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By the Same Author

THE CAMPAIGN OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. With Maps.

RIDERS OF MANY LANDS. Profusely illustrated by Remington, and from photographs of Oriental subjects.

A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF OUR CIVIL WAR. With Maps and Illustrations. Students’ Edition.

PATROCLUS AND PENELOPE: A Chat in the Saddle. Popular Edition. With woodcuts from instantaneous photographs.

GREAT CAPTAINS. With Maps, etc.

Great Captains:

ALEXANDER. A History of the Origin and Growth of the Art of War, from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Ipsus, B.C. 301; with a detailed account of the Campaigns of the Great Macedonian. With 237 Charts, Maps, Plans of Battles and Tactical Manœuvres, Cuts of Armor, Uniforms, Siege Devices, and Portraits. 2 vols.

HANNIBAL. A History of the Art of War among the Carthaginians and Romans, down to the Battle of Pydna, 168 B.C.; with a detailed account of the Second Punic War. With 227 Charts, Maps, Plans of Battles and Tactical Manœuvres, Cuts of Armor, Weapons, and Uniforms. 2 vols.

CÆSAR. A History of the Art of War among the Romans, down to the End of the Roman Empire; with a detailed account of the Campaigns of Caius Julius Cæsar. With 258 Charts, Maps, Plans of Battles and Tactical Manœuvres, Cuts of Armor, Weapons, and Engines. 2 vols.

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. A History of the Art of War from its revival after the Middle Ages to the end of the Spanish Succession War, with a detailed account of the Campaigns of the great Swede, and the most famous Campaigns of Turenne, Condé, Eugene, and Marlborough. With 237 Charts, Maps, Plans of Battles and Tactical Manœuvres, Cuts of Uniforms, Arms, and Weapons. 2 vols.

NAPOLEON. A History of the Art of War, with many Charts, Maps, Plans of Battles and Tactical Manœuvres, Portraits, Cuts of Uniforms, Arms, and Weapons.

VOL. I. Includes the period from the beginning of the French Revolution to the end of the Eighteenth Century, with a detailed account of the Wars of the French Revolution.

VOL. II. Includes the period from the beginning of the Consulate to the end of the Friedland Campaign, with a detailed account of the Napoleonic Wars.

VOL. III. Includes the period from the beginning of the Peninsular War to the end of the Russian Campaign.

VOL. IV. Includes the period from the battle of Lützen through Napoleon’s last campaign.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston and New York

GREAT CAPTAINS

A COURSE OF SIX LECTURES

SHOWING THE INFLUENCE ON THE ART OF WAR
OF THE CAMPAIGNS OF

ALEXANDER, HANNIBAL, CÆSAR,
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, FREDERICK, AND NAPOLEON

BY
THEODORE AYRAULT DODGE
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel United States Army, Retired List. Author of
“The Campaign of Chancellorsville;” “A Bird’s-eye View of
Our Civil War;” “Patroclus and Penelope—A
Chat in the Saddle,” etc., etc., etc.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

Copyright, 1889
By THEODORE A. DODGE
All rights reserved

TO
John Codman Ropes
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF
MANY ACTS OF FRIENDSHIP AND HELPFULNESS
AND IN GENUINE APPRECIATION OF HIS
ACUMEN AS A MILITARY CRITIC AND HIS FELICITY AS
AN AUTHOR
THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED
WITH CORDIAL ESTEEM
BY THE AUTHOR

PREFACE.

The following lectures were delivered in Boston, under the auspices of the Lowell Institute, in January, 1889. Their conciseness needs but the apology of scant time. Little can be said about Alexander or Napoleon within the limit of an hour. The sketches are of necessity meagre. They are a summary in part of a larger work, of which the author hopes soon to begin the publication, in which a volume will be devoted to each great captain, and mention made of other soldiers who have contributed to the growth of the art of war. The lectures aim to indicate briefly what we owe to the great captains, and to draw an intelligible outline of their careers, which may be filled in by reference to the extended narratives of others. Historical detail often assumes prominence in the mind to the exclusion of general form. It is the latter which it is attempted to portray.

It is generally admitted that Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Frederick, and Napoleon belong in a class by themselves. Some may claim for Marlborough or Prince Eugene an equality with Gustavus Adolphus. But, mindful that Gustavus was the first to rescue methodical war from the oblivion of the Middle Ages, and that he originated the modern system,—the art appears to owe that to him which entitles him to greater rank, though, indeed, the achievements of others may have reached or even exceeded the height of his.

All sources of information have been utilized, from Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander to Jomini’s Life of Napoleon. Among quite recent works, special thanks are due to the exhaustive History of War of Prince Galitzin, and the Studies of Count von Wartenburg.

CONTENTS

LIST OF MAPS.

LECTURE I.
ALEXANDER.

The earliest history is but a record of wars. Peace had no events stirring enough to call for record. It was the conflict of heroes which inspired the oldest and still greatest of poems. As the more intelligent peoples were, as a rule, the victors, the march of civilization followed in the footsteps of war up to very recent times. The history of war has been carefully recorded for nearly twenty-five centuries, but the science of war, in a written form, dates back less than one hundred years.

The art of war owes its origin and growth to the deeds of a few great captains. Not to their brilliant victories; not to the noble courage evoked by their ambition; not to their distortion of mechanics and the sciences into new engines of slaughter; not to their far-reaching conquests; but to their intellectual conceptions. For war is as highly intellectual as astronomy. The main distinction between the one and the other lies in the fact that the intellectual conception of the general must at once be so put into play as to call for the exertion of the moral forces of his character, while the astronomer’s inspiration stops at a purely mental process. What has produced the great captains is the coexistence of extraordinary intellect and equal force of character, coupled with events worthy of and calling out these qualities in their highest expression.

My effort will be to suggest how, out of the campaigns and battles of the great captains, has arisen what to-day we call the art of war,—not so much out of the technical details, which are a subordinate matter, as the general scheme; and to show that, while war is governed by its rules as well as art, it is the equipment of the individual which makes an Alexander or a Michael Angelo. Six of these captains stand distinctly in a class by themselves, far above any others. They are, in ancient days, Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar,—all within three hundred years of each other. Then follows a gap of seventeen centuries of unmethodical war, and we complete the list with Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon,—all within two centuries. “The art of war is the most difficult of all arts, the military reputation in general the greatest of all reputations,” says Napoleon. The limited number of great captains proves this true.

The words campaign and battle cover the same ground as strategy and tactics. Let me make these plain to you, and I shall have done with definitions and technicalities. A campaign consists in the marching of an army about the country or into foreign territory to seek the enemy or inflict damage on him. Strategy is the complement of this term, and is the art of so moving an army over a country,—on the map, as it were,—that when you meet the enemy you shall have placed him in a disadvantageous position for battle or other manœuvres. One or more battles may occur in a campaign. Tactics (or grand tactics, to distinguish the art from the mere details of drill) relates only to and is coextensive with the evolutions of the battle-field. Strategy comprehends your manœuvres when not in the presence of the enemy; tactics, your manœuvres when in contact with him. Tactics has always existed as common military knowledge, often in much perfection. Strategy is of modern creation, as an art which one may study. But all great captains have been great strategists.

To say that strategy is war on the map is no figure of speech. Napoleon always planned and conducted his campaigns on maps of the country spread out for him by his staff, and into these maps he stuck colored pins to indicate where his divisions were to move. Having thus wrought out his plan, he issued orders accordingly. To the general, the map is a chessboard, and upon this he moves his troops as you or I move queen and knight.

Parallel Order

Previous to Cyrus, about 550 B.C., we have a record of nothing useful to the modern soldier. Nimrod, Semiramis, Sesostris were no doubt distinguished conquerors. But they have left nothing for us to profit by. War was a physical, not an intellectual art, for many centuries. Armies marched out to meet each other, and, if an ambush was not practicable, drew up in parallel order, and fought till one gave way. The greater force could form the longer line and overlap and turn the other’s flanks. And then, as to-day, a flank attack was fatal; for men cannot fight unless they face the foe; and a line miles in length needs time to change its front.

Battle of Thymbra B.C. 545

Cyrus is to the soldier the first historical verity. In the battle of Thymbra, according to Xenophon, where Crœsus outnumbered him more than two to one and overlapped his flanks, he disposed his troops in so deep a tactical order of five lines, and so well protected his flanks, that when Crœsus’ wings wheeled in to encompass him, his reserves in the fifth line could fall on the flanks of these very wheeling wings. And as the wheel was extensive and difficult of execution, it produced a gap between wing and centre,—as Cyrus had expected,—and into this he poured with a chosen body, took Crœsus’ centre in reverse, and utterly overthrew him and his kingdom. Cyrus overran in his conquests almost as great a territory as Alexander.

It is of advantage to see what had been done before Alexander’s time,—to understand how much Alexander knew of war from others. For Alexander found war in a crude state and conducted it with the very highest art. That his successors did not do so is due to the fact that they did not understand, or were not capable of imitating him.

Cyrus’ successor, Darius I. (B.C. 513), undertook a campaign against the Scythians north of the Danube, with, it is said, seven hundred thousand men. The Greek Mandrocles bridged for this army both the Bosphorus and the Danube, no mean engineering feat to-day.

Shortly after came the Persian invasion of Greece and the battle of Marathon (490 B.C.). Here occurred one of the early tactical variations from the parallel order. Miltiades had but eleven thousand men; the Persians had ten times as many. They lay on the sea-shore in front of their fleet. To reach and lean his flanks on two brooks running to the sea, Miltiades made his centre thin, his wings strong, and advanced sharply on the enemy. As was inevitable, the deep Persian line easily broke through his centre. But Miltiades had either anticipated and prepared his army for this, or else seized the occasion by a very stroke of genius. There was no symptom of demoralization. The Persian troops followed hard after the defeated centre. Miltiades caused each wing to wheel inwards, and fell upon both flanks of the Persian advance, absolutely overwhelming it, and throwing it back upon the main line in such confusion as to lead to complete victory.

Before Battle of Marathon

You must note that demoralization always plays an immense part in battle. The Old Dessauer capped all battle-tactics with his: “Wenn Du gehst nicht zurück, so geht der Feind zurück!” (If you don’t fall back, why, the enemy will fall back.) Whenever a tactical manœuvre unnerves the enemy, it at once transforms his army into a mob. The reason why Pickett’s charge did not succeed was that there was no element of demoralization in the Union ranks. Had there been, Gettysburg might have become a rebel victory.

The Peloponnesian War shows instances of far-seeing strategy, such as the seizure of Pylos (B.C. 425), whence the threat of incursions on Sparta’s rear obliged her to relax her hold on the throat of Athens. Brasidas was the general who, at this time, came nearest to showing the moral and intellectual combination of the great soldier. His marches through Thessaly and Illyria and his defeat of Cleon at Amphipolis were admirable. He it was who first marched in a hollow square, with baggage in the centre.

Greek Manœuvre at Marathon

The soldier of greatest use to us preceding Alexander was unquestionably Xenophon. After participating in the defeat of Cyrus the Younger by Artaxerxes, at Cunaxa (B.C. 401), in which battle the Greek phalanx had held its own against twenty times its force, Xenophon was chosen to command the rear-guard of the phalanx in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand to the Sea; and it is he who has shown the world what should be the tactics of retreat,—how to command a rear-guard. No chieftain ever possessed a grander moral ascendant ever his men. More tactical originality has come from the Anabasis than from any dozen other books. For instance, Xenophon describes accurately a charge over bad ground in which, so to speak, he broke forward by the right of companies,—one of the most useful minor manœuvres. He built a bridge on goat-skins stuffed with hay, and sewed up so as to be water-tight. He established a reserve in rear of the phalanx from which to feed weak parts of the line,—a superb first conception. He systematically devastated the country traversed to arrest pursuit. After the lapse of twenty-three centuries there is no better military textbook than the Anabasis.

Alexander had a predecessor in the invasion of Asia. Agesilaus, King of Sparta, went (B.C. 399) to the assistance of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, unjustly oppressed by Tissaphernes. He set sail with eight thousand men and landed at Ephesus; adjusted the difficulties of these cities, and, having conducted two successful campaigns in Phrygia and Caria, returned to Lacedemon overland.

Battle of Leuctra B.C. 371

Associated with one of the most notable tactical manœuvers—the oblique order of battle—is the immortal name of Epaminondas. This great soldier originated what all skilful generals have used frequently and to effect, and what Frederick the Great showed in its highest perfection at Leuthen. As already observed, armies up to that time had with rare exceptions attacked in parallel order and fought until one or other gave way. At Leuctra (B.C. 371), Epaminondas had six thousand men, against eleven thousand of the invincible Spartans. The Thebans were dispirited by many failures, the Lacedemonians in good heart. The Spartan king was on the right of his army. Epaminondas tried a daring innovation. He saw that if he could break the Spartan right, he would probably drive the enemy from the field. He therefore quadrupled the depth of his own left, making it a heavy column, led it sharply forward, and ordered his centre and right to advance more slowly, so as not seriously to engage. The effect was never doubtful. While the Spartan centre and left was held in place by the threatening attack of the Theban centre and right, as well as the combat of the cavalry between the lines, their right was overpowered and crushed; having defeated which, Epaminondas wheeled around on the flank of the Spartan centre and left, and swept them from the field. The genius of a great tactician had prevailed over numbers, prestige, and confidence. At Mantinæ, nine years later, Epaminondas practised the same manœuvre with equal success, but himself fell in the hour of victory. (B.C. 362.)

The Greek phalanx was the acme of shock tactics. It was a compact body, sixteen men deep, whose long spears bristled to the front in an array which for defence or attack on level ground made it irresistible. No body of troops could withstand its impact. Only on broken ground was it weak. Iphicrates, of Athens, had developed the capacity of light troops by a well-planned skirmish-drill and discipline, and numbers of these accompanied each phalanx, to protect its flanks and curtain its advance.

Such, then, had been the progress in military art when Alexander the Great was born. Like Hannibal and Frederick, Alexander owed his military training and his army to his father. Philip had been a hostage in Thebes in his youth, had studied the tactics of Epaminondas, and profited by his lessons. When he ascended the throne of Macedon, the army was but a rabble. He made and left it the most perfect machine of ancient days. He armed his phalanx with the sarissa, a pike twenty-one feet long, and held six feet from the loaded butt. The sarissas of the five front ranks protruded from three to fifteen feet beyond the line; and all were interlocked. This formed a wall of spears which nothing could penetrate. The Macedonian phalanx was perfectly drilled in a fashion much like our evolutions in column, and was distinctly the best in Greece. It was unconquered till later opposed by the greater mobility of the Roman legion. The cavalry was equally well drilled. Before Philip’s death, in all departments, from the ministry of war down, the army of Macedon was as perfect in all its details as the army of Prussia is to-day.

Philip also made, and Alexander greatly improved, what was the equivalent of modern artillery. The catapult was a species of huge bow, capable of throwing pikes weighing from ten to three hundred pounds over half a mile. It could also hurl a large number of leaden bullets at each fire. It was the cannon of the ancients. The ballista was their mortar, and threw heavy stones with accurate aim to a considerable distance. It could cast flights of arrows. Alexander constructed and was always accompanied by batteries of ballistas and catapults, the essential parts of which were even more readily transported than our mountain batteries. These were not, however, commonly used in battle, but rather in the attack and defence of defiles, positions, and towns.

Alexander’s first experience in a pitched battle was at Chæronea (B.C. 338), on which field Philip won his election as Autocrator, or general-in-chief, of the armies of Greece. Here, a lad of eighteen, Alexander commanded the Macedonian left wing, and defeated the hitherto invincible Theban Sacred Band by his repeated and obstinate charges at the head of the Thessalian horse. Philip had for years harbored designs of an expedition against the Persian monarchy, but did not live to carry them out. Alexander succeeded him at the age of twenty (B.C. 336). He had been educated under Aristotle. No monarch of his years was ever so well equipped as he in head and heart. Like Frederick, he was master from the start. “Though the name has changed, the king remains,” quoth he. His arms he found ready to hand, tempered in his father’s forge. But it was his own strength and skill which wielded them.

The Greeks considered themselves absolved from Macedonian jurisdiction by the death of Philip. Not so thought Alexander. He marched against them, turning the passes of Tempe and Kallipeuke by hewing a path along the slopes of Mount Ossa, and made himself master of Thessaly. The Amphictyonic Council deemed it wise to submit, and elected him Autocrator in place of his father.

Alexander’s one ambition had always been to head the Greeks in punishing the hereditary enemy of Hellas, the Persian king. He had imbibed the idea of his Asiatic conquests in his early youth, and had once, as a lad, astonished the Persian envoys to the Court of Pella by his searching and intelligent questions concerning the peoples and resources of the East.

Before starting on such an expedition, however, he must once for all settle the danger of barbarian incursions along his borders. This he did in a campaign brilliant by its skilful audacity; but on a rumor of his defeat and death among the savages, Thebes again revolted. Alexander, by a march of three hundred miles in two weeks across a mountainous country, suddenly appeared at her gates, captured and destroyed the city, and sold the inhabitants into slavery. Athens begged off. Undisputed chief, he now set out for Asia with thirty thousand foot and five thousand horse. (B.C. 334.)

There is time but for the description of a single campaign and battle of this great king’s. The rest of his all but superhuman exploits must be hurried through with barely a mention, and the tracing of his march on the map. I have preferred to select for longer treatment the battle of the Hydaspes, for Issus and Arbela are more generally familiar.

Alexander’s first battle after crossing into Asia was at the Granicus, where he defeated the Persian army with the loss of a vast number of their princes and generals. Thence he advanced through Mysia and Lydia, freeing the Greek cities on the way, captured Miletus and Halicarnassus, and having made himself a necessary base on the Ægean, marched through Caria and Lycia, fighting for every step, but always victorious, not merely by hard blows, but by hard blows delivered where they would best tell. Then through Phrygia to Gordium (where he cut the Gordian knot), and through Cappadocia to Cilicia. He then passed through the Syrian Gates—a mountain gap—heading for Phœnicia. Here Darius got in his rear by passing through the Amanic Gates farther up the range, which Alexander either did not know, or singularly enough had overlooked. The Macedonians were absolutely cut off from their communications. But, nothing daunted, Alexander kept his men in heart, turned on Darius, and defeated him at Issus, with a skill only equalled by his hopeful boldness, and saved himself harmless from the results of a glaring error.

So far (B.C. 333), excepting this, Alexander had taken no step which left any danger in his rear. He had confided every city and country he had traversed to the hands of friends. His advance was our first instance on a grand scale of methodical war,—the origin of strategy. He continued in this course, not proposing to risk himself in the heart of Persia until he had reduced to control the entire coast-line of the Eastern Mediterranean as a base. This task led him through Syria, Phœnicia,—where the siege of Tyre, one of the few greatest sieges of antiquity, delayed him seven months,—and Palestine to Egypt. Every part of this enormous stretch of coast was subjugated.

