The Non-History of Mauretania: A Europa Barbarorum AAR

[MisterFred]

by Stenu Turditanikum

[Ch.1]

It wasn't until the second major battle fought by the Army of Mauretania that I began to seriously contemplate the future of my people. The creation of the army itself could have been a footnote in history. Might still be a footnote in history. Fifteen years earlier, war had broken out between the Lusotann and Carthage.

Carthage had made the first move, sending a large army north out of Mastia that pretended to advance on Arsea, when in reality their plan was to assault Baikor from the north. It almost worked, but bandits fleeing from a force broken by the Carthaginians warned the Lusotann chiefs in Baikor in time for them to call in reinforcements from nearby Sucum-Mugi. The Lusotann in general were experiencing a rare moment of prosperity, enjoying the returns from considerable mining investments. The Lusotann found just enough cash to hire a contingent of allied Iberi spearmen. A group of Massiliotes was also convinced to join in the city's defense in return for concessions in the tin trade.

I knew much of this even then because the Lusotann had hired my cousin to help begin their mining industry. Later, Lusotann sub-chiefs told me of the desperate days of fighting in the streets of Baikor. Hasdrubal had put together a thoroughly professional force and thoroughly loyal force of Liby-Phoenician infantry and Cavalry supplemented by a few Lybians, all of whom fought in the style of the Hellenes. At least six divisions of infantry and four wings of cavalry surrounded the city and constructed four great battering rams. The Lusotann fought back with little more than a hail of javelins. What few armored units they had would engage the Liby-Phoenicians while ambushers and raw levies poured out of nowhere to throw point-blank at exposed backs. A legend began that the Lusotann gods ensured every javelin thrown found its mark in four days of ugly street fighting. Even so, a veteran of the battle told me a few Liby-Phoenicians had fought all the way to the city center before the last of the chiefs' bodyguard cavalry sallied all the way out of the city to strike Hasdrubal's personal bodyguards from behind, through the gaps in the city wall made by the Carthaginians themselves.

Given the fierceness of the fighting in Baikor, what's remarkable is how swiftly the rest of the war in Iberia went. Bereft of Hasdrubal's leadership, the Carthaginian nobles in Mastia spend every dime they had raising troops. But in their haste, they were taken by Greek agents, who promised a vast phalanx and sailed away leaving the Carthaginians with a host of the poorest Greeks and Phoenicians in Iberia. Only a few Iberi tiribes - and all small tribes at that - were foolish enough to side with the Carthaginians. The first great slaughter of the Carthaginian reserves occurred outside of Baikor.

The Lusotann caught the Caraginians trying to rush over the mountains from Mastia before the exhausted city could be relieved, and the lusotann's hastily levied light spearmen, caetrannan, and the ubiquitous ambushers shocked the chiefs by being far more professional than the militias and hordes of akontistai fielded by the Phoenicians. A decisive victory by the Lusotann embolded them and increased the local Cartaginian panic. The Lusotann army marched right past Baikor, and chased the fleeing Helleno-Phoenician host over the mountains and met a far larger army outside Mastia.

But this army was no better equipped. The Lusotann loosed every javelin they had, and then closed for more. The bodyguards slew fleeing men at will while the Carthaginian force seemed to only have three shields for every hundred men. To this day they say the crabs on the coast by Mastia still have a taste for human flesh. After a brutal sack, the city would resist the Lusotann no more.

Gader was also doomed. The Spartan Xanthippus had been sent by Carthage west in order to keep him out of the city's politics, and he took most of the professional African troops with him. Siga, a Phoenician colony on the outskirts of Maure territory, meekly acknowledge Carthage's dominion, and Xanthippus used this base to cut a bloody path across the Mauretanian coast. With their hoped-for reinforcements across the sea, and mindful of the atrocities at Mastia, Gader essentially surrendered at the approach of the Lusotann army. [The garrison was so small, auto-calc lost me only 30 men.] To no avail. The Iberians butchered the inhabitants anyway, killing the Greek and Phoenician men and male children in the city and proceeded to set fire to most of the town, including the market, granary, temple, and government buildings. Phoenician power was literally exterminated in Iberia, and I doubted they'd want to go back.

I was not a popular man at the time. From my father Bodin's holdings in the foothills of the Atlas mountains I had convinced the mining towns and herdsmen not to answere the general muster issued by Lixus as Xanthippus closed in. Even many of the local men considered my actions treasonous, and I was forced to go into hiding. But without organization, little gets done. So the hillmen did not go to war. We had no counter for the Phoenician cavalry in those days, before we learned to merge our raiding parties into a single fist capable of fighting on a battlefield.

Lixus fell quickly and the Cartaginians were merciful to the non-combatants, although they slaughtered the army to a man. Local opinion of me went up a notch as most of the hotheads realized I'd saved them from a similar fate. Xanthippus installed Phoenician administrators in Lixus and marched south in orderly Spartan fashion to Sala, intending to finish his conquest of the Maure of the Atlantic. I took the opportunity to buy up or simply assume control of land owned by Maure who had died resisting Xanthippus. It was a busy time for me. Most of my authority had come from my father, Bodin. I was born when he was already elderly, the first child from his second wife. But also the first son. I was doted on, taught to manage the family businesses, and was running things in my father's name when he was killed by, of all things, a rockslide near a cavern where we liked to gather large snails for village feasts.

