Comparison of Strategies Used in the Peloponnesian War - Essay Example

Comparison of Strategies Used in the Peloponnesian War and the Second Punic War The Peloponnesian War was a conflict between the Peloponnese alliance led by Sparta and the Delian League headed by the city of Athens. An account of this conflict was narrated by Thucydides in The Peloponnesian War written sometime between c. 460-395 [1]. The work of Thucydides, who served as an Athenian general in that conflict, was acknowledged as a classic and is reputed as one of the earliest scholarly works of history. This was confirmed by author Phil de Souza, who observed in his book The Peloponnesian War, 431-404 written in 2002, that Thucydides comparatively gave a more detailed and accurate account of the event than other historians and was careful in not romanticizing it [2]. On the other hand, the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage occurred between 218 BC and 202 BC. Also known as The War against Hannibal because it was largely a war by the Romans against Hannibal, one of the greatest military generals the world has known, the Second Punic War, as well as the first and third Punic Wars, came to be known to the world through the narratives of Polybius in his book The Histories covering the period 220-146 BC. Gregory Daly, in his 2003 book Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War, confirmed that the most detailed and dependable version of the mid-Republican Rome was Polybius’ sixth book of Histories. Daly, however, noted that Polybius wrote his account of the Second Punic War probably fifty years after the actual event and therefore most probably reflected the Roman army of his time than that at the time of Peloponnesian War [3]. A comparison of the two wars reveal similarities of military strategies employed where armies avoided the traditional direct confrontation to wear the other one out. In one war, this strategy was successful, but in the other, it failed. Thucydides described the Spartan strategy in the Peloponnesian War as an indirect offensive against Athenians fought largely in the countryside of Attica with the purpose of eventually depriving the Athenians of sources of basic needs. On the other hand, the Athenians adopted the Periclean strategy which was a purely defensive one. Both strategies were underpinned by the anticipation of wearing the other down: the Spartans, by starving the Athenians and; the Athenians, by frustrating the Spartans and resigning them to think that the Athenians were untouchable. Initially introduced by Pericles, the Athenian strategy primarily used the navy, its strongest military contingent. Thus, while the Spartans, who were excellent land combatants, ravaged the lands and farms of Attica by burning crops hoping that it would force the Athenians to surrender, the Athenians, whose goal was mere political survival, sent its navy to coastline regions of Greece landing it far from the Athenian lines [4]. The Periclean strategy, according to Kagan in The Outbreak of Peloponnesian War written in 1989, was evidently to fight a limited, strictly defensive war while keeping costs low. The strategy was implemented by avoiding land confrontations at all cost which meant abandoning the countryside where the Spartans were while at the same securing the seas and landing in unopposed areas [6]. This strategy adopted by both the Athenians and Spartans in the Peloponnesian War was, as observed by Donald Kagan in his book The Peloponnesian War, classic. Kagan, as quoted by Collin Gray in Strategy and History: Essays on Theory and Practice, noted that the confrontation of a great land power vis-à-vis a great naval power was magnificently exemplified by the Athenians and the Spartans in that war, with each hoping that it can win the war its way at possibly little cost. This, however, failed to materialize. Gray further observed that any great strategy in any war, like the Peloponnesian War, cannot be dependent on the greatness of the state’s army in any one aspect but on the capability of that army to acquire what it lacked and what the other has. As a general rule, Gray remarked “a polity has to discover a theory of victory in war that can reach and defeat the pivot of the strategy system of the enemy” [5]. Put another way, it is not what an army has but what it can do to diminish the main strategy of the other. In the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, the Romans were pitted against one of the most brilliant military tacticians in history – Hannibal. Gregory Daly [3] observed that the war was engendered by Rome’s inability to accompany its aggressive diplomatic strategy in Spain with actual military might, which Carthage exploited. Hannibal was a great military tactician but Michael Fronda commented in his book Between Rome and Carthage: Southern Italy during the Second Punic War published in 2010 that historians and scholars are not in agreement as to what the actual Hannibal