Having in possession, practically, all the seaports of the then civilized world, and having neutralized the Persian fleet by victories on land and at sea, Alexander returned to Syria, marched inland and crossed the Euphrates and Tigris, thus projecting his line of advance from the centre of his base. At Arbela he defeated the Persian army in toto, though they were twenty to his one. Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, and Pasargadæ opened their gates to the conquerer. But Darius escaped.

It was now the spring of 330 B.C. Only four years had elapsed and Alexander had overturned the Persian Empire; and though he left home with a debt of eight hundred talents, he had won a treasure estimated at from one hundred and fifty millions of dollars up.

CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER B.C. 334–323

Alexander now followed Darius through Media and the Caspian Gates to Parthia, subduing the several territories he traversed. He found Darius murdered by the satraps who attended him. This was no common disappointment to Alexander, for the possession of the person of the Great King would have not only rendered his further conquests more easy, but would have ministered enormously to his natural and fast-growing vanity. He pursued the murderers of Darius, but as he could not safely leave enemies in his rear, he was compelled to pause and reduce Aria, Drangiana, and Arachosia. Then he made his way over the Caucasus into Bactria and Sogdiana, the only feat which equals Hannibal’s passage of the Alps. His eastern limit was the river Jaxartes, the crossing of which was made under cover of his artillery,—its first use for such a purpose. The details of all these movements are so wonderful and show such extraordinary courage, enterprise, and intelligence, such exceptional power over men, so true a conception of the difficulties to be encountered, such correct judgment as to the best means of overcoming them, that if the test should be the accomplishment of the all but impossible, Alexander would easily stand at the head of all men who have ever lived. He now formed the project of conquering India, and, returning over the Caucasus, marched to the Indus and crossed it. Other four years had been consumed since he left Persepolis. It was May, B.C. 326.

Battle of The Hydaspes B.C. 326

Alexander was in the Punjaub, the land of the five rivers. The Hydaspes was swollen with the storms of the rainy season and the melting snows of the Himalayas. The roads were execrable. On the farther side of the river, a half-mile wide, could be seen Porus, noted as the bravest and most able king in India, with his army drawn up before his camp and his elephants and war-chariots in front, ready to dispute his crossing. The Hydaspes is nowhere fordable, except in the dry season. Alexander saw that he could not force a passage in the face of this array, and concluded to manœuvre for a chance to cross. He had learned from experience that the Indians were good fighters. His cavalry could not be made to face their elephants. He was reduced to stratagem, and what he did has ever since been the model for the passage of rivers, when the enemy occupies the other bank. Alexander first tried to convince Porus that he intended to wait till the river fell, and carefully spread a rumor to this effect. He devastated the country, accumulated vast stores in his camp, and settled his troops in quarters. Porus continued active in scouting the river-banks, and held all the crossings in force. Alexander sent parties in boats up and down the stream, to distract his attention. He made many feints at crossing by night. He put the phalanx under arms in the light of the camp-fires; blew the signals to move; marched the horse up and down; got the boats ready to load. To oppose all this Porus would bring down his elephants to the banks, order his men under arms, and so remain till daylight, lest he should be surprised.

After some time Porus began to weary his troops by marching them out in the inclement weather to forestall attempts to cross; and finding these never actually made, grew careless, believing that Alexander would, in reality, make no serious effort till low water. But Alexander was daily watching his opportunity. He saw that to cross in front of Porus’ camp was still impossible. The presence of the elephants near the shore would surely prevent the horse from landing, and even his infantry was somewhat unnerved by them. But he had learned that large reënforcements were near at hand for Porus, and it was essential to defeat the Indians before these came to hand.

The right bank, on which lay the Macedonians, was high and hilly. The left bank was a wide, fertile plain. Alexander could hide his movements, while observing those of Porus. When he saw that the Indian king had ceased to march out to meet his feigned crossings, he began to prepare for a real one, meanwhile keeping up the blind. Seventeen miles above the camp was a wooded headland formed by a bend in the river and a small affluent, capable of concealing a large force, and itself hidden by a wooded and uninhabited island in its front. This place Alexander connected by a chain of couriers with the camp, and laid posts all along the river, at which, every night, noisy demonstrations were made and numerous fires were lighted, as if large forces were present at each of them. When Porus had been quite mystified as to Alexander’s intentions, Craterus was left with a large part of the army at the main camp, and instructed to make open preparations to cross, but not really to do so unless Porus’ army and the elephants should move up-stream. Between Craterus and the headland, Alexander secreted another large body, with orders to put over when he should have engaged battle. He himself marched, well back of the river and out of sight,—there was no dust to betray him,—to the headland, where preparations had already been completed for crossing.

The night was tempestuous. The thunder and rain, usual during the south-west monsoon, drowned the noise of the workmen and moving troops and concealed the camp-fires, as well as kept Porus’ outposts under shelter. Alexander had caused a number of boats to be cut in two for transportation, but in such manner that they could be quickly joined for use,—the first mention we have of anything like pontoons. Towards daylight the storm abated and the crossing began. Most of the infantry and the heavy cavalry were put over in the boats. The light cavalry swam across, each man sustaining himself on a hay-stuffed skin, so as not to burden the horses. The movement was not discovered until the Macedonians had passed the island, when Porus’ scouts saw what was doing and galloped off with the news. It soon appeared that the army had not landed on the mainland, but on a second island. This was usually accessible by easy fords, but the late rains had swollen the low water from it to the shore to deep and rapid torrent. Here was a dilemma. Unless the troops were at once got over, Porus would be down upon them. There was no time to bring the boats around the island. After some delay and a great many accidents, a place was found where, by wading to their breasts, the infantry could get across. This was done, and the cavalry, already over, was thrown out in front. Alexander, as speedily as possible, set out with his horse, some five thousand strong, and ordered the phalanx, which numbered about six thousand more, to follow on in column, the light foot to keep up, if possible, with the cavalry. He was afraid that Porus might retire, and wished to be on hand to pursue.

Porus could see the bulk of the army under Craterus still occupying the old camp, and knew that the force which had crossed could be but a small part of the army. But he underestimated it, and instead of moving on it in force, sent only some two thousand cavalry and one hundred and twenty chariots, under his son, to oppose it. Porus desired to put off battle till his reënforcements came up. Alexander proposed to force battle.

So soon as Alexander saw that he had but a limited force in his front, he charged down upon it with the heavy horse, “squadron by squadron,” says Arrian, which must have meant something similar to our line in echelon, while the light horse skirmished about its flanks. The enemy was at once broken, and Porus’ son and four hundred men were killed. The chariots, stalled in the deep bottom, were one and all captured.

Porus was nonplussed. Alexander’s manœuvre had been intended to deceive, and had completely deceived him. He could see Craterus preparing to cross, and yet he knew Alexander to be the more dangerous of the two. He was uncertain what to do, but finally concluded to march against Alexander, leaving some elephants and an adequate force opposite Craterus. He had with him four thousand cavalry, three hundred chariots, two hundred elephants, and thirty thousand infantry. Having moved some distance, he drew up his lines on a plain where the ground was solid, and awaited Alexander’s attack.

His arrangements were skilful. In front were the redoubtable elephants, which Porus well knew that Alexander’s cavalry could not face, one hundred feet apart, covering the entire infantry line, some four miles long. The infantry had orders to fill up the gaps between the elephants by companies of one hundred and fifty men. Columns of foot flanked the elephants. These creatures were intended to keep the Macedonian horse at a distance, and trample down the foot when it should advance on the Indian lines. Porus had but the idea of a parallel order, and of a defensive battle at that. His own cavalry was on the wings, and in their front the chariots, each containing two mailed drivers, two heavy and two light-armed men.

When the Macedonian squadrons reached the ground, and the king rode out to reconnoitre, he saw that he must wait for his infantry, and began manœuvring with his horse, to hold himself till the phalanx came up. Had Porus at once advanced on him, he could easily have swept him away. But that he did not do so was of a part with Alexander’s uniform good fortune. The phalanx came up at a lively gait, and the king gave it a breathing-spell, while he kept Porus busy by small demonstrations. The latter, with his elephants, and three to one of men, simply bided his time, calmly confident of the result. Alexander yielded honest admiration to the skill of Porus’ dispositions, and his forethought in opposing the elephants to his own strong arm, the cavalry.

The Macedonians had advanced with their right leaning on the river. Despite the elephants, Alexander must use his horse, if he expected to win. In this arm he outnumbered the enemy. He could not attack in front, nor, indeed, await the onset of the elephants and chariots. With the instinct of genius, and confident that his army could manœuvre with thrice the rapidity of Porus, as well as himself think and act still more quickly, he determined to attack the Indian left in force. He despatched Coenus with a body of heavy horse by a circuit against the enemy’s right, with instructions, if Porus’ cavalry of that wing should be sent to the assistance of the left, to charge in on the naked flank and rear of the Indian infantry. He himself with the bulk and flower of the horse, sustained by the more slowly moving phalanx, made an oblique movement towards Porus’ left. The Indian king at first supposed that Alexander was merely uncovering his infantry, to permit it to advance to the attack, and as such an attack would be playing into Porus’ hands, he awaited results. This, again, was Alexander’s salvation. It left him the offensive. Porus had not yet perceived Coenus’ march, the probably rolling ground had hidden it, and he ordered his right-flank cavalry over to sustain that of the left, towards which flank Alexander was moving. The phalanx, once uncovered, Alexander ordered forward, but not to engage until the wings had been attacked, so as to neutralize the elephants and the chariots.

These dispositions gave the Macedonian line the oblique order of Epaminondas, with left refused. Alexander had used the same order at Issus and Arbela. As he rode forward, he pushed out the Daan horse-bowmen to skirmish with the Indian left, while he, in their rear, by a half wheel, could gain ground to the right sufficient to get beyond and about the enemy’s flank, with the heavy squadrons of Hephæstion and Perdiccas. The Indian horse seems to have been misled by what Alexander was doing,—it probably could not understand the Macedonian tactics,—for it was not well in hand, and had advanced out of supporting distance from the infantry.

Meanwhile Coenus had made his circuit of the enemy’s right, and, the Indian cavalry having already moved over towards the left, he fell on the right flank and rear of the Indian infantry and threw it into such confusion that it was kept inactive during the entire battle. Then, completing his gallant ride, and with the true instinct of the beau sabreur, Coenus galloped along Porus’ rear, to join the mêlée already engaged on the left. To oppose Coenus as well as Alexander, the Indian cavalry was forced to make double front. While effecting this, Alexander drove his stoutest charge home upon them. They at once broke and retired upon the elephants, “as to a friendly wall for refuge,” says Arrian.

A number of these beasts were now made to wheel to the left and charge on Alexander’s horse, but this exposed them in flank to the phalanx, which advanced, wounded many of the animals, and killed most of the drivers. Deprived of guidance, the elephants swerved on the phalangites, but they were received with such a shower of darts that in their affright they made about-face upon the Indian infantry, to the great consternation of the latter.

The Indian cavalry, meanwhile, had rallied under the cover of the elephants, and again faced the Macedonians. But the king renewed his charges again and again,—it was a characteristic feat of Alexander’s, from boyhood up, to be able to get numberless successive charges out of his squadrons,—and forced them back under the brutes’ heels. The Macedonian cavalry was itself much disorganized; but Alexander’s white plume waved everywhere, and under his inspiration, Coenus having now joined, there was, despite disorder, no let-up to the pressure, from both fronts at once, on Porus’ harassed horse.

The situation was curious. The Macedonian cavalry, inspired by the tremendous animation of the king, maintained its constant charges. The Indian cavalry was huddled up close to the infantry and elephants. These unwieldy creatures were alternately urged on the phalanx and driven back on Porus’ line. The Macedonian infantry had plenty of elbow-room, and could retire from them and again advance. The Indian infantry had none. But finally the elephants grew discouraged at being between two fires, lifted their trunks with one accord in a trumpeting of terror, and retired out of action, “like ships backing water,” as Arrian picturesquely describes it.

Alexander now saw that the victory was his. But the situation was still delicate; he kept the phalanx in place and continued his charges upon Porus’ left flank with the cavalry. Finally, Porus, who had been in the thickest of the fray, collected forty of the yet unwounded elephants, and charged on the phalanx, leading the van with his own huge, black, war-elephant. But Alexander met this desperate charge with the Macedonian archers, who swarmed around the monsters, wounded some, cut the ham-strings of others, and killed the drivers.

The charge had failed. At this juncture,—his eye was as keen as Napoleon’s for the critical instant,—Alexander ordered forward the phalanx, with protended sarissas and linked shields, while himself led the cavalry round to the Indian rear, and charged in one final effort with the terrible Macedonian shout of victory. The whole Indian army was reduced to an inert, paralyzed mass. It was only individuals who managed to escape.

The battle had lasted eight hours, and had been won against great odds by crisp tactical skill and the most brilliant use of cavalry. The history of war shows no instance of a more superb and effective use of horse. Coenus exhibited, in carrying out the king’s orders, the clean-cut conception of the cavalry general’s duty, and Alexander’s dispositions were masterly throughout. His prudent forethought in leaving behind him a force sufficient to insure his safety in case of disaster in the battle is especially to be noted.

Craterus and the other detachments now came up, and the pursuit was intrusted to them. Of Porus’ army, twenty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, including numberless chiefs, were killed, and all the chariots, which had proved useless in the battle, were broken up. The Macedonian killed numbered two hundred horse and seven hundred foot. The wounded were not usually counted, but averaged eight to twelve for one of killed. This left few Macedonians who could not boast a wound.

Porus, himself wounded, endeavored to escape on his own elephant. Alexander galloped after on Bucephalus, the horse we all remember that, as a mere lad, he had mounted and controlled by kindness and by skilful, rational treatment, when all others had failed to do so, and who had served him ever since. But the gallant old charger, exhausted by the toils of the day, fell in his tracks and died, at the age of upwards of thirty years. Porus surrendered, when he might have escaped. When brought to Alexander, the king, in admiration of his bravery and skill, asked him what treatment he would like to receive. “That due to a king, Alexander!” proudly replied Porus. “Ask thou more of me,” said Alexander. “To be treated like a king covers all a king can desire,” insisted the Indian monarch. Alexander, recognizing the qualities of the man, made Porus his friend, associate, and ally, and viceroy of a large part of his Punjaub conquests.

The Macedonian king went but a short distance farther into India. His project of reaching the Ganges was ship-wrecked on the determination of his veterans not to advance beyond the Hyphasis. He returned to the Hydaspes, and moved down the river on a huge fleet of two thousand boats, subduing the tribes on either bank as he proceeded on his way. In capturing a city of the Malli he nearly met his death.

This episode is too characteristic of the man to pass by unnoticed. Battles were won in those days by hand-to-hand work, and Alexander always fought like a Homeric hero. He had formed two storming columns, himself heading the one and Perdiccas the other. The Indians but weakly defended the town wall, and retired into the citadel. Alexander at once made his way into the town through a gate which he forced, but Perdiccas was delayed for want of scaling-ladders. Arrived at the citadel, the Macedonians began to undermine its wall, and the ladders were put in position. Alexander, always impatient in his valor, seeing that the work did not progress as fast as his own desires, seized a scaling-ladder, himself planted it, and ascended first of all, bearing his shield aloft, to ward off the darts from above. He was followed by Peucestas, the soldier who always carried before the king in battle the shield brought from the temple of the Trojan Athena, and by Leonnatus, the confidential body-guard. Upon an adjoining ladder went Abreas, a soldier who received double pay for his conspicuous valor. Alexander first mounted the battlements and frayed a place for himself with his sword. The king’s guards, anxious for his safety, crowded upon the ladders in such numbers as to break them down. Alexander was left standing with only Peucestas, Abreas, and Leonnatus upon the wall in the midst of his enemies; but so indomitable were his strength and daring that none came within reach of his sword but to fall. The barbarians had recognized him by his armor and white plume, and the multitude of darts which fell upon him threatened his life at every instant. The Macedonians below implored him to leap down into their outstretched arms. Nothing daunted, however, and calling on every man to follow who loved him, Alexander leaped down inside the wall and, with his three companions backing up against it, stoutly held his own. In a brief moment he had cut down a number of Indians and had slain their leader, who ventured against him. But Abreas fell dead beside him, with an arrow in the forehead, and Alexander was at the same moment pierced by an arrow through the breast. The king valiantly stood his ground till he fell exhausted by loss of blood, and over him, like lions at bay, but glowing with heroic lustre, stood Peucestas, warding missiles from him with the sacred shield, and Leonnatus guarding him with his sword, both dripping blood from many wounds. It seemed that the doom of all was sealed.

The Macedonians, meanwhile, some with ladders and some by means of pegs inserted between the stones in the wall, had begun to reach the top, and one by one leaped within and surrounded the now lifeless body of Alexander. Others forced an entrance through one of the gates and flew to the rescue. Their valor was as irresistible as their numbers were small. The Indians could in no wise resist their terrible onset, their war-cry doubly fierce from rage at the fate of their beloved king, who, to them, was, in truth, a demigod. They were driven from the spot, and Alexander was borne home to the camp. So enraged were the Macedonians at the wounding of their king, whom they believed to be mortally struck, that they spared neither man, woman, nor child in the town.

Alexander’s wounds were indeed grave, but he recovered, much to the joy of his army. While his life was despaired of, a great deal of uncertainty and fear was engendered of their situation, for Alexander was the centre around which revolved the entire mechanism. Without him what could they do? How ever again reach their homes? Every man believed that no one but the king could lead them, and how much less in retreat than in advance!

Alexander’s fleet finally reached the mouth of the Indus. The admiral, Nearchus, sailed to the Persian Gulf, while Alexander and part of his army crossed the desert of Gedrosia, Craterus having moved by a shorter route with another part and the invalids. When Alexander again reached Babylon, his wonderful military career had ended. In B.C. 323, he died there of a fever, and his great conquests and schemes of a Græco-Oriental monarchy were dissipated.

Alexander was possessed of uncommon beauty. Plutarch says that Lysippus made the best portrait of him, “the inclination of the head a little on one side towards the left shoulder, and his melting eye, having been expressed by this artist with great exactness.” His likeness was less fortunately caught by Apelles. He was fair and ruddy, sweet and agreeable in person. Fond of study, he read much history, poetry, and general literature. His favorite book was the Iliad, a copy of which, annotated by Aristotle, with a dagger, always lay under his pillow. He was at all times surrounded by men of brains, and enjoyed their conversation. He was abstinent of pleasures, except drinking. Aristobulus says Alexander did not drink much in quantity, but enjoyed being merry. Still, the Macedonian “much” was more than wisdom dictates. He had no weaknesses, except that he over-enjoyed flattery and was rash in temper.

