How many Cannaes would Hannibal have to win to break rome

Chimera0205

Banned
Say rome never figured out that fighting Hannibal head on was a bad idea and just kept sending armys after him (something definitely possible given how unpopular the whittle him down strat was) how many times would hannibal have had to pull of crushing defeats before rome broke?
 
I find this POD not plausible, a similar policy that Rome used against Hannibal was used by the Allies against Napoleon after Russia. The Allies advanced on a broad front and simply refused to fight locally when Napoleon was there. The Allies did not plan it, it just happened.

After Cannaes, the Romans didn't have the power to take the offensive.

For Hannibal to win from then on, he needs to split the Latin confederate so we are not really talking war here but diplomacy.
 
I find this POD not plausible, a similar policy that Rome used against Hannibal was used by the Allies against Napoleon after Russia. The Allies advanced on a broad front and simply refused to fight locally when Napoleon was there. The Allies did not plan it, it just happened.

Actually, they did plan it: after defeats at Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden in 1813 the Allies adopted the Trachenberg Plan. "The plan advocated avoiding direct engagement with the French emperor, Napoleon I... Consequently, the Allies planned to engage and defeat the French Marshals and Generals separately, and thus weaken his army while they built up an overwhelming force even he could not defeat... The plan was an amalgam of two prior works: The Trachenberg Protocol and the Reichenbach Plan, authored by the Austrian chief of staff of the allied coalition, Radetzky and the SwedishCrown Prince Charles John" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachenberg_Plan

EDIT: Typically, quoting from Wiki has its dangers (mea culpa: I did not check timing of all battles listed:perservingface: ). Of course, Battle of Dresden happened AFTER acceptance of the plan. Bernard, thanks for pointing it out.

After Cannaes, the Romans didn't have the power to take the offensive.

Fabius was actively objecting even to Scipio's activities in Spain and predicted that his campaign in Africa is going to end as a complete disaster. In his opinion only continuation of his own strategy (which, among other things, was destroying the Roman economy and ability to keep fighting) could result in a victory.
 
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Say rome never figured out that fighting Hannibal head on was a bad idea and just kept sending armys after him (something definitely possible given how unpopular the whittle him down strat was) how many times would hannibal have had to pull of crushing defeats before rome broke?
If they just send new armies, the problem boils down to how much people the Romans can muster until they have no soldiers left. On the other hand, a head-on strategy might actually have worked, since Hannibal also had finite resources.
 

Chimera0205

Banned
If they just send new armies, the problem boils down to how much people the Romans can muster until they have no soldiers left. On the other hand, a head-on strategy might actually have worked, since Hannibal also had finite resources.
Yeah but hannibal was making MUCH more efficient use of his resources
 
After Cannae, Hannibal needs just another huge field victory to leave Rome essentially without a field army in Italy at all for a while.
However, the matter becomes political then, as Hannibal probably cannot win a siege swiftly and the Romans still have a recruitment pool left (and they can recall forces from overseas), while Hannibal would have a hard time to replenish his army's losses with troops from Italic defecting cities (which were markedly unwilling to provide that to him IOTL). So, Rome could still simply outwait Hannibal even if keeping losing armies to him, in principle, at least to a point.
The question is whether Roman political will to resist Hannibal collapses before he's no longer able to score major field victories due to attrition. Arguably, a couple more Cannae like-victories might make the political pressure to seek an accomodation very strong, although it's probably also the maximum that Hannibal can get unless loyalties in Italy seriously begin to switch to him.
 
If the Romans try to fight another battle, would that battle necessarily be a crushing defeat? They know by now that the enemy is skilled so they perhaps might be more careful.
 
Actually, they did plan it: after defeats at Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden in 1813 the Allies adopted the Trachenberg Plan. "The plan advocated avoiding direct engagement with the French emperor, Napoleon I... Consequently, the Allies planned to engage and defeat the French Marshals and Generals separately, and thus weaken his army while they built up an overwhelming force even he could not defeat... The plan was an amalgam of two prior works: The Trachenberg Protocol and the Reichenbach Plan, authored by the Austrian chief of staff of the allied coalition, Radetzky and the SwedishCrown Prince Charles John" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachenberg_Plan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachenberg_Plan

Thanks, I did not know that but let me note the Trachenberg Plan is dated 12 July 1813 and Napolean at is commanding the battle at Dresden on the 26–27 August 1813, so clearly something no working with the plan then.


If the Romans try to fight another battle, would that battle necessarily be a crushing defeat? They know by now that the enemy is skilled so they perhaps might be more careful.

Is that not what we see.
 
Thanks, I did not know that but let me note the Trachenberg Plan is dated 12 July 1813 and Napolean at is commanding the battle at Dresden on the 26–27 August 1813, so clearly something no working with the plan then.

