Music is Beethoven's Sonata No. 07 in D Major, Op. 10 No. 3 - I. Presto, performed by Daniel
Veesey.
BATTLE OF LAKE TRANSIMENE
The Battle of Lake Trasimine was the second in a series of three major engagements fought
between Carthage and the Roman Republic.
All of these battles are significant, but Trasimine is special.
It has the distinction of being largest ambush in military history.
Anyway, that's what a book told me.
If you're anything like me, your first thoughtmight be "that's impossible, what about the Battle
of the Teutenberg Forest?"
Nope, I looked into it, the Teutenberg Forest is a much more famous ambush, but slightly
smaller in size.
If you're anything like me, your second thought might be "that's impossible, what about the
World Wars?"
Nope, I looked into it, no sizable ambushes to speak of.
But then again, if you're anything like me, your next thought might be "wait, what *is*
an ambush?
You obviously have to be concealed somehow, but does it count as hiding when you're in
the sky?
Was the firebombing of Tokyo an ambush?", at which point you might think "shut up, nerd.
Maybe don't bring it up if you don't know the answer."
Anyway six months after the decisive Carthaginian victory at the Trebia River, Hannibal was
tapdancing across northern Italy setting fire to everything, which drove the people in Rome
crazy.
New Consuls were elected on a platform of "the guys in office are a bunch of idiots",
which, you have to admit, is a sensible thing to run on when you're losing a war.
One of these new Consuls quickly threw together a brand new army and left to chase down Hannibal.
Once the Carthaginian scouts realized that they had a Roman army trailing them, they
delibereately slowed down to let the enemy catch up.
As the Romans were closing in, the Carthaginians were approaching a section of the road that
had a lake on the right and some steep tree-lined hills on the left.
This is where the battle would take place.
After night fell, Hannibal kept his men moving.
He secretly continued up the road, turned left, and brought the bulk of his army back
up around the other side of the hill.
This is where they settled in for the night.
I should probably touch on the sizes of these two armies.
Hannibal had a total of 50,000 men, with around 40,000 infantry, and 10,000 cavalry.
His army had grown size after his stunning victory at the Trebia River.
He now had a total of 17,000 Gauls fighting at his side, all of whom carried a serious
grudge against the Romans.
The Roman army had around 30,000 men in it.
They were mostly infantry with an insignificant number of cavalry.
Obviously the Romans were chasing a larger army.
But they may not have known this.
The Romans may not have known this.
My guess is that they were working with old intelligence, and didn't know about Hannibal's
new Gallic allies.
You see the Romans hated scouting.
They thought that it was kind of boring and undignified, so sometimes they just didn't
bother.
This was going to turn into a huge problem.
The next morning the nonexistent gods must have been favouring Hannibal, because the
two armies woke to a heavy fog.
The Roman Consul blindly had his army advance along the road in a giant column, without
sending any scouts ahead to try to get some eyes on the Cartheginian army.
It turns out they were watching the procession from the top of the hill.
Suddenly, the column stopped.
The Romans had no way of knowing this, but Hannibal had secretly left some of his elite
heavy infantry at the far end of the road.
Due to the fog, the Romans just stumbled into them, and fighting spontaneously broke out
at the front of the column.
The men further back were not aware of the enemy contact, and were just left wondering
why the column had stopped.
At this point the main Carthaginians force had begun to silently advance down the hill.
Due to the trees and the fog the Romans were caught completely unaware when an entire enemy
army appeared out of nowhere and charged the entire length of the column at once.
As this attack was happening, Hannibal ordered his cavalry to backtrack a bit and charge
the rear of the Roman column, which cut off any potential escape.
Weird sidenote: the Roman Consul was widely known as an expert at fighting Gauls, and
famously wore a Gallic scalp attached to helmet, which is both disgusting and a great way to
differentiate yourself politically.
Unfortunately, that runs both ways.
The Gauls in the Carthaginian Army knew his name, knew his face, and knew his disgusting
helmet.
They made it their business to find him during the battle, and they did.
The Consul was dead in minutes, and God knows what they did to him.
A lot of things were happening at once, and the Romans weren't prepared for any of it.
Every escape route was cut off, so many men just broke and ran straight into the lake.
Countless men drowned trying to swim in their armour.
There's one account of masses of Roman soldiers standing in neck deep water begging to be
killed.
The Romans at the head of the column, who first made contact with the enemy, did have
some success.
Around 6,000 men broke through the Carthaginian roadblock and ran like hell.
But they didn't get far.
The were captured some hours later by the Carthaginian cavalry.
The battle was over, and it was a decisive Carthaginian victory.
They lost only 2,500 men.
The Romans lost... virtually everyone.
Around 15,000 Romans were killed and another 15,000 were taken prisoner.
The Romans were traumatized by this.
They had suffered two monumental defeats back to back.
They decided that next time they weren't going to be tricked, they weren't going to be ambushed,
and they definitely weren't going to be outnumbered.
Next time they would come at the Carthaginians with everything they had and fight the way
they fought best.
As it turned out, the next time the battle would take place near the town of Cannae,
and would become the most famous battle in human history.
That'll be coming next week, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss it.
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