Alexander was active, and able to endure heat and cold, hunger and thirst, trial and fatigue, beyond even the stoutest. He was exceeding swift of foot, but when young would not enter the Olympic games because he had not kings’ sons to compete with. In an iron body dwelt both an intellect clear beyond compare, and a heart full of generous impulses. He was ambitious, but from high motives. His desire to conquer the world was coupled with the purpose of furthering Greek civilization. His courage was, both physically and morally, high-pitched. He actually enjoyed the delirium of battle, and its turmoils raised his intellect to its highest grade of clearness and activity. His instincts were keen; his perception remarkable; his judgment all but infallible. As an organizer of an army, unapproached; as a leader, unapproachable in rousing the ambition and courage of his men, and in quelling their fears by his own fearlessness. He kept his agreements faithfully. He was a remarkable judge of men. He had the rare gift of natural, convincing oratory, and of making men hang upon his lips as he spoke, and do deeds of heroism after. He lavished money rather on his friends than on himself.

While every inch a king, Alexander was friendly with his men; shared their toils and dangers; never asked an effort he himself did not make; never ordered a hardship of which he himself did not bear part. During the herculean pursuit of Darius,—after a march of four hundred miles in eleven days, on which but sixty of his men could keep beside him, and every one was all but dying of thirst,—when a helmetful of water was offered him, he declined to drink, as there was not enough for all. Such things endear a leader to his men beyond the telling. But Alexander’s temper, by inheritance quick, grew ungovernable. A naturally excitable character, coupled with a certain superstitious tendency, was the very one to suffer from a life which carried him to such a giddy height, and from successes which reached beyond the human limit. We condemn, but, looking at him as a captain, may pass over those dark hours in his life which narrate the murder of Clitus, the execution of Philotas and Parmenio, and the cruelties to Bessus and to Batis. Alexander was distinctly subject to human frailties. His vices were partly inherited, partly the outgrowth of his youth and wonderful career. He repented quickly and sincerely of his evil deeds. Until the last few years of his life his habits were very simple. His adoption then of Persian dress and manners was so largely a political requirement, that it can be hardly ascribed to personal motives, even if we fully acknowledge his vanity.

The life-work of Philip had been transcendant. That of Alexander surpasses anything in history. Words fail to describe the attributes of Alexander as a soldier. The perfection of all he did was scarcely understood by his historians. But to compare his deeds with those of other captains excites our wonder. Starting with a handful of men from Macedonia, in four years, one grand achievement after another, and without a failure, had placed at his feet the kingdom of the Great King. Leaving home with an enormous debt, in fifty moons he had possessed himself of all the treasures of the earth. Thence, with marvellous courage, endurance, intelligence, and skill he completed the conquest of the entire then known world, marching over nineteen thousand miles in his eleven years’ campaigns. And all this before he was thirty-two. His health and strength were still as great as ever; his voracity for conquest greater, as well as his ability to conquer. It is an interesting question, had he not died, what would have become of Rome. The Roman infantry was as good as his; not so their cavalry. An annually elected consul could be no match for Alexander. But the king never met in his campaigns such an opponent as the Roman Republic, nor his phalanx such a rival as the Roman legion would have been. That was reserved for Hannibal.

Greek civilization, to a certain degree, followed Alexander’s footsteps, but this was accidental. “You are a man like all of us, Alexander,” said the naked Indian, “except that you abandon your home, like a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions, enduring hardship yourself and inflicting it on others.” Alexander could never have erected a permanent kingdom on his theory of coalescing races by intermarriages and forced migrations. His Macedonian-Persian Empire was a mere dream.

Alexander was never a Greek. He had but the Greek genius and intelligence grafted on the ruder Macedonian nature; and he became Asiaticized by his conquests. His life-work, as cut out by himself, was to conquer and then to Hellenize Asia. He did the one, he could not accomplish the other aim. He did not plant a true and permanent Hellenism in a single country of Asia. None of his cities have lived. They were rather fortified posts than self-sustaining marts. As a statesman, intellectual, far-seeing, and broad, he yet conceived and worked on an impossible theory, and the immediate result of all his genius did not last a generation.

What has Alexander done for the art of war? When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important qualities in an orator, he replied: “Action, action, action!” In another sense this might well be applied to the captain. No one can become a great captain without a mental and physical activity which are almost abnormal, and so soon as this exceptional power of activity wanes, the captain has come to a term of his greatness. Genius has been described as an extraordinary capacity for hard work. But this capacity is but the human element. Genius implies the divine spark. It is the personality of the great captain which makes him what he is. The maxims of war are but a meaningless page to him who cannot apply them. They are helpful just so far as the man’s brain and heart, as his individuality, can carry them. It is because a great captain must first of all be a great man, and because to the lot of but few great men belongs the peculiar ability or falls the opportunity of being great captains, that preëminent success in war is so rarely seen.

All great soldiers are cousins-german in equipment of heart and head. No man ever was, no man can by any possibility blunder into being, a great soldier without the most generous virtues of the soul, and the most distinguished powers of the intellect. The former are independence, self-reliance, ambition within proper bounds; that sort of physical courage which not only does not know fear, but which is not even conscious that there is such a thing as courage; that greater moral quality which can hold the lives of tens of thousands of men and the destinies of a great country or cause patiently, intelligently, and unflinchingly in his grasp; powers of endurance which cannot be overtaxed; the unconscious habit of ruling men and of commanding their love and admiration, coupled with the ability to stir their enthusiasm to the yielding of their last ounce of effort. The latter comprise business capacity of the very highest order, essential to the care of his troops; keen perceptions, which even in extraordinary circumstances or sudden emergencies are not to be led astray; the ability to think as quickly and accurately in the turmoil of battle as in the quiet of the bureau; the power to foresee to its ultimate conclusion the result of a strategic or tactical manœuvre; the capacity to gauge the efforts of men and of masses of men; the many-sidedness which can respond to the demands of every detail of the battle-field, while never losing sight of the one object aimed at; the mental strength which weakens not under the tax of hours and days of unequalled strain. For, in truth, there is no position in which man can be placed which asks so much of his intellect in so short a space as that of the general, the failure or success, the decimation or security of whose army hangs on his instant thought and unequivocal instruction under the furious and kaleidoscopic ordeal of the field. To these qualities of heart and head add one factor more—opportunity—and you have the great soldier.

Now, Alexander was the first man, the details of whose history have been handed down to us, who possessed these qualities in the very highest measure; whose opportunities were coextensive with his powers; and who out of all these wrought a methodical system of warfare from which we may learn lessons to-day. Look at what he accomplished with such meagre means! He alone has the record of uniform success with no failure. And this, not because he had weak opponents, for while the Persians were far from redoubtable, except in numbers, the Tyrians, the tribes beyond the Caucasus, and the Indians, made a bold front and good fight.

Alexander’s movements were always made on a well-conceived, maturely-digested plan; and this he kept in view to the end, putting aside all minor considerations for the main object, but never losing sight of these. His grasp was as large as his problem. His base for his advance into the heart of the then known world was the entire coast-line of the then known sea. He never advanced, despite his speed, without securing flanks and rear, and properly garrisoning the country on which he based. Having done this he marched on his objective,—which was wont to be the enemy’s army,—with a directness which was unerring. His fertility in ruse and stratagem was unbounded. He kept well concentrated; his division of forces was always warranted by the conditions, and always with a view of again concentrating. His rapidity was unparalleled. It was this which gave him such an ascendant over all his enemies. Neither winter cold nor summer heat, mountain nor desert, the widest rivers nor the most elaborate defences, ever arrested his course; and yet his troops were always well fed. He was a master of logistics. He lived on the country he campaigned in as entirely as Napoleon, but was careful to accumulate granaries in the most available places. He was remarkable in being able to keep the gaps in his army filled by recruits from home or enlistments of natives, and in transforming the latter into excellent soldiers. Starting from home with thirty-five thousand men, he had in the Indian campaigns no less than one hundred and thirty-five thousand, and their deeds proved the stuff that was in them.

Alexander’s battles are tactically splendid examples of conception and execution. The wedge at Arbela was more splendid than Macdonald’s column at Wagram. It was a scintillation of genius. Alexander saw where his enemy’s strength and weakness lay, and took prompt advantage of them. He utilized his victories to the full extent, and pursued with a vigor which no other has ever reached. He was equally great in sieges as in battles. The only thing he was never called on to show was the capacity to face disaster. He possessed every remarkable military attribute; we can discover in him no military weakness.

As a captain, he accomplished more than any man ever did. He showed the world, first of all men, and best, how to make war. He formulated the first principles of the art, to be elaborated by Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon. His conditions did not demand that he should approach to the requirements of modern war. But he was easily master of his trade, as, perhaps, no one else ever was. For, as Napoleon says, “to guess at the intentions of the enemy; to divine his opinion of yourself; to hide from him both your own intentions and opinion; to mislead him by feigned manœuvres; to invoke ruse, as well as digested schemes, so as to fight under the best conditions,—this is, and always was, the art of war.”

LECTURE II.
HANNIBAL.

Two generations after the death of Alexander, the power of the Mediterranean world was divided between Aryan Rome and Carthage, the vigorous daughter of Semitic Tyre. Carthage was first on the sea; Rome, on land. But Rome, always intolerant of powerful neighbors, fell to quarrelling with her great rival, and at the end of a twenty-three years’ struggle,—the first Punic War,—imposed her own terms on defeated Carthage (241 B.C.). There were two parties bred of these hostilities in Carthage,—the war party, headed by Hamilcar Barca; the peace party, headed by Hanno. Hamilcar knew that peace with Rome meant oppression by Rome, and final extinction, and was ready to stake all on renewing the struggle. But he saw that present war was impossible; that opposition could only be in the future, and that it must be quietly prepared for. With a view of doing this, Hamilcar got the consent of the Carthaginian Senate to attempt the subjugation of Spain, a land of great natural resources, in conquering and holding which an army could be created which by and by might again cope with the Italian tyrant.

The Carthaginian fleet had been destroyed. Rome would not permit the building of a new one. Hamilcar’s army was obliged to march overland from Carthage along the north coast of Africa and ship across the strait,—now Gibraltar. This was a bold thing to do, but it succeeded, and, in a series of campaigns, Hamilcar reduced the southern half of Spain, and (B.C. 236–227) firmly planted the Carthaginian power there. So conciliatory as well as vigorous had been his policy, that, on his death, the native tribes elected Hasdrubal, his son-in-law, general-in-chief of the allied Carthaginian and Spanish forces, which then amounted to nearly seventy thousand men and two hundred elephants.

Hasdrubal continued the policy of Hamilcar, and largely increased the Spanish influence and territory. But as Rome had colonies in northern Spain, the two powers were sure soon again to clash. In fact, Rome, after awhile, woke up to this new danger, and notified Carthage that she would extend her colonies north of the Ebro at her peril.

Hannibal was the son of Hamilcar. His father gave him the best Greek education, and this the lad’s remarkable intellect readily assimilated. He trained him to arms under his own eye. Hannibal received his first schooling as a soldier at the age of nine, in his father’s camps in Spain, and later his brother, Hasdrubal, made him his chief of cavalry at the age of twenty-one. A pen-picture by Hannibal’s arch enemy, Livy, tells us what he then was: “No sooner had he arrived than Hannibal drew the whole army towards him. The old soldiers fancied they saw Hamilcar in his youth given back to them; the same bright look, the same fire in his eye, the same trick of countenance and features. But soon he proved that to be his father’s son was not his highest recommendation. Never was one and the same spirit more skilful to meet opposition, to obey or to command. It was hard to decide whether he was more dear to the chief or the army. Neither did Hasdrubal more readily place any one at the head when courage or activity was required, nor were the soldiers under any other leader so full of confidence and daring. He entered danger with the greatest mettle, he comported himself in danger with the greatest unconcern. By no difficulties could his body be tired, his ardor damped. Heat and cold he suffered with equal endurance; the amount of his food and drink was gauged by natural needs, and not by desire. The time of waking and sleeping depended not on the distinction of day and night. What time was left from business he devoted to rest, and this was not brought on by either a soft couch or by quiet. Many have often seen him covered by a short field-cloak lying on the ground betwixt the outposts and sentinels of the soldiers. His clothing in no wise distinguished him from his fellows; his weapons and horses attracted every one’s eye. He was by long odds the best rider, the best marcher. He went into battle the first, he came out of it the last.... Hannibal served three years under Hasdrubal’s supreme command, and left nothing unobserved which he who desires to become a great leader ought to see and to do.”

Hannibal and his brothers had been brought up with an intensity of hatred of Rome which it is hard to describe. Every schoolboy knows the anecdote of the lad’s swearing never to make peace with Rome. The feeling grew with his years. When Hannibal was twenty-four, Hasdrubal died, and he himself was unanimously elected his successor.

Hamilcar had planned an invasion of Italy by way of the Alps; but the scheme was left inchoate at his death. Hannibal at once began definitely to pave the way for such an enterprise by completing the conquest of Spain. The original conception of crossing the Alps was Hamilcar’s, just as Philip originally planned the invasion of Asia. But it was the fertile brain of Hannibal which gave the undertaking birth. The colossal nature of the plan, its magnificent daring, the boundless self-confidence and contempt of difficulty and danger which it implies, no less than the extraordinary manner of its execution, are equalled only by Alexander’s setting forth—also but a lad—to conquer the illimitable possessions of the Great King.

In three years (B.C. 221–218) Hannibal had subjugated all Spain, and after a long siege captured Saguntum. He finally set out, with fifty thousand foot, nine thousand horse, and thirty-seven elephants, across the Pyrenees, whence his route was almost as unknown to him as the Atlantic to Columbus. It is impossible to follow him in this wonderful march,—the first crossing of the Alps by any but isolated merchants,—and probably the most daring enterprise ever set on foot. After toils and dangers impossible to gauge, even by the losses, Hannibal reached the Po in October, B.C. 218, with but twenty-six thousand men and a few elephants, less than half the force with which he had left Spain. With this handful he was to face a nation capable with its allies of raising seven hundred thousand men; and yet the event—as well as our knowledge of Hannibal—shows that he had contemplated even this vast odds.

But Rome was not ready. Hannibal gained numberless confederates among the Gauls in northern Italy, and that same fall and winter won two victories over the Romans at the Ticinus and Trebia. Next year (B.C. 217) he again defeated the Romans, by an ambuscade at Lake Trasymene, killing or capturing their entire army of thirty thousand men. These three victories were due to the over-eagerness of the Roman generals to fight, their careless methods, and Hannibal’s skill in handling his troops and his aptness at stratagem.

The campaign preceding, and the battle of Lake Trasymene, taught the Romans two valuable lessons. The instruction given the world by Alexander had not reached self-important, republican Rome, though Hannibal was familiar enough with the deeds of the great Macedonian. The Romans knew nothing of war except crude, hard knocks. The first lesson showed them that there is something in the art of war beyond merely marching out to meet your enemy and beating him by numbers, better weapons, or greater discipline.

Hannibal’s Flank March. B.C. 217

It was thus: The Romans had retired into Etruria. In March, B.C. 217, Hannibal, who was in Liguria, desired to cross the Appenines and move upon them. There were but two roads he could pursue. The highway would take him across the mountains, but by a long circuit. This was the route by which the Consul Flaminius, at Aretium, with his forty thousand men, was expecting him, and, therefore, the way Hannibal did not choose to march, for Flaminius could easily block the mountain roads. The other route was so difficult that Flaminius never dreamed that Hannibal knew of, or could by any possibility pursue it. Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps had taught Flaminius nothing of his daring or his skill. This route lay along the coast to near the mouth of the Arnus, and thence up the right bank. It ran through an immense marsh, which, for an army, was all but as difficult an obstacle as the Alps. But it was the lesser evil, and promised the greater results; and Hannibal chose it, as Napoleon did the Great St. Bernard in 1800. No better description of the task can be given than to say that for four days and three nights the army marched through water where only the wagons, dead animals, or abandoned packs afforded the men any chance for rest. But the Carthaginian general reached his goal, turned Flaminius’ left flank, and cut him off from Rome. Here was the conception of turning the enemy’s strategic flank as clearly carried out as ever Napoleon did it. Such was lesson one.

The result of this turning manœuvre was the battle of Lake Trasymene,—where Hannibal taught the Romans, and us through them, the second lesson. The Romans had always marched in careless open order, without any idea of van or rear guard, or of flankers. This Hannibal knew. He placed his whole army in hiding at both ends of a defile at Lake Trasymene, through which the Romans must march, in such a manner that, when he made his attack, it was on an unsuspecting column,—in front, rear, and one flank; and the lake being on the other flank, the result was utter annihilation. After this the Romans marched with proper precautions. Hannibal had inflicted three staggering blows on his enemy.

But Rome now appointed a Dictator,—Quintus Fabius,—truly surnamed Maximus, and nicknamed Cunctator, because, recognizing that he was not able to cope with Hannibal on the battle-field, he wisely chose to conduct a campaign of delays and small war, the one thing Hannibal could not afford, but also the one thing the Romans could not tolerate or understand; for the Romans had always won by crisp fighting. Still, it was the policy shaped by Fabius which eventually defeated Hannibal, and next to Hannibal himself, he was the best master the Romans then had.

It is impossible, even slightly, to touch on many of Hannibal’s campaigns and battles. I prefer to give a short description of the battle of Cannæ, which, in its conduct and results, is typical of Hannibal’s methods. And first, a few words about the organization of either army.

The Carthaginian discipline was based on the Macedonian idea, and the formation of the troops was phalangial, that is, in close masses. But Hannibal’s army contained troops of all kinds, from the Numidian horseman, whose only clothing was a tiger-skin, on his tough little runt of a pony, or the all but naked Gaul with his long, curved sword, to the Carthaginian heavy-armed hypaspist. All these diverse tribes had each its own manner of fighting, and it required a Hannibal to keep up discipline or tactical efficiency in such a motley force. The Roman army, on the contrary, was wonderfully homogeneous, carefully disciplined, in all parts organized and drilled in the same manner, and the legion was a body which was the very opposite of the phalanx. It had much more mobility, the individual soldiers were more independent in action, and instead of relying on one shock or on defence, the several lines could relieve each other, and renew a failing battle three or even four times with fresh troops. After Trasymene, Hannibal not only armed his men with captured Roman weapons, but modified his organization somewhat to the legion pattern.

The legion was at this time formed in three lines of maniples (or companies) placed checkerwise. In front were the hastati, the least efficient; behind this the principes; and in the rear the triarii, or veterans. Each maniple was an excellent tactical unit. Each of these lines could relieve the other, and thus give a succession of hammer-like blows.

The phalanx we already know, and while it was wonderful for one shock, it had no reserve, and if demoralization set in, it was gone. The tendency of formation in ancient days, as now, was towards greater mobility, and later on the Roman legion in Greece, particularly at Pydna (168 B.C.), proved that it was superior, if properly handled, to the phalanx.

