Hannibal goes to the Alps

upon close interrogation most people can furnish you with the information that Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants although some people seem to think that that's all he crossed the Alps with the way they go on about he did imagine he was some sort of zookeeper on holiday but no he actually had an army of tens of thousands of men with him and the elephants were there only 37 of them they weren't militarily that significant a part of his army there are more of a symbol perhaps than anything but I'm behind of DOC rad is how did he even get to the Alps with his 37 elephants in the first place well first aged 9 he had to persuade his father to take him with him on campaign in Spain this he did and he then spent most of the rest of his life on campaign becoming really quite an experienced soldier he became a commander and by the time he was in his early 20s he was commanding large numbers of men in the field and scoring victories over the enemies then he had to muster a big army in southern Spain and march north and he then had to March the height of Spain conquering the northern roughly third of Spain while he was at it take several cities by by storm and then he had to garrison the place and leave behind him a significant field army to hold the place down then he had to get across the Pyrenees now admittedly the Pyrenees are not really as bumpy as the Alps but they are still quite bumpy there are not an insignificant obstacle and were quite defensible and if the hostile Gallic tribes in the area had put up a fierce defense in the Pyrenees either been in trouble but he managed to get over the Pyrenees with so far as we know not too much fuss then you have to get all the way across what is today southern France today but back then rather was filled with hostile Gallic tribes now some of these he bribed it you know didn't bribe no he gave gifts of friendship to show his his his good feeling towards them so he could get through without having to fight a battle but some of them didn't take his bribe he keeps his gifts and instead he had to just force his way through which perhaps was a way of punishing them for not taking the bribes gift and so he would just say right I got this huge army with elephants and loads and loads of well trained experienced soldiers are you really gonna try to stop me oh it seems no you're not then he got to the River Road the river Rhone is very wide he had to cross several other rivers but you know this was a tricky crossing for him reasons one it's a very wide river too he had 37 elephants with him how do you get elephants across a wide river there's no bridge no ferry 3 he had a Roman army in the search of him commanded by Publius skippy O's dad who was called Publius skippy oh and another thing he also had a hostile tribe of gold on the far side of the river who were just waiting there encamped to slaughter his men as they came across so bit of a challenging a challenging situation there I think you'd agree so how did he go about it well he sent a load of cavalry south towards what is today Marseilles and they were to find out what the Romans were up to meanwhile he sent about a third of his force north Polybius says 200 states Livie says about the day's march about 25 miles a stayed is actually a Greek measurement to do with the the running track distance of an Olympic running race but it's the equivalent it's the Roman equivalent of a furlong so 1/8 of a mile although don't forget that's 1/8 of a Roman mile which was a different number of feet so anyway they go say 25 miles where they found a reasonably easy crossing place apparently there were some islands in the river there which made things easy so they get across and then they then march south again and get the other side of those encamped goals and then according to some signal Polybius as it's as smoke signal but Livy seems to suggest it was trumpets but there was a signal of some sort and Hannibal knew right now is the time to cross because my men are in position on the far side of the enemy camp now how did they get across well they had a number of boats that he got off a local friendly Celts and he'd also ordered his men to make dugout canoes dugout canoes you couldn't get mini meaning the dugout canoe how longs it take if I could make a dugout canoe well if you've got an army of many tens of thousands of men and you ordered them to make dugout canoes then a couple of days later and he spent two days doing this two days later you've got an awful lot of dugout canoes well these men started paddling across the river now the horses the horses according to Livie and polybius were were swimming behind the boats with men holding their reins although Livie says that there were also saddled and ready to go horses in some boats that were presumably larger and capable of taking at least some horses on the inside of them so he actually swam a lot of his obvious men across and he put his bigger boats upstream so that they would calm the water for the smaller boats downstream you see always thinking so it was well coordinated in timed so as the Celts came out to challenge him the camp behind them was then suddenly by surprise attacked and some of them turned round to go back and get their stuff and see to this new threat behind them and then he was able to get enough men ashore he put his lights and cavalry on the far bank first and followed up with the heavies the lights were just to get there as quickly as possible and just hold everything up and this worked and after a while the the Celts realized that this guy really knows what he's doing and they broke and fled the cavalry the new midians came back having had a bit of a bloody nose in the camera cavalry skirmish with the Romans and he realized ah I'm in a bit of a hurry then because skip-bo is likely to be coming after me very very quickly so how do I get my elephants across well how do you get elephants across a big river well this is the way he did it he constructed very big rafts about 50 feet across roughly square and he made a few of these and constructed a sort of jetty of them going out into the river with ropes on the upstream side securing them to strong trees and and big happy things that aren't going to go anywhere to stop the thing being swept away by the force of the current he then carried on this this jetty but the further things were actually just rough that were going to carry the other things across the the river but he made it look as it was all one continuous jetty and he put earth on the top of all these rafts to make it look like an extension of land there you go elephants it's just more land you could just you just walk out there you'd be fine now accounts vary but the the most plausible account says that the elephants did not like this and did not want to go on to this thing we looked at all this water and thought no I don't plan to this and this right at all to me and they got two females the matriarchs of the herd if you like and led them on these are more placid and then the rest of the herd contentedly followed the females along the jetty and on to the rafts which were then cut adrift and these were then towed by boats across the river at least that was the first plan but the thing is that the heart the elephant's panicked they saw hope there's water there I'll turn around the land's going away who's taking the land away I don't like this and they were milling round around some of them after a while were quelled into stillness but some of them just panicked and could not be stilled and they went into the water and the mahute the mahute is the the man who sits astride a horse's neck horses make an elephant's neck to to drive it and they went into the river as well and according to gloomiest drowned bluebies also suggests that maybe one or two of the elephants drowned he says that almost all of the elephants made it to shore by swimming and using their trunks as snorkels so almost all of the 37 suggests that maybe 37 didn't make it to the Alps but we don't have any more evidence than that but but libya's does just put in one just one really interesting word in his account the MU hoots who fell into the river and drowned some of them had come a really long way because he uses the word Indian why would the moots Indian these were African elephants from an African army well elephants had not been used in warfare for all that long they were introduced into the Mediterranean in the field of warfare that is by Alexander the Great after he encountered them in India or rather his generals who who were serving under him who had encountered them in India so they ancient have known about the elephant's but as wild animals no one have thought clashes of riding them into battle or anything before that and so how do you came an elephant so presumably the the mahute the elephant trainers of India had this reputation for being the best or the only they have the secret of how you tame and train elephants and so even in Hannibal's perhaps the reputation would have been such that although he's got he's got trainers from India Toto to work on his elephant force so yes so they had come all the way from India those men and had gone all the way across North Africa all the way up Spain all the way around through France to drown in the Rhone a hell of a long way to fill your lungs full of water right that's enough for now and as always remember to dry out a tent thoroughly before packing it away for long-term storage [Music]

Channel: Lindybeige

Views: 386,757

Rating: 4.9738517 out of 5

Keywords: hannibal, elephants, alps, second, punic, war, rome, romans, army, march, journey, carthage, africa, mahout, elephant, indian, african, history, story, barca, scipio

Id: 2QBbnYJD1Zc

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 01 2016