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.