In B.C. 216, Æmilius Paulus and Varro were consuls. The former was a man of high character and attainments; Varro came of plebeian stock, was overbearing and self-sufficient. The Roman and Carthaginian armies lay facing each other near the Aufidus, Hannibal backing on Cannæ. His position here had been the result of an admirable manœuvre. The consuls commanded on alternate days. There had been a serious combat on the last day of Varro’s command, in which the Carthaginians had been outnumbered two to one, and been defeated. This had greatly elated Varro, and whetted his appetite for battle. He left the troops at evening in such a manner that next day his associate was badly placed. Æmilius scarcely wished to withdraw, lest his men should be disheartened; he could not remain where he was, as he was exposed to Hannibal’s better cavalry. He took a middle course, on the whole unwise. He sent a third of his force to the north of the Aufidus, a trifle up-stream, to sustain some foragers he had there, and make a secondary camp, from which to annoy Hannibal’s parties in search of corn. This division of forces was very risky. Hannibal had long been trying to bring the consuls to battle, and now saw that the moment had come, for Varro was precipitate, and would probably draw Æmilius into active measures.

Battle of Cannæ B.C. 216, I

Each general made a stirring address to his army. Polybius gives both. Hannibal’s has the true ring of the great captain. “Let us hasten into action. I promise you victory, and, the gods willing, I will make my promise good.” Two days later Hannibal offered Æmilius battle. But Æmilius declined it, and Hannibal sent his Numidians to the other side to annoy the Roman foragers. The succeeding day, knowing Varro to be in command, Hannibal again offered battle, aware that the hot-tempered Roman would be burning to avenge the yesterday’s taunt. He left eight thousand men to guard his camp.

There has been much discussion as to which bank of the Aufidus was the scene of the battle. It seems to me that the plan in the diagram comes nearest to fitting all the statements, however conflicting, of the several authorities. Near Hannibal’s camp the Aufidus makes a bold, southerly sweep. Here Hannibal forded the stream in two columns, drew up his army, and leaned his flanks on the river-banks so as to prevent the Romans, with their numerical superiority, from overlapping them. His front he covered with archers and slingers, so as to hide his formation from the Roman generals. Varro, as Hannibal anticipated, thought the Carthaginians were crossing to attack the lesser camp, and leaving eleven thousand men to guard the larger one, with orders to attack Hannibal’s camp during the battle, he also crossed and drew up in the plain opposite the Carthaginians, he and every Roman in the ranks craving to come to blows with the hated invaders.

Varro also threw out his light troops in advance. He had sixty-five thousand foot and seven thousand horse, to Hannibal’s thirty-two thousand foot and ten thousand horse. He could not overlap Hannibal’s flanks, so he determined to make his line heavier, and seek to crush him at the first impact. He changed the formation of the maniples so as to make them sixteen men deep and ten men front, instead of sixteen men front by ten deep, as usual. This was a grievous error. His men were unapt to manœuvre or fight well in this unwonted form. He should have employed his surplus, say twenty-five thousand men, as a reserve for emergencies. His army was in the usual three lines, fifteen legions in all, the Roman on the right, the allied on the left. The intervals between the maniples always equalled their front, and the distance between the lines the depth of the maniples. The Roman cavalry, twenty-four hundred strong, was on the right. The allied, forty-eight hundred strong, on the left. It would have been better massed in one body. But such was the only formation then known. Æmilius commanded the right, Varro the left wing.

Hannibal placed on his left, opposite the Roman cavalry, his heavy Spanish and Gallic horse, eight thousand strong, two-thirds in a first, and one-third in a second line. This body was strong enough to crush the Roman horse, and thus cut off the retreat of the legions to their camps and towards Rome. In other words, Hannibal’s fighting was to be forced on the Romans’ strategic flank. He had a perfectly lucid idea of the value of a blow from this direction. On his right, facing the allied cavalry, were his Numidians, two thousand strong. Of the infantry, the Spaniards and Gauls were in the centre in alternate bodies. His best troops, the African foot, he placed on their either flank. He expected these veterans to leaven the whole lump. The foot was all in phalanxes of one thousand and twenty-four men each, the African foot in sixteen ranks, as usual, the Spaniards and Gauls in ten. Hannibal had been obliged thus to make his centre thin, from lack of men, but he had seething in his brain a manœuvre by which he proposed to make this very weakness a factor of success. He had been on the ground and had seen Varro strengthen the Roman centre. This confirmed him in his plan.

Hannibal commanded the centre in person, Hanno the right, Hasdrubal the left, Maharbal the cavalry of the left. Hannibal relied on Maharbal to beat the Roman cavalry, and then, riding by the rear of the Roman army, to join the Numidians on the Carthaginian right, like Coenus at the Hydaspes. His cavalry was superior in numbers, and vastly outranked in effectiveness the Roman horse.

Hannibal was, no doubt, familiar with Marathon. He proposed to better the tactics of that day. Remember that Miltiades had opposed to him Orientals; Hannibal faced Roman legions. His general plan was to withdraw his centre before the heavy Roman line,—to allow them to push it in,—and then to enclose them in his wings and fall on their flanks. This was a highly dangerous manœuvre, unless the withdrawal of the centre could be checked at the proper time; but his men had the greatest confidence in him; the river in his rear would be an aid, if he could but keep his men steady; and in war no decisive result can be compassed without corresponding risk. Hannibal had fully prepared his army for this tactical evolution, and rehearsed its details with all his subordinates. He not only had the knack of making his lieutenants comprehend him, but proposed to see to the execution of the work himself.

The Carthaginians faced north, the Romans south. The rising sun was on the flank of either. The wind was southerly, and blew the dust into the faces of the Romans. The light troops on either side opened the action, and fiercely contested the ground for some time. During the preliminary fighting, Hannibal advanced his centre, the Spanish and Gallic foot, in a salient or convex order from the main line, the phalanxes on the right and left of the central one being, it is presumed, in echelon to it. The wings, of African foot, kept their place.

While this was being done, Hannibal ordered the heavy horse on his left to charge down on the Roman horse in their front. This they did with their accustomed spirit, but met a gallant resistance. The Roman knights fought for every inch with the greatest obstinacy, when dismounted, continuing the contest on foot. The fighting was not by shocks, it was rather hand to hand. But the weight and superior training of the Carthaginian horse soon told. They rode down the Romans and crushed them out of existence. Æmilius was badly wounded, but escaped the ensuing massacre and made his way to the help of the Roman centre, hoping there to retrieve the day. On the Carthaginian right the Numidians had received orders to skirmish with the allied horse and not come to a decisive combat till they should be joined by the heavy horse from the Carthaginian left. This they did in their own peculiar style, by riding around their opponents, squadron by squadron, and by making numberless feigned attacks. The battle in the centre had not yet developed results, when Maharbal, having destroyed the Roman cavalry, and ridden around the Roman army, appeared in the rear of the allied horse. The Numidians now attacked seriously, and between them, in a few minutes, there was not a Roman horseman left upon the field alive. The Numidians were then sent in pursuit, Maharbal remaining upon the field.

While this was going on, the light troops of both sides had been withdrawn through the intervals, and had formed in the rear and on the flanks of legion and phalanx, ready to fill gaps and supply the heavy foot with weapons. This had uncovered Hannibal’s salient. Varro had committed still another blunder. In the effort to make his line so strong as to be irresistible, he had ordered his maniples of principes from the second line forward into the intervals of the maniples of hastati in first line, thus making one solid wall and robbing the legionaries of their accustomed mobility, as well as lending them a feeling of uncertainty in their novel formation. Still, with its wonted spirit, the heavy Roman line advanced on Hannibal’s salient. The Carthaginian wings could not yet be reached, being so much refused. Striking the apex, the fighting became furious. Hannibal’s salient, as proposed, began to withdraw, holding its own in good style. Varro, far too eager, and seeing, as he thought, speedy victory before him, was again guilty of the folly of ordering the third line, the triarii, and even the light troops, up to the support of the already overcrowded first and second lines. The Carthaginian centre, supported by its skirmishers, held the ground with just enough tenacity to whet the determination of the Romans to crush it. Varro now insanely ordered still more forces in from his wings to reënforce his centre, already a mass so crowded as to be unable to retain its organization, but pressing back the Carthaginians by mere weight of mass. He could not better have played into Hannibal’s hands. The Romans—three men in the place of one—struggled onward, but became every moment a more and more jumbled body. Its maniple formation, and consequent ease of movement, was quite lost. Still, it pushed forward, as if to certain victory, and still the Carthaginian salient fell back, till from a salient it became a line, from a line a reëntering angle or crescent. Hannibal, by great personal exertions, had in an extraordinary manner preserved the steadiness and formation of his centre, though outnumbered four to one. The Carthaginian wings he now ordered slowly to advance, which all the more edged the Roman centre into the cul-de-sac Hannibal had prepared. The Roman legionaries were already shouting their eager cry of victory; but so herded together had they got that there was no room to use their weapons. Hannibal had kept the Carthaginian centre free from any feeling of demoralization, and ready at his command to turn and face the enemy. The wings, by their advance, had hustled the Roman legions into the form of a wedge without a vestige of maniple formation left. The decisive moment had come. Hannibal seized it with the eye of the born soldier. Arresting the backward movement of the centre, which still had elbow-room to fight, as the Romans had not, he gave the orders to the wings which they were impatiently awaiting. These veteran troops, in perfect order, wheeled inward to right and left, on the flanks of the struggling mass of legionaries. The Roman army was lost beyond a ray of hope, for, at the same instant, Maharbal, having finished the destruction of the cavalry, rode down upon its rear. The cry of victory changed to a cry of terror. Defeat degenerated into mere slaughter. The Carthaginian cavalry divided into small troops and rode into the midst of the Roman soldiers, sabring right and left. Some squadrons galloped around to the flanks and lent a hand to the African phalanx in its butchery. No quarter was given, or indeed asked. The Romans died with their faces to the foe. The bloody work continued till but a handful was left. Livy and Polybius place the killed at from forty to seventy thousand men. Varro had already escaped with a mere squad of horse. Æmilius Paullus died, sword in hand, seeking to stem the tide of disaster. Three proconsuls, two quæstors, twenty-one military tribunes, a number of ex-consuls, prætors, and ædiles, and eighty senators, perished with the army.

Battle of Cannæ B.C. 216, II

Hannibal’s loss had been barely six thousand men, but he had annihilated the splendid army of eighty-seven thousand men—the flower of Rome. It had vanished as if swallowed up in an earthquake. The battle had been won by crisp tactical skill and the most effective use of cavalry,—as fine as that at the Hydaspes. It was, indeed, the gorgeous handling of the cavalry which made the infantry manœuvre possible.

Few battles in history are more marked by ability on the one side and crass blundering on the other than the battle of Cannæ. The handling of the cavalry was quite beyond praise. The manner in which the far from reliable Spanish and Gallic foot was advanced in a wedge in echelon, and, under the mettlesome attack of the Roman legions, was first held there, and then withdrawn step by step, until it had reached the converse position of a reëntering angle and was then steadied in place by ordering up the light troops into its intervals,—all this being done under the exultant Roman shouts of victory—is a simple chef d’œuvre of battle-tactics, due solely to Hannibal’s magnificent personality; and the advance at the decisive instant of the African infantry, and its wheel right and left upon the flanks of the disordered and overcrowded legionaries, caps the master-stroke. The whole battle, from the Carthaginian standpoint, is a consummate piece of art, having no superior, few equals in the history of war.

It is usual for historians to blame Hannibal for not at once marching on Rome after this victory. Let us see what his chances were. We have no hint of what he himself thought, of what his reasons were for not so doing. We must content ourselves with collecting a few guesswork items, and endeavoring to argue as he did.

Two facts are peculiarly prominent in Hannibal’s campaign in Italy. First, he had opposed to him the troops of the strongest and most intelligent military power of the world, some of which were, to be sure, comparatively raw in active duty, but yet trained to war from their youth, mixed with legionaries of many campaigns, and instinct with the ardor of fighting for their household gods. It is often assumed that Hannibal’s troops were veterans, the Romans levies of a day. During the first three years this was in part true, and defeat had somewhat drawn the temper of the Roman blade; but throughout the rest of Hannibal’s campaigns the Roman army was much superior to his own in all but one quality,—that strange influence which a great man exercises over men. It will be noticed that whenever the fighting was on equal terms, from the beginning the Roman soldier gave a good account of himself. But Hannibal’s victories were won by stratagem, or by tactical genius and skilful use of his cavalry arm, not by brute fighting. In the latter act the legionary was fully the equal of the phalangite. One cannot compare the task of any other great captain with that of Hannibal. No one ever faced such odds. Secondly, Hannibal had calculated absolutely upon being able to detach the allies—the socii—from their fealty. We cannot imagine him to have set out on his marvellous expedition without having made this the prime factor in his calculations. Hannibal was no madman. He was a keen, close calculator. But he would have been insane, indeed, if he had undertaken his hazardous campaign without such expectation. He was well justified in reckoning on such defection. There had always been a good deal of opposition to high-handed Rome among all her allies, municipal cities, and colonies, and it was a fair assumption that many, if not most, of them would be glad to free themselves and humble their proud conqueror and mistress. In this expectation Hannibal had been entirely disappointed. None of the socii, who were the brawn of the Roman body, had shown any disposition to meet him otherwise than with the sword; none of the colonies, except in distant Gaul, had met him even half way. He had captured towns and territory and had garrisoned citadels. But the aid he received was not that which enables a conqueror to hold what he takes except with the strong hand. And without just such aid, Hannibal could not only not win, but could not be otherwise than defeated, in his contest with the mighty republic. To assume that Hannibal did not see all this, and that he was not fighting against hope almost from the second year, is to underrate this man’s intellectual ability. No one ever fathomed Hannibal’s purpose. He was so singularly reticent that Roman historians called him perfidious, because no one could, from his face or conduct, gauge either his thought or intention, or calculate upon his acts. He had no Hephæstion as had Alexander. But no doubt he was keenly alive to the failure, so far, of his calculation on the disaffection of the allies.

And now, after the overwhelming victory of Cannæ, he had to weigh not only the strategic and tactical difficulties, but the still more serious political ones. If the allies, or a good part of them, could be induced to join his cause, Rome would fall sooner or later. If not, he could never take Rome, nor permanently injure the Roman cause. The chances were, in a military sense, all against his capturing Rome by a coup de main. Rome was over two hundred miles distant, well walled, and with a large force which could be quietly gathered to protect it. If he failed, the game was lost. It was far wiser for him to still try to influence the allies, which he could now do with a record of wonderful victories such as the world had not yet seen. Hannibal was not a military gambler. He never risked his all on a bare chance, as some other soldiers have done. He always reckoned his chances closely. And every reason prompted him not to risk the loss of his all on the chances of a brilliant march on the enemy’s capital, which had only its boldness to commend it, and every military reason as well as the stanch Roman heart to promise failure as its result; for there was no obsequious satrap to open its gates and welcome the conquering hero, as it had been Alexander’s fortune to meet. If Hannibal marched on Rome, he must be prepared to besiege the city; and he had neither siege equipment, nor were sieges consonant with his peculiar ability. If the story be true that Maharbal asked of Hannibal, after Cannæ, that he might march on Rome with five thousand horse, promising that he should sup in the Capitol in four days, and that on Hannibal’s declining, Maharbal exclaimed, “Truly, Hannibal, thou knowest how to win a victory, but knowest not how to use one!” it may tend to show that Maharbal possessed indeed the daring recklessness of a true general of cavalry, but it also proves that Hannibal had the discretion, as he had shown in abundant measure the enterprise, of the great captain.

Hannibal probably at this time harbored the hope that, after this fourth and overwhelming defeat of the Romans, the allies would finally see that their interests lay with him. In fact, Capua, the Samnites, Lucanians, and many cities of Lower Italy did join his cause, and the unexplained time which he spent in the vicinity of his late battle-field was no doubt devoted to political questions, the favorable solution of which could be better brought about by not for the moment risking his now unquestioned military supremacy.

The institutions and laws which gave Rome strength never demonstrated her greatness so well as now. The people which had created these institutions, which had made these laws, never rose superior to disaster, never exhibited the strength of character of which the whole world bears the impress, so well as now. The horrible disaster to both state and society—for there was not a house in which there was not one dead—by no means changed the determination of the Roman people, however horrified the cool-headed, however frightened the many. Not that among the ignorant there was not fear and trembling; but it was not the ignorant who had made or ruled Rome. The more intelligent and courageous element spoke with a single voice. The prætors at once called the Senate together to devise means of defence, and it remained in constant session. All Rome was in affliction, but this must not interfere with the necessity of saving the city, and courage must be outward as well as in the heart. The word peace was forbidden to be pronounced. Mourning was limited to thirty days. Tears were prohibited to women in public. New energies were at once put at work. In view of the alarming circumstances and the impossibility of carrying out the requirements of the law, the Senate itself made M. Junius Pera dictator, who chose Titus Sempronius Gracchus as master of cavalry. The entire male population above seventeen years of age was enrolled. Four new legions and one thousand horse were added to the city garrison. All mechanics were set to work to repair weapons. The walls were already in a state of excellent defence. The Senate purchased and armed eight thousand slaves and four thousand debtors or criminals, with promise of freedom and pardon. Naught but stubborn resistance to the last man was thought of. It was indeed well that Hannibal did not march on Rome.

Cannæ was the last great victory of Hannibal, but the beginning of his most masterly work. He had up to this moment conducted a brilliant offensive. There is nothing in the annals of war which surpasses his crossing of the Alps, his victories at the Ticinus and Trebia, his march through the Arnus marshes, his victory at Lake Trasymene, his manœuvres up to Cannæ, and that wonderful battle. But this splendid record had not helped his cause. Yet, against all hope, he stuck to his task for thirteen long years more, waiting for reënforcements from Carthage, or for some lucky accident which might turn the tide in his favor. Up to Cannæ Fortune had smiled upon him. After Cannæ she turned her back on him, never again to lend him aid.

Livy asserts that Hannibal’s want of success came from his exposing his troops to a winter in Capua, where debauch destroyed their discipline. Many historians have followed this theory. But the soldier who looks at the remarkable work done by Hannibal from this time on, knows that nothing short of the most exemplary discipline can possibly account for it, and seeks his reasons elsewhere. Livy’s statements will bear watching.

Hannibal soon became too weak to afford the attrition of great battles. He had sought to impose on the allies by brilliant deeds. He had failed, and must put into practice whatever system would best carry out his purpose. From this time on he avoided fighting unless it was forced upon him, but resorted to manœuvring to accomplish his ends. He seized important towns, he marched on the Roman communications, he harassed the enemy with small war. He did the most unexpected and surprising things. He appeared at one end of southern Italy before the enemy had any idea that he had left the other. He was teaching the Romans the trade of war. They were not slow to see wherein Hannibal’s superiority lay, and profited by it. He educated their best generals, and these now came to the front.

