"Should Hannibal Gone Full Fabian at Zama?" Topic

All hail Hannibal the Brilliant, Hannibal the Mighty, Hannibal the Invincible— oh, wait.

Fabius did indeed come to battle with Hannibal, because he was forced to do so by Minicius in order to save the latter's arrogant hide and prevent the loss of yet another Roman army trying to fight the war Hannibal's way. And who won that fight? Not Hannibal! Fabius won, catching Hannibal off guard and driving the latter's forces away to save the foolish Minicius and essentially half of the Roman army. So, when he did come to battle, Fabius actually proved more brilliant than Hannibal. Fabius however also knew that the fight was not decisive either way. Hannibal once again thought it would be, and once again he thought wrong.

To say that Hannibal knew that he had to keep Roman forces bottled up in Italy to maintain a hold on Spain is speculation. It's not clear at all that he knew this (and in any case, it didn't work). It is clear that he thought he could break up the Italian alliances with Rome, and that he kept trying to do so without meaningful success. Whatever his strategic goals were, he failed to achieve them. Whatever he thought, he was incorrect in that thinking. 15 years of doing the same thing and then leaving… Perhaps it's amazing he stayed that long, but he still lost it all. Wasted effort to no purpose. One wonders how many people had to die for Hannibal's failed experiments in Italy.

I note by the way that after Zama, Hannibal hired himself out as a military expert to the Seleucid Empire of Antiochus the Great, and then succumbed to the Romans in a naval battle (really, he should have predicted the outcome of *that* one)… and in the end Hannibal effectively lost a war to Rome again.
The man did not have a good track record with wars.

(In one moment of self-reflection, he supposedly sardonically responded to Antiochus's question if his forces would be "enough for the Romans" that yes, they would be "enough for Roman greed"— that is, enough for the Romans to eagerly slaughter, not enough to be defeated by. It sounds real enough a comment to be true.)

It is important to approach history without blinders, to assess what actually happened and not the tinted production of charismatic people. There are many charismatic generals in history who continue to be touted for their efforts— and yet, in the end, they neither won their wars nor improved the lot of their people— and in many cases only made the latter worse. That, in the end, was the case for Hannibal, just as it was for Napoleon, Lee, Rommel, Yamamoto, Pyrrhus, Harald Hardrada and Harold Godwinson both, and on and on and on.
Granted, some fought under the restrictions of foolish political leadership incapable of understanding and assessing the actual political and military situation into which they ordered their generals. But in some cases the decision was the general's, or effectively his. What Hannibal was ordered to do we can examine whether the fault lay with him or not; but what he did on his own from his own knowledge and decisions— that we can fault.

First, it is an exaggeration to suggest that Fabius' support of Minicius qualifies as some major defeat of Hannibal. Quite the opposite. Hannibal won a small victory over the Romans and then withdrew his army as he should have.

Second, I am not persuaded by your basic assumption that Hannibal's failure rests primarily with his decisions and actions. Hannibal did pretty much everything right. He severely defeated his opponent's armies on several occasions. He took the fight right to the core strength of his enemy and attempted to bring a strategic collapse to Rome. Yet Carthage still lost. How is that possible? Well, his opponent might have something to say to this.

It turned out the Rome and its allies were made of sterner stuff than Hannibal properly understood. I don't fault him for that. I doubt that there was another people on the planet who could have sustained the kind of catastrophic defeats they endured and keep coming back. The ability of the Romans and their Italian allies to sustain 20+ legions in the field for 17 years is simply astounding. The ability of their alliance structures to hold under such incredible pressure, hard to fathom.

You may believe as you wish, of course. But the facts remain— Hannibal lost every war he fought. He never once defeated Fabius in battle or successfully thwarted Fabius' strategy. History is unassailable on this. For these reasons, I cannot ascribe to Hannibal an ability which he failed to demonstrate. Meanwhile, Fabius did predict that Rome could indeed outlast Hannibal, and the latter would leave Italy without achieving Carthage's goals. Since that is what happened, I can only assert that Fabius could and did predict the outcome of his strategy, whereas Hannibal did not. Should we be amazed at what Fabius achieved? Yes! Why is it so hard to acknowledge that he knew what would happen, and thus demonstrated a greater strategic understanding and ability than his foe?

Actually Hannibal had a successful military career consolidating Carthaginian gains in Spain between 221 and 219 BC and won a major victory over the Spanish at the battle of the Tagus River.

