Part 7 (1/2)

”While this carnage was taking place in the center, the Numidians pursued the fugitives of the left wing. Most of them were cut down, others were thrown under their horses; some of them escaped to Venusia. Among these was Varro, the Roman general, that abominable man whose administration cost his country so dearly. Thus ended the battle of Cannae, a battle where prodigies of valor were seen on both sides.

”Of the six thousand horse of which the Roman cavalry was composed, only seventy Romans reached Venusia with Varro, and, of the auxiliary cavalry, only three hundred men found shelter in various towns. Ten thousand foot were taken prisoners, but they were not in the battle. [7]

Of troops in battle only about three thousand saved themselves in the nearby town; the balance, numbering about twenty thousand, died on the field of honor.” [8]

Hannibal lost in that action in the neighborhood of four thousand Gauls, fifteen hundred Iberians and Africans and two hundred horses.

Let us a.n.a.lyze:

The light infantry troops were scattered in front of the armies and skirmished without result. The real combat commenced with the attack on the legitimate cavalry of the Roman left wing by the cavalry of Hannibal.

There, says Polybius, the fight grew thickest, the Romans fought with fury and much more like barbarians than like Romans; because this falling back, then returning to the charge was not according to their tactics; scarcely did they become engaged when they leaped from their horses and each seized his adversary, etc., etc.

This means that the Roman cavalry did not habitually fight hand to hand like the infantry. It threw itself in a gallop on the enemy cavalry. When within javelin range, if the enemy's cavalry had not turned in the opposite direction on seeing the Roman cavalry coming, the latter prudently slackened its gait, threw some javelins, and, making an about by platoons, took to the rear for the purpose of repeating the charge. The hostile cavalry did the same, and such an operation might be renewed several times, until one of the two, persuaded that his enemy was going to attack him with a dash, turned in flight and was pursued to the limit.

That day, the fight becoming hot, they became really engaged; the two cavalry bodies closed and man fought man. The fight was forced, however; as there was no giving way on one side or the other, it was necessary actually to attack. There was no s.p.a.ce for skirmis.h.i.+ng.

Closed in by the Aufidus and the legions, the Roman cavalry could not operate (Livy). The Iberian and Gallic cavalry, likewise shut in and double the Roman cavalry, was forced into two lines; it could still less maneuver. This limited front served the Romans, inferior in number, who could thus be attacked only in front, that is by an equal number. It rendered, as we have said, contact inevitable. These two cavalry bodies placed chest to chest had to fight close, had to grapple man to man, and for riders mounted on simple saddle cloths and without stirrup, embarra.s.sed with a s.h.i.+eld, a lance, a saber or a sword, to grapple man to man is to grapple together, fall together and fight on foot. That is what happened, as the account of t.i.tus Livius explains it in completing that of Polybius. The same thing happened every time that two ancient cavalry organizations really had to fight, as the battle of the Tecinus showed. This mode of action was all to the advantage of the Romans, who were well-armed and well-trained therein. Note the battle of Tecinus. The Roman light infantry was cut to pieces, but the elite of the Roman cavalry, although surprised and surrounded, fought a-foot and on horse back, inflicted more casualties on the cavalry of Hannibal than they suffered, and brought back from the field their wounded general. The Romans besides were well led by Consul Aemilius, a man of head and heart, who, instead of fleeing when his cavalry was defeated, went himself to die in the ranks of the infantry.

Meanwhile we see thirty to thirty-four hundred Roman cavalrymen nearly exterminated by six to seven thousand Gauls and Iberians who did not lose even two hundred men. Hannibal's entire cavalry lost but two hundred men on that day.

How can that be explained?

Because most of them died without dreaming of selling their lives and because they took to flight during the fight of the first line and were struck with impunity from behind. The words of Polybius: ”Most of them remained on the spot after having defended themselves with the utmost valor,” were consecrated words before Polybius. The conquered always console themselves with their bravery and conquerors never contradict. Unfortunately, the figures are there. The facts of the battle are found in the account, which sounds no note of desperation.