The Romans raised annually from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, of which one-half to two-thirds were in Hannibal’s own front, and they were of the bone and sinew of Rome. He himself never had more than thirty-five thousand to forty thousand effective, and these far from as good. The Carthaginian Senate, under lead of the Hanno faction, forsook him, nor sent him men nor money, except one small reënforcement. He was cast on his own resources in the enemy’s country. While the Roman legions grew in numbers and experience, his own veterans gradually disappeared and left but a ragged force behind. And yet, during most of this time, he marched over the length and breadth of Italy, ravaging and destroying, and not one nor all the Roman armies could prevent him from acting out his pleasure.

Among all the brilliant lessons in strategy which Hannibal gave the Romans, there is time but to mention one more. Capua, one of the large cities of Italy, had embraced Hannibal’s cause as the coming man. But Hannibal had—in B.C. 211—been crowded back into southern Italy, and the Romans were besieging Capua. He was called upon for aid. The Capuans were in sorry plight. Hannibal, who was blockading the citadel at Tarentum, left this pressing affair to answer their appeal, made a secret forced march, eluding the four consular legions in Apulia and at Beneventum, and suddenly appeared before the astonished Roman army at Capua,—intent on raising the siege. The Capuans and Carthaginians attacked the Roman lines at the same time, but both recoiled from superior numbers and entrenched position. Hannibal, seeing that he could not raise the siege by direct means, tried, for the first time in the history of strategy, an indirect means, hoping to effect by moral weight what he could not by weight of men. He marched straight on Rome. He counted on the proconsuls, from fear for their capital, to raise the siege of Capua and follow him. He knew he could not capture Rome, where were forces much larger than his own. But he ravaged the land to its very gates and filled the city with affright. Hannibal had, however, taught his pupils much too well. Rome was terribly demoralized, and called lustily for the proconsuls’ armies to come from Capua to its aid. But these generals were not to be misled; they by no means relaxed their grip, and Hannibal lost the game. At an earlier stage of the war this brilliant movement would certainly have raised the siege of Capua.

Capua B.C. 211

Finally, Hannibal became so reduced in numbers that he was compelled to remain in the extreme south of Italy. He could not move out of Brutium. His forces were quite unequal to fighting, or even campaigning. He was hoping against hope for some kind of recognition from home, some aid in men and material. He could undertake nothing, but clung to what he held with a despairing grasp. Weak as he was, however, no Roman consul chose to come within reach of his arm. His patience and constancy under these trials, and the dread his name still inspired, show him up in far greater measure than any of his triumphs. Even Livy, who is full of depreciation of Hannibal’s abilities, says, “The Romans did not provoke him while he remained quiet, such power did they consider that single general possessed, though everything else around him was falling into ruin,” and is compelled to follow up this statement with a panegyric.

For a dozen years Hannibal had held more or less territory in the midst of the Roman Empire, far from home and his natural base. His old army had quite disappeared, and a motley array of the most heterogeneous materials had taken its place. He had for three or four years past had nothing which he could oppose to the Roman legions without danger of—without actual defeat. His troops had often neither pay nor clothing; rations were scant; their arms were far from good; they must have foreseen eventual disaster, as did Hannibal. And yet the tie between leader and men never ceased to hold; the few soldiers he had were all devotion to his cause. Driven into a corner where he must subsist his army on a limited area, which he could only hold by forcing under his standard every man possibly fit for service; among a people whose greed for gold and plunder was their chief characteristic,—he was still able not only to keep his phalanxes together, but to subject them to excellent discipline. The Carthaginians, meanwhile, were only dreaming of holding on to Spain; their one useful captain, with all his possibilities, they were blindly neglecting. He was left absolutely to his own resources. And yet,—it is so wonderful that one can but repeat it again and again,—though there were several armies of Roman veteran legions—for nearly all Roman soldiers were veterans now—around him on every side, such was the majesty which hedged his name, that neither one singly, nor all together, dared to come to the final conflict with him, brave and able though their leaders were. Even after the Metaurus, when the Romans knew what the effect of his brother’s defeat must be on the morale of Hannibal’s army, if not on himself, this dread of the very name of Hannibal, even by the best of the Roman generals, is almost inexplicable. They must each and all have recognized that it needed but one joint effort to crush out his weakened and depleted semblance of an army, and yet none of them was apparently willing to undertake the task. Whatever the Roman historians may tell us about these years, is not here really a great and stubborn fact, which testifies to more than a thousand pages penned by his detractors?

Finally, long after Hasdrubal had made his way to Italy, and had been defeated by the consul Nero, Rome carried the war into Africa, and Hannibal was recalled from Italy and defeated at Zama by Scipio. It was, however, neither Scipio nor Zama that defeated Hannibal. The Carthaginian cause had been doomed years before. It was inanition, pure and simple, which brought Hannibal’s career to a close,—the lack of support of the Carthaginian Senate. He all but won Zama, even with the wretched material he had brought from Italy, and without cavalry, against the best army Rome had so far had, the most skilful general, and every fair chance. Had he won Zama, he must have lost the next battle. The Semitic cause against the Aryan was bound to fail.

This battle ended the war. Hannibal lived nineteen years after the defeat, for six years in Carthage,—thirteen in exile. Rome never felt secure until his death.

Hannibal ranks with the few great captains of the world. Alexander, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, Napoleon, alone can stand beside him. In this galaxy the stars are equal. His self-reliant courage, which prompted him to undertake the conquest of Italy with twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse, without a definite base, and with uncertain confederates, is the mark which stamps the genius—or the fool. Without the ability and iron resolution to do so vast a thing, no great man ever accomplished results. Upon such a rock have been shattered many reputations.

Hannibal had remarkable control over men. Reaching Cisalpine Gaul, it was but a few weeks before the whole province became his sworn allies, and they remained true and faithful to his cause, and bore their heavy burden with cheerful alacrity,—though then, as now, the most unstable of peoples. Hannibal possessed a keen knowledge of human nature, as well as an unbounded individual power over men. Unfortunately, only a few anecdotes remain to us as the portrait of this extraordinary man; but we cannot doubt that he carried that personal magnetism with him which lent a wonderful strength to what he said or did.

His victories were as brilliant as any ever won; but on these does not rest his chief glory. When he won Trebia, Trasymene, Cannæ, he had opposed to him generals ignorant of the art of war, which art the genius of Hannibal enabled him to use in a manner beyond all others, and which his experience in many arduous campaigns had taught him to the bottom. But Hannibal instructed these same Romans in this very art of war,—and his later opponents fought him on his own system, and with wonderful aptness at learning what he had instilled into them with such vast pains. These scholars of Hannibal, however, able as they became, never in any sense grew to their master’s stature. They were strong in numbers and courage, they surrounded him on all sides, they cut off his reënforcements and victuals, they harassed his outposts and foragers, they embarrassed his marches,—all in the superb style he had shown them how to use. But, for all that, though outnumbering him many to one, not one or several of them could ever prevent his coming or going, at his own good time or pleasure, whithersoever he listed, and never was more than a momentary advantage gained over him in a pitched battle till the fatal day of Zama. Even after Hasdrubal’s death, his aggressors dared not attack him. Like a pack of bloodhounds around the boar at bay, none ventured to close in on him for a final struggle. Even when he embarked for Carthage,—the most dangerous of operations possible for an army,—it was not attempted to hamper his progress. Even Scipio, in Italy, seemed by no means anxious to encounter him,—except at a disadvantage,—and in Africa did not meet him until he could do so on his own conditions, and under the very best of auspices.

By some, Scipio has been thought equal to Hannibal. But great soldier as Scipio was, he falls very far short of the rank attained by Hannibal. The list of generals of a lesser grade numbers many great names, among them that of Scipio, linked with commanders like Brasidas, Epaminondas, Xenophon, Prince Eugene, Turenne, Marlborough, Montecuculi. But between these and men of the stamp of Hannibal there is a great gulf fixed.

Like all great captains, Hannibal not infrequently violated what we now call the maxims of war; but when he did so, it was always with that admirable calculation of the power or weakness of the men and forces opposed to him, which, of itself, is the excuse for the act by that man who is able to take advantage of as well as to make circumstances. All great captains have a common likeness in this respect.

Napoleon aptly says: “The principles of Cæsar were the same as those of Alexander or Hannibal: to hold his forces in hand; to be vulnerable on several points only when it is unavoidable; to march rapidly upon the important points; to make use to a great extent of all moral means, such as the reputation of his arms, the fear he inspires, the political measures calculated to preserve the attachment of allies, and the submission of conquered provinces.”

Such men have used the maxims of war only so far as they fitted into their plans and combinations. Success justifies them, but the failure of the lesser lights who infringe these maxims only proves them to be maxims indeed.

What has Hannibal done for the art of war? First and foremost he taught the Romans what war really is; that there is something beyond merely marching out, fighting a battle, and marching home again. He showed them that with but a small part of their numerical force, with less good material, with less good arms, with but a few allies, he could keep Rome on the brink of ruin and despair for two-thirds of a generation. He showed them for thirteen years that he could accomplish more than they could, despite their numbers, and without battle. And while battle should be always the legitimate outcome of all military manœuvres, Hannibal taught the Romans that there was something far higher in war than mere brute weight, and through the Romans he has taught us.

Hannibal was as typically a fighter as even Alexander, though he preferred to prescribe his own time and conditions. But all through Alexander’s campaigns it happened that the results he aimed at could be accomplished only by hammering. And he had the power to hammer. Hannibal, on the contrary, found that he could not stand attrition; that he must save men. Alexander was constantly seeking conquests; Hannibal, like Frederick, only to keep what he had won, and in doing this he showed the world the first series of examples of intellectual war. Alexander’s strategy, in its larger aspect, was as far-seeing and far-reaching as that of any of the great captains, and he was the first to show it. But Alexander’s strategic movements had not been understood, and ran danger of being lost. Hannibal was, probably, the only man who understood what Alexander had done, and he impressed his own strategy so thoroughly upon the Romans that it modified their whole method of waging war. Alexander’s strategy was equally marked. Like Cæsar’s, his strategic field was the whole known world. But he did not exhibit that more useful phase of strategy, on a smaller theatre, which Hannibal has given us.

While Hannibal’s movement into Italy was offensive, the years after Cannæ partook largely of the defensive. He was holding his own till he could get reënforcements from home, or the help of the Roman allies. And yet it was he who was the main-spring which furnished the action, the centre about which everything revolved. Perhaps there is no surer test of who is the foremost soldier of a campaign than to determine who it is upon whose action everything waits; who it is that forces the others to gauge their own by his movements. And this Hannibal always did. It made no odds whether it was in his weak or his strong years. It was Hannibal’s marching to and fro, Hannibal’s manœuvres, offensive or defensive, which predetermined the movements of the Roman armies.

We know little about the personal appearance of Hannibal. We only know that in the march through the Arnus swamps he lost an eye. In the British Museum is an ancient bust of a soldier with but one eye—by some supposed to be Hannibal. But there is no authentic likeness of the man. It is improbable that he possessed Alexander’s charm of beauty. But in all his other qualities, mental and physical, he was distinctly his equal; and in his life he was simple, pure and self-contained.

Alexander did brilliant things for their own sake. Hannibal always forgot self in his work. Alexander needed adulation. Hannibal was far above such weakness. Alexander was open, hasty, violent. His fiery nature often ran away with his discretion. Hannibal was singularly self-poised. From his face you could never divine his thought or intention. So marked was this ability to keep his own counsel, never to betray his purpose, that the Roman historians talked of deception when he did unexpected things. But Punic faith was distinctly as good as Roman faith. The Romans promised and did not perform; Hannibal never promised. Hannibal’s mind was broad, delicate, clear. His Greek training made him intellectually the superior of any of the Roman generals. His conception of operations and discrimination in means were equalled by his boldness—even obstinacy—of execution.

Hannibal’s influence over men is perhaps his most wonderful trait. Alexander commanded fealty as a king, as well as won it as a man; Hannibal earned the fidelity and love of his men by his personal qualities alone. When we consider the heterogeneous elements of which his army was composed, the extraordinary hardships it underwent, the hoping against hope, the struggling against certain defeat and eventual annihilation, the toils and privation, and remember that there was never a murmur in his camp, or a desertion from his ranks, and that eventually he was able to carry his army, composed almost entirely of Italians, over to Africa on the most dangerous of tasks, and to fight them as he did at Zama, it may be said that Hannibal’s ability to keep this body together and fit for work shows the most wonderful influence over men ever possessed by man.

Alexander always had luck running in his favor. Hannibal is essentially the captain of misfortune. Alexander was always victorious; Hannibal rarely so in battle in the last twelve years in Italy. Alexander fought against a huge but unwieldy opponent, brave, but without discipline, and top-heavy. Hannibal’s work was against the most compact and able nation of the world, at its best period, the very type of a fighting machine. Not that all this in any sense makes Hannibal greater than Alexander, but it serves to heighten the real greatness of Hannibal.

Hannibal’s marches were quick, secret, crafty. He was singularly apt at guessing what his enemy would do, and could act on it with speed and effect. He was unsurpassed in logistics. The Romans learned all they ever knew of this branch of the art from Hannibal. Despite the tax upon him, his men always had bread. He utilized his victories well, but was not led astray by apparent though delusive chances. As a besieger Hannibal was not Alexander’s equal. Only Demetrius and Cæsar, perhaps, were. In this matter Hannibal and Frederick were alike. Both disliked siege-work.

But as a man, so far as we can know him,—and if he had any vices, his enemies, the Roman historians, would have dilated upon them,—Hannibal was perhaps, excepting Gustavus Adolphus, the most admirable of all. As a captain he holds equal rank with the others. As a distinguishing mark, we may well call him “The Father of Strategy.”

LECTURE III.
CÆSAR.

Caius Julius Cæsar is the only one of the great captains who trained himself to arms. Alexander, Hannibal, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, owed their early military training to their fathers, though, indeed, Frederick’s was but the pipe-clay of war. Napoleon got his in the best school in France. Every Roman citizen was, to be sure, trained as a soldier, and Cæsar had had a slight experience in some minor campaigns. But the drilling of the soldier cannot produce the captain. And Cæsar began his military career at an age when that of the others—except Frederick—had ceased.

A comparison of ages is interesting. Alexander made his marvellous campaigns between twenty-one and thirty-three years of age. Gustavus Adolphus’ independent military career was from seventeen to thirty-eight, the last two years being those which entitle him to rank with the great captains. Hannibal began at twenty-six and never left the harness till he was forty-five. Napoleon’s wonderful wars began at twenty-seven and ended at forty-six. Frederick opened his Silesian struggles at twenty-nine and closed them at fifty-one; the Seven Years’ War ran from his forty-fifth to his fifty-second year. Cæsar began at forty-two and ended at fifty-five. Thus the only two of the great captains whose best work was done near the fifties were Cæsar and Frederick. Of the others, Hannibal and Gustavus Adolphus were most admirable in the thirties, Napoleon between twenty-seven and thirty-nine, Alexander in the twenties. To take the age of each in the middle of his military career, Alexander and Gustavus were twenty-seven, Hannibal thirty-six, Napoleon thirty-seven, Frederick forty, and Cæsar forty-eight. Or, to place each at the height of his ability, Alexander was twenty-five, Hannibal thirty-four, Gustavus thirty-seven, Napoleon thirty-nine, Frederick forty-five, Cæsar fifty-two.

Cæsar’s youth had been that of a young man of the upper-tendom, with a not unusual mixture of high breeding and vices, and was rather inclined to be a dandy,—but one of whom Sulla remarked that “it would be well to have an eye to yonder dandy.” In manhood he can socially be best described as a thorough man of the world, able and attractive; in stirring political life always remarkable for what he did and the way in which he did it.

When Cæsar was forty-two he was chosen Consul and received Gaul as his province (B.C. 58). Pompey, Crassus and he divided the power of the Roman state. Cæsar proposed to himself, eventually, to monopolize it. His reasons do not here concern us. For this purpose he needed a thorough knowledge of war and an army devoted to his interests. He had neither, but he made Gaul furnish him both. Let us follow Cæsar in a cursory way through all his campaigns and see what the grain of the man does to make the general; for here we have the remarkable spectacle of a man entering middle life, who, beginning without military knowledge or experience, by his own unaided efforts rises to be one of the few great captains. I shall speak more of the Gallic War, because its grand strategy is not often pointed out.

GAUL

Cæsar’s object in Gaul was not merely to protect Roman interests. He needed war to further his schemes of centralization. On reaching the Province, as was called the territory at that time held by Rome in Gaul (B.C. 58), he encountered an armed migration of the Helvetii, moving from the Alps, by way of Geneva, towards the fertile lowlands. This was a dangerous threat to the Province, and, moreover, to attack this tribe would serve as initiation to Cæsar and his men. He commanded the Helvetii to return to their homes, which being refused, he first outwitted them in negotiations, until he assembled troops, followed, surprised, and attacked them while crossing the Arar, and annihilated a third of their force. Then following them up with a cautious inexperience, but, though making mistakes, with extraordinary foresight and skill, he finally, in the battle of Bibracte, after grave danger and against heroic resistance, utterly worsted them, and obliged the relics of the tribe to obey his mandate. Of the entire body, numbering three hundred and sixty-eight thousand souls, but one hundred and ten thousand lived to return home. Thus began what will always be a blot on Cæsar’s fame as a soldier,—his disregard for human life, however brave his enemies, however unnecessary its sacrifice. Alexander, on several occasions, devastated provinces. But in his case the military necessity was less doubtful; and the number of Alexander’s victims never rises to the awful sum of Cæsar’s, nor was the law of nations as definite in his day as it had become fifty years before the Christian era.

Cæsar next moved against Ariovistus, a German chief who was bringing numbers of his countrymen across the Rhine to seize the lands of the friendly Gauls. Cæsar saw that to conquer Gaul he must eliminate this migratory element from the problem; for the Germans would be pouring in on his flank during any advance he might make into the heart of the country. Moreover, Cæsar’s actions always sought to forward Cæsar’s plans; only as a second consideration to protect the Roman territory. To place Cæsar at the head of the Roman state would best serve the Commonwealth. War he must have, and anything would serve as casus belli. But, though far from faultless as a statesman, Cæsar grew to be all but faultless as a soldier, and his present military object, the conquest of Gaul, he carried out in the most brilliant and methodical manner.

