THE BATTLE OF ILIPA.
In the spring of 206 B.C. the Carthaginians made their last great
effort. Hasdrubal, encouraged by Mago, Hannibal’s brother, raised and
armed fresh levies, and with an army of seventy thousand foot, four
thousand horse, and thirty-two elephants moved north to Ilipa (or
Silpia), which was not far from where Seville stands to-day. Scipio
advanced south from Tarraco to meet the Carthaginians, collecting
auxiliaries at Bæcula on his way. When he drew near the Bætis and got
fuller information of the opposing force, he appreciated the formidable
nature of the problem. He felt convinced that with the Roman legions
only he would not be a match for so large an enemy army, yet to use a
large proportion of allies and rely on their support was to risk the
fate of his father and uncle, whose downfall was due to the sudden
desertion of their allies. Therefore he decided to use them for the
purpose of impressing and misleading the enemy “by an imposing show,”
but leave the main fighting rôle to his own legions. He had learnt, like
Wellington two thousand years later, that it was wiser not to place
reliance on the co-operation of his Spanish allies. The French in
Morocco have imbibed it afresh. Advancing towards Ilipa with a total
force, Romans and allies, of forty-five thousand foot and three thousand
horse, he came in sight of the Carthaginians, and encamped on certain
low hills opposite them. It deserves notice that his advance was on a
line which, in the event of victory, would cut them off from the nearest
road to Gades, this road running along the south bank of the Bætis
river.
Mago, thinking this a favourable chance for a sudden disorganising blow,
took most of his cavalry as well as Masinissa with his Numidian horse,
and attacked those engaged in forming the camp. But Scipio, as usual,
imbued with the principle of security, had foreseen such a possibility,
and had posted his own cavalry ready in concealment under shelter of a
hill. These charged the forward part of the Carthaginian horse in flank
and threw them into disorder, and though the rear echelons, coming up to
reinforce the attack, restored the balance for a time, the issue was
settled by the sortie of a large body of legionaries from the Roman
camp. At first the Carthaginians fell back in good order; but as the
pursuit was vigorously pressed, they broke up and fled to the shelter of
their own camp. The result gave Scipio an initial moral advantage.
The two camps lay facing each other across a valley between the two low
ridges. For several successive days Hasdrubal led his army out and
offered battle. On each occasion Scipio waited until the Carthaginians
were moving out before he followed suit. Neither side, however, began
the attack, and towards sundown the two armies, weary of standing,
retired to their camps—the Carthaginians always first. One cannot doubt,
in view of the upshot, that on Scipio’s side the delay had a special
motive. On each occasion also the legions were placed in the Roman
centre opposite to the Carthaginian and African regulars, with the
Spanish allies on the wings of each army. It became common talk in the
camps that this order of battle was definite, and Scipio waited until
this belief had taken firm hold.
Then he acted. He had observed that the Carthaginians made their daily
advance at a late hour, and had himself purposely waited still later, to
fix this habit on his opponent’s mind. Late in the evening he sent
orders through the camp that the troops should be fed and armed before
daylight, and the cavalry have their horses saddled. Then, while it was
scarcely yet daylight, he sent on the cavalry and light troops to attack
the enemy’s outposts, and himself followed with the legions. This was
the first surprise change, and its effect was that the Carthaginians,
caught napping by the onset of the Roman cavalry and light troops, had
to arm themselves and sally forth without a meal. It further ensured
that Hasdrubal would have no time to alter his normal dispositions, even
should the idea occur to him. For the second surprise change was that
Scipio reversed his former order of battle, and placed the Spanish in
his centre and the legions on the wings.
The Roman infantry made no attempt to advance for some hours, the reason
for this being Scipio’s desire and design to let his hungry opponents
feel the effects of their lost breakfast. There was no risk to his other
surprise change by so doing, for once drawn up in order of battle the
Carthaginians dared not alter their array in face of a watchful and
ready opponent. The skirmishing fight between the opposing cavalry and
light troops remained indecisive, each when hard-pressed able to take
shelter behind their own infantry. Eventually, when Scipio judged the
time ripe, he sounded a retreat, and received his skirmishers back
through the intervals between the cohorts, then placing them in reserve
behind each wing, the velites behind the heavy infantry and the cavalry
behind the velites.