strategy was during the war. What was clear however, according to Fronda, was that Hannibal wanted Rome to surrender on its knees and embarrass it in the eyes of the world to diminish its importance. Fronda surmised that this strategy was just in keeping with the Hellenistic tradition of forcing the surrender of an empire to another on the latter’s terms rather than utterly defeating or destroying it. Thus, Hannibal did not directly invade Rome but tried to destroy its alliance system by marching into Italy hoping that the invasions could lead into revolts of Rome’s alliances upon perception of its weakness [7]. Rome, for its part, initially employed a pincer strategy splitting its army into groups to initiate military campaigns in Africa and Spain, with one of them set to intercept Hannibal’s march at the Rhone, according to Daly [3]. However, this strategy was frustrated by the quick march of Hannibal and his men to Italy and instead of intercepting him at the Rhone, Hannibal, using asymmetric strategies marched around the Romans forcing them to pursue him and his men and ambushed them instead. Author Adam Lowther noted in his book Asymmetric Warfare and Military Thought that the entry of Fabius Maximus, who was elected a dictator of Rome, altered the war. Employing the scorched earth tactics, later called the Fabian tactics, Fabius avoided face-to-face encounters with the enemy, retreating to hills and mountains if need be, while depriving the enemy of their sources of food by ravaging the crops and cutting off all lines of supply and communication. This strategy, which rejected traditional Roman military strategy, was not regarded well by the proud Romans however effective it was. In Cannae, after Fabius was replaced, the Romans suffered its biggest defeat when 50,000 troops faced the much smaller army of Hannibal. The Romans was forced to revert to the effective Fabian strategy, which proved astute as Hannibal was finally defeated ending the war [8]. It is evident that the strategy of indirect combat was employed in both the Peloponnesian War and the Second Punic War. In the first, both the Athenians and the Spartans tried to use strategies that were meant to tire the other out, both avoiding the traditional pitch or face-to-face confrontation. In the second war, the same strategy was employed by the Romans who realized that despite their bigger number they were no match to the brilliant Hannibal. The outcome of these wars revealed, however, that while such a strategy worked well for the Romans it did not for the Athenians. In the case of the Athenians, they were defeated by the more powerful and combat-ready Spartans. The Spartans merely adopted the indirect strategy because it was in accordance to the Hellenistic tradition while the Athenians had no other choice but to adopt Pericles’ strategy because it cannot obviously overpower the more ferocious Spartans. Similarly, the Romans adopted the strategy because it understood Hannibal’s might as a tactician albeit the Carthaginians had the smaller number. The probable reason for the difference in the outcome could be that while Hannibal excelled in the traditional form of combat he did not attempt to go beyond that sphere and try to beat the Romans at their own game while the Spartans were essentially playing the same game as the Athenians. Endnotes [1] Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War. [2] Philip de Souza, The Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BC, Vol. 27 (Osprey Publishing, 2002) p. 7. [3] Gregory Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2003) pp. 55. [4] Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War. [5] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Vol. 1 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1989) pp. 336-337. [6] Colin S. Gray, Strategy and History: Essays on Theory and Practice, Vol. 15 (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2006) p. 147. [7] Michael Fronda, Between Rome and Carthage: Southern Italy during the Second Punic War (Cambridge University Press, 2010) pp 34-35. [8] Adam Lowther, Asymmetric Warfare and Military Thought (Glen Segell Publishers, 2006) pp 11-12. References: Daly, G. (2003) Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War. New York: Taylor & Francis. Fronda, M. (2010) Between Rome and Carthage: Southern Italy during the Second Punic War. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gray, CS. (2006) Strategy and History: Essays on Theory and Practice, Vol. 15. New York: Taylor & Francis. Kagan, D. (1989) The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Vol. 1. New York: Cornell University Press. Lowther, A. (2006) Asymmetric Warfare and Military Thought. London: Glen Segell Publishers. Souza, P. (2007). The Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BC, Vol. 27. United Kingdom: Osprey Publishing. Thucydides, Crawley R. (2004) The History of the Peloponnesian War. New York: Courier Dover Publications. Read More