Traismene and Cannae

The one thing i never understood is how any nation,present or past,could absorb such losses and still continue on fighting.

For a modern nation the losses of the two would be overwhelming for an ancient one with maybe a population 1/20th of the modern day US it would have been devestating.Something doesn't add up

During WWII,with a population near 100,000,000 the US suffered about a million casualties,and it affected almost every family in the country..so how could the romans shake off the loss of 100'000 men,in the prime of their life,without a serious hit on their society?

Those were not all Romans. Their allies in Italy also sent troops to fight Hannibal.

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Originally Posted by A Very Super Market

Those were not all Romans. Their allies in Italy also sent troops to fight Hannibal.

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Hannibal let the non-roman troops go.

The Romans were a determined lot, thats for sure. Those numbers could also have been exaggerated, as was common in the day, but even so if it were 20,000 men, its nothing to shrug off, thats still a lot of men!

Perhaps, it was felt within Roman Society, we will probably never know for sure, seeing as there are few articles left available to really know how the Average Roman Citizen felt. I'm guessing they felt something, maybe more along the lines of searing hate, as the Romans had, after conquering Carthage, they burned it all to the ground, and salted the earth so nothing new could grow. It may be taken, that the Senate wanted to make sure that after Carthage was dead, it would stay that way for good. Primal fear

After that the Romans really became ruthless when dealing with an enemy, as you could also say that after having dealt with the Getai they killed, burned, pillaged, and ransacked anything in their way.

hence the quote "They [Romans] had created a desolation, and called it peace."

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Originally Posted by Wakizashi

The Romans were a determined lot, thats for sure. Those numbers could also have been exaggerated, as was common in the day, but even so if it were 20,000 men, its nothing to shrug off, thats still a lot of men!

Perhaps, it was felt within Roman Society, we will probably never know for sure, seeing as there are few articles left available to really know how the Average Roman Citizen felt. I'm guessing they felt something, maybe more along the lines of searing hate, as the Romans had, after conquering Carthage, they burned it all to the ground, and salted the earth so nothing new could grow. It may be taken, that the Senate wanted to make sure that after Carthage was dead, it would stay that way for good. Primal fear

After that the Romans really became ruthless when dealing with an enemy, as you could also say that after having dealt with the Getai they killed, burned, pillaged, and ransacked anything in their way.

hence the quote "They [Romans] had created a desolation, and called it peace."

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The roman armies after Trasimene and Cannae would have had to be made up entirely of old men and young boys by reading Livy.

No way a society,no matter how warlike,losses 100,000 men not only in the prime of their lives,but also representing the entire middle class and goes "oh well" lets call up the young boys and old men and free all the slaves..without their society being turned upside down.

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Originally Posted by John the Mad

The roman armies after Trasimene and Cannae would have had to be made up entirely of old men and young boys by reading Livy.

No way a society,no matter how warlike,losses 100,000 men not only in the prime of their lives,but also representing the entire middle class and goes "oh well" lets call up the young boys and old men and free all the slaves..without their society being turned upside down.

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Thats what I was trying to get at. The "not being sure how the Romans felt" was more akin to how the French, and Allied Armies felt about war after WWI. The French lost a massive portion of their military aged population (out of 7,500,000 Mobilized 5,651,000 were either killed or wounded... almost 75% of their effective fighting force) I'm sure, had it been up to them, would have done much the same as the Romans did, if they could've gotten away with it, and later on regretted not having done so.

As a whole the modern cultures of the world cannot understand the real social nature of ancients such as the Romans. The numbers were more than likely inflated. The huge chunk of their population that died probably helped foster some sort of social reform.

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Originally Posted by Centurion1

As a whole the modern cultures of the world cannot understand the real social nature of ancients such as the Romans. The numbers were more than likely inflated. The huge chunk of their population that died probably helped foster some sort of social reform.

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People haven't changed much since the beginning, if you read Cicero you find out that most people of the time harbored many of the same fears, prejudices, and dreams that people today have. We continue to inflate (or in some cases deflate) the number of casualties caused by war, and during the 2nd Punic War, there weren't any recorded major social reforms going on with the Romans, who were much too preoccupied with making sure Carthage would be destroyed.

What i mean is that by really opening the military up to lower class citizens (not just relegating to velite status), they were setting the stage for reform.

