(This is Part 16 of a series. Go back to Part 15.)
The tenth sub-principle for concentrating strength against weakness is to:
10. Cut the enemy's lines of communications.
Napoleon referred to this as "maneuvers on the rear" and considered it his most important strategic weapon. Indeed, he used it no less than 30 times in his role as a general.
This "maneuvers on the rear" is a different matter than the "attack on the rear" considered in the previous article. The latter is a tactical move, a principle used to win a battle. The "maneuvers on the rear" to which Napoleon referred is a strategic move, an attack designed to place a barrier across the enemy's supply line.
The military term "lines of communications" has a very broad meaning. First, the word "communications" refers to an army's crucial logistical links with its source—the huge and continuing supplies of food, water, ammunition, fuel and so on needed to keep an army going.
Further, this "line of communications" is the route along which an army receives reinforcements. And finally, this is the same line along which an army would retreat in case of defeat. Thus "line of communications" refers, in a sense, to an army's oxygen hose—its link to life. Cutting it is a serious threat indeed.
Conversely, direct frontal attacks push an enemy army back on its sources of supply and reinforcements, thus making it stronger for the next battle.
Hannibal certainly understood this. We've previously seen that Hannibal and his army crossed the "impassable" Alps in winter to achieve a strategic advantage in the invasion of Italy. But even so, he still had two large Roman armies facing him. Now what?
At this point Hannibal did something even more amazing. Turning away from the waiting Roman armies, he sent his troops instead directly into the Arnus Marshes, an area of swamps and flooded rivers also considered "impassible."
For four days and three nights Hannibal's troops waded through swamps and chest-deep water; indeed, Hannibal himself caught an infection and lost an eye.
But his army emerged with a huge strategic advantage, since Hannibal was now closer to Rome than the Roman armies themselves. Hannibal had achieved a "maneuver on the rear" by cutting the Roman line of communications with Rome. Moreover, he was potentially in a position to attack Rome itself.
Now Hannibal did something even more intelligent: Instead of attacking Rome directly, he moved slowly and "demonstrated" in the countryside near Rome—burning fields and raising havoc. Hannibal was now performing a second maneuver on the rear—threatening Rome's lines of communication with its food supply.
Hannibal's object was to get the Roman general Flaminus and his army to come rushing toward him. And in this he succeeded—Flaminus dashed towards Hannibal's position. But of course Hannibal's position now shifted and he set up an ambush (the legendary Battle of Lake Trasimene, discussed earlier) which obliterated Flaminus' army.
After a series of disastrous defeats at Hannibal's hands, Rome became so desperate that it handed command to a general that was only 24 years old—Publius Scipio, later known to history as Scipio Africanus, and a general, it turned out, equally as brilliant as Hannibal.
Scipio reasoned that Hannibal could not be defeated in Italy itself; Hannibal was too wily, too experienced, too brilliant—he had decisively defeated one Roman army after another.
Scipio knew that the only way to defeat Hannibal would be a "maneuver on the rear"—that is, to find a way to cut Hannibal's oxygen supply. This being so, Scipio began to focus upon a wholly different country—Spain.
Spain was the Carthaginian Empire's main outpost in Western Europe. Further, it was the main supply base for Hannibal's army in Italy.
Now Scipio reasoned another step backward: How to attack Spain, the Carthaginian Empire's main European outpost? How about a second "maneuver on the rear," attacking Spain's lines of supply? Scipio decided to do a "double" maneuver on the rear!
Spain's vital line of communications was from Carthage in North Africa to the port of New Carthage on Spain's eastern coast. If Scipio could capture New Carthage, he reasoned, he would be cutting Hannibal's rear lines of communications at a crucial choke-point.
Yes, but New Carthage presented a formidable challenge. It was a fortified city on a peninsula jutting out into the sea, and connected to the mainland only by a 400-yard opening which was heavily guarded. To the south of New Carthage was its heavily-fortified harbor, to the north an impassable lagoon. Nevertheless, Scipio knew that New Carthage was the key to stopping Hannibal.
Thus in 209 BC Scipio landed troops at Terraco, on the northeast coast of Spain. From there he sought a way to capture New Carthage. He questioned local fishermen and discovered that at extreme low tide the lagoon at New Carthage could be crossed.
Now Scipio planned what is known in military terms as a "convergent assault." As soldiers attacked the front gates of the city by land, marines would simultaneously attack the harbor from the sea.
But Scipio, being the gifted general that he was, used even these attacks simply as diversions while the real attack came from the rear.
While the enemy's attention was focused on the first two attacks, Scipio's troops crossed the "impassable" lagoon and came upon the defenders from the back—a double manuever on the rear combined with a tactical rear attack.
This deep action by Scipio led first to the fall of Spain, then to Hannibal's defeat at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, and ultimately, to the fall of the Carthaginian Empire.
(This is the end of Part 16. Go to Part 17.)
—jim sloman, 8.27.03 for 7.22.04
|
