Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

of making war support itself, rendered him to a certain extent independent of communications; he was self-sustaining, and his supplies of all sorts accompanied him ; and the quantity of plunder he was thus compelled to carry about added immensely to his difficulties both in. marching and fighting.

Although then it may frequently appear in the course of the present narrative that Hannibal violated the arbitrary rules and maxims of war, we shall be sure to find that he did so on profound calculation, and that he gained greatly more by their violation than he would have done by observing them.

Nothing is more certain than that a commander, who is over anxious to square his proceedings by written rules, will never do anything great.

4. It may be asked. Why did not Hannibal march on Rome after Thrasymene?

Because it would have been his ruin.

Rome was defended by the city legions, besides whom every citizen was more or less a soldier, and behind the walls of their own city the Romans would have been invincible. The Carthaginian army, numerically insufficient under any circumstances to undertake such a siege, and destitute of artillery, would have wasted away in a fruitless enterprise, while its provisions were consumed, while its power of procuring fresh supplies was greatly limited by the bitter hostility of the inhabitants, and while the forces of the republic were gathering around it, of which one army of 30,000 men under Servilius was already on its march from Ariminum.

G

This question will be more fully argued in considering the propriety of marching to Rome after Cannæ.

5. Fabius was a great man and a great general. Why then did he not, with his superior forces, attack Hannibal during this campaign and so end the war by one great stroke?

The answer to the question is, that he did not do so because he was a great general. So many reverses had seriously affected the spirit of the Roman troops, and favoured the belief that they were unequal to their enemies in fight. He knew that the opinion and spirit of the soldiers must enter largely into the moral considerations which must influence the decision of a commander as to the adoption of any particular course in war. And Napoleon, in his memoirs, has left us the saying that among those moral considerations one of the most urgent is "the opinion and spirit of the soldier, who is strong and victorious, or feeble and vanquished, according as he believes himself to be either.”

The policy of Fabius was gradually to restore confidence by engaging in trifling contests, and only in those where the chances were much in his favour. As Sir Walter Raleigh says in his "History of the World," "he brought them first to look on the lion afar off, that in the end they might sit on his tail."

Another consideration was doubtless Hannibal's great superiority both in number and description of cavalry, which Fabius recognised as having been a principal cause of the Roman reverses, and which now alone enabled Hannibal to keep the field and obtain food for his army.

In determining the plan of a campaign, the relative value of the hostile armies is obviously a most important element to be considered. And in the determination of that relative value, the relative numbers alone form the least important item. The reader is referred to the chapter on the "Plan of Campaign," of the "Theory of War," and particularly to the pages 59, 60, and 61, that chapter, for illustration of the above remarks. will be seen thereby that Napoleon considered the personal character of the general as forming the most important item in the determination of the relative value of two armies.

of

It

Fabius formed his plan of campaign on a correct estimate of that relative value, and on a careful consideration of the other conditions set forth in the chapter above referred to. He possessed in the highast degree, one of the most important qualities of a general, viz. calm self-confidence to disregard the impertinence of self-elected advisers, and the murmurings of brave troops impatient to be led to battle.

No amount of disapprobation of his general's plans can justify an officer in canvassing those plans with others, and openly finding fault with them. Such a proceeding can be productive of no advantage, but on the contrary it is positively injurious.

Unfortunately this word of precept is by no means inapplicable to the officers of our army. Many young gentlemen set up for generals, and habitually ridicule the dispositions of their superiors. Such a practice is insubordinate and mischievous in the highest degree; the soldiers acquire the habit from those whose duty it

is to set an example; they lose that confidence in their general which is the surest guarantee of success in military operations, and infinite mischief results.

Officers should by all means study every order and every movement, but if they disapprove let them do so in secret; the chances are not small that the general is a better judge than they of what is fitting; for he must be acquainted with many facts of which they are ignorant, without the knowledge of which no correct judgment can be formed.

6. Minucius in his attack on Hannibal's camp acted like a bold and skilful soldier; but he appears to have made one great oversight and to have lost an opportunity of straitening his adversary which might never

recur.

The magazines on which Hannibal depended for his winter subsistence were in the town of Geronium. If Minucius had directed his cavalry and light troops to march rapidly on that town while he masked the movement by his attack on the Carthaginian camp, they might have burnt the stores there collected, before Hannibal's scattered foragers could rally to defend them.

It was evidently the fear of such a coup that induced Hannibal to fall back on Geronium the day after the attack on his camp.

85

CHAP. III.

THIRD CAMPAIGN.

In the spring of the year 216, Terentius Varro and Emilius Paulus were chosen consuls.

Emilius was of the aristocratical party and had given proof of military ability three years before, when he commanded as consul in the Illyrian war.

Varro belonged to the popular party, and was consequently hated by the aristocracy who vainly endeavoured to prevent his election. He was described by the historians of the period as a coarse and brutal demagogue, a butcher's son, and as having been himself a butcher's boy; but these writers were all strong partisans of the nobility; and even though their description of him were not open to distrust on that account, the offices to which he was elected, both before this period and even after his disastrous defeat at Cannæ, as well as his own conduct after that battle, prove that he was an able man and that he possessed some great qualities.

One prætor, Marcellus, who had slain the Gaulish king with his own hand in the last Gaulish war, was at Ostia with one legion. He was destined to command the fleet and to guard the south coast of Italy.

« AnteriorContinuar »