Scipio Africanus

by B. h. Liddell Hart

  This masterly handling of a gravely menacing situation has more than a reminder of Pétain’s methods in quelling the mutinies of 1917—had the great Frenchman perchance studied the mutiny of Sucro ?—not only in its blend of severity to ringleaders with the just rectification of grievances, but in the way the moral health of the body military was restored with the least possible use of the knife. This was true economy of force, for it meant that the eight thousand became not merely unwilling reinforcements, cowed into acquiescence with orders, but loyal supporters.

  But the suppression of this mutiny was only one step towards restoring the situation caused by Scipio’s illness. The expedition against Gades had been abortive, primarily because the plot had been discovered by the Carthaginian commander, and the conspirators arrested. Though they won local successes, Lælius and Marcius found Gades prepared, and so, forced to abandon their project, returned to Cartagena.

  There Scipio was about to march against the Spanish rebels. In ten days he reached the Ebro, a full three hundred miles, and four days later pitched his camp within sight of the enemy. A circular valley lay between the two camps, and into this he drove some cattle protected only by light troops, to “ excite the rapacity of the barbarians.” At the same time he placed Lælius with the cavalry in concealment behind a spur. The bait succeeded, and while the rival skirmishers were merrily engaged, Lælius emerged from cover, part of his cavalry charging the Spanish in front, and the other part riding round the foot of the hill to cut them off from their camp. The consequent reverse so irritated the Spanish that next morning at daybreak their army marched out to offer battle.

  This suited Scipio excellently, for the valley was so confined that the Spanish by this act committed themselves to a cramped close quarter combat on the level, where the peculiar aptitude of the Romans in hand-to-hand fighting gave them an initial advantage over troops more adapted to hill fighting at longer ranges. And, furthermore, in order to find room for their horse they were forced to leave one-third of their foot out of the battle, stationed on the slope behind.

  The conditions suggested a fresh expedient to Scipio. The valley was so narrow that the Spanish could not post their cavalry on the flanks of the infantry line, which took up the whole space. Seeing this, Scipio realised that his own infantry flanks were automatically secured, and accordingly sent Lælius with the cavalry round by the hills in a wide turning movement. Then, ever alive to the vital importance of securing his intended manœuvre by a vigorous fixing attack, he himself advanced into the valley with his infantry, with four cohorts in front, this being the most he could effectively deploy on the narrow front. This thrust, as he intended, occupied the attention of the Spanish, and prevented them from observing the cavalry manoeuvre until the blow fell, and they heard the noise of the cavalry engagement in their rear. Thus the Spanish were forced to fight two separate battles, their cavalry neither able to aid their infantry, nor the infantry their cavalry, and each doomed to the demoralising sound of conflict in their rear, so that each action had a moral reaction on the other.

  Cramped and assailed by skilled close-quarter fighters, whose formation gave them the advantage of depth for successive blows, the Spanish infantry were cut to pieces. Then the Spanish cavalry, surrounded, suffering the pressure of the fugitives, the direct attack of the Roman infantry, and the rear attack of the Roman cavalry, could not use their mobility, and, forced to a standing fight, were slain to the last man after a gallant but hopeless resistance. It is a testimony to the fierceness of the fight and to the quality of the Spanish resistance, when hope had gone, that the Roman losses were twelve hundred killed and over three thousand wounded. Of the Spanish the only survivors were the lightarmed third of their force who had remained on the hill, idle spectators of the tragedy in the valley. These, along with their chiefs, fled in time.

  This decisive triumph was a fitting conclusion to Scipio’s Spanish campaigns—campaigns which for all their long neglect by military students reveal a profound grasp of strategy—at a time when strategy had hardly been born,—and of its intimate relation to policy. But, above all, they deserve to be immortalised for their richness of tactical achievement. Military history hardly contains such another series of ingenious and inspired battle manoeuvres, surpassing on balance even those of Hannibal in Italy. If Scipio profited by Hannibal’s unintended course of instruction on the battlefields of Italy, the pupil surpassed even the master. Nor does such a probability diminish Scipio’s credit, for the highest part of the art of war is inborn, not acquired, or why did not later captains, ancient and modern, profit more by Scipio’s demonstrations. Wonderful as was Hannibal’s fertility of plan, there appears in Scipio’s record a still richer variety, a still more complete calculation, and in three directions a definite superiority. The attack on a fortified place was admittedly in Hannibal a weakness; in Scipio the reverse, for Cartagena is a landmark in history. The pursuit after Ilipa marks a new advance in warfare, as also the wide concealed turning movement in this last battle against Andobales, a development clearly beyond the narrow outflanking manœuvres which had hitherto been the highwater mark of tactical skill.