And i have read ciceros oration against cataline. The difference in culture isn't the problems, those will probably never change, it is the way the people dealt with those problems

When people want fight, loses are not important. During whole 2nd Punic war 50% of men who could carry on weapon died. It did not stop Romans from conquering Macedonia just after war with Cartage was finished.
Remember that into Roman society practically all the men able to carry on weapon could fight. I don't know how many their lost during whole war - lets tell 500.000. In Rome it means that .... they still have 500.000 potencial soldiers.
Simplicity of that men was their strenght. Its not mistake that Roman Republic is being called "republic of peasants - soldiers".

Estimated total Roman/allied free population was 3+ million with Romans around 900,000. The loss of around 100,000 killed after the first 2 years were Romans and allies combined.

We can compare with the Confederate States of America(CSA) that had a free population of 5.5 million and estimated military deaths of around 260,000 over 4 years.

We know the CSA were scraping the bottom near the end and Rome itself seems also to have taken extraordinary measures to raise new legions after Cannae (freeing slaves and lowering monetary requirements for recruitment IIRC)

If we assume most soldiers came from the age range of 17-30 or perhaps up to 45 then a majority must have been under arms or have been a casualty after Cannae.

Many allies were IIRC complaining about the continued strain within a few years (211 BC?) so without doubt it indeed did mean a serious hit to their society.

But it is not entirely unprecedented in history and Wakazashi already mentioned France in WW1 where we see 1.4 million deaths over 4 year with a population of about 40 million, which is on a similar level as Rome+allies after Cannae.


CBR

That is why we have the expressian 'a pyrus victory'. He won the battle but lost the war.

Pyrrhic not pyrus. And you don't mean that this is where the term originated right?

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Originally Posted by Wakizashi

Perhaps, it was felt within Roman Society, we will probably never know for sure, seeing as there are few articles left available to really know how the Average Roman Citizen felt. I'm guessing they felt something, maybe more along the lines of searing hate, as the Romans had, after conquering Carthage, they burned it all to the ground, and salted the earth so nothing new could grow. It may be taken, that the Senate wanted to make sure that after Carthage was dead, it would stay that way for good. Primal fear

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IIRC, I believe public mourning was banned for a while in Rome after Cannae. That should give us some idea of the situation.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

That is why we have the expressian 'a pyrus victory'. He won the battle but lost the war.

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Except for the Romans it wasn't a Pyrrich victory.

The flower of their manhood,not to mention their middle class,lay dead at Traismene and Cannae yet they went on to not only defeat Carthage but conquer Greece and Iberia.Livy talks about them still being picky enough,even after freeing slaves,of being selective of the farmboys they took into the army as they passed through the countryside.

That is many years after the Cannae and they never experienced that heavy losses after that. The fighting/conquest in Greece happened after the second Punic War was over and Rome never sent more than a few legions.

Depending on birthrate and mortality Rome+allies could have produced maybe 15,000 or more new males every year. So it does not take long to replace the losses in the 17-30 age group that would be most interesting to recruit.

For some time after the war I could imagine it would have been more difficult to fill in the Triarii classes though as they would either have been dead or enlisted for so long that they had already done their 12 years max or however long it was.


CBR

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Originally Posted by Wakizashi

People haven't changed much since the beginning, if you read Cicero you find out that most people of the time harbored many of the same fears, prejudices, and dreams that people today have.

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H.G. Wells, in his Outline of History, has a wonderful quote to that effect. Couldn't find it the last time a cruised the book. I'll try again.

The closest modern equivalent I can imagine was how the Soviet government managed to survive defeat after defeat during the early years of the German invasion. They suffered over a million casualties to the army alone in 1941. The very Gates of Moscow were within sight of the enemy. No other modern state could have withstood such a pounding and not packed it in. The stoicism of the communist regime under Stalin is reminiscent of how the Romans behaved once they recovered from the shock of Cannae. I believe that Hannibal should have listened to Maharbal when he said, "Truly the Gods have not bestowed all things upon the same person. Thou knowest indeed, Hannibal, how to conquer, but thou knowest not how to make use of your victory." . Despite what many historians say about the difficulty Hannibal would have had besieging Rome, I believe that a strong show of force by the Carthaginian Army at the gates of Rome would have won Hannibal a great diplomatic edge. As it was, his delay allowed the Romans to gather strength and regroup morally.

