THE FIRST AMBUSH SITE
Control of this natural gateway lay completely in the hands of the mountain Allobroges, who may have had their fortress just above modern Voreppe, one plausible ambush place that fits what Polybius tells us. It had ample watch points along the ridge from which one could view any movement in all directions along the valley below.11 The only feasible pathway lay immediately under their noses at the base of the bluff plateau on the north side of the Isère Valley. Hannibal’s scouts reported back to him that this pathway was not only watched by armed men above but also that they made clear their intentions that they would oppose his army’s passage.
However, Hannibal’s Celtic guides also informed him that the Allobroges had left their vantage posts and gone to their fort and nearby homes for the night, thinking Hannibal would not possibly advance after dark. A night sally by anyone, especially strangers unfamiliar with the steep terrain, would be completely unconventional. Hannibal, however, was always unconventional, as the Romans would also discover to their misfortune. He carefully set his plan to foil the Allobroges at their own game of launching an ambush from higher ground. One wonders how much Hannibal had learned about raids and ambushes from the Celtiberians in Spain as well as in Gaul, where opportunistic Celtic raids were a common maneuver.12 Hannibal would later employ similar raids and ambushes on the Romans with great success.
Hannibal left the bulk of his army camped below with their fires burning as usual to lull the enemy and formed a contingent of his best men, which he led himself to climb up to the narrowest path and take over the Celts’ watch posts by night. Leading the way always endeared him to his soldiers, who saw that he took the same risks they did. They recognized that he would not order anyone to do what he was unwilling to attempt himself. Hannibal’s men took over every one of the Allobroges’ watch points above the guarded road.
Daylight came, and the surprised Allobroges found that all of their control points were occupied by Hannibal’s men. They probably would have given up had they not seen that Hannibal’s long train of soldiers, who had to march in narrow file due to the terrain was accompanied by pack animals carrying the greatest amount of supplies they had ever imagined, laden and crawling slowly along the valley. This veritable cornucopia of an army’s provisions overcame the Allobroges’ initial hesitance over being outsmarted. They rushed en masse from their fortress—a typical Celtic battle maneuver of “all or nothing” in a headlong “frenzied assault” as Stephen Allen puts it13—to attack the long column exactly where the pack animals were thickest and least protected by soldiers. It was pandemonium for the narrowly constricted army, usually disciplined but nearly trapped here.
Even though Hannibal expected something like this, the ambush was horrible at first for his army, as many animals and men were casualties of both the Allobroges marauders and the steep path. Wounded army horses rushed pell-mell in both directions up and down the path and knocked many other pack animals off the route into the dense shrubbery on the steep hillside where the Celts stripped them of their goods and killed their drivers.
Alerted by the screams of men and animals, Hannibal realized that he could lose his entire provisions. He brought back all his men who had been guarding the route from higher ground above. Some were sent down into the Celts, many of whom scattered with their stolen goods, while other warriors were ordered to the head of his column, where the fighting was fiercest. Although he soon routed the Allobroges, his soldiers chasing them in all directions into the woods, it was at some material cost. Hannibal lost quite a few men and animals. A lot more pack animals laden with supplies were unaccounted for at first, having fled in terror. However, his men slowly collected them, and his army resumed its march over the most dangerous narrows until all emerged in the broader Isère river valley under the high ridges.
But Hannibal also took the nearly empty Celtic fort, since its Allobroges inhabitants had fled to the surrounding countryside, and here he not only recovered the remainder of his pack animals that had not been butchered in the battle but also took all the food supplies that the Allobroges had harvested for the coming winter. In addition, he took their abandoned cattle, which they normally kept within their walls when under siege or at war. The Celts’ reports of Hannibal’s success and the losses of the Allobroges were such an effective propaganda tool that none of the other tribes dared attack Hannibal’s army as they wound their way up into the mountains.