But then the hill lands looked to me for leadership again, for no one had risen to challenge my prominent position when the last thing anyone expected happened. The Lusotann invaded. Sailing out of sight of Carthaginian galleys posted at the Pillars of Hercules, a leaky, creaking barbarian fleet landed next to Lixus' city walls, disgorged a Lusotann army, and they promptly laid siege. Apparently expecting a longer war with Carthage, the Lusotann had issued a general muster and raised large numbers of Northern Skirmishers with the promise of loot and plunder. Failing to have enemies in Iberia to fight, and fearing of expanding elsewhere because of the Romans (who were at that time wooing the Greek coastal cities with offers of 'protection'), the Lusotann sailed south with their army, two younger sons of Latronus who were seeking lands, a fat boatload of Phoenician coins taken from Mastia and Gader, and Latronus himself, their aging high chief, who was looking for one last glorious campaign.

Xanthippus knew how to march though, and abandoned his siege of Sala, returning in time to relieve Lixus. The Lusotann, for their part, hired the few Maure bands who had fled into the northern mountains after their earlier defeat at the hands of Xanthippus. Now they got their revenge. They held the weak Lusotann left, otherwise manned with too few veterans. They held until the Lusotann chieftains rode around the battle into the Carthaginian rear and broke the Carthaginian forces pushing back the northern iberian skirmishers. Still, the veterans and Maure were wavering under the vigor of the assault of Xanthippus' Spartans themseleves until a tide of Lusotann javelins from commoner and noble alike craished into the Spartans' backs.

Now the Lusotann held Lixus. But Maure are not Phoenicians - while hardly poor, we didn't have the riches the Lusotann had come for. To our relief they peacefully "liberated" the city without looting and set up a pupped government under Ti Sagun. With Lusotann funding, Sagun organized the Maure for war. But the Lusotann chief was old and impatient, and his sons needed lands not owned by Maure "allies." They marched east after little more than a year, which is a short time to reorganize a broken country. Once more I held the hillfolk and upriver country back. If the Lusotann wanted to play at war, let them. I didn't want to be there when they faced the full weight of the anti-Barcid wrath at the invasion of an Africa they regarded as theirs and theirs alone.



Hiring eastern Maure along the way, the Lusotann had nearly 16,000 Maure allies [population totals multiplied by a factor of 20, so this is 4 full strength 200-man units] marching with nearly 20,000 Lusotann, most of whom were Northern Iberians. As they marched along the coast, the finest Carthaginian elites were marching west along the inland route behind the coastal range, intent on reconquering and punishing Lixus.

Which I thought was no good at all. I had businesses and holdings in the area, clients who could be ruined by a foraging, vengeful army. So I hired two teenagers to tell the Carthaginians about the Lusotann heading east along the coast. They did their bit, and picked up a few coins from the Carthaginians as well, and the advancing army turned back. The Lusotann were delyaed by a large reserve army of Numidians, opportunists hoping to find land in the chaos in Mauretania [Akontistai], and a smattering of inferior African mercenaries hired by the ever-cautious Carhaginian pay-masters in Siga. Without proper leadership, this reserve army was slaughtered wholesale by the Lusotann, in particular their Maure allies, who tore into the Numidian infantry. The Maure knew why the reserve army was preparing to march east. It was a stunning blow for the Carthaginians in Siga, who watched the Lusotann army gather outsided their walls with something approaching horror.

But they needn't have feared. The minor Carthaginian family member leading Carthage's own troops attacked the Lusotann force from behind, trapping them along the coast. Carthage had spared no expense in seeking to regain control of Lixus. Three elite divsions of African pikemen, and a division of mercenary greek pikemen centered their line. Their right flank was held by a unit of Sacred Band infantry, their left by solid Libyans. Numidian archers and skirmishers protected the slower troops.

It was a desperate battle. Half of the Maure lured the Sacred Band away from the flanks. Soon after, the other half broke the Greek phalanx. The Lusotann swarmed around the elite African phalanx, ignoring Numidian attempts to stop them. Javelins pounded into the backs of the phalanx while the young sons of Latronus and a few veterans trapped the Carthaginian general and killed him. But still the pikes held. So did the Sacred Band, which stood back to back after being outmaneuvered and shrugged off every attempt to break them. The African phalanx stood up to the javelins, but began to waver when surrounded by every last Maure and Iberian left, under attack by spear and sword.

Latronus himself, still spitting fire at sixty-five, led his picked men into the back of each 'elite' phalanx in turn - and stayed hard on the attack until they broke and died to a man. But the Sacred Band refused to die, a few Numidians had yet to flee the field, and Captain Whatshisname from Siga had sallied out, and finally reached the battle with his light city guard and Sardinian mercenaries. The bows of the Sardinians were telling, and the few remaining Northern Iberians fled. Even the Latronus' sons abandoned him. The old warlord himself died on a Sardinian spear after breaking a unit of Sigan militia. The Maure were the last to flee the field.