Considering that Fabius' strategy was to avoid battles at all cost with Hannibal it is no significance that the latter failed to defeat the former. Fabius' strategy was certainly the correct choice after Cannae but by his last consulship it was beginning to wear thin in Rome. Had Rome failed in Spain it would have proven to be, ultimately, a dead end. Stalemate does not inevitably produce victory. Hannibal had to be defeated in battle, something Fabius would never have considered. He really was a one trick pony.

Fabius' strategy was a place holder until Rome was able to engage Hannibal in open battle. That occurred with the rise of Scipio Africanus and Rome's decision to invade Africa.

Oh for Pete's sake.
You twit Fabius for doing exactly the right thing and predicting the outcome which indeed happened, while praising Hannibal for doing the wrong thing and predicting an outcome which did not happen.
Gains in Spain meant nothing in the long run; the war is what mattered. In the end, Hannibal lost everything— Spain, Italy, North Africa, allies, and Carthage.
It's like claiming that Hitler actually won World War II because he held Western Europe and Eastern Europe from 1939-1944. That doesn't matter— the result of the entire war is what matters. Hannibal lost. Fabius won.

And Fabius was redeemed and revered after Cannae, as the people of Rome now saw that his strategy was superior to one of seeking direct battles. As a result, he was elected consul three more times. He even received a triumph for his retaking of Tarentum in 209 BC. Yes, he still had political foes, and opposed Scipio's plans to invade Africa, but in the main Rome considered him a hero who preserved the Republic during the time of its greatest danger.

Lazenby notes that when the Roman strategy was cautious and defensive (from 215 to 212) Fabius (and his son) held three consulships but when a new offensive note was struck with the investment of Capua in 212 two consuls were elected that had no apparent affiliation with the Fabian family. The Romans themselves recognized something that you seem unwilling to accept. Fabius' strategic vision was principally to see Rome through its crisis (caused by Hannibal's trifecta of Trebbia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae) until it regained its strength to contest with Hannibal in Italy. That's it. There is no more to see. Once Rome moved back into a offensive phase of war Fabius' influence on Roman strategic thinking begins to recede.

You are completely wrong about Spain. After Rome turned Italy into a stalemate (which in part Fabius deserves credit for) Spain is where the 2nd Punic War ultimately was won or lost. Once Carthage lost Spain to Rome in a broader sense the war was essentially over. The only detail left was how complete would Carthage's defeat be.

You misunderstand my meaning about Spain— I meant that Hannibal's gains in Spain wound up meaning little to the eventual outcome of the war. He held them and lost them without any ability to regain them. So that he initially won all those battles and dominated all those territories as Hitler did in Europe in the end served Hannibal no good at all.

Battles that don't produce a victory in war are a waste of men and materiel. It doesn't matter if you win only one battle or a thousand battles, if you don't win the war, those battles were worthless for you.
Cornwallis marched around the American South winning battles left and right… and then had to withdraw because he couldn't sustain any of the gains he made. His tactical success was strategically a waste of effort. He lost.

The same is true of Hannibal— every battle he won, every celebrated tactic he did in the end proved of no final worth AT ALL, either to him, his men, or his nation. Carthage wound up crippled, and then in his lifetime utterly destroyed, and he committed suicide far from home— the ultimate admission of defeat.

That is not the fate of a great general or a great strategy— it is the fate of failed ones.

Again, your analysis is all based on hindsight, something that no commander, ancient or modern, has access to in-time. A confrontation between Rome and Carthage in the western Mediterranean seemed inevitable. It is obvious that Hannibal planned his invasion of Italy with great care. He made the correct risk assessment, in my opinion, by attacking Rome when Carthage was at its peak power. Did that guarantee success? Absolutely not.

Hannibal lost because Rome proved a most formidable enemy. He did everything right and still managed to come up short. There is no shame in this for him. It in no way diminishes his tactical or strategic brilliance.

As an aside, after the 2nd Punic War Rome ultimately forced Hannibal out of Carthage. Finding a new home in the Selecuid Empire as a military advisor turned out to be temporary with Antiochus III's defeat at Magnesia. It was inevitable that Hannibal would become a fugitive in the face of Rome's vendetta against him. His choice of suicide instead of surrender was surely the more noble path in the face of various alternatives.

ALL historical analysis is based on hindsight. As is all military analysis. Any military historian, and particularly any military officer of any note, knows that you analyze backwards— you see the conclusion, and then examine the actions and events which led to that conclusion. After having done so, you then examine what decisions could or should have been changed, and whether those would have produced a different outcome. But you know without exception that the decisions and actions which WERE made were clearly the ones which led to the actual conclusion. Thus, you know that if a different outcome was desirable, that those decisions and actions were the wrong ones at some point. Perhaps one can find a linchpin decision, or perhaps the whole thing was an inevitable progression and no decision could have been made to alter the outcome.