MARCH TO THE MOUNTAINS
Hannibal seems to have turned away from the Isère and instead would have followed the ancient established Maurienne trade route of the Celts in the Arc River Valley—another demarcation point of different Celtic mountain tribes, as is true of so many Alps watersheds. His scouts must have informed him of this historic route. As the news about the Allobroges’ losses spread to successive Celtic hamlets and towns, no one harassed the army for four days,14 although these smaller tribes must have looked longingly at the uncountable wealth slowly passing by in both animals and the piled goods they carried.
The autumn weather in the mountains was turning increasingly cold. Darkening clouds now heavy with freezing rain, hail, and even sleet forced the army to slog over ground that was frost covered when they woke in the morning. It was now moving toward late October, and when the clouds lifted, the men crowded together around campfires could see that the mountain peaks above the tree lines were white with heavy snow. Every soldier and Hannibal himself must have wondered at night how much farther the army had to go and how high the army had to ascend to reach the frontier of Italy. But Hannibal quietly inspired his men by his own sacrifices. Instead of demanding special comforts befitting his rank as Carthaginian nobility and their general, Hannibal slept humbly on the hard ground just like his tough soldiers, wrapped only in a few heavy blankets. This fact—possibly intended to emulate a young Alexander the Great—would be remembered forever by his and other armies and later recorded by his duly impressed enemies. Everything Hannibal did had at least one strategic purpose and likely was layered with deeper intent to breed loyalty. But this quality would soon be tested in the high Alps towering just above the army.
Eight
* * *
THE SECOND AMBUSH
Hannibal was never a forgiving enemy. He hauled away more than a few Celts in chains as a harsh lesson, but his army did not stay long in the Allobroges area. Picking up the pace again after a day of counting forces, tending the wounded, reorganizing scattered supplies, and reconnoitering the way ahead, Hannibal relentlessly marched his army onward along the Arc River Valley for four consecutive days. At first, the going was relatively easy, as the wide valley was still sufficiently flat for a few ranks of soldiers and pack animals to walk side by side. The elephants still had plenty of fodder and enough plants alongside the river even in late autumn, but early winter would strain the fodder resource.
HANNIBAL’S PREPARATION FOR THE MOUNTAINS
Reflecting on what Hannibal knew in advance of his long, intrepid march to Italy and why he would attack it in the first place, Polybius makes it abundantly clear that Hannibal had long studied this problem while still in Spain, seeking added wise counsel of allied tribes such as the Boii in Italy:
“He had informed himself accurately about the fertility of the land at the foot of the Alps and near the river Po, the denseness of its population, the bravery of the men in war, and above all their hatred of Rome ever since that former war with the Romans.”1
Polybius, too, scoffed at those who said Hannibal was unprepared for the daunting Alpine journey, saying that the general knew about earlier Alpine passages by Celtic armies and had good intelligence about possible routes.2 Polybius also maintained that Hannibal knew it was “toilsome and difficult but not at all impossible.”3 Hannibal trusted the hatred of Rome by the Boii Celts and others like them on the other side of the Alps to make the mountain crossing worthwhile. He anticipated their assistance when he emerged from the mountains. It was the Romans who were surprised, pa
rtly because they were mainly flatlanders and a farming culture less inclined to mountains, hoping in vain that the Alps would shield them like a wall. But by now, the Romans knew Hannibal was coming and futilely tried to anticipate where he would exit from the Alps.
The Romans’ general lack of knowledge of the Alps was exacerbated by the fact they had almost no discernible allies in the mountains who could report back to them. The Romans deployed mainly around Placentia in the Po Valley, far enough from the Alps to wait for Hannibal to reappear from the west.
Where exactly Hannibal crossed the Alps remains unknown in the absence of sufficient archaeological evidence.4 Regardless of which pass Hannibal ultimately used on the alpine approach, the nights grew colder and colder for Hannibal’s army as the valley narrowed and their gradient changed. The army had to cover itself with warmer clothes and leathers or skins of whatever they could find. Feet had to be wrapped in thicker skins to keep out the seeping frigid dampness of the ground.
