Battle of the Trebia
No sooner had the Carthaginian cavalrymen arrived in the vicinity of the Roman camp than Sempronius sent out his own cavalry to drive them off, and shortly afterwards recklessly sent towards battle his entire army of 36,000 Roman infantry, 4,000 allied equites auxilia (light auxiliary cavalry), and 3,000 Gallic auxiliaries. The day was raw, snow was falling, the Romans had not yet eaten their morning meal, and by the time the legions had crossed the Trebia fords the men were exceedingly tired and chilled.[2] The Carthaginians on the other hand, had fed themselves well, and anointed themselves in oil before their campfires. Hannibal now arranged his army on a field of his own choosing. He positioned 1,000 light infantry as a skirmishing line, and behind them, he placed the main battle line of 20,000 infantry of Libyan, Iberians, and Celtic mercenary infantry, with 10,000 light shock cavalry and some fifteen elephants split between the two flanks. Sempronius arranged his army in the standard Roman three-line formation, throwing out the velites (Roman skirmish infantry) to the front, and placing the cavalry on the flanks, while the Gallic warriors, who were allied to Rome, were placed on the left of the legions.
The light infantry screen first clashed, but the velites performed poorly and they were withdrawn. After the velites retired through the gaps in the Roman line, the hastati and principes (heavy-armed infantry or legionaries) took their place and engaged in a struggle with their opponents. As the opposing heavy infantry remained locked in a severe hand-to-hand struggle, the Carthaginian cavalry and elephants attacked the Roman cavalry, whom they greatly outnumbered. Gradually, the Roman cavalry wings were pushed farther and farther back, leaving their infantry, whom they intended to protect, more and more exposed.[3] Meanwhile, Hannibal had dispatched forward all his war elephants to attack the Gallic allies on the extreme Roman left, who, having never seen such creatures before, were quickly demoralized and retreated. After the Roman cavalry had been driven off the field, the Carthaginian cavalry fell savagely on the unprotected flanks of the Roman legionaries, hindering them from dealing with the enemy foot soldiers who faced them.[3] At the same time, Mago’s hidden force emerged from the ambush and fell upon the rear of the hard-pressed Roman infantry. With their morale already sapped by cold, hunger and fatigue, the Romans broke under this fresh onslaught and then finally collapsed under intense pressure.[5]
What had once been a line of determined fighting soldiers became a mob of helpless men, whose only remaining strength was in their legs. Thousands were cut down on the spot and trampled by elephants, and many more drowned attempting to cross the river to safety. Trapped in between Hannibal’s forces, the Romans were quickly routed, losing more than a third of their forces. The vanguard of Sempronius' center had a more fortunate fate. Having been forced to advance by pressure from the rear, the Romans in the center actually defeated the troops opposing them, and managed to break through the Carthaginian line, advancing so far that they became separated from their wings. However, seeing that both their flanks had been driven from the field, these men retired in good order to the nearby town of Placentia. This resulted in Hannibal’s first great victory over the Romans.
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Aftermath
The Romans, stunned and dismayed by Sempronius’s defeat at Trebia, immediately made plans to counter the new threat from the north. The Romans found to their cost that Hannibal would not be defeated as easily as they expected. From then on Rome's greatest fear was that Hannibal would get an army of considerable size.[6] Sempronius returned to Rome and the Roman senate resolved to elect new consuls the following year in 217 B.C. The two new consuls elected were Gnaeus Servilius Geminus and Gaius Flaminius, the latter of whom would lead the Roman army during the debacle at Lake Trasimene.
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Video games
- This battle is featured in the demo of videogame Rome: Total War as well as being a historical battle in the full game itself.
- It was also the first battle in the series Time Commanders
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References
- ^ Dodge, Theodore. Hannibal. Cambridge Massachusetts: De Capo Press, 1891 ISBN 0-306-81362-9
- ^ a b Mary Macgregor, The Story of Rome, retrieved on 18 December 2006
- ^ a b c Cottrell, Leonard, Enemy of Rome, Evans Bros, 1965. ISBN 0-237-44320-1 (pbk)
- ^ Invasion of Italy
- ^ Gowen, Hilary, Hannibal Barca and the Punic Wars.
- ^ G.A.Henty-book The Young Carthaginian
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External links
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