In 241 BC, the First Punic War, in which the Phoenician state Carthage, which developed the alphabet, and the Roman Republic fought, ended.
As a result, Hamilcar's good fight like thunder light ended in vain defeat on the Carthaginian side.
Hamilcar, who was not even allowed to fight, took his son to the temple and swore to overthrow Rome.
Twenty years have passed since then.
For 20 years, Hamilcar and his son were quietly preparing for the overthrow of Rome. He built a farm and developed a mine in the undeveloped land of Spain. Everything was for the coming day.
Hamilcar Barca is dead. His son-in-law, Hashudurbar, who succeeded him, also died.
But I was ready.
Both Hamilcar and his son-in-law, believing that only one man would destroy Rome, were just waiting.
The man's name is Hannibal Barca.
This is the story of a man who was later said to be the greatest strategist in world history.
Crossing the Alps that breaks common sense
A genius is a person who can do things that no one has noticed.
In 218 BC, Hannibal marched towards the Alps.
At first, no one knew what it was aiming for.
In the 3rd century BC, no one thought that the army would cross the Alps.
No, no one thinks of modern times.
Imagine a knight in armor or a man on a horse climbing Mt. Fuji.
It can only be said to be humorous.
In World War II, Japanese troops tried to invade India over the mountains of Burma.
It is the Imphal operation, which is said to be the worst operation in history.
As you know, the result was destroyed before going to India.
But Hannibal crossed the Alps.
It is said that the number of soldiers, who are said to have been 40,000, has decreased to 26,000.
It is still unknown how Hannibal has crossed the Alps.
All he knows is that he did it with his strong will and clear strategy and succeeded.
Battle of Ticinus
The republican Rome, which is said to be the ideal form by posterity, is different from other nations.
I wasn't just silent about Hannibal crossing the Alps.
Rome dispatched Consul (Roman Consul) Hubrius Cornelius to Hannibal, who had crossed the Alps.
Both troops fought near the Ticinus River and Rome was defeated.
That was also an overwhelming defeat.
Commander Cornelius was injured and was carried by his 16-year-old son to escape the battlefield for life, but most soldiers were preyed on by the Carthaginian spear.
Instead of reducing the number of troops on the Carthaginian side, it absorbs the Gauls on the Roman side and rather increases the troops.
The Roman side soon decided to prepare for the invasion of Hannibal by preparing troops.
The battle was just beginning.
Battle of the Trebia
One month after the defeat on the Ticinus, Carthage and Rome again began fighting near the Trebbia.
Consul Cornelius was injured and was led by another Consul, Sempronia Longs, who ran on the battlefield to repay his stigma.
Both troops are about 40,000. They were even in number.
But Rome lost. I lost completely.
The damage on the Roman side exceeded 20,000, while the Carthaginian side had almost no damage, and the minor damage was said to have been mercenaries.
Rome must not have understood why they were defeated.
It will take more than 10 years for the Roman side to actually analyze this defeat and make use of it.
Carthage, led by Hannibal, was supposed to increase his troops and head for Rome, but he didn't.
Hannibal went south across the Apennines.
And Rome pursued the Hannibal.
Battle of Lake Trasimene
Rome has launched two new consuls, Guenaus Serivius and Gaius Flaminius, to attack Hannibal.
The two troops clashed on the banks of the Trasimenes, and Rome was defeated three times.
Hannibal was not just a brave general, but an information-oriented general. He set up near Lake Trasimene in anticipation of the Roman army chasing him.
He knew that marching around here would extend his formation.
It is said that there was a thick fog on the day of the battle. Therefore, the Roman army was unaware that it had been attacked.
The Roman army was destroyed in the ambush of Hannibal, the consul Gaius Flaminius died, and few survived on the Roman side, with little damage on the Carthaginian side.
Shogun called Noroma
Rome was in a state of emergency.
He will appoint a dictator for the first time in about 30 years.
Fabius Maximus of the prestigious Fabius family was appointed as Dictator.
His tactic was not to fight Hannibal.
He was ridiculed by the Romans. He was called Noroma and Guz, and was eventually recalled to Rome without ending his popularity.
It is a little further before the Romans know that only Maximus was looking calmly at this time.