The most likely Celtic tribes in the Arc River Valley area were the Medulli, a fiercely territorial people probably headquartered in the Maurienne region near the modern town of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne, near where at least four vital montane passes debouched into the same Arc Valley.
As the tribal lands changed and became unfamiliar to Celts allied with Hannibal, the danger grew that he could be led into a trap. Here Hannibal exerted great discipline over his army and his scouts. He sent reconnoitering guides a day ahead in small groups, likely pairing Celts with his trusted scouts in order to verify information and topographic detail. If he suspected any danger or duplicity in their reports, he would grill the Celts face-to-face, closely watching their eyes and body language.
There is little doubt that Hannibal would have quickly punished false information with death, likely preceded by torture, both as a warning and to elicit further information that could be tested. An experienced military leader like Hannibal had little tolerance for anything but straightforward answers or honest uncertainty. Much has been made of Hannibal’s psychological probity in reading people, especially enemies, and he certainly would have also relied on wise counsel as well as the most trusted translators in planning each day’s journey in terms of where to stop at night, as well as allocating supplies and acquiring food for an army, always a demanding task, made even more complicated by voracious elephants.
THE LOGISTICAL PROBLEMS OF AN ARMY’S FOOD SUPPLY
Unless quartermasters (supply officers) and pursers (accounts officers) are buying food from locals, and unless active hunters and foragers are constantly reserving food supplies and rations dispersal is well organized, an army on the move is a logistical supply nightmare. It can consume far more than the pack animals can carry from considerable distances. This is ultimately a daily battle of a totally different nature. That Hannibal faced this worrisome conundrum on a daily basis through the Alpine passage was compounded by the fact that winter was fast approaching and food sources were diminishing. Only the most farsighted leader can pull off what Hannibal must have accomplished. And even then, his army suffered devastating losses that would be unacceptable in modern warfare.
Along the way upriver early on the fourth day since the first ambush, according to Polybius,5 one group of treacherous mountain Celts pretended to bring Hannibal gifts and wreaths as a signal of peace. They claimed to know about the recent Allobroges humiliation. Their chiefs even offered cattle and hostages, but they may have been just as easily counting spears and mules and opportunities. Polybius says it was clearly a Celtic conspiracy but that Hannibal was also more than a little suspicious of their intentions. Ultimately, he trusted his honed military instincts and wasn’t fooled by their sycophantic behavior. From years of experience in Spanish Celtiberian cultures, Hannibal knew that an attack could come during the day any time now. He set out his sentries and pickets at night, sure that the cover of darkness would nonetheless be too difficult even for the local Celts, who were almost certainly looking at the hundreds of campfires of the army as they waited for just the right place to attack.
If Hannibal’s route was through the Arc Valley, he would have to cross the Arc River somewhere soon. Wary watchers and scouts in the hill forts of the Medulli above the valley had perfect views of the army now beginning to struggle much more slowly, as the ascent grew steep. It is likely that the army moved along the northern plateau along the valley toward Aussois,6 which was the Celtic pathway and afforded a wider column until one had to descend to cross the Arc River at the shallowest fording. Celtic sentries would have seen the army coming, and there are several isolated rocky buttes that have yielded Iron Age finds, most likely from Medulli Celts.7
Even if substantial reports had reached the Medulli of how Hannibal had punished the Allobroges, the temptation of so many pack animals laden with food plodding along in single file must have promised easy pickings for these mountain Celts, whose own food resources and animals would be challenged by the coming winter.
Hannibal himself would not have missed seeing the occasional stubble of long-harvested fields in the narrow valleys as they passed a few rustic and small mountain hamlets. He would have seen occasional thin columns of smoke rising over the forest from cooking fires in higher hamlets. He knew there was a sizable highland population living here—large enough to amass a fierce battle force—and if few locals came out to greet him, Hannibal knew it was because of hostility among the mountain Celts.