Alexander would have never stopped to allow such a thing.

Alexander never had those sorts of problems. The closest he came to those losses was in Afghanistan and even then the losses were negligible.

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Originally Posted by CBR

That is many years after the Cannae and they never experienced that heavy losses after that. The fighting/conquest in Greece happened after the second Punic War was over and Rome never sent more than a few legions.

Depending on birthrate and mortality Rome+allies could have produced maybe 15,000 or more new males every year. So it does not take long to replace the losses in the 17-30 age group that would be most interesting to recruit.

For some time after the war I could imagine it would have been more difficult to fill in the Triarii classes though as they would either have been dead or enlisted for so long that they had already done their 12 years max or however long it was.


CBR

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The senate was down to 100 or so after the war, from a norm of around 300. Cannae saw a particularly high senatorial body count, as senators offered themselves as minor officers in what would be the decisive victory for Rome. Among the dead were Marcus Minucius Rufus, who was Fabius Maximus' co-dictator, and Cnaeus Servilius Geminus, the other consul in the Trasimene campaign.

One could argue that Hannibal brought down the Roman Republic, since the great loss of soldier/farmers allowed the various senators who survived to grab that farm land and begin latifundias that eventually contributed to their wealth and status and ensured their conservatism against any land reform...

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Originally Posted by John the Mad

Except for the Romans it wasn't a Pyrrich victory.

The flower of their manhood,not to mention their middle class,lay dead at Traismene and Cannae yet they went on to not only defeat Carthage but conquer Greece and Iberia.Livy talks about them still being picky enough,even after freeing slaves,of being selective of the farmboys they took into the army as they passed through the countryside.

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Rome and her allies had huge manpower advantage over Carthage and her allies. Even after Trasimene and Cannae Hannibal couldn't compete with that. You could say that the entire campaign was doomed from the start. The fact that it lasted as long as it did is a tribute to Hannibal's skill. I don't remember the exact figures but Hannibal's army that reached Italy was about 50,000-60,000 strong. Romans had over 200,000.

I don't believe Hannibal made a mistake by not attacking Rome directly. His greatest strength was mobility and ability to give battle only when he wanted to. If he decided to siege Rome, he would have lost those advantages and made himself a sitting duck. You can't siege a heavily fortified city if a huge army can appear on your back anytime.

Of course, tenacity of the Romans also played the part. They simply refused to be beaten, something rarely seen in the entire history of the world, comparable to Soviets absorbing their losses in WW2.

Hannibal probably needed a one or two Cannaes more to win. Romans knew that and simply refused to give battle, choosing instead the strategy of attrition. A lot of cities in Italy were fortified and Hannibal simply couldn't allow himself the losses from taking them, even if they were minimal.

We often like to think that wars are won by winning a decisive battle or a few battles. In reality it is the ability to absorb losses that wins the war. Not just in terms of manpower but also in economy. We've seen that time and again. Sweden could several decisive battles against the Russian empire and it was enough for the Russian empire to just win one. American Civil War would be another example.

i think the comparison with the war between nazi germany and soviet russia are apt. the more cultural differences there are between two great powers, the more brutal a war for survival can become. when you have two despotic states fighting not just for terrritory, but they also have vast linguisitc, ethnic, social, and political differences there is less reason to stop the bloodletting.

for the romans, this wasn't like the first punic war, where a cannae like defeat, say in sicily could maybe have been absorbed and resulted in a disadvantageous peace. this war was being fought in their heartland, in italy. carthage got up to the gates of rome. there was nowhere else to retreat to if they lost rome/italy. so they were willing to take any type of casualties because the alternative was obliteration.

whereas in carthage, the war was more likely seen as a more distant affair, with the loss of provinces as the most to lose. carthage didn't really suffer physically from the war the way that rome did.

the war only became truly real for carthage with the third punic war, when they realized that the romans were bent on the destruction of them and their city. but by then, it was too late of course, they had lost everything else to rome. but they didn't give up. they fought fanatically with tooth and nail with all they had left just as the romans had after cannae. but of course their situation was much more desperate than rome's had ever been.