No one from either army would cross the river west - I made sure of that. Enough men had been organized to watch the fords, and I had no desire to see Lusotann or Carthaginians in what I was already staring to think of as my territory.

Technically a victory for the Carthaginians, the first battle of Siga crushed any attempt to re-invade Maure lands in the near future. For the Lusotann, the battle was an utter disaster. Iberian troops in Africa were utterly wiped out. Their high chief had died in battle, and his two younger sons, including the chosen Lusotann heir, had died ingloriously, attempting to flee the battlefield. The Lusotann avoided political chaos by turning to the eldest son of Latronus, Ambron Lusotanakum. But there was a reason he had been passed over as heir. Ambron was dumb, and he was a religious fanatic. Some called him reverent, others hugely supersitious. To make things worse, he was fascinated by outsiders, a drunkard, and the people loved him. Part of him was a Talented Leader. But most of all, he was a worshiper of the Bandue, spirits of the land.

At first Ambron looked to the Hellenes to fill his lust for the strange and exciting. He led and army to Arsea and sat outside the city for two and a half years, finally agreeing to let them keep their status as a Hellenic Free City - as long as they surrendered and allied themselves to the Lusotann. [The AI didn't sally and the Greek type IV government building wasn't damaged so I kept it. Weird, eh?] But in the end, the Hellenes are no more than normal men who like to read overly much and tell off-color body hair jokes. So Ambron looked to the Bandue spirits that talked to him in his head, and to other seers and delusional people like himself. And he dreamed of the holiest place in the Bandue's fantasy land, an emerald isle hidden in the ocean to the north.

As the other Lusotann nobles tried to protect the treasury from the massive ship-building program Ambron began, they also had to deal with a new neighbor. Rome had been trying to convince the Greek city states to fall under her protection ever since she assumed control of Massilia. Not long after Arsae was forced to ally with the Lusotann, a large Roman garrison was sitting in Emporion, "protecting" its inhabitants. As you might imagine, the Lusotann had forgotten all about "Mauretania" - their own creation. But Ti Sagun, governor of Lixus, had not. He was a true leader, at once a poet and a capable bureaucrat. Even as the Latronus was heading east to his doom, Sagun was mobilizing Lixus on a scale never before seen by my people. The entire population was militarized, new weapons foundries were, well, founded, and Sagun funded it all by installing "trusty" Maure customs officials in Gader and Mastia in order to "help" the struggling Lusotann ruling class.

[MisterFred]

[I started a new campaign and chose Lusotann because I was tired of breaking mass phalanx armies. The settings were put to VH/M and I went at it. Early results were mixed, as I easily took Tyde and Sucum-Mirga, but failed to take Baikor with my remaining men. Once I made it out of bankruptcy, I raised a new army, went bankrupt again, and took Baikor and the two northern towns. Pretty much straight economic development after that until Carthage attacked. I had absolutely no plans to do an AAR (hadn't ever done one actually) until the disaster outside of Siga where I lost three family members to those #($&#(& phalanxes and having nowhere to retreat :). When I realized the new traits my faction leader had and looked at the Lusotann goals, I decided an invasion of Ireland was an absolute must! The problem is, the Romans were already besieging Emporon - they took Liguria quickly, started west, and never looked back, so what do I do with my mobilization of Mauretania under type IV governments? Well in any rational world, the Lusotann would stop giving a crap about their client kingdom and shut down the war against the Carthaginians.

And then suddenly I didn't want to play Lusotann any more. I wanted to play Mauretania. And that was a cool enough idea (and mostly likely, a short and brutal enough adventure) that I figured it would make a good AAR. I hope you agree. I also apologize for the shortage of images.

As I say, this isn't exactly planned. To this point in the story its pretty much a normal game except that I generally play with fog of war off since I like to watch the AI on the other side of the map. In this one my east is craaaazy! Heavy fighting on all fronts (well the Palahva are peaceful with Bactria and the Saka... so far... but everything else is a free-for-all scrum), Pyhrros actually HELD Pella (omg wtf) and the Arverni have held Galatia several times. Oh, and Carthage is holding Kyrene... peacefully! I'll include a known world map next chapter when my screenshots catch up to my story.]

[Ghaust the Moor]

Great start so far. I am really intrested to see where this is going. Non-factional AARs are always fun in my opinion. I'm in fact starting a new one now. Please continue this if it please you and don't let lack of comments get you down. Now, as is my custom, I present you with this balloon For starting an AAR that features a Non-Factional force ie. Mauritania. Good luck with this AAR and I shall be watching....always

[MisterFred]

by Stenu Turditanikum

[Ch.2]

I still didn't believe this new Lusotann client state would last long, but Ti Sagun believed in "Mauretania" with every ounce of his being. It's easier to do that when the failure of your idea will probably mean your execution, I suppose. Sagun believed the Carthaginians would be coming, and this time it would be with fire and rape, regardless of whether the people had been behind the Lusotann puppet state. He put his capable and darkly humorous lieutenant, Abulos, in charge of Lixus and personally stormed Sala, ending that city's neutral withdrawal from northern Maure politics. And then Sagun did it again. He militarized every able-bodied man in the city and the coastal plain, creating the largest army this part of the world had ever seen.