  Scipio’s military motto would seem to have been “ every time a new stratagem.” Has ever a general been so fertile an artist of war? Beside him most of the celebrated captains of history appear mere dabblers in the art, showing in their whole career but one or two variations of orthodox practice. And be it remembered that with one exception Scipio’s triumphs were won over first-class opponents; not, like Alexander, over Asiatic mobs; like Cæsar, over tribal hordes; or like Frederick and Napoleon, over the courtier-generals and senile pedants of an atrophied military system.

  This victory over Andobales and Mandonius proved to be the coping-stone not only on his military career in Spain, but on the political conquest of the country. So decisive had it been that Andobales realised the futility of further resistance, and sent his brother Mandonius to sue for peace unconditionally. One imagines that Mandonius must have felt some pessimism as to his reception and as to his tenure of life. It would have been natural to have dealt out to these twice-repeated rebels a dire vengeance. But Scipio knew human nature, including Spanish nature. No vengeance could improve his military or political position, now unchallenged, whereas, on the other hand, it would merely sow the seeds of future trouble, convert the survivors into embittered foes, biding their time for a fresh outbreak. Little as he counted on their fidelity, generosity was the one course which might secure it. Therefore, after upbraiding Mandonius, and through him, Andobales, driving home the helplessness of their position and the rightful forfeiture of their lives, he made a peace as generous as it was diplomatically foresighted. To show how little he feared them, he did not demand the surrender of their arms and all their possessions, as was the custom, nor even the required hostages, saying that“ should they revolt, he would not take vengeance on their unoffending hostages, but upon themselves, inflicting punishment not upon defenceless but on armed enemies ” (Livy). The wisdom of this policy found its justification in the fact that from this juncture Spain disappears from the history of the Punic War, whether as a base of recruitment and supply for the Carthaginian armies or as a distraction from Scipio’s concentration on his new objective —Carthage itself. True, revolts broke out at intervals, the first avowedly from the contempt felt by the Spanish for the generals who succeeded Scipio, and recurred for centuries. But they were isolated and spasmodic outbursts, and limited to the hill tribes, in whose blood fighting was a malarial fever.

  Scipio’s mission in Spain was accomplished. Only Gades held out as the last fragment of the Carthaginian power, and this, being then an island fortress, was impregnable save through possible betrayal by its defenders. By some historians Mago’s escape from Gades is made an imputation on Scipio’s generalship, yet from a comparison of the authorities it would seem probable that Mago left there, under orders from Carthage, while Scipio was occupied with the far more pressing menace of th
e mutiny and Andobales’s revolt. Mago, too, was not such a redoubtable personality that his departure, with a handful of troops, for other fields was in itself a menace to the general situation, even if it could have been prevented, which militarily was impossible. Actually, on his voyage from Gades, he attempted a surprise assault on Cartagena in the absence of Scipio, and was so easily repulsed and so strongly counter-attacked, that the ships cut their anchors in order to avoid being boarded, leaving many of the defeated soldiers to drown or be slain. Forced to return to Gades to recruit afresh, he was refused entry to the city by the inhabitants, who shortly surrendered to the Romans, and had to retrace his course to the island of Pityusa (modern Iviça), the westernmost of the Balearic Isles, which was inhabited by Carthaginians. After receiving recruits and supplies, he attempted a landing on Majorca, but was repulsed by the natives, famous as slingers, and had to choose the less advantageous site of Minorca as his winter quarters, there hauling his ships on shore.