What the Romans wanted was a complete victory over Hannibal.
The Battle of Cannae, the biggest defeat in Roman history
The Carthaginian side had 50,000 troops, and Rome had a large army of 70,000.
Rome had an overwhelming advantage in terms of numbers.
But Rome lost. It was such a devastating defeat that there was nothing less than this.
Of the 70,000 Roman soldiers, only about 10,000 returned to Rome. After that, he was killed in action or became a prisoner of war and sold as a slave.
Hannibal thoroughly studied Roman tactics and exploited their weaknesses.
It was the defeat of the Roman Legion.
Read the article below for more information on the Battle of Cannae.
You can see why Hannibal is said to be the best strategist in the history of the world.
Rome made a great sacrifice and finally realized.
You can't beat Hannibal.
And he thought.
Did Rome lose to Carthage just because it lost to Hannibal?
no.
Rome is not defeated.
There is a Roman battle in Rome.
The Romans did not give up in the face of the genius Hannibal. No one believed in victory.
And Hannibal doesn't know.
That he had missed a genius in this battle.
And that the country of Rome has become even stronger.
Italian sword / Italian shield
Hannibal did not attack Rome even if he won the Battle of Cannae.
Hannibal is a cool general.
He knew that even if he attacked Rome, he would be siege unless he cut down his allies.
Few allies turned to Hannibal due to the victory of the Battle of Cannae.
Hannibal has no choice but to attack those allies and Roman bases.
But this didn't work.
One is that Marcus, the Italian sword, has challenged the guerrilla warfare.
Marcus's attack was relentless.
He never made a large-scale battle, attacked and withdrew, and then repeatedly attacked, and finally he was able to win a small-scale victory in the Battle of Nola.
Marcus eventually disappeared from the world due to Hannibal, but his male figure encouraged the Romans.
The other is Fabius Maximus, who was said to be the shield of Rome.
No one despised him anymore.
Today we call endurance tactics Fabian tactics, which comes from the Fabius name.
Maximus knew. That Hannibal has received little supply since he crossed the Alps.
In Spain, the earlier mentioned Hubrius Cornelius and his younger brother had stranded the Barca clan, and the Roman Navy, with Mediterranean command of the sea, was repelling Carthaginian supply lines.
Hannibal was unable to attack, and the front line became stalemate.
Death of Brother Cornelius and New Hope
In 210 BC, Publius Cornelius and his younger brother died in Spain.
An abnormal ant on the Spanish front.
The Roman Senate had to worry about who to send instead. Influential human resources wanted to be put on the Hannibal front and lost human resources.
A young man made a name for himself in the Senate chamber.
The name of the young man is Publius Cornelius Skipio.
He is the son of Publius Cornelius, who died in the war.
The Senate initially opposed it. Scipio was still 25 at this time.
In Rome, the status of the Consul was determined to be over 40 years old.
However, in the end, this Scipio will be sent to Spain. When the country dies, there is no tradition. The strength of Rome is that it can make such a judgment. I know what should be prioritized.
As soon as Scipio headed to Spain, he gained the trust of the Spanish natives and assaulted and subdued Cartagena Nova, the capital of Spain at the time.
He defeated Hannibal's younger brother Hashdurbar in the Battle of Baecula in 208 BC, won the Battle of the Metaurus in 207 BC, and succeeded in eradicating the Barca family in Spain.
However, Hannibal's other younger brother, Mago Barca, will leave Spain for Italy.
This was Scipio's only misstep, and Fabius Maximus and others were angry at it.
Mago Barca was supposed to cross the Alps and join Hannibal, but he couldn't pinpoint the exact location of Hannibal, and he was ambushed by Rome and destroyed.
The strength of Hannibal that Scipio knows
In 206 BC, Scipio returned to Rome after destroying the remaining Carthaginian forces at the Battle of Ilipa.
Scipio's next operation was an assault on Carthage, which could not be achieved due to opposition from Maximus and Great Kato.
However, the Senate has sent Scipio to Sicily. He had an unspoken understanding that if he did, he would do it.
Scipio organizes an army in Sicily and forms an alliance with Prince Masinissa of Numidia.
This was very significant.
