Hannibal: Defeat of a Superior Commander

Roman history is filled with bloody wars and great troops victories and losses. unmatched of the most burning(prenominal) of these wars was the Second Punic struggle fought mingled with Rome and the Carthaginian armies led by Hannibal. Although Hannibal was a lord commander who marched his army to the gates of Rome, crushing either opponent a wide the way, he was ultimately unable to decoy the war due to political, economic and geographical reasons. Although he could not, in the end, batter these factors to conquer Rome, Hannibal is considered one of the greatest military commanders of all time, and his evasive action are still studied today. Hannibal?s genius starts with his radical invasion propose of the Italian Peninsula. His sentiment was to invade Italy from the atomic number 7 instead of with Sicily from the south, by marching from the Iberian Peninsula through Gaul and the Alps. Although this plan became semi-apparent when Hannibal besieged and conquered t he Northern Spanish city of Saguntum, it is still an important tactical move (Salmon, 133). Carthage had a long tradition of naval supremacy and it would have been tempting for Hannibal to have a bankroll in the oven his armies to Italy by invading Sicily, but he agnize that would be foolish because the Romans held local naval supremacy along the occidental Mediterranean near Italy (Salmon, 132).

another(prenominal) reason for not armed combat by sea was that the war ships of the time needed numerous ports and landing areas, which Carthage did not hold in that area, therefore do a naval landing nearly impo ssible (Smith, 110). another(prenominal) cle! ver aspect of Hannibal?s invasion plan was in recruiting local people into his army along the way. Hannibal knew that various tribes of Gauls dislike the Romans and would take up arms if they were given the right opportunity, so he gave them that opportunity (Salmon, If you want to get a broad(a) essay, guild it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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