This analysis should be applied to Hannibal.

You keep saying he made the best decisions, with the information he had, but failed to predict the outcome because he did not know the Romans would be more formidable than he expected. Well, that is entirely on him. He already should have realized the Romans were formidable, else Carthage would not have regarded Rome as a threat in the first place. But even if he underestimated his enemy (a gross error in any general), he faced that same enemy over multiple battles and multiple years. That he could find the weaknesses in battle— which were actually personal weaknesses in the commanders, not the soldiers— nevertheless he could NOT identify the weaknesses on a strategic level. And yet he had years to observe, years to gather information, and years to interact with others in Italy who had insights into Roman thought, character, culture and behavior— and at no point could he come up with a change in strategy to overcome these. He made NO changes in his tactics, his plans, or his expectations until it was too late.
He could not stop Roman raids on his supplies.
He could not produce a decisive battle, despite multiple attempts.
He could not build and hold a coalition of local allies against Rome.
He moved from place to place, only to consistently see Rome moved back in behind him.
He could not build a long-term secure base in Italy from which to receive supplies.
You say he planned his invasion of Italy carefully— I am quite certain that he did. But he did not plan it carefully enough, and when it failed to produce the results he wanted or expected, what then? What changes did he make? How did he alter is efforts at reconnaissance? How did he protect his supply lines to prevent the Roman raids? How did he take steps to secure his allies? What did he do that had any effective result? Defeat overly-eager and easily taunted Roman social elites? Yes, yes. Over and over and over he did that. But the Roman elite who was neither eager nor tauntable, Hannibal could not defeat— not even when, as you claim, that leader had lost political support. That's pretty ineffective.
And that's not hindsight— that's looking at the situation within the situation. Hannibal may not have realized at the offset how resilient Rome was. But at some point he should have realized this as his strategy failed to work. And at that point, it ceases to be about bad luck or poor information— it becomes about an inability to respond to the information and the luck.

As to his fate, you may think it "honorable" if you like. One could also argue that he was afraid to face the consequences of his years of slaughter. Either attitude is just as viable. But whichever way you want to look at it, it was the last act of an utterly defeated man.

You criticize Hannibal for not knowing that the Italian Confederacy led by Rome was as formidable as it was. You suggest that he should have known this. Can you explain to me why you think this. I am not looking for general platitudes or Sun Tzu quotes but in the specific circumstances that led up to war in 218 BC between Rome and Carthage.

Marcus Brutus wrote: Of course the critical words here are "what if". What we are dealing with in this hypothesis is pure speculation.

My response: If 2 + 2 makes 4, is that speculation? Can you elaborate instead of just providing a generalisation?

Ok, I've given you enough time to make an answer. If you cannot provide anything more than an unsubstantiated opinion, you are indulging in nothing more than mud slinging.

Mudslinging? That seems a bit over the top in light of what I said.

Also, in case you didn't notice I've been kind of busy.

The 1st Punic War should have been a clue.

The Carthaginians seemed to have had a consistent affinity for trying the same thing again and expecting different results.

Another clue should have been the existing supremacy of the Romans over Italy. Hannibal was operating under an assumption that Rome was weak, and its alliances were weak, and thus Rome could be defeated by direct battle and turning their allies.
But that's not what the situation was, even if viewed from that very time. If Rome was truly weak, why had their subject states not already abandoned them? Why had these states not banded together to defeat Rome in battle, if it was so easily to be done? Why did they need Hannibal (much less Carthage)? And why would they ally with Hannibal, who, no matter what he claimed, was likely to be temporary, operating as he was at great distance from home, with a navy which consistently lost battles with the Roman fleet? (Yes, they won some, but the record was not all that impressive, especially at this time.)
Frankly, it should have been obvious that the Italian allies Hannibal sought would be weak allies, of little use militarily (which proved true), and incapable of turning the tide against Rome, for the simple reason that they had yet to ever do such a thing! It also should have been realized, or at least assumed, that the bulk of the Italian allied states would remain allied to Rome (who had made them prosperous), and if conquered unlikely to remain in Carthaginian control long. Further, Hannibal's strategy of destruction of farmland and crops was an extremely poor method for gaining the support he sought. "I have come to save you from Rome by destroying all your hard work and taking your products and livelihood!" In the entire history of warfare, that has never gone over big with the people suffering from it.

