05-02-2007, 10:07 PM
Quote:....
I'm not saying that fighting from an inferior position is always a mistake. You have to look at the consequences of losing. If you are fighting for independance, which you currently lack, and the consequence of losing is simply a continued lack of independance, it makes sense to take the chance. If it is in your country's best interest to fight on in spite of disadvantages, such is the case in George Washington or Robert E. Lee, then you have no choice.
I think that a commanders motivation for fighting is a very important criteria for judging his quality. War is a political function. With that in mind, I don't think that commanders who fight for their own prominance should be put in the same catagory as those who fight for the common interest. I don't think this is a 'modern' sensibility; I think it goes all the way back to Miltiades. Ancient authors are always warning us of the dangers of human pride.
I can see your point that perhaps Hannibal felt that he alone saw the threat Rome presented and decided, with the interest Carthage in mind, that now was the time. If that could be shown, I'd have to give him more credit. He was wrong though.... It looks like his confidence as a field commander clouded his judgment as a strategic commander. That being the role he assumed when he said, "Now".
We can never know Hannibal's motives with certainty, unless his personal diary is dug up somewhere in the ruins of Carthage; and the main sources for this war are all Roman, so their interpretations of Hannibal's personal thoughts have to be taken with plenty of salt.
As for being wrong about the war, that assumption leaves a lot of unasked questions. For example, what could be expected to happen if the war was delayed? Rome already had Sardinia, and Roman fingers were now reaching across the Ebro into Spain. The idea that Rome would somehow weaken and Carthage gain in strength (so that the war might be fought with better odds in the future) doesn't seem too plausible. Rome had other potential foes, but would it have been practical to wait for some Grand Alliance of Macedonia, Carthage, and a "United Gauls" against Rome? Given the results of the war, such an alliance would likely have never happened.
If a strategic situation is progressively deteriorating, (and I suspect this one was, from the Carthginian point of view), the options are limited. Either start fighting now, before things get worse, or pre emptively surrender, (and learn Latin).
Felix Wang