The Gallic and Roman cavalry had each already made a brave effort by attacking each other from the front. This effort was followed by the terrible anxiety of close combat. The Roman cavalrymen, who from behind the combatants on foot were able to see the second Gallic line on horse back, gave ground. Fear very quickly made the disengaged ranks take to their horses, wheel about like a flock of sheep in a stampede, and abandon their comrades and themselves to the mercy of the conquerors.

Yet, these hors.e.m.e.n were brave men, the elite of the army, n.o.ble knights, guards of the consuls, volunteers of n.o.ble families.

The Roman cavalry defeated, Hasdrubal pa.s.sed his Gallic and Iberian troopers behind Hannibal's army, to attack the allied cavalry till then engaged by the Numidians. [9] The cavalry of the allies did not await the enemy. It turned its back immediately; pursued to the utmost by the Numidians who were numerous (three thousand), and excellent in pursuit, it was reduced to some three hundred men, without a struggle.

After the skirmis.h.i.+ng of the light infantry troops, the foot-soldiers of the line met. Polybius has explained to us how the Roman infantry let itself be enclosed by the two wings of the Carthaginian army and taken in rear by Hasdrubal's cavalry. It is also probable that the Gauls and Iberians, repulsed in the first part of the action and forced to turn their backs, returned, aided by a portion of the light infantry, to the charge upon the apex of the wedge formed by the Romans and completed their encirclement.

But we know, as will be seen further on in examples taken from Caesar, that the ancient cavalryman was powerless against formed infantry, even against the isolated infantryman possessing coolness. The Iberian and Gallic cavalry ought to have found behind the Roman army the reliable triarians penned in, armed, with pikes. [10] It might have held them in check, forced them to give battle, but done them little or no harm as long as the ranks were preserved.

We know that of Hannibal's infantry only twelve thousand at the most were equipped with Roman weapons. We know that his Gallic and Iberian infantry, protected by plain s.h.i.+elds, had to fall back, turn, and probably lost in this part of the action very nearly the four thousand men, which the battle cost them.

Let us deduct the ten thousand men that had gone to the attack of Hannibal's camp and the five thousand which the latter must have left there. There remain:

A ma.s.s of seventy thousand men surrounded and slaughtered by twenty-eight thousand foot soldiers, or, counting Hasdrubal's cavalry, by thirty-six thousand men, by half their number.

It may be asked how seventy thousand men could have let themselves be slaughtered, without defense, by thirty-six thousand men less well-armed, when each combatant had but one man before him. For in close combat, and especially in so large an envelopment, the number of combatants immediately engaged was the same on each side. Then there were neither guns nor rifles able to pierce the ma.s.s by a converging fire and destroy it by the superiority of this fire over diverging fire. Arrows were exhausted in the first period of the action. It seems that, by their ma.s.s, the Romans must have presented an insurmountable resistance, and that while permitting the enemy to wear himself out against it, that ma.s.s had only to defend itself in order to repel a.s.sailants.

But it was wiped out.

In pursuit of the Gauls and Iberians, who certainly were not able, even with like morale, to stand against the superior arms of the legionaries, the center drove all vigorously before it. The wings, in order to support it and not to lose the intervals, followed its movement by a forward oblique march and formed the sides of the salient. The entire Roman army, in wedge order, marched to victory.

Suddenly the wings were attacked by the African battalions; the Gauls, the Iberians, [11] who had been in retreat, returned to the fight. The hors.e.m.e.n of Hasdrubal, in the rear, attacked the reserves. [12]

Everywhere there was combat, unexpected, unforeseen. At the moment when they believed themselves conquerors, everywhere, in front, to the right, to the left, in the rear, the Roman soldiers heard the furious clamor of combat. [13]

The physical pressure was unimportant. The ranks that they were fighting had not half their own depth. The moral pressure was enormous. Uneasiness, then terror, took hold of them; the first ranks, fatigued or wounded, wanted to retreat; but the last ranks, frightened, withdrew, gave way and whirled into the interior of the wedge. Demoralized and not feeling themselves supported, the ranks engaged followed them, and the routed ma.s.s let itself be slaughtered.