History: Battle of the Allia (390 BC (traditional), 387 BC (probable))

"Vae victis"

Rome's rise to power and greatness had more than a few missteps.  Nearly two centuries before Hannibal Barca's epic victory at Cannae, the Roman Army suffered a shocking defeat at the Allia that had monumental consequences.  And, like the Seattle Seahawks' horrific decision to throw a quick slant from the 1 yard line on 2nd and Goal with 0:28 left in Super Bowl XLIX, it was entirely the Romans' own fault:

Leading up to the conflict, a wandering Gallic tribe, the Senones, who may have been mercenaries, sought to settle near the Etruscan city of Clusium, understandably alarming the locals.  Lacking any major allies, the Clusians turned to Rome for help and the Romans, eager to expand their sphere of influence, sent a delegation of three ambassadors, the Fabii brothers, to negotiate a peaceful solution.

However, the brothers ended up instead enflaming the situation when, after negotiations broke down, they took up arms and killed one of the Gaulish leaders!

Then, after the Senones sent ambassadors to express their outrage, the Romans went all in and, in the words of Livy, "those who ought to have been punished were instead appointed for the coming year military tribunes with consular powers (the highest that could be granted).... The Celtic (Gallic) envoys were naturally - and rightly - indignant!"

Consequently, the Senones decided to march on Rome to express their frustration in a more direct (and pointy) way.  To try to prevent this, the Roman Army intercepted them at the Allia, a brook about 18 kilometers north of the city that feeds into the Tiber river.  The Romans' plan to avoid being outflanked, by committing their reserves to extend their line from the Tiber to a hill, spectacularly backfired when Brennus, commander of  the Senones, assaulted and seized the hill.

Next, the Gauls successfully double enveloped the Roman Army, shattering the latter's flanks, consisting of the lower-class citizens armed as skirmishers and light infantry.  Then the richer Roman citizens in the center, arrayed as Greek-style hoplites in phalanx, were encircled and slaughtered.

Thereafter, the Senones captured and sacked Rome, holding the city for months and extorting an indemnity of 1000 pounds of gold.  In the meantime, Marcus Furius Camillus, recalled from exile and appointed dictator, managed to reconstitute the Roman Army and drive off the Gauls.

Of course, that was cold comfort for the devastation and humiliation wreaked by a single Gallic tribe on (supposedly) mighty Rome.  The Romans spent the next century rebuilding their city and power in central Italy and the Day of the Allia (July 18) was considered unlucky for hundreds of years.

Like the old proverb says, "As you sow, so shall you reap."

History: Battle of Red Cliffs (208)

The above words by Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War (孫子兵法), arguably the greatest book of military strategy of all time, stress the importance of proper preparation before facing a challenge.  So, it's interesting that Cao Cao, who wrote the first and one of the most influential commentaries on The Art of War, would fail to heed Master Sun's teachings at the Battle of Red Cliffs (赤壁之戰).  Red Cliffs is one of the best known battles in Chinese history, due in large part to a somewhat fictionalized account in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the Four Great Classical Novels.  In the centuries since then, Red Cliffs has been further popularized by numerous films, television series and computer games.

In terms of the overall geopolitical situation, by 208, after decades of turmoil and civil war, Cao Cao, prime minister and commanding general of the Han Dynasty, had reunified much of northern China.  However, to win in the South, he would first need to secure the strategically vital Yangtze river.  Two powerful warlords, Liu Bei and Sun Quan, stood in the way:

An interesting fact about Red Cliffs is that we do not definitively know where the battle was fought, with several places nowadays competing for tourism revenue.

What we do know is that, after an initially successful advance south to the Yangtze, Cao Cao put his vastly numerically superior army onto boats and sailed east on the river to meet the combined Sun-Liu forces.  Although a skilled and seasoned commander, Cao Cao displayed little of this at Red Cliffs, relying instead on sheer weight of numbers and brute force.  After an indecisive initial skirmish, the allies tricked Cao Cao with a group of fake defectors who used fire ships to burn up a large number of the Han troop transports.

