Scipio Africanus

by B. h. Liddell Hart

  Meanwhile, the Carthaginians despatched a further body of four thousand horse, mainly Numidians, to oppose Scipio’s advance and gain time for Syphax and Hasdrubal to come to their aid. To their ally and to their chief general in Africa the most urgent messages had been sent. Hanno with the four thousand cavalry occupied a town, Salæca, about fifteen miles from the Roman camp near Utica, and it is said by Livy that Scipio, on hearing of this, remarked, “ What, cavalry lodging in houses during the summer! Let there be even more in number while they have such a leader.” “Concluding that the more dilatory they were in their operations, the more active he ought to be, he sent Masinissa forward with the cavalry, directing him to ride up to the gates of the enemy and draw them out to battle, and when their whole force had poured out and committed themselves thoroughly to the attack, then to retire by degrees.” Scipio himself waited for what he judged sufficient time for Masinissa’s advanced party to draw out the enemy, and then followed with the Roman cavalry, “proceeding without being seen, under cover of some rising ground.” He took up a position near the so-called Tower of Agathocles, on the northern slope of a saddle between two ridges.

  Masinissa, following Scipio’s plan, made repeated advances and retirements. At first he drew out small skirmishing parties, then counter-attacked them so that Hanno was forced to reinforce them, lured them on again by a simulated retreat and repeated the process. At last Hanno, irritated by these tactical tricks—so typical of the Parthians and the Mongols later,—sallied forth with his main body, whereupon Masinissa retired slowly, drawing the Carthaginians along the southern side of the ridges and past the saddle which concealed the Roman cavalry. When the moment was ripe, Scipio’s cavalry emerged and encircled the flank and rear of Hanno’s cavalry, while Masinissa, turning about, attacked them in front. The first line of a thousand were surrounded and slain, and of the remainder two thousand were captured or killed in a vigorous pursuit.

  Scipio followed up this success by a seven days’ circuit through the countryside, clearing it of cattle and supplies, and creating a wide devastated zone as a barrier against attack. Security, both in supply and protection, thus effected, he concentrated his efforts on the siege of Utica, which he wanted for his base of operations. Utica, however, was not destined to be a second Cartagena. Although he combined attack from the sea by the marines with the land assault, the fortress defied all his efforts and ruses.

  Hasdrubal by this time had collected a force of thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse, but with painful recollections of the maulings he had suffered in Spain, did not venture to move to Utica’s relief until reinforced by Syphax. When the latter at last came, with an army stated to have been fifty thousand foot and ten thousand horse, the menace compelled Scipio to raise the siege—after forty days. Faced with such a concentration of hostile force, Scipio’s situation must have been hazardous, but he extricated himself without mishap and fortified a camp for the winter on a small peninsula, connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. This lay on the eastern, or Carthage, side of Utica, thus lying on the flank of any relieving force, and was later known as Castra Cornelia. The enemy then encamped some seven miles farther east, covering the approaches to the River Bagradas.

  If there is a parallel between Scipio’s landing in Africa and Gustavus’s landing in Germany, there is a still more striking parallel between their action during the first season on hostile soil. Both campaigns to the unmilitary critic appear limited in scope compared with the avowed object with which they had set forth. Both generals have been criticised for over-caution, if not hesitation. And both were justified not only by the result, but by the science of war. Scipio and Gustavus alike, unable for reasons’ outside their control to adjust the means to the end, displayed that rare strategical quality—of adjusting the end to the means. Their strategy foreshadowed Napoleon’s maxim that “ the whole art of war consists in a well ordered and prudent defensive, followed by a bold and rapid offensive.” Both sought first to lay the foundations for the offensive which followed by gaining a secure base of operations where they could build up their means to a strength adequate to ensure the attainment of the end.

  Gustavus is known to have been a great student of the classics: was his strategy in 1630 perhaps a conscious application of Scipio’s method? Nor is this campaign of Gustavus’s the only military parallel with Scipio’s that history records. For the action of Wellington in fortifying and retiring behind the lines of Torres Vedras in 1810 to checkmate the French superior concentration of force has a vivid reminder, both topographical and strategical, of Scipio’s action in face of the concentration of Syphax and Hasdrubal.