  With regard to the chronology of this last phase, in Livy’s account the suppression of Andobales’s rebellion is followed by the story of a meeting between Scipio and Masinissa, and then by the details of Mago’s departure from Gades, from which it would appear that this happened while Scipio was still in Spain. But for accuracy of historical sequence Livy is a less reliable guide than Polybius, and the latter’s narrative definitely states that directly after the subjugation of Andobales Scipio returned to Tarraco, and then, “anxious not to arrive in Rome too late for the consular elections,” sailed for Rome, after handing over the army to Silanus and Marcius, and arranging for the administration of the province.

  The meeting with Masinissa, whenever it occurred, is worth notice, for here the seeds of Scipio’s generous treatment of Masinissa’s nephew years before bore fruit in the exchange of pledges of an alliance, which was to be one of Scipio’s master-tools in undermining the Carthaginian power at its base in Africa.

  CHAPTER VII.

  THE TRUE OBJECTIVE.

  ON arrival at Rome Scipio obtained an audience of the Senate outside the city, at the temple of Bellona, and there gave them a formal report of his campaigns. “On account of these services he rather tried his prospect of a triumph than pressed it pertinaciously,” for the honour had never been given except to those whose services were rendered when holders of a magistracy. His tact was wise, for the astonishing success of youth had already inspired envy among his seniors. The Senate did not break with precedent, and at the close of the audience he entered the city in the ordinary way. His reward, however, came without delay. At the assembly for the election of the two consuls for the coming year he was named by all the centuries. The popularity of his election was shown not only by the enthusiasm which greeted it, but by the gathering of a larger number of voters than at any time during the Punic War, crowds swarming to his house and to the Capitol full of curiosity to see the victor of the Spanish wars.

  But on the morrow of this personal triumph, compensation for the formal “ triumph ” denied him by a hidebound Senate, the first shoots appeared of that undergrowth of narrow-minded conservatism, reinforced by envy, which was to choke the personal fruits of his work, though happily not before he had garnered for Rome the first-fruits—Hannibal’s overthrow.

  Hitherto in Spain he had enjoyed a free hand unfettered by jealous politicians or the compromising counsels of government by committee. If he had to rely on his own local resources, he was at least too far distant for his essential freedom of action to be controlled by any manyheaded guardian of national policy. But from now on he was to suffer, like Marlborough and Wellington some two thousand years later, the curb of political faction and jealousy, and finally, like Marlborough, end his days in embittered retirement. The report got about that he was saying that he had been declared consul not merely to prosecute, but to finish the war; that for this object it was essential for him to move with his army into Africa; and that if the Senate opposed this plan he would carry it through with the people’s backing, overriding the Senate. Perhaps his friends were indiscreet; perhaps Scipio himself, so old beyond his years in other ways, allowed youthful confidence to outride his discretion; perhaps, most probable of all, he knew the Senate’s innate narrowness of vision and had been sounding the people’s opinion.

  The upshot was, that when the question was raised in the Senate, Fabius Cunctator voiced the conservative view. The man who had worthily won his name by inaction, his natural caution reinforced by an old man’s jealousy, cleverly if spitefully criticises the plan of a young man whose action threatens to eclipse his fame. First, he points out that neither had the Senate voted nor the people ordered that Africa should be constituted a consul’s province this year, insinuating that if the consul came before them with his mind already made up, such conduct is an insult to them. Next, Fabius seeks to parry any imputation of jealousy by dwelling on his own past achievements as if they were too exalted for any possible feats of Scipio to threaten comparison. How characteristic, too, of age the remark, “ What rivalry can there exist between myself and a man who is not equal in years even to my son?” He urges that Scipio’s duty is to attack Hannibal in Italy. “Why do you not apply yourself to this, and carry the war in a straightforward manner to the place where Hannibal is, rather than pursue that roundabout course, according to which you expect that when you have crossed into Africa Hannibal will follow you thither.” How vivid is the reminder here of Eastern v. Western controversy in the war of 1914-1918. “What if Hannibal should advance against Rome?” How familiar to modern ears is this argument employed against any military heretic who questions the doctrine of Clausewitz that the enemy’s main army is the primary military objective.