[Illustration: Map of the Battle of Ilipa. Hasdrubal has lines of
Africans flanked by Spanish, faced by the Roman Spanish Allies in the
center, flanked by regular Roman foot. The map shows the Roman horse
swing to left and right to flank the ends of the Spanish lines.]
It was about the seventh hour[3] when he ordered the line to advance,
but the Spanish centre only at a slow pace. On arriving within eight
hundred yards of the enemy, Scipio, with the right wing, turned to the
right and, wheeling left, made an oblique advance outwards by successive
cohorts—in column. He had previously sent a messenger to Silanus and
Marcius, commanding the left wing, to manœuvre similarly. Advancing
rapidly, so that the slow moving centre was well _refused_, the Roman
infantry cohorts wheeled successively inwards into line as they neared
the enemy, and fell directly on the enemy’s flanks, which but for this
manœuvre would have overlapped them. While the heavy infantry thus
pressed the enemy’s wings in front, the cavalry and the velites, under
orders, wheeled outwards, and sweeping round the enemy’s flanks took
them in enfilade. This convergent blow on each wing, sufficiently
disruptive because it forced the defenders to face attack from two
directions simultaneously, was made more decisive in that it fell on the
Spanish irregulars. To add to Hasdrubal’s troubles the cavalry flank
attacks drove his elephants, mad with fright, in upon the Carthaginian
centre, spreading confusion.
All this time the Carthaginian centre was standing helplessly inactive,
unable to help the wings for fear of attack by Scipio’s Spaniards, who
threatened it without coming to close quarters. Scipio’s calculation had
enabled him to “fix” the enemy’s centre with a minimum expenditure of
force, and thus to effect the maximum concentration for his decisive
double manœuvre.
Hasdrubal’s wings destroyed, the centre, worn out by hunger and fatigue,
fell back, at first in good order, but gradually under relentless
pressure they broke up, fleeing to their entrenched camp. A drenching
downpour, churning the ground in mud under the soldiers’ feet, gave them
a temporary respite, and prevented the Romans storming the camp on their
heels. During the night Hasdrubal evacuated his camp, but as Scipio’s
strategic advance had placed the Romans across the line of retreat to
Gades, he was forced to retire down the western bank towards the
Atlantic. Nearly all his Spanish Allies deserted him.
Scipio’s light troops were evidently alive to the duty of maintaining
contact with the enemy, for he got word from them as soon as it was
light of Hasdrubal’s departure. He at once followed them up, sending the
cavalry ahead, and so rapid was the pursuit that, despite being misled
by guides in attempting a short cut to get across Hasdrubal’s new line
of retreat, the cavalry and velites caught him up. Harassing him
continuously, by attacks in flank or in rear, they forced such frequent
halts that the legions were able to come up. “After this it was no
longer a fight, but a butchering as of cattle,” till only Hasdrubal and
six thousand half-armed men escaped to the neighbouring hills, out of
seventy odd thousand who had fought at Ilipa. The Carthaginians hastily
fortified a camp on the highest summit, but though its inaccessibility
hindered assault, lack of food caused a constant stream of deserters. At
last Hasdrubal left his troops by night, and reaching the sea, not far
distant, took ship to Gades, and Mago soon followed him.
Scipio thereupon left Silanus with a force to await the inevitable
surrender of the camp, and returned to Tarraco.
Military history contains no more classic example of generalship than
this battle of Ilipa. Rarely has so complete a victory been gained by a
weaker over a stronger force, and this result was due to a perfect
application of the principles of _surprise_ and _concentration_, that is
in essence an example for all time. How crude does Frederick’s famed
oblique order appear beside Scipio’s double oblique manœuvre and
envelopment, which effected a crushing concentration _du fort au faible_
while the enemy’s centre was surely fixed. Scipio left the enemy no
chance for the change of front which cost Frederick so dear at Kolin.