And that is an assessment based on the realities of the day— quite obvious realities that could and should have been recognized by any competent general. And, as I pointed out, it is exactly the assessment Fabius indeed made.

And from that we can go to principles of warfare which Hannibal ignored.
1.) Never assume your favorable assessment of the situation is the correct one. Indeed, plan for the opposite.
2.) If you cannot win without allies whom you haven't already acquired and made certain of then you will not win.
3.) If the enemy has other options than the ones you plan for him, don't be surprised when he chooses the former and not the latter.
4.) War is all about politics. If you only dominate politically in an area with your presence and your forces, then the moment you leave, it will revoke back to its previous allegiances. (This was the mistake of Cornwallis, and indeed all of the British generals in America during the Revolutionary War. Washington understood it. Hannibal in his time should have as well.)

As for Sun Tzu, have you read his work? It's quite remarkable how readily his wisdom can be applied and analyzed in any conflict, anywhere, any period. It should not be waved aside as of no importance to a discussion on warfare and the actions of any general. Sun Tzu would no doubt say that what Hannibal did not know, he should have known, and that it was Hannibal's greatest responsibility to make certain he knew, and his greatest failing that he did not.

You'd have to admit, based on the 1st Punic War, that Hannibal's invasion of Italy was the Carthaginians doing something very different. It was a bold move and subject to considerable risk but hardly one that Rome could have anticipated. I think the biggest criticism against it was that it required near perfect execution from Hannibal to pull it off. Any defeat in battle would prove disastrous. Yet the plan was perfectly executed and it still failed.

I completely disagree with you that the strength of the Italian Confederacy was quite obvious to those who lived at the beginning of the 2nd Punic War. Your assessment is based on a retrospective advantage based on events that no one at the time could have fully anticipated. By historical antecedent, the Italian Confederacy should have collapsed after Cannae. In fact, it almost did. That it didn't bears no reflection on Hannibal but it does speak well of Rome, its character and its relations with its immediate neighbours.

Invasion by land, yes, different. Via the Alps, even more so. HOWEVER Hannibal, by the accounts we have, sacrificed approximately half of his forces to pull this off. So he gained surprise at a great cost— and as I noted earlier, strategically it did not contribute to the actual victory necessary— the final defeat of Rome— but only to battles against tactically feeble opponents (Paulus, Varro, Minucius, etc.). So it may have been surprising, but the surprise did nothing towards actual victory.

As for the Italian allies/subject states, the structure had been in place for over 200 years. Pyrrhus tried to break it, gained a few temporary allies, and lost. So the example was right there, only 50-odd years distant, that the alliance was stronger than it appeared on face value, or at least could not be turned against Rome to any effective degree. And even if not obvious (and I don't concede that it wasn't discernible), it's Hannibal's job as a general to ascertain before any action whether the confederation was indeed likely to support him in the way that he needed. A general cannot rely upon the obvious, or upon assumptions, or even distant promises… a good general does not act based upon what he hopes to be the case. He acts upon what he knows and what he can, via his own actions, make happen.
Are there gambles? Yes. But there are smart gambles and there are overly optimistic gambles. The invasion of Italy, as carried out, was an overly optimistic gamble. Hannibal made a bet he couldn't cover, with cards he couldn't see.
Fabius, however, saw the cards and made a bet he knew could and would win. He realized that the success of Hannibal's gambit was based solely on time; the more time it took Hannibal to achieve his objectives, the less likely he would be to achieve his goals. And that's exactly what happened. Fabius delayed the war in a matter that aided his own goals. Hannibal failed to prevent this delay, and thus was forced to maneuver in response rather than to his own purposes. Fabius knew not to play into Hannibal's hands; the other Roman leaders did not. Yet even then, Hannibal was unable to turn his tactical victories (battles) into strategic victories. He'd win, presumably having devastated the Romans, and then they'd be back as if what he had done meant nothing. And in the end, it did indeed mean nothing as far as Rome's and Carthage's goals were concerned.

Again, my assertion is not that Hannibal was not a skillful tactician and even a good strategist— he was these things— but he was not the strategist he should have been and could have been. He did not know his enemy as he should have, and he did not know his own limitations as he should have. So yes, it does reflect on Hannibal's generalship. What he could see, he did well with; what he did not see (or refused to see), hurt him.

What he achieved should be studied and learned from— but more so should be what he failed to achieve and why he failed to achieve it, and what he himself should have done differently.