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Battle of Cannae

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Battle of Cannae
Part of the Second Punic War
DateAugust 2, 216 BC
Location
Cannae, Italy
Result 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		 75,000 heavy infantry
20,000 light infantry
5,000 cavalry
Casualties and losses
About 16,700 killed and wounded Perhaps 50,000-60,000 killed and wounded, 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 of 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 overview

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 [Hart 27]. 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” [Contrell 131]. These legions were accompanied by an equal number of infantry and cavalry from Allies. The combined forces of the two consuls totalled had 55,000 heavily armed men, 8,000 lightly armed men, 6,000 mounted men - 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 of the Roman army amounted to an estimated 79,000—86,400 men[1]. This massive army, certainly the largest army Rome had ever organized, outnumbered Hannibal’s army of 40,000, 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 hadplaced 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.

The Consul Varro, who was in command on the first day, was a man of reckless and hubris nature, and was determined to defeat Hannibal. However, the other Roman consul, Aemilius, was opposed to the engagement as it was taking shape. Unlike Varro, he was prudent and cautious about his actions, and despite his army’s numerical strength, he thought it was foolish to fight on open ground, especially when Hannibal held the advantage in cavalry. Regardless of this, Aemilius thought it unwise to withdraw his army at this point, and on the day of his command, camped two-thirds of his army east of the riverbank, and sent the remainder of men army 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 [Contrell 132].

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 [Caven]. 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

Tactical Deployment

The consular forces at the battle amounted to 16 legions, 8 of them Roman plus an equal number of Latin allied legions, for a total of 100,000 men. Subtracting 10,000 for those left to guard the camp, the Romans brought to the field the following forces:

Opposing them was a Carthaginian army made up of:

  • 30,000 heavy infantry
  • 6,000 light infantry
  • 8,000 cavalry

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” [Dodge 366]. 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. Varro, as Ancient sources suggest, was nearly certain of victory. 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, during the Battle of the Trebia, the Roman Infantry had managed to penetrate Hannibal’s center. 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 (African mercenaries) either just inside or behind his cavalry on the wings. He 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 [Contrell 136]. 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 if 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 being the action with the Spaniards and Celts.” [Contrell 137]. 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. In addition, by anchoring his army on the Aufidus River, Hannibal prevented the ends of his line from being overlap 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.” [Contrell 138]. 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” [Contrell 138]. 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. 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. As they withdrew, the Carthaginian line gradually flexed backward and buckled inwards.

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. 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 [Sealy 79]. 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 [Contrell 139]. 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. 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.” [Contrell 143]. Nearly six hundred legionaries were slaughtered each minute until darkness brought an end to the bloodletting [2]. 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 86,400 Roman army, only about one out of every ten men was still alive [Contrell 142].

Casualties

Though the actual casualty figure remains debated, Livy and Polybius variously claim that 40,000—70,000 Romans died [Dodge 36] (though a more accurate figure is likely to haven been 50,000—60,000 fatalities). 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). Another 12,800 from the two Roman camps and the neighboring villages surrendered on the following day. In all, 71,500 Romans of the original force of 86,400 were dead or captured —totaling 83 percent of the entire army. For their part the Carthaginians suffered 16,700 casualties (the Celts and Iberians accounting for about 5,000 of these). The total casualty figure, therefore, exceeds 80,000 men.

Conclusively, this makes the Battle of Cannae one of the single most bloodiest in all of human history, in terms lives lost within a single 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 [Contrell 142]. 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 [Bradford]. 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 [Contrell 142]. 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 [Goldsworthy].

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 severally demoralized, and only one of the remaining consuls alive but discredited. Hannibal, having yet gained another victory (after the battles of Trebia and Lake Trasimene), had defeated the equivalent of eight consular armies [3]. 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 her available manpower). 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.” [Sealy 85]. During that same year, Hannibal had managed to gain foreign support from the Greeks, in which the Greek King Phillip V of Macedon had pledged his support.

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 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 loss on the Roman Republic in a manner unrepeated for centuries until Carrhae, but the battle itself has acquired a reputation within the field of military history. Apart from it being one of the greatest defeats ever inflicted on Roman arms, the battle represents the classical apotheosis of the battle of annihilation (a strategy that has rarely been successfully implemented in modern history). 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 one of the earliest recorded instances of the pincer movement (considered to be the consummate military maneuver) in the Western World [citation needed].

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"[4]. Hans Delbrück's seminal study of the battle of Cannae, for instance, had an profound influence on subsequent German military theorists, in particular Alfred Graf von Schlieffen (who’s famous pre-World War I strategy was inspired by Hannibal's double envelopement manuever at Cannae). Likewise, Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of the Coalition Forces in the Gulf War, studied Cannae and employed the principles Hannibal used in his quick and highly successful ground campaign against the Iraqi forces [5][6].

Trivia

  • Due to the similarities in tactics, the Battle of Cowpens is often referred to as the "American Cannae" by military historians.
  • Livy has a story of how one of the military tribunes, Gnaeus Lentulus, who had fought among the defeated Roman cavalry, came upon a man sitting on a stone, and covered with blood. He recognized the Consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus. "Lucuius Aemilius!" the young officer cried. "Take this horse while you have strength, and I am with you to strengthen and protect you. This battle has been calamitious enough without the death of a Consul." Aemilius refused, and 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 sluaghtered 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." Hannibal ordered his men to stand down only a few short hours after they originally encircled the enemy. In salute to the fallen Paullus, Hannibal also honored him with ceremonial rituals in recognition of his valiant actions.
  • 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 thing upon the same person. Thou knowest indeed, Hannibal, how to conquer, but thou knowest not how to make use one.” [Contrell 145]
  • 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 humiliating loss.
  • 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.
  • Publius Sempronius Tuditanus was one of the few surviving tribunes to escape the battle. Under his leadership, 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 addition to the physical loss of her army, Rome also suffered 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 aoken of membership in the upper classes of Roman society.
  • When viewing the battlefield of Cannae, Hannibal was accompanied by his commanders. While, overlooking the Roman Legions that outnumbered them two to one, "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, 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

References

  • Bradford, E. (1981). Hannibal. London: Macmillan London Ltd.
  • Carlton, James The Military Quotation Book New York City, New York; Thomas Dunne Books; 2002
  • Cottrell, Leonard, Enemy of Rome, Evans Bros, 1965. ISBN 0237443201 (pbk)
  • Caven, B. (1980). Punic Wars. London: George Werdenfeld and Nicholson Ltd.
  • Goldsworthy, A. (2000). The Punic Wars. London: Cassell and Company.
  • Dodge, Theodore. Hannibal. Cambridge Massachusetts: De Capo Press, 1891 ISBN 0306813629
  • Gregory Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War, (Routledge, London/New York 2002), ISBN 0415327431
  • Hans Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity (1920) ISBN 0-8032-9199-X
  • Hart, Liddell Strategy New York City, New York; Penguin Group; 1967
  • Healy, Mark Cannae: Hannibal Smashes Rome's Army Steerling Heights, Missouri; Osprey Publishing, 1994
  • 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)
  • Polybius
  • Richard J. A.Talbert, ed., Atlas of Classical History (Routledge, London / New York, 1985) ISBN 0-415-03463-9
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