← Back to the front page

Warfare: Generals Who Shaped How Battles are Fought From Ancient Times Through the Gunpowder Age

Khalid Elhassan January 26, 2025 15 min

Warfare - Hannibal Barca — Hannibal Barca. Pinterest

8. Dealing the Romans Their Worst Defeat

Warfare - The Battle of Cannae — The Battle of Cannae. Dickinson College

Hannibal’s plan was that once the Romans were in the sack, the African infantry positioned to the Gauls’ sides would wheel inwards and attack the Roman flanks. By then, the Carthaginian cavalry should have defeated their opponents. It would then turn around, and attack the enemy infantry’s rear, thus completely encircling the Romans. Things worked out exactly as Hannibal had planned. In a battle viewed ever since as the gold standard for tactical generalship, the Romans were nearly wiped out. Only 10,000 out of 87,000 Roman escaped, with the remainder either slaughtered or captured.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.