And the Carthaginians did come, just as Sagun had predicted. They came with little pillage by the coastal route. Their surprisingly peaceful march was in part a result of my covert efforts to provide sufficient supplies to their army as long as the Carthaginians paid for grain rather than stole it. While Sagun was mobilizing to the south, Lixus' new stone walls were surrounded and besieged. The Carthaginians, knowing the Lusotann were absent, had brought a balanced force of respectable strength, the sort of force they had been using to subdue African nations for years. Led by a minor family member, there was a range of Numidian troops, professionals from Carthage fighting in the Hellenic manner, a few Maure from around Siga, and even a few Garamantines from deep in the interior. And Sagun came up from Sala with the entire Army of Mauretania, and utterly crushed them. Fighting for their homes, with the advantage in numbers and morale, and with Sagun's bodyguard employing anti-cavalry tactics learned from the Lusotann chiefs, the Army of Mauretania won a smashing victory outside of Lixus.

And then something even more unexpected happened. Sagun called me to Lixus, talked with me for days about the Lusotann, Rome, whether this Bandue-infested Eire really existed, about the Greek and Lusotann invasion of the Baleares from Arsea, and especially about the Carthaginians. he admitted he was master of the Maure Atlantic coast but had no skill in the hills or in marching armies into foreign lands. And then he took me to the walls of Lixus and we looked down on the Army of Mauretania and he asked me to lead it east. To conquer Siga and points beyond. He offered me money, titles, and land, and his Lusotann lackey - yes, technically it was supposed to be the other way around - promised the Lusotann would back everything Sagun said.

So I agreed.



As I took control of the army, I began to realize why Sagun had trusted me enough to give me command. He had little choice. The organizational demands were staggering. Officers had to know you, and I was a fellow member of the nobility. Quarrels had to be settled. I had led the hill country long enough to know how to be a judge. Money had to be managed... vast amounts of money, even in just supporting the largely unprofessional ranks of the army. And it had to be fed. Always fed. It is difficult to comprehend what a great huge locust an army is. If you've ever heard an army marching, it is the great sound of thousands of cows, pigs, goats, and sheep mooing, grunting, squealing, pulling grain wagons, and being slaughtered by the army's butchers. I had many clients who were herdsmen... and there was no doubt I was going to have to press them for a large part of their stock just to maintain the Army of Mauretania as it ate its way east. I was the natural choice to lead the army, but I suspect Sagun was not happy with that fact. We made remarkably good time, taking the inland route half way to Siga before heading to the sea to go around the larger coastal range. I worked day and night to provide the army with everything they needed to, well, keep walking. It was hard to imagine anyone else making the journey as quickly.

I met a second Carthaginian army as we approached the coast from the interior road, of a similar construction as that which had recently invaded and penetrated all the way to Lixus, although this one was spear-headed by some elite Liby-Phoenician infantry, marked by their heavy armor and helmet plumes. I used the same swarming and javelin tactics as Sagun had employed outside of Lixus, and utterly crushed them.

Victory is a heady feeling. Maure are new to large-scale set piece battles, and it feels like the gods themselves are empowering you when you win. The troops themselves are infected by the same feeling. As the enemy approaches you see only their great mass of men, and little of your own lines. A sense of hopelessness can be difficult to avoid... especially when recent history has seen men just like you annihilated by men quite like them in a place near this one. But when you win... when you step over your mangled and torn foe, when you watch them run from the field, see the terror in their eyes and your own fear drives you to chase them down, hunt them, just to make sure they don't turn back and do everything you've been dreading for months since you joined the army... new men are forged. Warriors. Veterans. No longer are you a simple village boy... now you are one of those men that change the world.



[these stats and the libyan general stats are both from units with two chevrons and no equipment upgrades]

The high of victory... and victory far from these men's homes, where they are the aggressor, was so strong I had to to restrain the ardor of the troops when we took Siga. In the aftermath of the victory on the coast, the army had marched so swiftly and with so much purpose we reached Siga before the Carthaginians thought it was possible. The city was being organized as the staging ground for a larger Carthaginian effort, and a unit of elite African pikeman held the town alongside the ordinary Sardinian and Numidian garrison. I had on my side, numbers, the advantage in supplies, and a vast advantage in morale. But I had few scouts. Local Maure had guided us as we moved east past lands where I had personal influence, but the coast beyond Siga was an unknown quantity. Did the pikes we saw over the wooden palisade have friends marching closely even now.