  In this secure retreat Scipio devoted the winter to build up his strength and supplies for the next spring’s campaign. Besides the corn he had collected in his preliminary foraging march, he obtained a vast quantity from Sardinia, and also fresh stores of clothing and arms from Sicily. The success of his landing, his sharp punishment of the Carthaginian attempts to meet him in battle, and, above all, the fact that he had dissipated the terrors of the unknown, had falsified all the fears of the wiseacres, by holding his own, small though his force, on the dreaded soil of Africa, almost at the gates of Carthage—all these factors combined to turn the current of opinion and arouse the State to give him adequate support. Reliefs were sent to Sicily so that he could reinforce his strength with the troops at first left behind for local defence.

  But, as usual, while seeking to develop his own strength, he did not overlook the value of subtracting from the enemy’s. He reopened negotiations with Syphax, “whose passion for his bride he thought might now perhaps have become satiated from unlimited enjoyment.” In these he was disappointed, for while Syphax went so far as to suggest terms of peace by which the Carthaginians should quit Italy in return for a Roman evacuation of Africa, he did not hold out any hope that he would abandon the Carthaginian cause if the war continued. For such terms Scipio had no use, but he only rejected them in a qualified manner, in order to maintain a pretext for his emissaries to visit the hostile camp. The reason was that he had conceived a plan whereby to weaken the enemy and anticipate the attack that he feared owing to the enemy’s heavy superiority of numbers. Some of his earlier messengers to Syphax had reported that the Carthaginians’ winter huts were built almost entirely of wood, and those of the Numidians of interwoven reeds and matting, disposed without order or proper intervals, and that a number even lay outside the ramparts of the camps. This news suggested to Scipio the idea of setting fire to the enemy’s camp and striking a surprise blow in the confusion.

  Therefore in his later embassies Scipio sent certain expert scouts and picked centurions dressed as officers’ servants. While the conferences were in progress, these rambled through the camps, both that of Syphax and of Hasdrubal, noting their approaches and entrances and studying the general plan of the camps, the distance between them, the times and methods of stationing guards and outposts. With each embassy, too, a different lot of observers were sent, so that as large a number as possible should familiarise themselves with the lie of the enemy camps. As a result of their reports Scipio ascertained that Syphax’s camp was the more inflammable and the easier to attack.

  He then sent further envoys to Syphax, who was hoping for peace, with instructions not to return until they received a decisive answer on the proposed terms, saying that it was time that either an agreement was settled or the war vigorously prosecuted. After consultation between Syphax and Hasdrubal, they apparently decided to accept, whereupon Scipio made further stipulations, as a suitable way of terminating the truce, which he did next day, informing Syphax that while he himself desired peace, the rest of his council were opposed to it. By this means he gained freedom to carry out his plan without breaking his faith, though he undoubtedly went as close to the border between strategical ruse and deliberate craft as was possible without overstepping it.

  Syphax, much vexed at this breakdown of negotiations, at once conferred with Has
drubal, and it was decided to take the offensive and challenge Scipio to battle, on level ground if possible. But Scipio was ready to strike, his preparations complete. Even in his final preparations, he sought to mystify and mislead the enemy in order to make his surprise more effective. The orders issued to the troops spoke of the surprise being aimed at Utica ; he launched his ships and mounted on board siege machines as if he was about to assault Utica from the sea, and he despatched two thousand infantry to seize a hill which commanded the town. This move had a dual purpose—to convince the enemy that his plan was directed against Utica, and to occupy the city garrison to prevent them making a sortie against his camp when he marched out to attack the hostile camps. Thus he was able to achieve economy of force, by concentrating the bulk of his troops for the decisive blow, and leaving only a slight force to guard the camp, and thus once more he did not lose sight of the principle of security in carrying out that of surprise. He had fixed the enemy’s attention in the wrong direction.

