Now whenever I talk about
Hannibal everyone gets one image, a man on an elephant leading an army through
the Alps to Rome. This is probably one
of the most famous military maneuvers in history and there is a good reason for
it. This march would most certainly give Hannibal the advantage of surprise but
there was a huge risk to it as well.
Also it was one of the few options Hannibal had left. The days when
Carthage ruled the sea were long gone now so a sea invasion would be rather
difficult. 
Yeah that's the image everyone gets.
Yeah that's the image everyone gets.
So
after crossing the Rhone, Hannibal made his way towards the Alps. However, to
his surprise, there was a Roman army a few miles away from him. Publius
Cornelius Scipio, consul of Rome, had landed his army near Massila in order to
invade Barcid Spain[1].
Numidian scouts and Roman scouts happened to run into each other. The cavalry
battle was a slight victory for the Romans whose scouts returned to tell
Scipio. Upon hearing their report, Scipio then followed in hot pursuit to the Carthaginian
camp. However, Hannibal didn’t want to fight a pitched battle yet. Scipio found
Hannibal’s camp deserted; he then left his army in the hands of his brother and
they led it to Spain. Scipio returned to the northern Italy to start building
up forces for the impeding invasion.
So
now Hannibal began the long march across the Alps. You see the Alps weren’t uninhabited; no,
there were several tribes that lived in the mountains. They did not take kindly
to intruders in their land. He was
ambushed by Gaul tribesmen who killed many men and made off with a lot of his
supplies[2]. So Hannibal had some of
his troops stay hidden. When the Gauls attacked again he defeated them with an
ambush and took their village getting much of his supplies back. It took nine
days for Hannibal’s army to reach the top of the pass and by then the first winter
snow began to fall in late October. The
conditions were awful as you can imagine[3]
According
to legend there was a steep precipice that Hannibal could not get around. So
Hannibal ordered his men to burn large amounts of wood. The men heated their
wine and tossed it on the rock to weaken it. They were then able to carve their
way through the rocks.[4] Yeah this story probably
isn’t true but interesting.
Hannibal’s
soldiers had made it across the Alps at this point but the damage to their
ranks was high. Hannibal had left Iberia
with 50,000 infantry and 9000 horsemen. After Hannibal’s Alpine adventure he
was down to 20,000 infantry and 6000 horsemen[5]. Some historians put
Hannibal’s pre-crossing numbers at 94,000 total forces and by the end 26,000.
So Hannibal’s crossing was extremely costly. But he gained what he wanted as he
caught the Romans off guard. Many considered a crossing during winter
impossible so the fact that he did and was now on the Romans’ footstep was a
great morale booster for his troops. Hannibal’s last act of the crossing was an
attempt to win over the Gauls in the region. Hannibal knew he needed to win
against the Romans in order to impress them. But one tribe opposed him so he
attacked their capitol and killed everyone within it[6]. The Gauls then started
taking Hannibal’s messages for alliances far more seriously.
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