The safest course of action seemed obvious: take Siga by storm and occupy it. With a significant Maure population within the walls, even Maure who had become used to living under Carthaginian dominion, we could rest in a friendly city and begin civil administration and the development of a proper scouting screen for the army. I ordered three wooden rams to be constructed. Some Garamantines of the interior I had hired along our march were surprisingly helpful in this regard. I'd employed the mercenaries in part to be sure they didn't raid my lands while I was away... given their experience with simple siege equipment my suspicions that the Garamantines were broken men from Carthage's armies seem to have been confirmed. But if they didn't know which end of a javelin to hold, they had a small shield, and could push the ram and absorb a few Sardinian arrows that would otherwise hit a Maure warrior.

The men carefully followed my battle plan, and most of the defenders were killed at range, with a javelin or two marking their corpses. Even the phalanx fell in this fashion, although it took some time to bait it out of position and move their shields out of the way. With casualties at a minimum, and the Army of Mauretania once more victorious, our attention turned to administration. Karbalos, a supervisor of miners who throught of himself as cultured because of his association with Helenic traders, was installed as governor. A member of Sigun's team in Lixus, I assumed he would be well-suited to the job, although I personally disliked him. This had more to do with his insistence that I provide horses for an honor guard much like mine than any real question of his ability, so in the end we worked well together.

In fact between the two of us, I was perhaps less capable as we organized the countryside around Siga. Although I had enough contacts among the rural Maure - and they had enough contacts among the non-Maure natives - to ensure a smooth administration, military matters were a different problem. After resupplying the army and replacing casualties with Maure from Siga happy to be out from under Carthaginian governorship, I moved the army east, both to ease the food pressure on the land around Siga and to watch for the Carthaginian response. Local rumor held that the famous Carthaginian general Milkpilles was advancing from the interior, rather than along the coast from Carthage. Milkpilles was the terror of Garam, Numidia, and all the other formerly independent tribes. A staunch anti-Barcid, his response to any hint of discontent at being conquered was brutal reprisal. Although a lot of local rumor may have been based on hatred of how effective militarily he had been. He was, without exception, Carthage strongest possible response to African opposition.

I advanced confidently to meet him. There seemed little the Army of Mauretania couldn't face, and a victory over his army in the interior, near the very lands he had brought under Carthaginian control, could potentially cause a widespread revolt against the Carthaginians in the interior and even among the Numidians. That is I marched confidently until Milkpilles advanced with exceptional speed from the interior and off the coastal range. Expecting to meet him on the other side of those mountains, I was suddenly faced with a hard choice. Continue advancing, and meet Milkpilles on what was effectively neutral ground, or risk lowering the moral of my army by turning and running for Siga, where the advantages were in my favor. As Milkpilles' clear intention was Siga, and every scout brought back reports of another fearful element of his army, including eight elephants, my mind was made for me.


[Even though the Carthaginian heir is also in the army, Milkpilles was the general, which I thought was notable.]

The Army of Mauretania marched for Siga the next day, our rear scouts reporting the sun's glint off of shiny shields and polished spear-points. I pulled Siga's garrison into my army


and directed Karbalos to continue to raise fresh levies. Pulling back all the way to the coast, I wanted to give as much time as possible to the incorporation of the new men.


Milkpilles, if he advanced on my army, would be slowed by raiding parties issuing forth from the city and I could plan my response. If he stopped to construct siege engines, I could again choose my avenue of attack and relieve the city.

But Milkpilles had other, more direct plans. The morning after my army completed our camp next to the ocean, frantic messengers galloped from Siga screaming of elephants at the walls, tearing them apart. Milkpilles had ignored my plans, marched right to the city, and looked like he intended to keep on going. I rushed to get the men out of bed, onto the field, and marching south to save the city.


[I really did not expect that.]

It was as I rode south, willing my nervous men on faster that I pondered what this battle meant for the future of my people. This was to be the second important battle fought by this Army of Mauretania, the second in which a loss meant disaster. The first had been under Sigun, outside the new stone walls of Lixus. It established as fact Sagun's militaristic mobilization of Atlantic Maure. A loss there would probably have meant the occupation of Lixus and Sala by Carthage. A loss now, after so much death and the depopulation of the cities would mean the end of Sagun's rule as a Lusotann client, and possibly the end of urban existence for my people. A victory would mean... well, now, there was a question...

[Ghaust the Moor]

Dang. Your effeciant XD

[MisterFred]

by Stenu Turditanikum

[Ch.3]

Two of my best-armed units were sent into the city by the gates closest to us. The army itself would make better time marching through the open land to the east of the city. Our tactics remained simple, especially as I had little time to plan a detailed strategy. By some miracle, we were within sight of the Carthaginian host when their elephants finally breached the wall. The great mass of the army approached the Carthaginian host in a line perpendicular to the southern wall. The few Numidians we had recruited since taking Siga added weight to the line at the top of the hill outside of the city. I positioned myself there as well, ready to counter any movement by the Carthaginian cavalry. I could see Karbalos, or at least his honor guard, making a daring sally at the sight of our approach, issuing from a gate little more than a javelin's throw from the elephants themselves, and the infantry approaching the breach.

