Battle of Cannae

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, and after those three victories for Hannibal, Chris, it really kicks off with the Battle of Cannae, the most famous of these.

Yes, it is.

Um, and, um, this reverberates again [laughs] through the Roman psyche.

Rather than risk losing his army at sea, Hannibal led his men into southern Gaul, the ancient name for France, and embarked on his legendary crossing of the Alps.

The Carthaginians surprised the Romans by crossing into northern Italy by November, and over the next two years, Hannibal demonstrated that he was one of the greatest military leaders of the ancient world by inflicting major defeats on the Romans most notably at the Battle of Cannae on 2nd August 216 BC, where he surrounded and destroyed a Roman army of 86,000 men in one of the most celebrated battles in military history.

Hannibal's great victory at Cannae prompted many of Rome's former allies to switch sides, joining with Carthage, with many believing Hannibal would soon descend on Rome itself and defeat the Republic there.

Although Hiero of Syracuse had been a loyal Roman ally in Sicily, his death in 215 BC led to the accession of his 15-year-old grandson, Hieronymus.

Thus it is but natural that more than any other the present German military doctrine embodies this supreme lesson of the bitter years of the World War, that quality attained through intensive and scientific training and expressed in a supreme degree of mobility and the fullest exploitation of maneuver even by the smallest units of infantry will more than compensate for the greater numbers of a short-service army.

It has been well said that the Germans went to Canae for their last model.

They will go to Cunaxa for their next.

Another mistake paid for heavily in 1914, of which Marshal Saxe foresaw the dangers and warned his pupils of the folly, was the construction of permanent fortifications around cities.

That quality attained through intensive and scientific training and expressed in a supreme degree of mobility and the fullest exploitation of maneuver even by the smallest units of infantry will more than compensate for the greater numbers of a short-service army.

It has been well said that the Germans went to Canae for their last model.

They will go to Cunaxa for their next.

Another mistake paid for heavily in 1914, of which Marshal Saxe foresaw the dangers and warned his pupils of the folly, was the construction of permanent fortifications around cities.

No, it wasn't.

It was lifted directly from the Battle of Cannae during the Second Punic War, where the Carthaginian general Hannibal utilized a pincer movement to encircle and annihilate a massively superior Roman army.

By utilizing real-world, historically proven military tactics, the production grounds the spectacle.

It feels real.

[laughs] You know, so the whole thing was, was to hold them up there, and then send the bulk of their force, like the vast, vast majority of it, up north through Belgium, smash through that shit, and get all the way up to the ocean so they can't be flanked, right? Because that's the big thing, it's if you're gonna have this huge line, you can't let somebody get your flank and turn the flank.

So go all the way up to the ocean, and start encircling back down, and hook around the French, and try to, like, recreate the Battle of Cannae at, like, a massive scale.

And so, cool, we'll, we'll encircle them.

We'll make a big pocket.

Thus it is but natural that more than any other the present German military doctrine embodies this supreme lesson of the bitter years of the World War, that quality attained through intensive and scientific training and expressed in a supreme degree of mobility and the fullest exploitation of maneuver even by the smallest units of infantry will more than compensate for the greater numbers of a short-service army.

It has been well said that the Germans went to Canae for their last model.

They will go to Cunaxa for their next.

Another mistake paid for heavily in 1914 of which Marshal Saxe foresaw the dangers and warned his pupils of the folly was the construction of permanent fortifications around cities.

As Xenophon writes to have happened to his men, and as Galen very largely declareth, Libre 10, De usu partium, just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly dilated and suffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which may go so far on that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and by consequence of life itself, by this pericary or extremity of gladness, as Galen saith, Libre 12, Method, Libre 5, De losis affectus, and Libre 2, De symptomatum causis.

And as it hath come to pass in former times, witness Marcus Tullius, Libre 1, Quest Tuscul, Varius, Aristotle, Titus Livius in his relation of the battle of Cannae, Plinius, Libre 7, Capitulae 32 and 34, A. Gellius, Libre 3, Capitulae 15, and many other writers, to Diagoras the Rhodian, Chilon, Sophocles, Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, Philippides, Philemon, Polycrates, Philistion, M. Muventi, and others who died with joy.

And as Evisin speaketh, in two canon et Libre de viribus cordis, of the saffron, that it doth so rejoice the heart, that if you take of it excessively, it will by a superfluous resolution and dilation deprive it altogether of life.

Here peruse Alex Aphrodisias, Libre one, Capitale nineteen, and that for a cause.

Thus it is but natural that more than any other the present German military doctrine embodies this supreme lesson of the bitter years of the world war, that quality attained through intensive and scientific training and expressed in a supreme degree of mobility and the fullest exploitation of maneuver even by the smallest units of infantry will more than compensate for the greater numbers of a short-service army.

It has been well said that the Germans went to Canae for their last model.

They will go to Cunaxa for their next.

Another mistake paid for heavily in 1914 of which Marshal Saxe foresaw the dangers and warned his pupils of the folly was the construction of permanent fortifications around cities.