Masterly as were his battle tactics, still more remarkable perhaps were
the decisiveness and rapidity of their exploitation, which found no
parallel in military history until Napoleon came to develop the pursuit
as the vital complement of battle, and one of the supreme tests of
generalship. To Scipio no cavalry leader could have complained as
Maharbal, whether justly or not, to Hannibal, “You know, indeed, how to
win a victory, Hannibal, but you know not how to use one!”
But Scipio, in whom the idea of strategic exploitation was as inborn as
the tactical, was not content to rest on his laurels. Already he was
looking to the future, directing his view on Africa. As he had seen that
Cartagena was the key to Spain, that Spain was the key to the situation
in Italy, so he saw that Africa was the key to the whole struggle.
Strike at Africa, and he would not only relieve Italy of Hannibal’s
ever-menacing presence—a menace which he had already reduced by
paralysing Hannibal’s source of reinforcement,—but would undermine the
foundations of Carthaginian power, until the edifice itself collapsed in
ruin.
To the congratulations of his friends, who entreated him to take a rest,
he replied “that he had now to consider how he should begin the war
against Carthage; for up to now the Carthaginians had been making war on
the Romans, but now fortune had given the Romans the opportunity of
making war on the Carthaginians.”
Although it must still be some time before he could convert the Roman
Senate to his strategy, he set about preparing the ground. Masinissa,
after the defeat at Ilipa, had come over to the Roman side, and was
despatched to Africa to induce the Numidians to follow his lead.
Further, Scipio sent Lælius on an embassy to sound Syphax, King of the
Massæsylians, whose territory embraced most of what is to-day Algeria.
Syphax, while expressing his willingness to break with Carthage, refused
to ratify any treaty except with Scipio in person.
Though promised a safe conduct, the hazard of such a journey was
immense. Diplomatic privileges were then in infancy, and an envoy ran
risks, and not infrequently suffered a fate that was enough to chill the
stoutest heart. How much greater, too, when the envoy was Rome’s one
victorious leader, the man whose existence was an ever-growing menace to
Carthage and her allies, and who was now asked to entrust himself, far
from his army, to the care of a dubious neutral. Yet this risk Scipio,
calculating the risk against the prize, took, considering that the
winning over of Syphax was an essential step to the further development
of his policy. After making the necessary dispositions for the
protection of Spain, he sailed from Cartagena with two quinqueremes. The
risk, as it proved, was even greater than he calculated. Indeed, it may
be that the history of the ancient world turned on a puff of wind. For
he arrived off the harbour just after Hasdrubal, driven out of Spain,
had cast anchor there on his way back to Carthage. Hasdrubal had with
him seven triremes, and sighting the approach of what were obviously
Roman ships, he hurriedly attempted to prepare his own ships and weigh
anchor, in order to overpower the two quinqueremes before they could
enter the neutral harbour. But a freshening breeze helped the Roman
ships to enter before Hasdrubal’s fleet could sail forth, and once
Scipio was inside the harbour the Carthaginians did not dare to
interfere.
Hasdrubal and Scipio both then sought audience of Syphax, who was much
flattered by this recognition of his importance. He invited them both to
be his guests, and after some demur they overcame their scruples, and
supped together at Syphax’s table. In such a delicate situation,
Scipio’s personal charm and diplomatic gifts effected a brilliant coup.
Not only Syphax but Hasdrubal succumbed to his charm, the Carthaginian
openly avowing that Scipio “appeared to him more to be admired for the
qualities he displayed on a personal interview with him than for his
exploits in war, and that he had no doubt that Syphax and his kingdom
were already at the disposal of the Romans, such was the knack that man
possessed for gaining the esteem of others.” Hasdrubal was a true
prophet, for Scipio sailed back with the treaty ratified.
Footnote 3:
The Roman day began at sunrise.