Cæsar ordered Ariovistus to return across the Rhine. Ariovistus declined. Cæsar moved by forced marches against him. After a useless conference, Ariovistus, who was a man of marked native ability, made a handsome manœuvre around Cæsar’s flank, which the latter was not quick enough to check, and deliberately sat down on his line of communications. Cæsar was thunderstruck. He endeavored to lure Ariovistus to battle, as an outlet to the dilemma, for he was compromised. But Ariovistus was well satisfied with his position, to hold which would soon starve the Romans out. Cæsar, not unwilling to learn from even a barbarian, resorted, after these failures, to a similar manœuvre around Ariovistus’ flank, which he made with consummate skill, and regained his line of retreat. Then, having learned that the German soothsayers had presaged defeat, if Ariovistus should fight before the new moon, he forced a battle on the Germans, and, after a terrible contest, defeated them, destroyed substantially the whole tribe, and drove the few survivors across the Rhine.

Cæsar had shown the decision, activity, courage, and quickness of apprehension which were his birthright. But underlying these was a caution bred of lack of that self-reliance which in after years grew so marked. He made blunders which in later campaigns he would not have made, nor was he opposed to such forces as he later encountered. Ariovistus had no great preponderance over Cæsar’s fifty thousand men. One rather admires in this year’s campaigns the Helvetii and the Germans for their noble gallantry in facing Roman discipline and so nearly succeeding in their struggle.

Next year (B.C. 57) Cæsar conducted a campaign against the Belgæ, whose joint tribes had raised a force of three hundred and fifty thousand men. By prompt action and concessions he seduced one tribe from the coalition, and by a well-timed diversion into the land of another, weakened the aggressiveness of the latter. He had won a number of Gallic allies. Curiously enough, all his cavalry throughout the war was native, the Roman cavalry being neither numerous nor good. All told, he had some seventy thousand men.

The Belgæ attacked him at the River Axona, but by dexterous management Cæsar held his own, inflicted enormous losses on them, and finally, from lack of rations, they dispersed, thus enabling Cæsar to handle them in detail. Many gave in their submission; others were reduced by force; disunited they were weak.

The Nervii, however, surprised Cæsar at the River Sabis, from ambush, and came near to annihilating his army. He had forgotten Hannibal’s lesson of Lake Trasymene. Nothing but stubborn courage and admirable discipline—the knowledge, too, that defeat meant massacre—saved the day. Cæsar headed his legionaries with superb personal gallantry, and his narrow escape made him thereafter much more cautious on the march. Out of sixty thousand Nervii, barely five hundred were left when the battle ended. Their fighting had been heroic beyond words. Their defeat and the capture of a number of cities induced many tribes to submit to the inevitable.

The best praise of this splendid campaign is its own success. The energy, rapidity, clear-sightedness, and skill with which Cæsar divided, attacked in detail, and overcame the Belgian tribes with their enormous numbers, is a model for study. But he still committed serious errors, of which the careless march without proper scouting, which led to the surprise by the Nervii, was a notable example. He was not yet master of his art.

During the succeeding winter the Belgæ again banded together, and the Veneti seized some Roman officers seeking corn (B.C. 56). This act Cæsar considered in the light of a revolt, and determined summarily to punish. The Veneti were a maritime people, living in what is now Brittany, whose strongholds could only be reached by sea. Cæsar’s attempts to attack them by land proved abortive, but his admiral, with a fleet built for the occasion, worsted the Venetan squadron, and Cæsar, with needless cruelty and distinct bad policy, put the Senate to death and sold the tribe into slavery. Cæsar was personally humane. These acts of extermination are the less pardonable. His lieutenants, meanwhile, had subdued a part of Aquitania. All Gaul, save only the tribes opposite the British coast, had, after a fashion, been reduced. This third year in Gaul redounds to Cæsar’s credit for the general scheme; to his lieutenants for the detailed campaigns.

The fourth year (B.C. 55) was tarnished by, perhaps, the most gigantic piece of cruelty ever charged to the score of civilized man. Two German tribes, the Usipetes and Tencheteri, had been crowded across the Rhine by the Suevi, the stoutest nation on the eastern bank. These people Cæsar proposed to chase back across the river. He marched against them, and was met by a suit for peace. Cæsar alleges treachery, on their part, in the negotiations, but his own version in the Commentaries does not sustain him. During what the barbarians deemed an armistice, Cæsar, by a rapid and unexpected march, fell upon them, and utterly destroyed the tribes, men, women, and children, whose number himself states at four hundred and thirty thousand souls. A few thousands escaped across the river. So indignant were even many of the citizens of Rome,—his political opponents, to be sure,—that Cato openly proposed to send Cæsar’s head to the few survivors in expiation. It is impossible to overlook, in Cæsar’s military character, these acts of unnecessary extermination.

Cæsar next made a campaign across the Rhine, for which purpose he built his celebrated bridge. It was a mere reconnoissance in force, of no strategic value or result. And the same must be said of his first expedition to Britain, which shortly followed. This was conducted with so few precautions, and so little knowledge of what he was actually about, that Cæsar was indebted to simple fortune that he ever returned to Gaul.

The second British expedition (B.C. 54), in which he encountered Casivelaunus, was better prepared and more extensive. But though these invasions of Britain and Germany show wonderful enterprise, they were of doubtful wisdom and absolutely no general military utility. Apart from the fact that they were unwarranted by the laws of nations, they were not required for the protection of the Province. “Cæsar observed rather than conquered Britain.”

During the succeeding winter Cæsar quartered his troops unwisely far apart, from scarcity of corn, and relying on the supposed subjection of the Gauls. This led to an uprising, the destruction of one legion and the jeopardizing of several others. The error of thus dispersing his forces was, to an extent, offset by Cæsar’s prodigious activity and brilliant courage in retrieving his error and succoring his endangered legions.

In the sixth campaign (B.C. 53), Cæsar again crossed the Rhine, with no greater result than added fame, and definitely subdued the tribes along the western borders of this stream. The work of this year was admirable in every way. At its expiration Cæsar, as usual, returned to Rome.

During his absence the chiefs of the Gallic tribes determined to make one more universal uprising, surround the legions, and, cutting Cæsar off from return, to destroy them. The leader of the movement was Vercingetorix, a young chief of exceptional ability, to whose standard flocked numberless warriors (B.C. 52). Notified of this danger, Cæsar hurried to the Province. He found himself in reality cut off from his legions, and without troops to fight his way through. He must divert the attention of Vercingetorix to enable him to reach his army. Raising a small force in the Province, he headed an expedition across the Cebenna Mountains, which had never yet been crossed in winter, into the land of the Arverni, which he devastated. Vercingetorix, astounded at his daring, marched to the rescue. No sooner had he arrived than Cæsar, with a small escort of picked cavalry, started for his legions, and, by riding night and day, faster than even news could travel, kept ahead of danger and reached them safe and sound. He at once opened a winter campaign, drew together the nearest of his legions and attacked Vercingetorix’s allies in his rear, capturing and pillaging town after town. The whole opening was a splendid piece of daring skill and brilliantly conceived.

Vercingetorix was by far the most able of Cæsar’s opponents in Gaul. He saw that in the open he could not match the Romans, and began a policy of small war and defensive manœuvres similar to what Fabius had practised against Hannibal. This greatly hampered Cæsar’s movements by cutting off his supplies. Cæsar took Avaricum; but the siege of Gergovia, which place he reached by cleverly stealing a passage over the Elaver, was not fortunate. The Gauls ably defended the town, while Vercingetorix aptly interfered with the Roman work; and by rousing to insurrection Cæsar’s allies, the Ædui, in his rear, he compelled the Romans to raise the siege. This was Cæsar’s sole failure in the Gallic campaigns. He returned to quell the uprising of the Ædui, on whose granaries he relied for corn, and was joined by the rest of the legions.

Shortly after this the pressure of the over-eager barbarians on Vercingetorix forced him to give up his sensible policy of small war. He attacked Cæsar in the open field, in an effort to cut him off from the Province, on which Cæsar, having regained his legions, now proposed to base. As always in such cases, discipline prevailed, and the Gauls suffered defeat; but Vercingetorix managed to withdraw without the usual massacre. Cæsar then sat down before Alesia, a town on holding which the barbarians had placed their last stake. Vercingetorix occupied it with eighty thousand men. Cæsar had fifty thousand legionaries, ten thousand Gallic horse, and perhaps ten thousand allies.

This siege is one of the most wonderful of antiquity. It equals Alexander’s siege of Tyre or Demetrius’ siege of Rhodes. The works Cæsar erected were marvellous in their extent and intricacy. So strong were his lines that even an army of relief of a quarter of a million men added to the garrison, was unable to break them. Alesia fell. Vercingetorix was surrendered to Cæsar and kept for exhibition in his triumph. Gaul never again rose en masse. By alternate generosity and severity, Cæsar completely reduced it to the Roman yoke.

This seventh year was a brilliant exhibition of Cæsar’s ability in engineering, strategy, tactics, logistics. His achievements are unsurpassed. He had taught the Gauls that they were not the equals of the Roman legions or nation. Still this courageous people was not subdued. They could see that although Cæsar was able to beat them wherever they met, he was not able to be in all places at once. They determined to essay one more uprising in isolated bodies. But this also failed, and Cæsar’s eighth and last year (B.C. 51) snuffed out all opposition.

It was no doubt for the good of Europe that Gaul should be brought under Roman rule. But it is questionable whether, under the law of nations, as then understood, Cæsar had the right to conquer Gaul. His duty was merely to defend the Province. Not so, however, thought Cæsar. All things bent to his ulterior designs. His cardinal motive was self. But accepting his theory, his purpose was clean-cut and carried out with preëminent skill. His errors lie more in his political than military conduct. Strategetically, his course was sound.

The Province, when to Cæsar fell Gaul as one of the triumvirs, was a species of salient thrust forward into the midst of the country. West and north of its boundary, the Rhone, lived allied peoples. From the mountains on the east danger was threatened by a number of restless tribes. The advantages of this salient were by no means lost on Cæsar, nor the central position which it afforded. He utilized it in the same fashion as Napoleon did Switzerland in 1800. His first war, against the Helvetii, was intended to and resulted in protecting the right flank of the salient, an absolute essential to safety in advancing into north or north-west Gaul. From this point, duly secured, northerly, the Rhine, and the Jura and Vosegus mountains protected in a marked degree the right of an advancing army, provided the tribes west of this river were not unfriendly; and it will be noticed that one of Cæsar’s early efforts was directed to winning the friendship of these tribes by generous treatment and effective protection against their German enemies. When he could not so accomplish his end he resorted to drastic measures. Cæsar thus advanced his salient along the Mosa as far as the Sabis, and could then debouch from the western watershed of the Mosa down the valleys of the Matrona and Axona with perfect safety. For, besides the friendship of the near-by tribes, he always kept strongly fortified camps among them. The line of the Axona thus furnished him an advanced base from which to operate against the Belgæ, and from their territory, once gained, safely move even so far as Britain, if he but protected his rear and accumulated provisions. Having subdued the Belgæ he could turn to the south-west corner of Gaul, against Aquitania. Cæsar thus exemplified in the fullest degree the advantage in grand strategy of central lines of operation. And his most serious work was devoted to establishing this central salient by alliance or conquest. Once gained, this simplified his operations to isolated campaigns.

There is nothing more noteworthy in all military history than Cæsar’s broad conception of the Gallic problem, nor more interesting than his self-education. It is true that a soldier is born, but he has also to be made; and Cæsar made himself more distinctly than the others. He began with his native ability alone. He went to school as Cæsar in the Gallic War. He graduated as one of the six great captains. Cæsar was always numerically weaker than the enemy, but far stronger in every other quality, especially in self-confidence and capacity for work. His legionaries would bear anything, and could do anything. They were very Yankees for ingenuity. Cæsar did not mix Gallic allies with his legions, as Alexander or Hannibal mixed natives with their phalanxes. He employed only native bowmen in addition to his native cavalry. He worked his army well concentrated. If he divided his forces it was but for a short time, soon to concentrate again. But he improved every chance to attack the enemy before he had concentrated. Speed of foot, with Cæsar, stood in place of numbers. His objective was always well chosen, and was either the most important point, or more commonly, the army of the enemy.

It was impossible that during this period of schooling, Cæsar should not make blunders—grave ones; but all his errors bore fruit, and raised the tone of both consul and legions. One can see, step by step, how success and failure each taught its lesson; how native ability came to the surface; how the man impressed his individuality on whatever he did; and how intelligence led him to apply whatever he learned to his future policy. No praise is too high for the conduct or moral qualities of the army. From Cæsar down, through every grade, military virtue was pronounced. In organization and discipline, ability to do almost any work, endurance of danger and trial, toughness and manhood, it was a model to the rest of Rome. And not only his legionaries, but his auxiliary troops were imbued with the same spirit,—all breathed not only devotion to Cæsar, but reflected his own great qualities.

Cæsar had some worthy opponents. Vercingetorix, Ariovistus, Casivelaunus, were, each in his own way, able leaders. That they were overcome by Cæsar was to be expected. Disciplined troops well led cannot but win against barbarians. The end could not be otherwise. And while the Gallic War does not show Cæsar—as the second Punic War did Hannibal—opposed to the strongest military machine in existence, it did show him opposed to generals and troops quite equal to most of those encountered by Alexander. The Gauls must not be underrated. They were distinctly superior to most uncivilized nations. Some of their operations, and all of their fighting, call for genuine admiration. They contended nobly for their independence. Defeat never permanently discouraged them. Once put down, they again rose in assertion of their liberty, so soon as the strong hand was removed. They were in no sense to be despised, and while Cæsar’s army proved superior to them, yet, in their motives and hearty coöperation, they were more commendable than Cæsar pursuing his scheme of conquest.

Anarchy in Rome and his disagreement with Pompey brought about the Civil War; this immediately succeeded the Gallic. Cæsar was ready for it. Pompey practically controlled the whole power of Rome. Cæsar had only his twelve legions. But these were veterans used to victory, and belonged to him body and soul. He could do with them whatever he chose. Cæsar was the embodiment of success, and fresh legions were sure to spring up at his approach. Pompey lived on his past fame; Cæsar, on to-day’s. Pompey had made no preparation; Cæsar was armed and equipped. Pompey controlled vast resources, but they were not ready to hand. What Cæsar had was fit. Moreover, Cæsar was shrewd enough to keep the apparent legal right upon his side, as well as constantly to approach Pompey with proposals for peace, which, however, he was no doubt aware Pompey would not accept.

Pompey was a man of ability, but age, as is not uncommon, had sapped his power of decision. He began by a fatal mistake. Instead of meeting Cæsar on his native soil, and fighting there for Rome, he moved to Greece so soon as Cæsar reached his front, and left the latter to supplant him in the political and armed control of Italy.

Cæsar was wont to push for his enemy as objective, and one would expect to see him follow Pompey to Greece, for it is a maxim, and maxims are common sense, first to attack the most dangerous part of your enemy’s divided forces. But there were seven Pompeian legions left in Spain, and fearing that these might fall upon his rear, Cæsar concluded to turn first toward the peninsula, relying on Pompey’s hebetude to remain inactive where he stood. He knew his man.

CIVIL WAR

It had taken but sixty days for Cæsar to make himself master of all Italy. In six weeks after reaching Spain, by a brilliant series of manœuvres near Ilerda, in which he utilized every mistake Pompey’s lieutenants made, and without battle, for he wished to be looked on as anxious to avoid the spilling of Roman blood, he had neutralized and disbanded the seven legions. This accomplishment of his object by manœuvres instead of fighting is one of the very best examples of its kind in antiquity, and is equal to any of Hannibal’s. Meanwhile, Pompey had not lifted a hand against him. This was good luck; but was it not fitting that fortune should attend such foresight, activity, and skill?

Cæsar returned to Italy. He was now ready to follow his enemy across to Epirus. Pompey controlled the sea with his five hundred vessels. Cæsar had no fleet, and, curiously enough, had neglected, in the past few months, to take any steps to create one. And yet he determined to cross from Brundisium to the coast of Greece by sea. It is odd that he did not rather march by land, through Illyricum, thus basing himself on his own province; for a large part of his legions was already on the Padus. But he chose the other means, and when, with half his force, he had stolen across, Pompey’s fleet dispersed his returning transports, and so patrolled the seas that he commanded the Adriatic between the two halves of Cæsar’s army. This was not clever management. Cæsar was in grave peril, and simply by his own lack of caution. If Pompey concentrated he could crush him by mere weight. But, nothing daunted, Cæsar faced his opponent and for many months skilfully held his own.

Finally, Antonius, with the other half, eluded the Pompeian fleet and reached the coast, where, by an able series of marches, Cæsar made his junction with him. He even now had but about half Pompey’s force, but despite this he continued to push his adversary by superior activity and intelligence, and actually cooped him up in siege-lines near Dyrrachium. This extraordinary spectacle of Cæsar bottling up Pompey, who had twice his force (May, 48), by lines of circumvallation sixteen miles long, borders on the ridiculous, and well illustrates his moral superiority. But so bold a proceeding could not last. Combats became frequent, and grew in importance. The first battle of Dyrrachium was won by Cæsar. The second proved disastrous, but still Cæsar held on. The third battle was a decisive defeat for Cæsar, but this great man’s control over his troops was such that he withdrew them in good condition and courage, and eluded Pompey’s pursuit. In fact, the defeat both shamed and encouraged his legionaries. Cæsar’s position and plan had been so eccentric that it was from the beginning doomed to failure. It was one of those cases where his enterprise outran his discretion.

Cæsar now moved inland, to gain elbow-room to manœuvre. Pompey followed, each drawing in his outlying forces. The rival armies finally faced each other at Pharsalus.

Pompey commanded a force sufficient to hold Cæsar at his mercy. So certain were his friends of victory that already they saw their chief at the head of the Roman state, and quarrelled about the honors and spoils. The cry to be led against Cæsar grew among soldiers and courtiers alike.

Pompey believed that Cæsar’s troops were not of the best; that he had few Gallic veterans; that his young soldiers could not stand adversity; that his own cavalry was superior to Cæsar’s; and that with the preponderance of numbers there could be no doubt of victory. There was abundant reason for his belief. But one lame premise lay in his argument. He forgot that he had Cæsar in his front. The great weakness in Pompey’s army was the lack of one head, one purpose to control and direct events.

Cæsar, on the other hand, was his army. The whole body was instinct with his purpose. From low to high all worked on his own method. He controlled its every mood and act. He was the main-spring and balance-wheel alike. And he now felt that he could again rely upon his legions,—perhaps better than before their late defeat. He proposed to bring Pompey to battle.

The test soon came. In the battle of Pharsalus (Aug. 48) Pompey was, by tactical ability on Cæsar’s part and by the disgraceful conduct of his own cavalry, wholly defeated; fifteen thousand of his army were killed and twenty-four thousand captured. Pompey himself fled to Egypt, where he was murdered. In eighteen months from taking up arms, Cæsar had made himself master of the world by defeating the only man who disputed him this title.