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Originally Posted by Centurion1

Alexander never had those sorts of problems. The closest he came to those losses was in Afghanistan and even then the losses were negligible.

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True indeed, but Hannibal's losses after Cannae were a fraction of the Roman casualties. Despite the enormous effort it took to procure such a slaughter, and some accounts speak of the killing lasting over six hours, a day to reorganize a strike group to advance on Rome before the Roman Senate and people could recover from the shock was feasible. Maharbal, one of his closest advisers thought as much and told him so. Napoleon said "The moral is to the physical, as three to one." Never had the Romans been so downcast by defeats until then.

Yes it would have been difficult, perhaps even foolhardy, but it very well could have won the war for him in one fell swoop.

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Originally Posted by CBR

That is many years after the Cannae and they never experienced that heavy losses after that. The fighting/conquest in Greece happened after the second Punic War was over and Rome never sent more than a few legions.

Depending on birthrate and mortality Rome+allies could have produced maybe 15,000 or more new males every year. So it does not take long to replace the losses in the 17-30 age group that would be most interesting to recruit.

For some time after the war I could imagine it would have been more difficult to fill in the Triarii classes though as they would either have been dead or enlisted for so long that they had already done their 12 years max or however long it was.


CBR

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Yet they managed to form another consular army after Cannae..and it is very hard to find men fit enough to fill even a small army in moderen times.Look at the US in regards to afghanistan and Iraq.

A nation of 300,000,000 people finding trouble recruiting enough physically and moralely fit men to fill the ranks of the Army and Navy.

Rome must have dregged the very bottom of the barrel after Cannae.

USA does not use conscription though and they had a lot more in the armed forces in WW2 and with less than half the population. At its max Germany had more than 10% of its total population in the Wehrmacht which would be the same as USA today having more than 30 million in the armed forces (currently it has about 1.4 million in active and the same in the reserve)


CBR

An all volunteer army works better in my opinion. I think we learned that fact amply from nam'. But the generation of the 50's and before was different. They got drafted but they served as if they just volunteered.

Remember what Stalin said, "Quantity ha a quality all its own."

In `1914, the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) was the finest force, man for man, in the world. Those 160,000 men were first rate patriots of the British Empire. Most had combat experience in the Boer War. Unfortunately for the BEF, it took less than 5 weeks for a fighting force twenty-years in the making to be destroyed completely. The problem is that the German conscript he faced may have not been experienced but he was very well trained, with 16 weeks of Prussian torture under his belt. The BEF soldier may have been worth two Germans, but the Germans had twenty men for every BEF soldier and it took only 16 weeks to replace the conscript; It was impossible to replace the BEF man. End result, 160,000 BEF soldiers took down perhaps 200,000 Germans at a loss of 98,000 men.

The real lesson, then, is that conscripts are better than volunteers when the conscript program is properly run and the conscripts properly trained. In WW2, the conscripts were raised FOR THE DURATION and underwent a full and complete four months of basic training that dealt with the enemy likely to be faced. The average 1943 conscript then spent up to a year in the service before he was likely to see combat. In Vietnam, We trained them for a few weeks in tactics for fighting a Soviet invasion of West Germany, not a Vietnamese guerilla in the Delta or highlands. We then sent them home just a few months later, just as they were starting to learn to be real soldiers. That is why the conscript of 1967 failed.

Here area few basic ground rules for successful conscripts,

1.) Full and complete training by professionals. Just because they did not volunteer doesn't mean they are inferior material, just material acquired by other means.

2.) Conscripts fight best when the term of service is tied to victory, not time. If a conscript is told that he will be released after a period of time, he spends his days counting down and avoiding trouble, not learning to win to get home faster. This also helps encourage the conscripts and professionals because both groups know that they will both be in the fight to the end. One of the biggest problems we had in Vietnam was the disconnect between the professionals and conscripts. The professionals hated the fact that they were being forced to fight on and on while hordes of "cowards" swept off the streets back home were riding home with barely their feet getting wet (so to speak).

3.) Conscripts need a cause more practical than simple patriotism. Volunteers may be willing to die for a stupid piece of fabric on a pole (otherwise known as a flag), but a conscript needs to know that he is fighting for something tangible, even if you have to lie to them.