  About mid-day he summoned a conference of his ablest and most trusted tribunes and disclosed his plan. To this conference he summoned the officers who had been to the enemy’s camp. “He questioned them closely and compared the accounts they gave of the approaches and entrances of the camp, letting Masinissa decide, and following his advice owing to his personal knowledge of the ground.” Then he ordered the tribunes to give the troops their evening meal early, and lead the legions out of the camp after “ Retreat ” had been sounded as usual. On this point Polybius adds the interesting note that“ it is the custom among the Romans at supper-time for the trumpeters to sound their instruments outside the general’s tent as a signal that it is time to set the night-watches at their several posts.”

  About the first watch the troops were formed up in march order and moved off on their sevenmile march, and about midnight arrived in the vicinity of the hostile camps, which were just over a mile apart. Thereupon Scipio divided his force, placing all the Numidians and half his legionaries under Lælius and Masinissa with orders to attack Syphax’s camp. The two commanders he first took aside and urged on them the need for caution, emphasising that“ the more the darkness in night attacks hinders and impedes the sight, the more must one supply the place of actual vision by skill and care.” He further instructed them that he would wait to launch his attack on Hasdrubal’s camp until Lælius had set fire to the other camp, and with this purpose marched his own men at a slow pace.

  Lælius and Masinissa, dividing their force, attacked the camp from two directions simultaneously—a convergent manœuvre,—and Masinissa also posted his Numidians, because of their knowledge of the camp, to cut off the various exits of escape. As had been foreseen, once the leading Romans had set the fire alight, it spread rapidly along the first row of huts, and in a brief while the whole camp was aflame, because of the closeness of the huts and the lack of proper intervals between rows.

  Fully imagining that it was an accidental conflagration, Syphax’s men rushed out of their huts unarmed, and in a disorderly flight. Many perished in their huts while half asleep, many were trampled to death in the frenzied rush for the exits, while those who escaped the flames were cut down unawares by the Numidians posted at the gates of the camp.

  Meanwhile in the Carthaginian camp the soldiers, aroused by the sentries’ report of the fire in the other camp, and seeing how vast was the volume of flame, rushed out of their own camp to assist in extinguishing the fire, they also imagining it an accident and Scipio seven miles distant. This was as Scipio had hoped and anticipated, and he at once fell on the rabble, giving orders not to let a man escape to give warning to the troops still in the camp. Instantly he followed up this by launching his attack on the gates of the camp, which were unguarded as a result of the confusion.

  By the cleverness of his plan in attacking Syphax’s camp first, he had turned to advantage the fact that a number of the latter’s huts were outside the ramparts and so easily accessible, and had created the opportunity to force the gates of the better protected Carthaginian camp.

  The first troops inside set fire to the nearest huts, and soon the whole camp was aflame, the same scenes of confusion and destruction being here repeated, and those who escaped through the gates meeting their fate at the hands of Roman parties posted for the purpose. “ Hasdrubal at once desisted from any attempt to extinguish the fire, as he knew now from what had befallen him that the calamity which had overtaken the Numidians also was not, as they had supposed, the result of chance, but was due to the initiative and daring of the enemy.” He therefore forced his way out and escaped, along with only two thousand foot and five hundred horsemen, half-armed and many wounded or scorched. With this small force he took refuge in a near-by town, but when Scipio’s pursuing troops came up, and seeing that the inhabitants were disaffected, he resumed his flight to Carthage. Syphax who had also escaped, probably with a larger proportion, retired to a fortified position at Abba, a town quite close.

  The armies of Sennacherib had not suffered a swifter, more unexpected, or more complete fate than those of Hasdrubal and Syphax. According to Livy forty thousand men were either slain or destroyed by the flames, and about five thousand were captured, including many Carthaginian nobles. As a spectacle of disaster it surpasses any in history. Polybius, who presumably got his information from Lælius and other eye-witnesses, thus describes it: “The whole place was filled with wailing and confused cries, panic, fear, strange noises, and above all raging fire and flames that overbore all resistance, things any one of which would be sufficient to strike terror into a human heart, and how much more this extraordinary combination of them all. It is not possible to find any other disaster which however magnified could be compared with this, so much did it exceed in horror all previous events. Therefore of all the brilliant exploits performed by Scipio this seems to me the most brilliant and most adventurous....”