As the elite of the Carthaginian infantry rushed the breach, or at least some sort of troop wearing plumes, it was difficult to tell at this distance, the Carthaginian cavalry charged the southern end of our advancing line at the top of the hill. I sucked in my breath as I noted no less than three bodyguard contingents, as well as a full unit of Liby-Phoenician professionals. The Numidians fighting for us disintegrated almost immediately, those that weren't instantly killed running away in terror. My Maure, brave souls, charged the enemy after releasing a wave of javelins. Although they were spared the brunt of the charge, the dead bodies of the Numidians before them must have been a difficult sight.

I spurred my mount to a gallop as I swung around to southernmost edge of our line, prepaing to charge Milkpilles' bodyguard myself, my flag bearer ordering our flank to follow. The screams of horses deafened the crash of our charge, and we fought spear to spear with the enemy, blood splattering everywhere. I thought I caught sight of who must have been Milkpilles himself, trying to turn his mount away from murderous javelins released by more Maure surging up the hill when...

Ow. PAIN. An arrow shaft pierced my left shoulder. Something tore when I turned to look over the same shoulder and my vision flashed white for only a second. Struggling through the pain I could see Sardinians. Running Sardinians. At me. Running Sardinians poking spears at my horse, which is screaming and turning south to run into the trees. My world has shrunk to my shoulder, and for the moment, the horse seems to have the right idea.

[Milkpilles' army approaching Siga from the south.]

[I apologize for having no other pictures of this battle save the aftermath. I don't have a screenshotting instinct yet, and I play my battles with the AI with no pausing, to partially counteract its stupidity with poor reflexes. This is especially taxing when using ranged-capable units (Maure Infantry will stand and fire as their single-click order, they don't auto-charge after one volley, which is nice) and in the sheer chaos of the rare battle like this, which is technically a siege and yet more an open-field battle.]

An excerpt from Thucydorus of Leontini's The History of Africa, Book 9.

Students of military and political matters alike, not that the two can truly be serparated, should take note of the second battle of Siga. The Maure horde, as I have demonstrated, had pressed the Phoenicians as far as this coastal town, in fact exceeding the temporary gains of the combined Iberi and Maure barbarians only five years previously. Yet despite the barbarians' brief control of the city, the inadequate size of the interior garrison in the face of civil revolt, and the reasonably large Phoenician population within Siga, there was no help for Milkpilles' army from the citizenry.

The lack of such an action, or even the show of an attempt to support Milkpilles by citizens hoping to come to prominence as a result of a Carthaginian victory, exposes some of the weaknesses in the otherwise remarkably efficient policy Carthage employs to control other Phoenician colonies. A governor, almost always Carthaginian, not just Phoenician, is put in place to direct the city overall, in addition to mass numbers of harbor officials, clerks, and other personnel which ensures, with little exception, strict obedience to trade edicts issued by Carthage, as well as the prompt payment of duties and assessments. Moreover, in a failed attempt to turn local Phoenicians into Carthaginians, despite the state's own active separation of the two populations within government, some governors insist on changing the dates and customs of local festivals and sacrifices to match that of Carthage. Although in other respects their administration is generally benign, these two policies, one necessary, one not, reduce the patriotism of the local Phoenician population. A necessarily less capable barbarian government is actually preferred by many of the less-educated and learned populace, as it is not efficient enough to impose unwanted restrictions and regulations.

Turning back to the battle itself, strategists may be surprised to hear that both armies split their forces, choosing to emphasize neither the battle outside the walls nor the battle around the breach in the city's walls. The garrison, surprisingly well-led by the green but enthusiastic magistrate Karbalos, had succeeded in throwing the elephants back from the walls with the skilled use of javelins natural to the Maure people. This forced Milkpilles to properly support his elephants with covering fire, which delay allowed Stenu's forces to engage the Carthaginians before they significantly penetrated the city. Strategists reviewing the actions of the two armies might argue that this split of their forces by both generals, to the point where the combatants nearly engaged in two separate battles was arguably a mistake by both armies, but in actual fact this result is understandable for reasons I shall soon reveal.

Before I continue with the battle itself, however, allow me to take us up and look down on the situation from the point of view of the hawk as it were. The dispositions of the two armies at the start of the battle were as follows: Milkpilles deployed nearly 40,000 infantry, which was a mix of Carthaginian professionals, allied tribes, and mercenaries, in the usual Carthaginian fashion. He also employed an usually strong cavalry wing, nearly 7,800 horse, almost all of which were of a heavy type from Carthage itself, the allied tribal nobility having been depopulated by Milkpilles himself during the previous decade. And of course, he had eight elephants. However, these were of the smaller African type common to Carthaginian armies, and as they take several casualties in the breach of the city wall, the beasts played surprisingly little role in the actual fighting. Milkpilles stationed the bulk of his cavalry outside the city, where it could do the most good, on the high ground overlooking the battle. His elite Carthaginian troops, the best of his Greek mercenaries, his Iberian troops, and the allied Garamantines were sent to force the city. The Numidian allies, the professional infantry, the Sardinians, and the weaker Greek allies aligned themselves to face the relieving barbarian force, with the stronger troops and the Sardinians supporting the cavalry, the weaker sections of the line stretching north to the city wall.