Scipio knew. Why is Hannibal so strong that the Roman army can't always beat Hannibal?
The reason is cavalry.
In all the battles in Italy, Rome and Carthage had the same or more troops. However, as far as cavalry was concerned, there were always many Carthaginian sides.
Especially in the Battle of Cannae, Rome was unable to compete with the cavalry siege and was defeated.
Scipio knew it for himself. That's why he put Numidia on his side. It was a strategy to have the Numidian cavalry, which was said to be the strongest in the Mediterranean Sea at that time, on their side.
However, Numidia was divided into two at that time. One is Sufak and the other is Masinissa. Rome sided with Masinissa through Scipio, but Sufak tied up with Carthage.
The two clashed in Utica, Africa, but after all they were not Scipio's enemies. Succeeded in capturing Sufak by winning the Battle of the Great Plains and the Battle of Cirta with the same momentum. At the same time, he succeeded in making Masinissa the king of Numidia.
Frightened Carthage decides to bring Hannibal back.
The battle between the greatest geniuses of all time was cut off.
Battle of Zama-Battle between the strongest-
Considering the whole world history, both Hannibal and Scipio are definitely in the top ten.
Hannibal has a higher rating, but aside from that, it is rare for geniuses to actually fight at the same time.
Komei and Sima Yi, Richard I and Saladin aren't the only ones, but it's probably the Battle of Zama that the two strongest in history have met.
For more information on the Battle of Zama, see the article below.
The Carthaginian side outperformed the pure force. Hannibal, who has always fought in the enemy country without supply, will fight on favorable terms, so he is sure to win. Carthage seemed to think so, but Hannibal was well aware of his own disadvantages.
Hannibal has offered peace to Scipio.
The result is NO. Hannibal leaves silently with Scipio trying to settle on the battlefield.
The result was Scipio's victory. It was an overwhelming victory.
Rome was overwhelming in terms of the number of cavalry at most.
Hannibal's strategy was completely overlooked.
Just as Hannibal once studied Roman tactics, Scipio was also studying Hannibal's tactics.
The battle that determines history is over.
The Carthaginian side had no choice but to swallow the following demands of Rome.
- Rome approves Carthage's independence and concludes an alliance. However, it is not a subordination but an equal relationship, and Rome does not deprive the autonomy and leaves no troops.
- Carthage abandons overseas territories such as Sicily, Sardinia and Hispania. However, the Carthaginian territory of Africa before the start of the war is allowed to be retained.
- Carthage hands over all of Numidia's territory to Masinissa and approves Numidia's independence.
- Carthage pays 10,000 talents to Rome on a 50-year installment.
- Hand over all the Romans captured by Carthage to Rome. After
- , Carthage will not wage any war without Roman permission.
- Carthage hands over all but 10 warships and war elephants to Rome. After that, we will not build warships or train war elephants.
- Carthage presents 100 children aged 14 to 30 as hostages to Rome. Scipio will select the people.
- Until the above provisional treaty is approved by the Senate, Carthaginian will bear the cost of the Roman army remaining in Carthaginian territory.
Carthage lost. And Rome won.
The winner, Scipio, began to perform a triumphal ceremony in Rome, but he did not yet know that he would soon lose his place in Rome.
Thinking about the Second Punic War
"No power can remain safe for a long time. Even if it has no enemies abroad, it will have enemies inside.
It is similar to the fact that even a stubborn body that cannot be repelled by enemies from the outside may suffer from visceral diseases due to the inability to keep up with the growth of the body due to internal diseases of the body.
This is the word of Hannibal, who became the defeated general.
After the Punic Wars, Rome became invincible.
He will win consecutive battles against eastern empires such as Macedonia and Seleucid Syria.
This is because Rome absorbed Hannibal's tactics in a biased manner.
Greek phalanx tactics were no longer relevant to Rome.
But after the Punic Wars, Rome went crazy.
Scipio was banished, Carthage and Corinth were erased from the map, the reforms of the Gracchi brothers of Scipio's blood were crushed, and Rome entered an era called the first century of civil war.
Rome, which had no enemies, began to fight for itself.
Did Hannibal foresee that as a defeated general?
Humans may be creatures that cannot live unless they are hostile to someone.