Free Scipio Africanus by B.h. Liddell Hart

days later pitched his camp within sight of the enemy. A circular valley lay between the two camps, and into this he drove some cattle protected only by light troops, to “ excite the rapacity of the barbarians.” At the same time he placed Lælius with the cavalry in concealment behind a spur. The bait succeeded, and while the rival skirmishers were merrily engaged, Lælius emerged from cover,
part of his cavalry charging the Spanish in front, and the other part riding round the foot of the hill to cut them off from their camp. The consequent reverse so irritated the Spanish that next morning at daybreak their army marched out to offer battle.
    This suited Scipio excellently, for the valley was so confined that the Spanish by this act committed themselves to a cramped close quarter combat on the level, where the peculiar aptitude of the Romans in hand-to-hand fighting gave them an initial advantage over troops more adapted to hill fighting at longer ranges. And, furthermore, in order to find room for their horse they were forced to leave one-third of their foot out of the battle, stationed on the slope behind.
    The conditions suggested a fresh expedient to Scipio. The valley was so narrow that the Spanish could not post their cavalry on the flanks of the infantry line, which took up the whole space. Seeing this, Scipio realised that his own infantry flanks were automatically secured, and accordingly sent Lælius with the cavalry round by the hills in a wide turning movement. Then, ever alive to the vital importance of securing his intended manœuvre by a vigorous fixing attack, he himself advanced into the valley with his infantry, with four cohorts in front, this being the most he could
effectively deploy on the narrow front. This thrust, as he intended, occupied the attention of the Spanish, and prevented them from observing the cavalry manoeuvre until the blow fell, and they heard the noise of the cavalry engagement in their rear. Thus the Spanish were forced to fight two separate battles, their cavalry neither able to aid their infantry, nor the infantry their cavalry, and each doomed to the demoralising sound of conflict in their rear, so that each action had a moral reaction on the other.
    Cramped and assailed by skilled close-quarter fighters, whose formation gave them the advantage of depth for successive blows, the Spanish infantry were cut to pieces. Then the Spanish cavalry, surrounded, suffering the pressure of the fugitives, the direct attack of the Roman infantry, and the rear attack of the Roman cavalry, could not use their mobility, and, forced to a standing fight, were slain to the last man after a gallant but hopeless resistance. It is a testimony to the fierceness of the fight and to the quality of the Spanish resistance, when hope had gone, that the Roman losses were twelve hundred killed and over three thousand wounded. Of the Spanish the only survivors were the lightarmed third of their force who had remained on the hill, idle spectators of the tragedy in the
valley. These, along with their chiefs, fled in time.
    This decisive triumph was a fitting conclusion to Scipio’s Spanish campaigns—campaigns which for all their long neglect by military students reveal a profound grasp of strategy—at a time when strategy had hardly been born,—and of its intimate relation to policy. But, above all, they deserve to be immortalised for their richness of tactical achievement. Military history hardly contains such another series of ingenious and inspired battle manoeuvres, surpassing on balance even those of Hannibal in Italy. If Scipio profited by Hannibal’s unintended course of instruction on the battlefields of Italy, the pupil surpassed even the master. Nor does such a probability diminish Scipio’s credit, for the highest part of the art of war is inborn, not acquired, or why did not later captains, ancient and modern, profit more by Scipio’s demonstrations.