Cæsar now committed one of those foolhardy acts of which several mar his reputation for wisdom, and from which only “Cæsar’s luck” delivered him. He followed Pompey to Egypt with but three thousand men, and attempted to dictate to the Government. In consequence of this heedless proceeding, he and this handful—he, the man who disposed of the forces of the whole world—were beleaguered in Alexandria by an Egyptian army for eight months, until he could procure the assistance of allies. He was finally rescued by Mithridates, King of Pergamus, and the Egyptians were defeated at the battle of the Nile.

The months thus wasted by Cæsar’s lack of caution gave the Pompeian party a breathing-spell and the opportunity of taking fresh root in Africa. This was what necessitated the two additional campaigns, one in Africa and one in Spain. Had Cæsar, immediately after Pharsalus, turned sharply upon Pompey’s adherents; or had he taken four or five legions with him to Alexandria; or had he put aside the question of the rule of Egypt by a temporizing policy, and turned to the more important questions at hand, he would have saved himself vast future trouble.

The force he carried with him was absurdly inadequate. By extreme good luck alone was he able to seize the citadel and arsenal, and the tower on the Pharos, and thus save himself from collapse. “There seems to be nothing remarkable about the campaign,” says Napoleon. “Egypt might well have become, but for Cæsar’s wonderful good fortune, the very grave of his reputation.”

Cæsar was now called against Pharnaces, King of Pontus, who, during the distractions of the Civil War, was seeking to enlarge his territory. It was this five days’ campaign (Aug. 47) which led Cæsar to exclaim, “Veni, Vidi, Vici!” And here again he committed the blunder of opening a campaign with too small a force, and came within an ace of failure. Fortune saved Alexander in many acts of rashness; she was called on to rescue Cæsar from many acts of folly.

Cæsar had barely arrived in Rome when his presence was demanded in Africa to put down the coalition of Pompey’s lieutenants; and for the fourth time he was guilty of the same imprudence. In his over-ardor to reach the scene, he gave indefinite orders to his fleet, and once more landed on the African coast with but three thousand men in his immediate command, while the enemy had near at hand quadruple the force, and along the coast, within two or three days’ march, some fifty thousand men. But again Cæsar’s audacity stood in stead of legions, and gradually reënforcements came to hand (Dec. 47). Time fails to follow up this campaign. Full of all that characterizes the great man and greater captain, it not only excites our wonder, but puzzles us by alternate hypercaution and intellectual daring. After a series of movements extending over four months, during which he made constant use of field fortifications, much in our own manner, Cæsar absolutely overthrew the Pompeians (Apr. 46) at Thapsus and dispersed the coalition to the winds. Only the two sons of Pompey in Spain remained in arms.

An interesting fact in the campaigns of Cæsar, which cannot but impress itself on every American soldier, is the handiness of Cæsar’s legionaries in the use of pick and shovel. These entrenching tools, quite apart from fortifying the daily camp, seemed to be as important to the soldiers as their weapons or their shields. They often dug themselves into victory.

Cæsar’s manœuvring and fighting were equally good. The reason for some of his entrenching in Africa is hard to comprehend. Cæsar was a fighter in his way, but he often appeared disinclined to fight, even when his men were in the very mood to command success. He was so clever at manœuvring that he seemed to desire, for the mere art of the thing, to manœuvre his enemy into a corner before attack. His pausing at the opening of the battle of Thapsus has led to the remark, that while he prepared for the battle, it was his men who won it.

We cannot follow the Spanish campaign, which ended Cæsar’s military exploits, and which came to an end in the remarkable battle of Munda (March, 45), of which Cæsar remarked that he had often fought for victory, but here fought for life. We must treat of the man rather than events.

Cæsar had the inborn growth of the great captain. In the Civil War he made fewer errors than in the Gallic. His operations, all things considered, were well-nigh faultless. He first chose Rome, the most important thing, as his objective; and in sixty days, by mere moral ascendant, had got possession of the city. The enemy was on three sides of him, Spain, Africa, Greece,—he occupying the central position, and this he was very quick to see. He turned first on Spain, meanwhile holding Italy against Pompey by a curtain of troops. Spain settled, he moved over to Epirus with a temerity from which arch luck alone could save him, and, victorious here, he turned on Africa. There is no better example in history of the proper use of central lines on a gigantic scale, though the first recognition of these is often ascribed to Napoleon. In these splendid operations Cæsar made repeated errors of precipitancy,—at Dyrrachium, at Alexandria, in Pontus, in Africa. That, despite these errors, he was still victorious in so comparatively short a time he owes to his extraordinary ability, his simply stupendous good fortune, and the weakness of his opponents. In success he was brilliant, in disaster strong and elastic, and he never weakened in morale. It is adversity which proves the man.

Cæsar’s strategy was broad and far-seeing. His tactics were simple. There are no striking examples in his battles of tactical formations like Epaminondas’ oblique order at Leuctra, Alexander’s wedge at Arbela, Hannibal’s withdrawing salient at Cannæ. Though the military writers of this age exhibit great technical familiarity with tactical formations, Cæsar was uniformly simple in his.

From the beginning Cæsar grew in every department of the art of war. In strategy, tactics, fortification, sieges, logistics, he showed larger ability at the end of his career than at any previous time. To his personality his soldiers owed all they knew and all they were. Remarkable for discipline, esprit de corps, adaptiveness, toughness, patience in difficulty, self-denial, endurance and boldness in battle, attachment to and confidence in their general, his legionaries were an equal honor to Cæsar and to Rome, as they were a standing reproach to Roman rottenness in their splendid soldierly qualities. Pompey’s men could not compare with them in any sense, and this was because Pompey had made his soldiers and Cæsar had made his.

It is difficult to compare Cæsar with Alexander or Hannibal. To make such comparison leads towards the trivial. A few of their marked resemblances or differences can alone be pointed out and their elemental causes suggested; every one must draw his own conclusions; and the fact that the equipment of all great captains is the same will excuse apparent iteration of military virtues.

In Cæsar we can hardly divorce the ambitious statesman from the soldier. We are apt to lose sight of the soldier proper. The two characters are closely interwoven. In the motive of his labors Cæsar is unlike Alexander or Hannibal. He strove, in Gaul, solely for military power; after Pharsalus he worked with the ample power so gained. Hannibal was never anything but a subordinate of the Carthaginian Senate. He had no political ambition whatever; military success was his sole aim,—and this on patriotic grounds. Alexander was a monarch ab initio. His inspiration was the love of conquest,—the greed of territory, if you like,—but as a king.

As a soldier, pure and simple, however, Cæsar is on an equal level, though his campaigns were markedly colored by his political aspirations. Hannibal employed state-craft to further his warlike aims; Cæsar waged war to further his political aims. Alexander had no political aims. His ambition was to conquer; to make Macedon the mistress of the world, as he was master of Macedon, and then to weld his dominions into one body. Rome was already mistress of the world, and Cæsar aimed to make himself master of Rome. Each had his own motive as a keynote.

In personal character, Hannibal stands higher than either. His ambition was purely for Carthage. The man was always merged in the patriot. He himself could acquire no greatness, rank, or power. His service of his country after Zama abundantly demonstrates Hannibal’s lofty, self-abnegating public spirit. What we know of Hannibal is derived, mostly, from Roman writers, and these are, of necessity, prejudiced. How could they be otherwise towards a man who for more than half a generation had humiliated their country as she had never been humiliated before? But in reading between the lines you readily discover what manner of soldier and man Hannibal truly was.

In personal attributes there is a divinity which hedges Alexander beyond all others. Despite his passionate outbursts and their often lamentable consequences, a glamour surrounds him unlike any hero of antiquity. But in mind and will, in true martial bearing, all are alike. The conduct of each is equally a pattern to every soldier.

Alexander and Hannibal, from youth up, led a life of simplicity and exercise, and their physique, naturally good, became adapted to their soldier’s work. Cæsar led the youth of a man of the world, and was far from strong at birth. He did, however, curb his pleasure to his ambition until he grew easily to bear the fatigue incident to the command of armies. Throughout life he accomplished a fabulous amount of work, mental and physical. His nervous force was unparalleled.

Intelligence and character were alike pronounced in all. But Alexander, perhaps because young, exceeded Cæsar and Hannibal in fire and in unreasoning enthusiasm. Hannibal possessed far more quiet wisdom, power of weighing facts, and valor tempered with discretion. In Cæsar we find an unimpassioned pursuit of his one object with cold, calculating brain-tissue, and all the vigor of body and soul put at the service of his purpose to control the power of the Roman State.

In each, the will and intellect were balanced, as they must be in a great captain. But in Alexander, the will often outran the intelligence; in Hannibal the intelligence occasionally overruled the ambition to act; in Cæsar it was now one, now the other bias which took the upper hand. Alexander was always daring, never cautious. Hannibal was always cautious, often daring. Cæsar was over-daring and over-cautious by turns. This is perhaps to an extent due to the ages of each, already given,—twenty-five, thirty-four, fifty-two.

Each possessed breadth, depth, strength, energy, persistent activity throughout his entire career, a conception covering all fields, a brain able to cope with any problem. But in Alexander we find these qualities coupled with the effervescence of imaginative youth; in Hannibal, with singular sharpness and the judgment of maturity; in Cæsar, with the cool circumspection of years, not unmixed with a buoyant contempt of difficulty. The parts of each were equally developed by education. By contact with the world, perhaps most in Cæsar, least in Hannibal.

The high intellectuality of each is shown in the art of their plans, in their ability to cope with difficult problems in the cabinet, and work them out in the field; and with this went daring, caution, zeal, patience, nervous equipoise which never knew demoralization. With each, intelligence and decision grew with the demand. They were never overtaxed. Strain made them the more elastic. Danger lent them the greater valor. With each the brain worked faster and more precisely the graver the test. As good judgment became more essential, the power rightly to judge increased.

All were equally alert, untiring, vigilant, indomitable. But Alexander was sometimes carried beyond the bounds of reason by his defiance of danger. Cæsar’s intellectual powers were more pronounced in action than his physical. Hannibal was always, in brain and heart, the true captain; remembering his own necessity to his cause, but remembering also the necessity to his cause of victory.

All maintained discipline at an equal standard. All fired their soldiers to the utmost pitch in battle, all encouraged them to bear privation in the field, and bore it with them. All equally won their soldiers’ hearts. All obtained this control over men by scrupulous care of their army’s welfare, courage equal to any test, readiness to participate in the heat and labor of the day, personal magnetism, justice in rewards and punishments, friendliness in personal intercourse, and power of convincing men. In what they said, Alexander and Hannibal spoke plain truths plainly. Cæsar was a finished orator. But Cæsar and Alexander were so placed as readily to win the hearts of their soldiers. That Hannibal did so, and kept the fealty of his motley crowd of many nationalities throughout thirteen long years of disaster, is one of the phenomenal facts of history.

Personal indifference or cruelty can not be charged to the score of any one of them. Each gave frequent proof that he possessed abundant human kindness. But Alexander was at times guilty of acts of brutality and injustice. To Hannibal’s score can be put nothing of the kind. Cæsar by no means lacked the gentler virtues. Some claim for him sweetness equal to his genius. But he exhibited in the Gallic War a singularly blunted conscience. Peoples were mere stepping-stones to his progress. Judging Cæsar solely by his Commentaries, there goes hand in hand with a chivalrous sense a callousness which is unapproached. He could be liberal in his personal dealings, and unfeeling in his public acts; magnanimous and ruthless.

Alexander and Hannibal were ambitious, but nobly so, and generous withal. Cæsar’s ambition more nearly approached egotism. It was not honor, but power, he sought. Not that he loved Rome less, but Cæsar more. He was satisfied with nothing falling short of absolute control. But Cæsar was not miserly. Gold was only counted as it could contribute to his success. He was as lavish in the use of money as he was careless of his methods of getting it. So far as native generosity was concerned, Cæsar had, perhaps, as much as either of the others.

All three were keen in state-craft. But Alexander was frankly above-board in his dealings. Hannibal kept his own counsel, making no promises, nor giving his confidence to any. Cæsar was able, but underhanded whenever it suited his purpose. He could be more cunning in negotiation than even Hannibal, because less scrupulous. He could exert his powers to bring the wavering or inimical to his side in a most faultless manner.

In accomplishing vast results with meagre means, Alexander apparently did more than either Hannibal or Cæsar in contending with savage or semi-civilized tribes. The difference in numbers between Alexander and the Oriental armies he met was greater, as a rule, than anything Cæsar had to encounter. Yet on one or two occasions, as at the River Axona and at Alesia, Cæsar was faced by overwhelming odds. Hannibal was the only one of the three who contended against forces better armed, better equipped, more intelligent, and ably led. There is no denying him the palm in this. Of all the generals the world has ever seen, Hannibal fought against the greatest odds. Alexander never encountered armies which were such in the sense the Macedonian army was. Cæsar fought both against barbarians and against Romans. Not equal, perhaps, in his contests with the former, to Alexander, he was never taxed with such opponents as was Hannibal. It is difficult to say that either of the three accomplished more with slender means than the other. To reduce them to the level of statistics savors of the absurd.

Each devoted scrupulous care to the welfare of his troops; to feeding, clothing, and arming them; to properly resting them in winter quarters, or after great exertions, and to watching their health.

Fortune, that fickle jade, was splendid Alexander’s constant companion from birth till death. She forsook patient Hannibal after Cannæ, and thenceforward persistently frowned upon him. She occasionally left brilliant Cæsar,—but it was for a bare moment,—she always returned to save him from his follies, and was, on the whole, marvellously constant to him. Cæsar had to work for his results harder than Alexander, but in no sense like overtaxed, indomitable Hannibal. Alexander will always remain essentially the captain of fortune; Hannibal essentially the captain of misfortune; Cæsar holds a middle place. But had not Fortune on many occasions rushed to the rescue Cæsar would never have lived to be Cæsar.

In common, these three great men obtained their results by their organized system of war, that is, war founded on a sound theory, properly worked out. To-day war has been reduced to a science which all may study. Alexander knew no such science, nor Hannibal, nor indeed Cæsar. What was, even so late as Cæsar’s day, known as the art of war, covered merely the discipline of the troops, camp and permanent fortifications, sieges according to the then existing means, and the tactics of drill and battle. What has come down to this generation, as a science, is a collection of the deeper lessons of these very men and a few others, reduced during the past century by able pens to a form which is comprehensible. Even Napoleon was annoyed at Jomini’s early publications, lest the world and his opponents should learn his methods of making war. We must remember that these captains of ancient times were great primarily, because they created what Napoleon calls methodical war. It was many centuries before any one understood the secret of their success. But Gustavus, Frederick, and Napoleon guessed the secret and wrought according to it; and they made war in a day when busy brain-tissue could analyze their great deeds for the benefit of posterity.

Whatever their terms for designating their operations, the great captains of antiquity always had a safe and suitable base; always secured their rear, flanks, and communications; always sought the most important points as objective, generally the enemy himself; and divided their forces only for good reasons, at the proper moment again to bring them together. We find in their history few infractions of the present maxims of war, and only such as a genius is justified in making, because he feels his ability to dictate to circumstances.

War to these men was incessant labor, never leisure. It was only at rare intervals that they stopped even to gather breath; and this done, their work was again resumed with double vigor. Each sought to do that which his enemy least expected, and looked upon no obstacle as too great to be overcome. Each was careful in the matter of logistics, according to the existing conditions. Each was careful to husband his resources, and each had a far-reaching outlook on the future.

Their battle tactics were alike in suiting the means at disposal to the end to be accomplished, and in originating new methods of disturbing the equipoise of the enemy, and thus leading up to his defeat. Each of them used his victories to the utmost advantage. Even Hannibal, though after the first few years he was unable to reap any harvest from his wonderful work, continued his campaign by occasional minor victories, while awaiting recognition from home. Alexander’s and Cæsar’s victories were uniformly decisive; from the very nature of the case, Hannibal’s could not be so.

In field fortification, Cæsar was far in the lead. At a long interval followed Hannibal. Alexander made little or no use of this method of compelling victory. In regular sieges, both Alexander and Cæsar stand much higher than Hannibal, who disliked siege-work, and whose only brilliant example is the siege of Saguntum. Nor can this compare with Tyre or Alesia.

What has Cæsar done for the art of war? Nothing beyond what Alexander and Hannibal had done before him. But it has needed, in the history of war, that ever and anon there should come a master who could point the world to the right path of methodical war from which it is so easy to stray. Nothing shows this better than the fact that, for seventeen centuries succeeding Cæsar, there was no great captain. There were great warriors,—men who did great deeds, who saved Europe “from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran,” as Charles Martel did at Tours, or England from the craft of Rome and power of Philip, as Howard, Drake, and Hawkins did in destroying the Invincible Armada,—men who changed the course of the world’s events. But these were not great captains, in the sense that they taught us lessons in the art of war. The result of their victories was vast; but from their manner of conducting war we can learn nothing. Cæsar is of another stamp. In every campaign there are many lessons for the student of to-day. In his every soldierly attribute, intellectual and moral, we find something to invite imitation. It is because Cæsar waged war by the use of purely intellectual means, backed up by a character which overshadowed all men he ever met, that he is preëminent. Conquerors and warriors who win important battles, even battles decisive of the world’s history, are not, of necessity, great in this sense. All that Alexander, or Hannibal, or Cæsar would need in order to accomplish the same results in our day and generation which they accomplished before the Christian era, would be to adapt their work to the present means, material, and conditions. And it is the peculiar qualification of each that he was able, under any and all conditions, to fuse into success the elements as they existed, by the choice from the means at hand of those which were peculiarly suited to the bearings of the time.

Cæsar was tall and spare. His face was mobile and intellectual. He was abstinent in diet, and of sober habit. As a young man he had been athletic and noted as a rider. In the Gallic campaigns he rode a remarkable horse which no one else could mount. He affected the society of women. His social character was often a contrast to his public acts. He was a good friend, a stanch enemy, affable and high-bred. As a writer, he was simple, direct, convincing; as an orator, second to no one but Cicero. No doubt Cæsar’s life-work was as essential in the Roman economy as it was admirably rounded. But that he was without reproach, as he certainly was without fear, can scarcely be maintained.

In leaving Cæsar, we leave the last great captain of ancient times, and, perhaps, taking his life-work,—which it has been outside my province to dwell upon,—the greatest, though not the most admirable, man who ever lived.

LECTURE IV.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.

The difference between ancient and modern war is marked, but each is consistent with its conditions. In ancient days the armies of the civilized nations were, as a rule, not large. They could generally find sustenance wherever they moved, and were obliged to carry but a few days’ victuals with them. Their arms were such as not only to remain long fit for service, but they were capable of repair upon the spot. Neither trains to carry provision and munitions of war were essential, nor were fortified magazines for storing such material indispensable. The communications of an army had not to be so zealously guarded, for it could live and fight even if cut off from its base. On the other hand, battle was of the utmost importance, and the average campaign was but a march toward the enemy, a fight in parallel order and a victory. A battle, owing to the short reach of missiles, was of necessity a more or less hand-to-hand affair. First, the light troops, archers and slingers, advanced like our skirmishers, and opened the fighting. They were then withdrawn and the lines of heavy foot advanced to within javelin-throwing distance. Here they stood and cast their weapons, with which the light troops kept them supplied. At intervals groups from the lines closed and the sword was used, or the heavy thrusting pike. Meanwhile the cavalry, always on the extreme wings, charged the enemy’s, and if it could defeat it, wheeled in on the flanks of the infantry, and this was apt to decide the day.