For their part, the barbarian horde is estimated to have numbered 56,000, the bulk of whom were Maure tribesmen, but also 13,000 allied African tribesmen or mercenaries. The native horse, fighting as chiefs or sworn men to the two Maure leaders, numbered only 4,500. The infantry was stretched in a typically disorganized barbarian front from the city walls up the top of the hill south of town, with half the cavalry on the left wing and the other half still within the city. Siga also held a scant few thousand infantry as a garrison.



Readers should begin to understand the dramatic changes occuring in African warfare prompted by the creation of the Maure government by Ti Sagun. The escalation of warfare demanded more men, and while this battle involves only slightly more combatants than the previous confict at Siga which I have already related to you, I am compelled to point out again that this current conflict did not include a foreign invasion of Africa from Iberia. In fact, before this time all the most famous battles on this continent were a result of the invasion of Africa by outside powers, as occured in earlier wars between Syracuse and Carthage and the Lusotann and Carthage. The second battle of Siga marks the first time an all-African conflict involved such a dedication of resources. Even the infamous Mercenary War involved fewer men, or at least smaller bodies of men spread out over a larger area.

Returning to the event at hand, Milkpilles, having made himself familiar with the tactics of the Maure, set a clever trap for the inexperienced barbarian leader, Stenu. Opening the battle on top of the hill by charging with most of his cavalry, Milkpilles drew the Maure commander into an attempt to protect his lines. Milkpilles, however, had brought up infantry behind the screening line of his cavalry, in a fashion which prevented the Maure from observing the maneuver. Surprised by the assault of the Sardinian infantry and the unexpected ardor of the Carthaginian cavalry, the Maure cavalry around Stenu, and in fact the barbarian leader himself, routed utterly. Milkpilles himself, in addition to many of Carthage's finest cavalry commited to the trap, also perished in the open stages of the battle, trapped by the javelins and swords of the on-rushing barbarian main force, which was advancing at considerable speed.

At this same time, lesser Carthaginian nobility had been appointed command of the various forces fielded by that great city, and Karbalos, the Maure garrison commander charged his own cavalry outside of the city in an attempt to route the northern edge of the Carthaginian line by means of a spirited charge into their rear. With the opening action taking place far from the rest of the battle, and hidden as well by elevation and natural vegetation, and there was the curious occurence that the leaders of both armies had either fled or died on the field of battle, and yet few men in either army actually noticed, and in fact continued fighting with all the determination and valor suitable to a confict of such immense importance. Nevertheless, the reader can begin to understand how easily the rest of the battle disintegrated into chaos and a remarkable degree of viciousness and brutality.

The most notable figure left on the battlefield was in fact Karbalos, an administrator and governor who had been early forced to plead with Stenu for an honor guard to mainatain his standing in the city. He proceeded, in that surprising way unknown men sometimes do, to shine with valor and ability on this day. Although, given that we know him to be a barbarian wise enough to take the effort to make himself familiar with Hellenic culture through contact with traders and diplomats in Siga, one should hardly be surprised that he proved exceptional. [Cultured.] In any case, his charge out of the city into the rear of the weaker Carthaginian forces was wholly successful, although we might also marvel at the valor of the barbarian garrison, who remained to face the elite of the Carthaginian army even as their leader abandoned the city.

Nevertheless, trapped between the charging Maure main force and the reckless advance of Karbalos, who many said looked possessed by the spirits of Hades that day, the weaker section of the Carthaginian line retreated in haste towards the rest of their compatriots, or even broke all together. Karbalos, even then not knowing of Stenu's cowardly flight, immediately set about directing and organizing the Maure horde near the city walls. The vast majority of the infantry he sent rushing into the city, hoping to stem the inexorable advance of the toughest Carthaginian troops and Greek mercenaries. Only those men too distant to arrive in a timely fashion were sent to charge up the hill into the other battle developing on the field. Karbalos himself, tireless and determined, was wise enough to charge south as well, as any educated commander knows cavalry is of greater use in an open field than within a city. Nevertheless we must give credit to the barbarian for flexibility and awareness given he was technically in command of the garrison. Thus we can see how the battle, at first a nearly orderly affair, quickly devolved into two disorganized masses of combat, which style of conflict, I must insist, favors the barbarian warrior over the civilized soldier.

While the battle on top of the hill was truly one to shake even the most determined veteran, we should turn our attention now to the battle within the city where the fighting was, although one hesitates to acknowledge such a thing is possible, even fiercer and more savage than that which was going on outside the city walls. The Maure were desperately trying to contain the advance of the Carthginians, whom they rightly feared would massacre the inhabitants and possibly set fire to the town.

