a fifth of the entire population of citizens over seventeen years of age (nearly twelve percent of Rome’s available manpower)[21]. Furthermore, the moral effect of this victory was such that all the south of Italy joined his cause. After the Battle of Cannae, the Hellenistic southern provinces of Arpi, Salapia, Syracuse, Herdonia, Uzentum, including the cities of Capua and Tarentum (one of the two largest city-states in Italy) all revoked their allegiance to Rome and pledged their loyalty to Hannibal. As Polybius notes, “How much more serious was the defeat of Cannae, than those which preceded it can be seen by the behavior of Rome’s allies; before that fateful day, their loyalty remained unshaken, now it began to waver for the simple reason that they despaired of Roman Power.” [22]. During that same year, Hannibal had managed to gain foreign support from the Greeks, in which the Greek King Philip V of Macedon had pledged his support, thus initiating the First Macedonian War against Rome.}

Though one of the most crushing victories in all of military history, Hannibal's triumph proved to be the high-water mark of Carthaginian fortunes in the war, as no decisive strategic advantage followed from it. Despite the tremendous material loss inflicted on the Romans, the defection of many allied cities, and the declaration of war by Philip of Macedon, Hannibal was too weak numerically and lacked the siege equipment to attack Rome itself, and so he offered to negotiate a peace treaty on moderate terms. Despite the multiple catastrophes it had suffered fighting him, though, the Roman Senate refused to parley and instead raised a new army to defend Italy and another army to take the offensive against Carthage's holdings in Spain.

Historical Significance

The Battle of Cannae is famous for Hannibal's tactics as much as it is for the role it played in Roman history. Not only did Hannibal inflict a defeat on the Roman Republic in a manner unrepeated for over a century until the Battle of Arausio, but the battle itself has acquired a reputation within the field of military history. As the military historian, Theodore Ayrault Dodge, once wrote: "Few battles of ancient times are more marked by ability...than the battle of Cannae. The postion was such as to place every advantage on Hannibal's side. The manner in which the far from perfect Spanich and Gallic foot was advanced in a wedge in échelon...was first held there and then withdrawn step by step, until it had the reached the converse postion . . .is a simple masterpiece of battle tactics. The advance at the proper moment of the African infantry, and its wheel right and left upon the flanks of the disordered and crowded Roman legionaries, is far beyond praise. The whole battle, from the Carthaginian standpoint, is a consummate piece of art, having no superior, few equal, example in the history of war". As Will Durant wrote, "It was a supreme example of generalship, never bettered in history. It ended the days of Roman reliance solely upon infantry, and set the lines of military tactics for 2,000 years".

Apart from it being one of the greatest defeats ever inflicted on Roman arms, the Battle of Cannae represents the archetypal battle of annihilation, a strategy that has rarely been successfully implemented in modern history. As Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II, once wrote, "Every ground commander seeks the battle of annihilation; so far as conditions permit, he tries to duplicate in modern war the classic example of Cannae". Hannibal's double envelopement at the Battle of Cannae is often viewed as one of the greatest battlefield maneuvers in history, and is cited as the first successful use of the pincer movement within the Western world, to be recorded in detail ^[23].

Furthermore, the totality of Hannibal’s victory has made the name "Cannae" a byword for military success, and is today studied in detail in several military academies around the world. The notion that an entire army could be encircled and annihilated within a single stroke, led to an fascination among subsequent Western generals for centuries (including Frederick the Great and Helmuth von Moltke) who attempted to emulate its tactical paradigm and re-create their own "Cannae" ^[24]. Hans Delbrück's seminal study of the battle, for instance, had an profound influence on subsequent German military theorists, in particular Alfred Graf von Schlieffen (whose famous pre-World War I strategy was inspired by Hannibal's double envelopement manuever). Likewise, Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of the Coalition Forces in the Gulf War, studied Cannae and employed the principles Hannibal used in his highly successful ground campaign against the Iraqi forces ^{[25] [26].}