Once engaged, an army could not be withdrawn, as ours can be, under cover of artillery, whose effective use from a distance over the heads of the troops will retard or prevent the enemy’s pursuit. Battles joined had to be fought out to the end. Thus victory to one was wont to be annihilation to the other. From these simple conditions it resulted that the art of war among the ancients was confined to tactical values, or the evolutions of the battle-field, and to fortification and sieges. The ancient military writings cover no other ground. There was little conception of what we call strategy,—the art of so moving armies over the surface of a country, that as great damage may be done to the enemy as by battle, or at least that the enemy may be so compromised as that a victory over him shall be a decisive one. Strategy among the ancients was mere stratagem,—except in the case of the great captains, whose genius made them instinctively great strategists,—for strategy is the highest grade of intellectual common sense. But the reasons for their strategic movements were not understood by the rest of the world, as we to-day can understand them. Others could not make sound strategic manœuvres, and saw good in naught but battle.

From the time of Cæsar, there was a gradual decline in the conduct of war, which he had so highly illustrated, and there is little, from his age to the invention of gunpowder, which has any bearing of value on the art to-day. There were great generals, there were victories which changed the destinies of the world, but there was no method in war. For many centuries there was scarcely such a thing as an art of war. One might say that matters had reverted to the old lack of system antedating Alexander.

After the discovery of gunpowder, however, there was a gradual revival of scientific, or more properly methodical war, to which Gustavus Adolphus gave the first intellectual impulse. The conditions of warfare became completely changed by this great invention in ballistics. Fire-arms soon got into the hands of both infantry and cavalry. Artillery took on importance and effectiveness. Armies became numerically stronger, depots for the needful materials were established in their rear, and the troops were supplied from these depots. This gave great importance to fortifying cities and to fortresses, in which lay the provision and war material; and as rations, ammunition, and stores had to be constantly brought from these depots to the front,—to maintain the communications of the armies with these strong places became a matter of primary importance. For the loss of a great fortress containing the army’s bread and powder and ball might have as grave consequences as the loss of a battle,—even graver.

Armies, thus handicapped with heavier trains and with artillery-parks, had less mobility, and were less fitted for pursuit than the old troops, which could carry all they needed with them. Victories were not followed up. Battles became less decisive, and dropped into disuse. Strategy had not yet grown to be the science to which Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon elevated it, and generals had not learned so to manœuvre as to make battles decisive when won. Modern war, up to the days of Gustavus, was clumsy and lacking in general scheme. It was rescued from this condition by the Swedish king.

In antiquity, battle was the head and front of all things, and armies were nimble and independent. In the seventeenth century, on the contrary, the construction and preservation of fortresses and depots, and communications with these, and operations against the enemy’s fortresses, depots, and communications became the chief study. This marked difference in system is shown in the military literature of these periods. Any operations which lay outside of battle, the ancients ascribed to the genius of the general, assumed that these were subject to no method and could not be learned; or at best classed them with mere stratagems. Their object and scope was not understood, nor indeed considered of much moment. Older military literature does not in any sense deal with them. Soldiers believed that the whole success of war was based on courage and hard knocks.

But about the time of the Thirty Years’ War, theorists had discovered that there were other means, besides battle, of doing harm to the enemy, and began to reduce such principles as they could extract from the campaigns of the better generals to a permanent form. Their work was, however, only partial and scrappy. The most important document which first saw the light was Frederick the Great’s “General Principles” or “Instructions” for his officers. This paper, written before the Seven Years’ War and purposely kept in manuscript for a number of years, was finally pirated and published in 1753. It is a noble work. But Frederick’s deeds inspired a yet more important one. Serving in the Austrian army as captain of light-horse, was a young Welshman of good education and extraordinary perceptions,—Henry Lloyd. This man’s inquiring mind was not satisfied with the half-and-half explanations which the then military books could give him of the wonderful exploits of the great king, whose marvellous manœuvres he had so often followed on scouting duty, and from which the Austrian army so bitterly suffered. He began, with singular critical and analytical equipoise, to study these and seek reasons for their success. He served under Ferdinand of Brunswick in the two last campaigns of the Seven Years’ War, and later was Major-general in the Russian army. He spent his old age in Belgium. Among other works he wrote a “Military and Political Memoir,” which contains the important part of his labors. It was issued in 1780. The ground-work of our modern science of war is therein laid down. It is the first work except Frederick’s in which are exhibited in comprehensible form the true principles of conducting war. It is here first pointed out that intellect and moral forces combined go to make up the great captain. But what Lloyd says is mainly applicable to his own times and conditions, and is not exhaustive. He remarks that the art of war is, like all other art, founded on well-settled rules, to which alterations can only be made in the application. He divides it into two parts, the material, which can be subjected to rules, and another part which one can neither limit nor teach, and which consists in the ability to apply the rules of the first part quickly and correctly under rapidly changing and various circumstances. This is the same distinction which Napoleon draws between what he aptly calls the terrestrial and the divine in the art. The divine part, says he, embraces all that comes from the moral forces of the character and talents, from the power to gauge your adversary, to infuse confidence and spirit into the soldier, who will be strong and victorious, feeble and beaten, according as he thinks he is. The terrestrial part comprises the arms, entrenchments, orders of battle, all which consists in the mere combination or use of everyday matters. It is singular that this analysis of the art of the great soldier is but one hundred years old, that only within three generations has been recognized its divine part.

The man, however, who has crowned with his acumen the written science of war is Jomini, who first became known as a young staff-officer of Marshal Ney’s, and died but twenty years ago. Though he rose to the highest rank in the Russian service, his career was as military adviser rather than as commander. His chief value to us lies in his having collated and so plainly set down the lessons taught by the great captains, particularly Frederick and Napoleon, that all may now study them, as during the last century they could not be studied,—were not even understood. He has enabled us to assimilate the history of war. Other military students have since written with equal profundity. But our debt to Jomini is not lessened thereby.

Gustavus Adolphus was born in Stockholm, in 1594, the son of Charles IX. of Sweden, but at a time when his cousin Sigismund III. occupied the throne. He was a lad of great personal beauty and strength, and his naturally bright mind profited well by the careful training he received. His boyhood showed all the traits of strong earnestness, clean-cut courage, and deep religious feeling which later characterized the Champion of the Reformation. Of naturally quick temper, in youth a blow followed a word; in manhood he acquired exceptional self-control. His education was largely under the direction of Oxenstiern, who later became his prime-minister, general, and greatest intimate. He was a constant reader, an eloquent and persuasive speaker, a poet whose religious verses are still sung in every household of Sweden. He was famous in athletics, and was both a noted rider and able swordsman.

The Swedish government was an elective-hereditary monarchy. Sigismund, a bigoted Catholic, was deposed when Gustavus was ten years old, and the lad’s father made king. Sigismund retired to Poland, of which country he was also monarch, and remained thereafter the sworn enemy of Charles and of Gustavus.

The young prince went through every step of military rank and training, and at seventeen was declared of age and participated with distinguished credit, and rare skill and enterprise, in a war with Denmark. In this same year (A.D. 1611) his father died, and, against all precedent, Gustavus Adolphus was chosen king. During his reign of twenty-one years, his people and he were an unit. The world has never seen a more striking instance of mutual love and confidence, justly earned, between king and people.

Sweden was at war with Denmark, Russia, and Poland. Gustavus determined to finish each war, if possible, singly and in turn. From the very beginning he showed in his military conduct that his intelligence ranged beyond the conventional method of conducting war, which he had been taught with so much care. In 1613 he conquered a peace with Denmark.

In 1614 he began war with Russia, making, meanwhile, a two years’ truce with Poland. In this year, and the next, he drew the attention of all Europe to his bold invasion of the Russian territory, at the point where now stands St. Petersburg, and was for the first time approached by the Protestants of Germany with a request to aid their cause. In 1617 Gustavus conquered a peace with Russia.

Sigismund would not hear of peace, but under the curious habit of that day, of conducting war on a sort of picnic system, he did extend the existing truce for five years. At its expiration, in 1621, active war began. Gustavus, with twenty-four thousand men, making Livonia his objective, landed at Riga, took the place, and from thence as a base, conducted his campaign.

Sigismund represented the Catholic element; Gustavus was the most prominent Protestant prince, and as such received many urgent petitions for help from the harassed Protestants of Germany. The eventual necessity of taking a share in the religious war was clearly foreseen by Sweden. With the advice and consent of the ministry and people, Gustavus reorganized the army and created a distinctly national force of eighty thousand men, and based its discipline and character on the most intelligent foundation. Sweden thus acquired the first modern regular military organization. Other nations, as a rule, whenever a war was imminent, raised troops from the crowds of soldiers of fortune, with whom all Europe swarmed, and discharged them after its expiration. The Swedish organization consisted of one-quarter regular troops for service out of the country, and three-quarters landwehr for the defence of the Fatherland and for filling gaps in the regulars. Recruitment was by districts on a well-settled plan of quotas. The troops in service and the militia were scrupulously drilled and taught, uniformed, well armed and fed, and regularly paid.

The Polish war lasted until 1629, the campaigns being annual, but varying in scope. Gustavus invariably took the offensive, and was habitually successful. He was always head and front of every movement, full of intelligence, activity, and courage, ran constantly great personal danger, and suffered from frequent wounds. No character of modern history exhibits the qualities of the ancient hero so distinctly as Gustavus Adolphus. Cautious and intelligent to a marked degree in his campaigns, he was in battle a very Alexander for audacity and chivalrous bearing. Always in the thickest of the fray, he led his men in person, and, despite the protests of his generals and suite, could never be restrained from exposing himself at the point of greatest importance. He was unwisely reckless of his own safety, though never losing for a moment his cool calculation or power to gauge the situation. His army partook his enthusiasm, as it shared his earnest religious feeling, and was devotedly attached to him as man and king.

In 1628, Wallenstein, the distinguished commander of the Imperial forces, had won great success in northern Germany, and had laid siege to Stralsund. The German Protestants again turned with piteous appeals to Gustavus. The king well knew that sooner or later Protestant Sweden must, in self-defence, enter the lists against the Catholic Empire, and threw a Swedish garrison into Stralsund, which, gallantly backed by the citizens, held the place against Wallenstein’s best efforts.

In the campaign of 1629, the Emperor sent an army to reënforce the Poles. This the more impelled Gustavus to actively embrace the Protestant cause. At the end of this campaign, Sigismund, largely under the influence of Richelieu, was prevailed on to agree to a six years’ truce. France could not openly join the Protestants in their struggle against the Catholic Emperor, but was glad to see Gustavus do so in order to check such success by Ferdinand as might disturb the balance of power.

This truce ended the Swedish-Polish wars, which had lasted eight years (1621–1629). The king had conducted six campaigns against Poland, and two against Denmark and Russia. These were to him what the Gallic campaigns were to Cæsar, a practical school of war, in which both he could learn his trade, and his army be disciplined and toughened. He had observed the practical working of his new army organization, and learned the weak points of the existing system of war. Comparison showed the advantages of his own conceptions. In the three remaining years of his life he moulded these into a new art, which pointed the way back to a system full of intellectual and moral force as well as more consonant with common Christian charity. The king, during this period, gleaned varied experience. He learned the habits of different leaders and armies, and how to adapt his own ways to theirs. His infantry underwent a good schooling. His cavalry he gradually improved by imitating the admirable Polish horsemen, and by adding discipline and ensemble to it. His artillery gave a good account of itself. Under Gustavus’ careful eye, every branch of the service during these campaigns grew in efficiency. Equipment, arms, rationing, medical attendance, drill and discipline, field-manœuvres, camp and garrison duty, reached a high grade of perfection. Each year added to the skill and self-poise of the Swedish forces. They were distinctly superior to any European army of the day.

Not only had Gustavus learned to know his generals and men, but these had gauged their king. There had arisen between them that mutual confidence, esteem, and affection which only great souls ever evoke and keep. And as there was no danger or labor of which Gustavus did not bear with them his equal part, so the Swedish army saw in its king a harbinger of victory, a sure protection in disaster. Gustavus’ own character, his bravery, religious ardor, honesty, and humanity infused itself into every soldier in the Swedish ranks.

Gustavus Adolphus was now in a position to afford efficient aid to the German Protestants. The efforts of the latter had been noble, but far from systematic, and they were fast being driven to the wall. The war had been marked by barbarities characteristic of religious struggles, and by the adoption of happy-go-lucky plans of campaign. Armies had moved into a province, not because it was strategically important, but because it was rich in plunder. Manœuvres were conducted without reference to base or communications. There was no aim beyond temporary expediency in any one’s movements. A fortress would arrest the march of an army, which would sit down before it without the remotest conception of whether its capture would have an effect on the general result. Lack of system was supplemented by religious fanaticism, which made everything redolent of atrocity. No general but was characterized by some fearful vice. Gustavus Adolphus was destined to change all this in a short two years.

As a soldier Gustavus is less noted for his battles than for the conduct, in 1630, 1631, and 1632, of a campaign on one broad, intelligent, far-seeing plan, from which he never swerved. This of itself was an entire novelty in this period of shallow operations. In lieu of detailing one of his manœuvres, I will give a hasty sketch of his entire plan of campaign in Germany. This was the first crisply strategic series of operations since the days of Cæsar.

It was clear that if the Emperor overcame the Protestants of Germany he would turn on Sweden. To await attack was the preference of the Swedish ministry. But Gustavus pointed out the advantages of an immediate offensive war in Germany. The struggle would be kept from Swedish territory. The Emperor would not gain so much headway as to lay Sweden open to an exhausting war. They owed a duty to their oppressed Protestant brethren. He convinced his people and gained their support. He took with him fifteen thousand men. This number he expected to, and did in fact, largely increase in Germany by recruitment and the aid of Protestant allies.

Gustavus landed in Rügen in June, 1630. He added five thousand men of the Stralsund garrison to his army, and took possession of all the islands at the mouths of the Oder. He then captured Stettin and extended his grasp right and left along the coast. He proposed to base himself on the Baltic, as Alexander had done on the Mediterranean. He took and garrisoned many seaboard towns and others lying not far inland. His army, reënforced by German allies and recruitment, soon rose to twenty-five thousand men, and he established a firm footing on the Oder, which river was an excellent line for operations into the heart of Germany. The imperial Field Marshal Conti, who had ten thousand men in his front, was unable to interfere with his operations. Garrisoning Stettin, Gustavus moved into Mecklenburg to encourage its Protestant princes, further secure his base, increase his supplies and forces, and gain active allies. He relied on collecting seventy to eighty thousand men. Count Tilly had been put in supreme command of the Imperial forces, in place of Wallenstein, against whom the Catholic princes had conceived a marked prejudice. This resulted in disbanding a large part of Wallenstein’s soldiers, who considered themselves only in his personal service, and left Ferdinand for the nonce but unimportant armies to oppose to the Swedish advance.

CAMPAIGN OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS IN GERMANY, 1630–1–2

Having substantially rescued Mecklenburg from the Imperialists, Gustavus left a force to operate there and returned to Stettin, purposing to move with the main army up the Oder (Dec., 1630). The end of the year was at hand. The Imperial army in his front was in no condition for a winter campaign, either from habit, discipline, or equipment. For this very reason Gustavus moved against it, his own troops being well clad and equipped, and inured to cold. He soon drove the enemy back to the line of the Warta, and then sat down in an entrenched camp at Bärwalde till he could recruit his army up to a standard equal to larger operations. The Protestant Elector of Brandenburg meanly refused his help to the cause, but Catholic France subsidized the king, and the Protestants called an assembly at Leipsic to agree on new measures of defence.

Tilly now appeared on the scene, thirty-four thousand strong. The king had but twenty-five thousand men and would not risk a battle, neither would Tilly assault the Bärwalde camp. But Gustavus had a better scheme in his head. He planned to draw Tilly into Mecklenburg, and then quickly return and capture the enemy’s line on the Warta. He made forced marches into that province, fell on the Imperialists and again defeated them. Tilly, alarmed, followed with twenty-four thousand men. Gustavus, by occupying the direct road, had compelled Tilly to resort to a long circuit. When Tilly was fairly on the way, Gustavus moved rapidly and secretly back to Stettin, advanced on Frankfort, took it after a seventeen days’ siege, and thus broke up the enemy’s line. The Warta fully protected his left flank in advancing into Germany. Gustavus had completely baffled his adversary. But Tilly took bitter revenge by the capture of Magdeburg, which, though it cannot perhaps be charged to Tilly himself, was given up to sack, and suffered a horrible fate at the hands of his unbridled soldiery. Gustavus had been unable to cross neutral Brandenburg to its assistance.

The barbarous treatment of Magdeburg enraged instead of disheartening the Protestants. Two able allies, Hesse Cassel and Saxony, joined the king’s train. And by able manœuvring, restless energy, and clear-headed method he swept Pomerania and Mecklenburg of Imperial troops.

The pusillanimous conduct of the Elector of Brandenburg, under the plea of neutrality, finally constrained Gustavus to dictate terms to him. He marched on Berlin and compelled the Elector to allow free passage to the Swedes over his territory, as well as to refrain from damaging the Protestant cause, if he would not help it.

Thus in one year from his landing in Germany, Gustavus had occupied Pomerania and Mecklenburg, and had neutralized Brandenburg (June, 1631). By holding the lines of the Havel, the Spree, and the Oder, he controlled all the territory to the confines of Poland and Silesia, and with a sufficiency of reënforcements he could safely advance on central Germany.

Tilly invaded Hesse Cassel. Gustavus tried a diversion to lure him away from his new ally. Count Pappenheim opposed him at the Elbe. Gustavus stole a clever march on him, crossed and went into an entrenched camp near Werben. These entrenched camps, it will be perceived, were a feature of this period which Gustavus still affected. They continued in use until he himself in part, and Frederick wholly, demonstrated that entrenchments could be taken by vigorous assault. At this time it was considered the height of foolhardiness to attack entrenchments.

Tilly vacated Hesse Cassel and moved on the Swedish camp. Gustavus had but ten thousand men there; Tilly had twenty-seven thousand; but the king waylaid Tilly’s isolated cavalry, handled it roughly, and returned safely to camp. Tilly, despite his excess of force, did not care to risk an assault. Large reënforcements soon reached both armies. Gustavus’ diversion had accomplished all he sought. By defending the line of the Elbe and Havel, he prevented Tilly from making any compromising advance.