For their part, the Carthaginians were enthusiastically following the last orders given to them by the late Milkpilles and surging through the gap in the walls created by the elephants. An elite unit of Liby-Phoenicians led the way, advancing in a manner reminiscent of the oldest hoplite tactics, in relatively open order and choosing between spear or blade as circumstances demanded. Although many Carthaginian experts criticized the arming of such a unit as obsolete, more suitable to the First Persian War of ancient history than modern conflict, it should be noted that the success of the Liby-Phoenicians against the Maure warriors speaks to the continuing viability of such tactics against barbarian opponents. participants of the battle claim the unit killed as many as five times their own number of barbarians, without the benefit of a flanking force.

Even as the Carthaginian army poured through the breach in the wall, Maure warriors organized on the field by Karbalos also poured into the city through the southern gate, providing enough fresh bodies to stem the tide of the Carthaginian advance. A Greek mercenary phalangite who survived the battle, although we won't venture to ask what unmanly trick he resorted to in order to ensure his survival, recalled looking to his right as he waited to move into the city and seeing a similar line of Maure charging into the city in identical fashion, just outside of throwing range. The maneuvers of the army so mimicked each other that one can nearly imagine Karbalos directing the reinforcing Maure to copy the Carthaginian movement.

Unable to dent the heavily armored front of the Carthaginian force, the Maure within the city nevertheless managed to hold out until their countrymen gained the advantage outside the walls. Eventually the Carthaginians, bereft of capable leadership, failed to support their failing infantry on top of the hill, and allowed their cavalry to be entangled by the Maure center as it charged up the slope. Karbalos must be given much of the credit. Unflagging, he must have nearly worked some of his horses to death as he swung all the way around the fight to hit the Carthaginian infantry from the south, before pulling back and charging again at the Carthaginian noble horse in a classic use of light horse free to work havoc on a battlefield. And, even more than his heroics, when the test finally comes, the morale of men fighting for the chance of pay and plunder fails before the morale of those fighting for their very existence, for their families, and for the hopes of their entire people.

In this way the Maure fought without regard for personal danger and, after driving away the Carthaginians outside of Siga, fell on the rear of the Carthaginian force in the city, blocking their very avenue of escape by surrounding the Carthaginians struggling to enter through the breach. Even still, the battle did not end until the Carthaginian host was completely vanquished, in a bloody struggle in which no quarter was asked, and none given. The brutality of the fighting can be seen in the casualties. Less than an eighth of the total Carthaginian strength escaped the battle outside of the city, while the Maure, victors in the battle, lost upwards of 22,000 men.

I must take a moment, despite the breathlessness of the occasion, to comment on the foolishness of both commanders. Generals today almost invariably wish to follow in the footsteps of Megas Alexandros. While such ambition, if it is matched by effort and ability, is laudable, the educated general might be better off deciding not to lead from the front, and especially not from the point of the charge, as Alexandros did so ably. Although such great feats are occasionally necessary, for mortal men to engage repeatedly in such actions is suicidal folly. Without total certainty that he has the favor of the gods, the wise general will lead safely from the rear, where the men may not love you, but will receive the greater reward of your guidance and counsel...


[Sadly, this is the point when I thought to take a few screenshots. This is most of the hilltop battle. Although there are several more bodies to the left of the picture, they were hidden in trees. Note how close the breach in the wall is to the gate and imagine both being used by opposite forces to rush into the city. As I said, it was a chaotic and weird battle.]


[The mass of dead from the battle within Siga proper. You can also see the results of the less populous, more free-flowing battle that took place outside the city but not on the hill.]


[This is the farthest penetration by Carthaginian forces. Note the green bodies, the Liby-Phoenician Elite. Those bastards were the first in the door and stood strong through the entire battle. Half of them only died when the whole army group finally routed because of the mass casualties and the fact they were surrounded. You can see the dense line of Maure bodies where they held their ground against all the reinforcements I poured into the city. It was particularly annoying to see my men brutally abused by them since I think the unit is generally crap for its cost. I've never been happy when I've recruited them or ever seen the AI use them effectively before.]

[MisterFred]

[I got really lucky when I played this battle. In order to get my line into position for the main fight, I used javelins to stall the elephants. I could have just slaughtered them and forced Milkpilles to retreat without a way to breach the walls, of course, but given the archers in his army, I just couldn't live with that RP wise. So I was going to try and rout the elephants and hope they regained morale before I got myself positioned. Instead, I got lucky and bugged them out after the initial two volleys, which killed 4 of them. Maybe because I got the one that was moving in to start head-butting the wall. They milled about for awhile without routing... long enough in fact that I totally forgot about them as I lined up my army until a video of the wall being breached popped up just as my battle line was about to engage... the AI finally sorted out the elephants on its own, and set up my forces exactly where I wanted them. Although I didn't plan to get my general nearly killed in the first freaking skirmish... but the Sardinians really had been moving up through trees and I didn't notice them while I made sure Karbalos didn't get jumped as he moved out of town... I thought my cav had infantry support against his cav. Oops.]

Thanks for the encouragement Ghaust. I like the forum ability to show you views in addition to replies. It helps in the motivation. As far as my efficiency, I actually wrote out quite a bit before I first posted. Enough that I was reasonably sure I wouldn't start it and end it immediately, as so many do. Not that I'm guaranteeing I'll finish, but I'll at least get somewhere...