  Fabius then insinuates that Scipio’s head has been turned by his successes in Spain. These Fabius damns with faint praise and covert sneers —sneers which Mommsen and other modern historians seem to have accepted as literal truth, forgetting how decisively all Fabius’s arguments were refuted by Scipio’s actions. How different, Fabius contends, is the problem Scipio will have to face if he ventures to Africa. Not a harbour open, not even a foothold already secured, not an ally. Does Scipio trust his hold over Masinissa when he could not trust even his own soldiers ?—a jibe at the Sucro mutiny. Land in Africa, and he will rally the whole land against him, all internal disputes forgotten in face of the foreign foe. Even in the unlikely event of forcing Hannibal’s return, how much worse will it be to face him near Carthage, supported by all Africa, instead of with a remnant in Southern Italy? “What sort of policy is that of yours, to prefer fighting where your own forces will be diminished by one-half, and the enemy’s greatly augmented? ”

  Fabius finishes with a scathing comparison of Scipio with his father, who, setting out for Spain, returned to Italy to meet Hannibal, “while you are going to leave Italy when Hannibal is there, not because you consider such a course beneficial to the State, but because you think it will redound to your honour and glory ... the armies were enlisted for the protection of the city and of Italy, and not for the consuls, like kings, to carry into whatever part of the world they please from motives of vanity.”

  This speech makes a strong impression on the Senators, “especially those advanced in years,” and when Scipio rises to reply the majority are clearly against him. His opening is an apt counter-thrust: “Even Quintus Fabius himself has observed ... that in the opinion he gave a feeling of jealousy might be suspected. And though I dare not myself charge so great a man with harbouring that feeling, yet, whether it is owing to a defect in his phrasing, or to the fact, that suspicion has certainly not been removed. For he has so magnified his own honours and the fame of his exploits, to do away with the imputation of envy, that it would appear I am in danger of being rivalled by every obscure person, but not by himself, because he enjoys an eminence above everybody else....” “He has represented himself as an old man, and as one who has gone through every gradation of honour, and me as below the age even of his son, as if he suppos
ed that the desire of glory did not exceed the span of life, and as if its chief part had no respect to memory and future ages.” Then, with gentle sarcasm Scipio refers to Fabius’s expressed solicitude for his safety, and not only for the army and the State, should he cross over to Africa. Whence has this concern so suddenly sprung ? When his father and uncle were slain, when Spain lay beneath the heel of four victorious Carthaginian armies, when no one except himself would offer themselves for such a forlorn venture, “why was it that no one at that time made any mention of my age, of the strength of the enemy, of the difficulties, of the recent fate of my father and uncle?” “Are there now larger armies in Africa, more and better generals, than were then in Spain? Was my age then more mature for conducting a war than now ...? ” “After having routed four Carthaginian armies ... after having regained possession of the whole of Spain, so that no trace of war remains, it is an easy matter to make light of my services; just as easy as it would be, should I return from Africa, to make light of those very conditions which are now magnified for the purpose of detaining me here.” Then, after demolishing the historical examples which Fabius had quoted as warnings, Scipio makes this appeal to history recoil against Fabius by adducing Hannibal’s example in support of his plan. “He who brings danger upon another has more spirit than he who repels it. Add to this, that the terror excited by the unexpected is increased thereby. When you have entered the territory of an enemy you obtain a near view of his strong and weak points.” After pointing out the moral “ soft spots” in Africa, Scipio continues: “Provided no impediment is caused here, you will hear at once that I have landed, and that Africa is blazing with war; that Hannibal is preparing to depart from this country.” “... Many things which are not now apparent at this distance will develop; and it is the part of a general not to be wanting when opportunity arises, and to bend its events to his designs. I shall, Quintus Fabius, have the opponent you assign me, Hannibal, but I shall rather draw him after me than be kept here by him.” As for the danger of a move by Hannibal on Rome, it is a poor compliment to Crassus, the other consul, to suppose that he will not be able to keep Hannibal’s reduced and shaken forces in check, when Fabius did so with Hannibal at the height of his power and success—an unanswerable master-thrust this!