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.