Robert Bateman, Daily Beast: The Ancient Battle Generals Still Love To Copy
Cannae for Hannibal was the definition of winning the battle but losing the war. However, his brilliant execution of a double envelopment would obsess tacticians for a millennia.
I went to the most famous battlefield in Western History, and had a surprise. Not a good one.
It is a stomp, well off the path, to get to Cannae.
The main train lines in Italy run up and down the coasts. Going inland, particularly in southeast Italy, is somewhat more episodic. My train had two cars. At the fourth stop, “Battle”, I got off.
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And so will it be.
ReplyDeleteWhat an incredibly obnoxious style of writing.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting, though, that the Italians "don't do military history". I'm not sure if it's not better that way. There is really only so much that you can put in a museum, and being half-informed is sometimes worse than not being informed at all. My preference would probably be for a small pavillion with some basic maps and such. If someone is enough of a military history buff to trudge all the way to Cannae, that someone would presumably already know all that there is to know about it other than the exact look of the terrain.
"don't do military history", Perhaps they were just busy making military history. I'm glad I didn't have to take his class.
ReplyDeleteWe have had an event, last September, in Modena called "The Shadow of Hannibal" in that we'll see a small live reconstruction of the battle of Cannae.
ReplyDeleteBecause the Gauls Boi once lived in Modena-Bologna area (called "Boica") were part of Hannibal alliance against Rome.
This inside the annual history-event of Mutina Boica.
When that stupid commentator is tired of laughing at us, it may come at the event of this year.
Or come to learn how to make peacekeeping, instead of bombing anything.