Infrequent sounds of crashing branches at the margin of the forest heard by the passing army would have been animals such as foraging wild boars, not frightened Celts. Livy, more interested in color than Polybius, gives just the sort of expected cinematic embellishment to this part of the ascent from the point of view of the army: “The dreadful vision was now before their eyes: the towering peaks, the snowclad pinnacles soaring to the sky, the rude huts clinging to the rocks, the people with their wild and ragged hair, stiff with frost.”8
Hannibal was duly apprehensive, according to Polybius, sensing the danger and the sudden absence of genuine friendly Celtic contact. He carefully separated his forces, especially placing his pack animal train and cavalry at the front of the long column and his heavy infantry at the rear. Polybius claims the army would have been destroyed completely if Hannibal had not done exactly as he did.
THE SECOND CELTIC AMBUSH IN THE MOUNTAINS
Two days later, the attack struck just as the army was preparing for the hardest ascent yet on the following day near the Arc River crossing. The army was slowly traversing the base of a steep, rocky canyon that Polybius calls leukopetron, or the “white rock place.”9 This stunning white gorge of the modern-day French village of Bramans stands out dramatically against the trees around it, its exfoliating dolomite and gypsum anticline (a geologic arch bending upward in mountains) a major landmark for thousands of years.10 While “white rock” places above tree lines are too numerous in the Alps to count, this location commends itself highly because it is framed by dark forest and lies only one day from a summit connecting a major alpine route between Gaul and Italia.
Here at Bramans—if this is the right place—the knots of invisible Celts hidden just at the tree line suddenly unleashed their ambush from above, rolling boulders down or hurling rocks. Volleys of arrows rained down as well. Pandemonium took over amid the clamor from animals and shouts of Hannibal’s army trying to bring order in this tight place where echoes magnified the din of screams and crashing rocks.
When the Celts, who knew this terrain well, assembled quickly from the nearby forest, attacking Hannibal’s rear in a bristling wave of force, the trained heavy infantry placed there by Hannibal mostly met this immediate challenge. But nearest to the front, a majority of the pack animals and many men were crushed by rocks, and their mangled supplies were scattered or damaged. They became useless except to scavengers. Terrified horses reared and threw their riders as the rocks and boulders fell around them. The screams of maimed men and dying animals reverberated across the gor
ge. Perhaps only the elephants seemed relatively unscathed, as the Celts were afraid of these strange animals and may have stayed as far as possible from them.
With so many broken men dying, Hannibal’s army appeared doomed. The Celts were sure they had bottled up the intruders when darkness fell and much of the battered army had to spend a most uncomfortable night in this gorge, the darkness punctuated by moans of wounded and dying men and animals. The rest of the army may have retreated back down the valley away from the gorge. Whether or not Hannibal was led into a trap here at Bramans by duplicitous guides is not known, and Polybius does not confirm it, but it is not unlikely. Livy claims that there was “deliberate deception” among some of the guides.11
But the Celts who staged the ambush, however fierce, were unaware of how quickly a trained army can respond. They made a grave mistake, similar to the Allobroges before them, completely underestimating this wily general with an uncanny ability to outsmart his enemies. Thinking Hannibal was trapped and immobilized in the gorge, the Celts apparently went home for the night to rest, relishing the fruit of their ambush waiting for daylight.
HANNIBAL ESCAPES THE GORGE
But the fast-thinking Hannibal had already planned his next move. The most likely scenario is that after sending trained stealthy assassins to circle around in the dark and slit the throats of the few guards left at the valley mouth, Hannibal waited only for the earliest light of dawn and moved his men as fast as possible over the rocks until they slipped away and the rest of the army rejoined him. If the ambush indeed took place at the Bramans Gorge, the most logical escape route would have been to ascend eastward out of the gorge rather than continuing north along the Arc Valley—occupied by the Celtic villagers, who could be mobilized to block an army’s progress in such increasingly narrow places.
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