As (AFAIK Lev Tolstoy's only noticeable contribution to the Russian poetry says) "It was all good and smooth on paper but they forgot about the ravines". In this case Nappy successfully played a role of a natural obstacle :cryingface::

"The one possibility the Trachenberg plan didn't consider was what to do if Napoleon didn't go onto the offensive. When the Armistice ended in mid August Napoleon's plan was to wait for the Allies to move, and then defeat whichever Allied army seemed most vulnerable. Although Napoleon was soon moving east to deal with Blücher's Army of Silesia, this brief gap encouraged the Allied high command to risk a general offensive with the Army of Bohemia. This soon gave Napoleon the chance he wanted, and the resulting battle of Dresden (26-27 August 1813) was the closest he came to a decisive victory during the War of Liberation." http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/treaty_trachenberg_plan.html
 
If the Romans try to fight another battle, would that battle necessarily be a crushing defeat? They know by now that the enemy is skilled so they perhaps might be more careful.

The weak spot of the Roman army in Italy was a cavalry (of course, this would not last forever). It can probably be argued that a rigid tactical system was another potential weakness which a skillful opponent like Hannibal could exploit. Notice that at Zama both these issues had been taken care of: Scipio had stronger cavalry thanks to his Numidian allies and as I understand more flexible in his infantry tactics than tradition dictated. So, IMO, the question boils down to the Roman ability to find the good generals (if we discount Scipio) capable to adopt to this specific enemy.
 
If the Romans keep throwing legions at Hannibal in the field, they'd likely keep losing said legions in the short term. Problem is, Hannibal's army is not going growing significantly stronger regardless of how many Roman armies he defeats. He needs the Romans to run out of legions before his own forces are depleted (or he needs reinforcements to keep going, which the Romans may fail to stop). As time goes on, however, obviously the Romans are going to adapt, IF they find the stomach to keep fighting.
In a sense, Hannibal could not win with military engangements alone. Keeping engaging him in the field, even if he keeps winning the battles, would prove a sort of bloodier variant of Fabian strategy... until and unless the Roman political will to sustain that sort of losses collapses.
 
After Cannaes, the Romans didn't have the power to take the offensive.

Actually they did, in 212 and 210 BCE, in Apulia in Italy. By then their army had been rebuilt, but leadership was still an issue it seems. In 210 BCE Centumalus was caught while besieging a town and was routed. Soon afterwards, Marcellus had to fight desperately to survive, and was badly mauled, though technically he won one of the two battles, prior to his retreat.
Of course the Metaurus 207 BCE was different as it didn't involve Hannibal.
 
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To beat Rome, Hannibal needs to take the City, which he doesn't have the tools for.
Hannibal can kill 10 Romans for every man he loses, in field battles, and Rome still wins.
 
Actually, they did plan it: after defeats at Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden in 1813 the Allies adopted the Trachenberg Plan. "The plan advocated avoiding direct engagement with the French emperor, Napoleon I... Consequently, the Allies planned to engage and defeat the French Marshals and Generals separately, and thus weaken his army while they built up an overwhelming force even he could not defeat... The plan was an amalgam of two prior works: The Trachenberg Protocol and the Reichenbach Plan, authored by the Austrian chief of staff of the allied coalition, Radetzky and the SwedishCrown Prince Charles John" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachenberg_Plan

Why does a Napoleonic victory scenario with the title 'Reichenbach Falls' of 'Reichenbach Fails' come to mind...
 
Why does a Napoleonic victory scenario with the title 'Reichenbach Falls' of 'Reichenbach Fails' come to mind...

Well, as I already wrote, scenario that ended up with a battle of Dresden was not anticipated by the plan: Napoleon did not start campaign with an attack but rather waited until one of the allied armies became vulnerable. However, this failure was not critically important because after Dresden "the wisdom of attacking Napoleon's marshals was demonstrated by the Allied victories at Grossbeeren (23 August), the Katzbach (26 August) and Kulm (29-30 August)" http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/treaty_trachenberg_plan.html

Then the the main idea of the plan (facing Napoleon with an overwhelming force) was implemented at Leipzig.
 
Why does a Napoleonic victory scenario with the title 'Reichenbach Falls' of 'Reichenbach Fails' come to mind...

Indeed, I was struck by the similarity of the strategy used by the Romans against Hanibal to the strategy used by the Allies against Napolean, almost certainly as its a similar problem one great general vs a much bigger and resource-rich enemy.
 
Indeed, I was struck by the similarity of the strategy used by the Romans against Hanibal to the strategy used by the Allies against Napolean, almost certainly as its a similar problem one great general vs a much bigger and resource-rich enemy.

But strictly speaking Hannibal was not defeated by the greater resources: IIRC, at least for the African campaign Scipio got under his command a very limited number of the discredited soldiers who were not permitted to return to Rome.

OTOH, with Nappy it was clearly "resources vs. genius". It would be interesting to speculate what would happen if his marshals of 1813 were more talented (instead of just being brave).
 
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