That last post was an astute analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of conscription armies. Well said British Mutt + Viking. This begs the question, were the Roman legions sent against the Carthaginians during this time of a professional or a conscript nature? Being that Rome was still a republic then, I envision a large contingent of the soldiery may have been "reservists" recalled for the "national emergency", much as the Army of the United States was during the opening involvement in WWII. We know that the Romans had an efficient way of training their citizens to be soldiers. Do you think that they could produce an efficient army of conscripts?

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Originally Posted by rotorgun

That last post was an astute analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of conscription armies. Well said British Mutt + Viking. This begs the question, were the Roman legions sent against the Carthaginians during this time of a professional or a conscript nature? Being that Rome was still a republic then, I envision a large contingent of the soldiery may have been "reservists" recalled for the "national emergency", much as the Army of the United States was during the opening involvement in WWII. We know that the Romans had an efficient way of training their citizens to be soldiers. Do you think that they could produce an efficient army of conscripts?

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Polybius has a full description of the selection process. IIRC the Roman territories have an obligation to provide n men for service. The selection will take into account fitness for service, service already rendered, the consul's choice, etc. They then make their way to a gathering point, eventually meeting up on the Field of Mars. When Hannibal marched on Rome in an attempt to relieve Capua, 4 legions had coincidentally just been raised and assembled in Rome.

Also, training might still have been done by parents and parent figures at this point in time. It was Scipio Africanus, during his Iberian campaign, who brought in gladiator-style standardised training.

I think if we are starting a discussion about conscripts versus professionals is that both in Britain and US the whole conscription system was and still is different. While most countries in European continent had mandatory military service for certain amount of time for all capable males. Germany was example of this.
Results from such conscription are bit different specially if continued by well timed rehearsals compared to drafted conscripts that are shipped out after basic training incase numbers of the professional army are too low for the need of conflict.

So while US and Britain drafted and gave basic training to their men. Germans and for example Finnish simply called in arms their reservist that formed the troops they had been trained previously for.

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Originally Posted by Kagemusha

I think if we are starting a discussion about conscripts versus professionals is that both in Britain and US the whole conscription system was and still is different. While most countries in European continent had mandatory military service for certain amount of time for all capable males. Germany was example of this.
Results from such conscription are bit different specially if continued by well timed rehearsals compared to drafted conscripts that are shipped out after basic training incase numbers of the professional army are too low for the need of conflict.

So while US and Britain drafted and gave basic training to their men. Germans and for example Finnish simply called in arms their reservist that formed the troops they had been trained previously for.

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Wasn't the German system created as a way around the restrictions Napoleon placed on the Prussian army? If Prussia can only have an army of 100,000, Prussia would have a permanent corps of 5,000 fulltime officers, then have drafts of 95,000 conscripts who are trained and demobbed in time for the next lot, thus giving it access to a paper strength of 100,000 current soldiers plus 500,000 reservists or summat.

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

Polybius has a full description of the selection process. IIRC the Roman territories have an obligation to provide n men for service. The selection will take into account fitness for service, service already rendered, the consul's choice, etc. They then make their way to a gathering point, eventually meeting up on the Field of Mars. When Hannibal marched on Rome in an attempt to relieve Capua, 4 legions had coincidentally just been raised and assembled in Rome.

Also, training might still have been done by parents and parent figures at this point in time. It was Scipio Africanus, during his Iberian campaign, who brought in gladiator-style standardized training.

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So, the Roman armies of the period were likely made up of a mixture of full time professionals, recalled veterans (reservists of a kind), and a large number of hastily, but well trained recruits. Their pattern of tactics must have therefore, become predictable to an astute General. Hannibal was certainly an astute tactician. He seemed to have an uncanny knack of getting well inside the decision making process of his Roman opponents.

The Parthians were also quite aware of the Roman's inflexibility.

As someone said before until scipio africanus the romans training was not legion style. They still had more training than other areas of the world at that time but they were not the well oiled machine of the empire at that time. What the Romans had going for them over other nations (not just barbarians but also empires) was their training and discipline. If they did not have men well trained there would have been many routs. The romans (and other nations) have often developed a process of placing newer recruits next to veterans in the battle line, because usually a rout is started because a man sees one of his comrades running, he is usually more willing to fight if his brothers in arms are.