Cao Cao abandoned his ships and fled northwest through swampland, harassed by the rebels and taking huge losses.  Disease and shattered morale added to his woes.  Eventually, remnants of the imperial army were forced to leave the Yangtze river basin and retreat all the way back to their home base.

As noted above, it is interesting that a talented and successful general such as Cao Cao would make these kinds of mistakes.  My own supposition is that Cao's grip on the territories that he'd recently reconquered was tenuous and that much, perhaps the majority, of his army consisted of forces from these recently reconquered areas and whose loyalty was uncertain.  Thus, he wanted to push forward with the reunification of China while he still had the momentum and strategic initiative, using a rollup strategy.  However, Cao Cao's army also faced numerous challenges, including the great skill of the opposing generals, lack of naval experience, lack of familiarity with the area, etc.

Ultimately, it was a risky move that blew up in his face.

The more prudent approach would have been to wait for a better opportunity.  In the words of Master Sun:

"He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious."

History: Battle of Cannae (216 BC)

"Nos morituri te salutamus"

A Happy Thanksgiving to all, and I think we should all be giving thanks that we weren't the Roman Army outside of the village of Cannae two millennium ago, when they suffered arguably the most epic defeat of all time.  Though, in terms of humiliation, the Seahawks' beatdown of the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII might come close:

A major battle in the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), the Battle of Cannae came on the heels of Hannibal Barca's amazing crossing of the Alps with his army (which no one thought possible) and Hannibal inflicting punishing defeats on the Romans at Trebia and Lake Trasimene.

Consequently, after Dictator Fabius Maximus' strategy of attrition and avoiding pitched battles (which has been named after him) proved unpopular, the Senate raised the largest Roman army up to that time, eight legions plus auxilia, led by Consuls Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus to stop the Carthaginian once and for all.

What followed was a victory for Hannibal so stunning and audacious that it has been studied ever since.  As you might expect, there's been plenty of ink spilled (most notably about how he pulled off what's become the text book example of a Double Envelopment), so I'd like to focus on a couple points: First, Hannibal's analysis of the enemy commanders, and second, his ability to turn the Roman army's strengths into weaknesses.

Although the Roman army may have been of unprecedented size (greatly outnumbering the Carthaginian force), Varro and Paullus disagreed on battle strategy.  As a consequence, the Romans had a strange joint command arrangement, where leadership shifted between the two Consuls on a daily basis!

Thanks to the superb Carthaginian spy network, Hannibal had detailed information on both men, and he was able to use Varro's hotheadedness to trick the Romans into fighting the battle at a time and place of the Carthaginians' choice.  Genius!


Next, Hannibal did an amazing job of turning the Roman army's strengths against them.  Tough, disciplined, well-equipped and built around heavy infantry, the Roman army was designed to go right at their opponents like a giant armored fist.

Knowing this, Hannibal came up with an ingenious battle plan.  Putting his most experienced and reliable troops, the Africans, on his flanks, the general placed himself in the middle of his front line with his Iberians and Gauls, and personally led his center into a controlled retreat.

The Romans bit on the trap, pushing forward, and Hannibal's multiethnic force gave ground, luring in their enemies.  Meanwhile, the superior Carthaginian cavalry routed their opposite Latin counterparts, leaving both Roman flanks dangerously exposed.

The heavily massed Roman formation became increasingly crowded and the legionnaires lost cohesion.  Hannibal's African infantry turned inward, shattering both Roman flanks as the Carthaginian cavalry returned and struck the Roman center from behind.  The Roman historian Polybius wrote, "as their outer ranks were continually cut down, and the survivors forced to pull back and huddle together, they were finally all killed where they stood."

Of course, Carthage did end up losing the Second Punic War, but I think that had to do with political bickering and infighting and the Carthaginian leadership failed to give Hannibal the support needed to close out the conflict.

The Carthaginians should have kept in mind the words of Abraham Lincoln:

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Food for thought, whereas turkey is food for the day.