  In Carthage the news caused great alarm and anxiety—Hasdrubal’s purpose in retreating there had been to allay the panic and forestall any capitulation. His presence and his resolute spirit was needed. The Carthaginians had expected with the spring campaign to find their armies shutting in Scipio on the cape near Utica, cutting him off by land and sea. Finding the tables so dramatically turned, they swung from confidence to extreme despondency. At an emergency debate in the Senate three different opinions were put forward: to send envoys to Scipio to treat for peace; to recall Hannibal; to raise fresh levies and urge Syphax to renew the struggle in co-operation with them. The influence of Hasdrubal, combined with that of all the Barcine party, carried the day, and the last policy was adopted. It is worth a passing note, in view of the charge of ultra-Roman prejudice often made against Livy, that he speaks with obvious admiration of this third motion which“ breathed the spirit of Roman constancy and adversity.”

  Syphax and his Numidians had at first decided to continue their retreat and, abandoning the war, retire to their own country, but three influences caused them to change their minds. These were the pleadings of Sophonisba to Syphax not to desert her father and his people, the prompt arrival of the envoys from Carthage, and the arrival of a body of over four thousand Celtiberian mercenaries from Spain—whose numbers were exaggerated by popular rumour, doubtless inspired by the war party, to ten thousand. Accordingly Syphax gave the envoys a message that he would co-operate with Hasdrubal, and showed them the first reinforcement of fresh Numidian levies who had arrived. By energetic recruiting Hasdrubal and Syphax were able to take the field again within thirty days, joining forces, and entrenched a camp on the Great Plain. Their strength is put as between thirty and thirty-five thousand fighting men.

  Scipio, after his dispersion of the enemy’s field forces in the recent surprise, had turned his attention to the siege of Utica, in order to gain the secure base which he wanted as a prelude to further operations. It is evident that he intentionally refrained from pressing the retreat of Syphax, for such pressure by forcing the latter to fight would tend to pour fres
h fuel on a fire that was flickering out of itself. The ground for such a hope we have already shown, as also the factors which caused its disappointment. Polybius gives us a valuable sidelight at this juncture on Scipio’s care and forethought for his troops—“ He also at the same time distributed the booty, but expelled the merchants who were making too good an affair of it; for as their recent success had made them form a rosy picture of the future, the soldiers attached no value to their actual booty, and were very ready to dispose of it for a song to the merchants.”

  When the news reached Scipio of the junction of the Carthaginian and Numidian forces and of their approach, he acted promptly. Leaving only a small detachment to keep up the appearance of a siege by land and sea, he set out to meet the enemy, his whole force being in light marching order—he evidently judged that rapidity was the key to this fresh menace, to strike before they could weld their new force into a strong weapon. On the fifth day he reached the Great Plain, and fortified a camp on a hill some three and a half miles distant from the enemy’s camp. The two following days he advanced his forces, harassing the enemy’s outposts, in order to tempt them out to battle. The bait succeeded on the third day, and the enemy’s combined army came out of their camp and drew up in order of battle. They placed the Celtiberians, their picked troops, in the centre, the Numidians on the left, and the Carthaginians on the right. “ Scipio simply followed the usual Roman practice of placing the maniples of hastati in front, behind them the principes, and hindmost of all the triarii.” He disposed his Italian cavalry on his right, facing Syphax’s Numidians, and Masinissa’s Numidians on his left, facing the Carthaginian horse. At the first encounter the enemy’s wings were broken by the Italian and Masinissa’s cavalry. Scipio’s rapidity of march and foresight in striking before Hasdrubal and Syphax had consolidated their raw levies was abundantly justified. Moreover, on one side moral was heightened by recent success, and on the other lowered by recent disaster.