Trivia

• Due to the similarities in tactics, the Battle of Cowpens is often referred to as the "American Cannae".
• The Roman survivors of Cannae were later reconstituted as two legions and assigned to Sicily for the remainder of the war as punishment for their loss.
• Just before his death, Paullus is quoted saying "Tell the fathers of Rome to fortify the city, and garrison it strongly… Tell Quintus Fabius that Lucius Aemilius lived, and now dies, mindeful of his injunctions. For myself, I would rather die among my slaughtered troops than be accused for a second time after my consulate, or stand forth as the accuser of my colleague [Varro], in order to defend my own innocence by incriminating another." In salute to the fallen Paullus, Hannibal honored him with ceremonial rituals in recognition of his bravery.
• Following the battle, Hannibal's officers wanted to march on Rome. But Hannibal, lacking any siege equipment or the appropriate resources, refused to do so. This was much to the distress of Maharbal, one of his cavalry commanders, who is famously quoted as saying, “Truly the Gods have not bestowed all things upon the same person. Thou knowest indeed, Hannibal, how to conquer, but thou knowest not how to make use of your victory.” ^[27]
• Lucius Caecilius Metellus is known to have so much despaired in the Roman cause, in the aftermath of the battle, as to suggest that everything was lost and call the others to sail overseas and hire themselves up into the service to some foreign prince. Afterwards, he was forced by his own example to swear an oath of allegiance to Rome for all time.
• The Roman cohorts trapped in the camps after the battle, were able to organize and cut their way through to the nearby town of Canusium. Among the men who reached Canusium was the future Scipio Africanus, who would later defeat Hannibal at the decisive Battle of Zama.
• In addtion to the physical loss of her army, Rome would suffer a symbolic defeat, one that was severely humiliating to her prestige. Hannibal had his men collect more than 200 gold rings from the corpses on the battlefield, and sent this collection to Carthage as proof of his victory; this collection was poured on the floor in front of the Carthaginian Senate, and was judged to be "three and a half measures." A gold ring was a token of membership in the upper classes of Roman society.
• According to Plutarch, when viewing the battlefield of Cannae, Hannibal was accompanied by his commanders. While overlooking the Roman Legions, "one of his followers, called Gisgo, a Carthaginian of equal rank with himself, told him that the numbers of the enemy were astonishing; to which Hannibal replied with a serious countenance, "There is one thing, Gisgo, yet more astonishing, which you take no notice of." And when Gisgo inquired what, [Hannibal] answered that, "in all those great numbers before us, there is not one man called Gisgo". This unexpected jest of their general made all the company laugh, and as they came down from the hill, they told it to those whom they met, which caused a general laughter amongst them all"

Cultural references

• The battle served as an inspiration for the American metal band, Cannae.

References

1. ^ Bradford, E., Hannibal, London, Macmillan London Ltd, 1981
2. ^ Carlton, James, The Military Quotation Book, New York City, New York, Thomas Dunne Books, 2002
3. ^ Cottrell, Leonard, Enemy of Rome, Evans Bros, 1965, ISBN 0237443201 (pbk)
4. ^ Caven, B., Punic Wars, London, George Werdenfeld and Nicholson Ltd., 1980
5. ^ Goldsworthy, A, The Punic Wars, London, Cassell and Company, 2000
6. ^ Dodge, Theodore, Hannibal, Cambridge, Massachusetts, De Capo Press, 1891, ISBN 0306813629
7. ^ Gregory Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War, Routledge, London/New York, 2002, ISBN 0415327431
8. ^ Delbrück, Hans, Warfare in Antiquity, 1920, ISBN 0-8032-9199-X
9. ^ Liddell Hart, Basil, Strategy, New York City, New York, Penguin Group, 1967
10. ^ Healy, Mark, Cannae: Hannibal Smashes Rome's Army, Steerling Heights, Missouri, Osprey Publishing, 1994
11. ^ Livy, Titus Livius and De Selincourt, Aubery, The War with Hannibal: Books XXI-XXX of the History of Rome from its Foundation, Penguin Classics, Reprint edition, July 30, 1965, ISBN 014044145X (pbk)
12. ^ Talbert, Richard J.A., ed., Atlas of Classical History, Routledge, London/New York, 1985, ISBN 0-415-03463-9
13. ^ Cowley, Robert (ed.), Parker, Geoffrey (ed.), The Reader’s Companion to Military History, "Battle of Cannae", Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996, ISBN 0-395-66969-3

External links

• “Hannibal Barca and the Punic Wars” By Hilary Gowen
• "Rome and Carthage: Classic Battle Joined" Article by Greg Yocherer from Military History Magazine
• Cannae A treatise by General Fieldmarshal Count Alfred von Schlieffen