The Role of Generalship
The importance of a commander’s competency in battle cannot be overstated. The army must be willing to follow the individual that is in charge of their lives. If the troops are not happy with the commander’s leadership, their morale will decrease, followed rapidly by their ability to fight. If the troops love their commander, they will gladly risk their lives for him. Sun Tzu once said, “Soldiers when in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no help for it, they will fight hard”. The Spartan king, Leonidas, exemplifies a leader for whom troops willingly died. When Persia invaded Greece in 480 B.C., they came to a small mountain pass near Thermopylae. “Here, four thousand from the Peloponnese once fought three million. Modern estimates, however, place the Persian army roughly in the hundreds of thousands, not millions. King Leonidas was in command of the four thousand Greeks that fought to defend the tiny mountain pass of Thermopylae. King Xerxes of Persia led (more likely accompanied, as he never took direct part in the battle) his armed host in the invasion of Greece. When Xerxes was informed that the small Greek force would not allow him to pass, he could not comprehend the thought that the Lacedaemonians were actually preparing to kill or be killed. It was at this moment that King Xerxes lost his patience, unable to understand why the Greeks would defy his “godly” will. Here is an example of a great commander and a bad one. Xerxes lost his temper and began blindly to send his troops off to their deaths. Once the first force of light infantry failed to breach the Greek defenses, Xerxes sent his personal army, the Ten Thousand Immortals, against the Greek line, only to see the result of failure once again. The Persian King, unable to control his rage, was willing to launch his men to their deaths, assaulting the Greeks like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men were slain. The end effect was that of improving Greek morale, led in the front line by their commander. Such a large Persian army became a liability in the confined areas of Greece. The Persian King did not align his use of appropriate military force to a clearly articulated goal. Unfortunately for the Greeks, they were betrayed by one of their own, and Xerxes’ troops managed to surround the Greek army. Before his army was encircled, King Leonidas ordered all non-Spartan affiliated troops to leave the field and go home. He ordered the Spartan troops to stand their ground, and none disobeyed. Every single remaining Greek soldier fought to the death and took many Persians with him. Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. Sun Tzu once said, “If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve, officers and men alike will put forth their uttermost strength”. The Greeks, under the command of Leonidas, proved this to be correct. The tomb which was erected upon the final Greek victory over Persia stated, “Foreigner, go tell the Spartans that we lie here obedient to their commands.”

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As the actions of respected commanders affect the morale of the troops, so do the outcomes of battle. After defeating the Romans in the battles of Trebbia and Trasimene, Hannibal Barca marched his victorious army toward southern Italy, eventually destroying the Roman army that faced him at the battle of Cannae in 216 B.C.E. At Cannae, the Roman army under the command of two consuls, Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus, fielded an impressive army of roughly eighty five thousand; five thousand five hundred were cavalry, the rest infantry, which equaled sixteen legions, the largest army ever fielded by Rome. Hannibal’s army consisted of four thousand Numidian cavalry, two thousand Iberian (Spanish) cavalry, four thousand Celtic cavalry, twelve thousand African infantry, eight thousand Iberian infantry, and twenty thousand Celtic infantry, totaling about fifty thousand. The Romans had good reason to believe that they could win the battle. On this occasion, the Romans had picked the battle site, which prevented Hannibal from laying another deadly ambush. By choosing this site, the Romans believed they could neutralize Hannibal’s cavalry, the force that constantly gave Roman armies many hardships. Contrary to Livy and Polybius who attribute the loss to the rash Varro, it is more likely that Paullus was in command. Varro was in command of the left wing, and Paullus was in command of the right wing, the latter being the Roman army’s traditional position taken by the commanding general. Since Paullus was considered to be the better general, therefore, the best of the two consuls was in command. Like the Spartan king Leonidas, Hannibal led by example, standing in the front lines with his Celtic and Iberian infantry, as they fought the more numerous Roman infantry who were led by Paullus in the front line. Through Hannibal’s brilliance, his army maneuvered perfectly, encircling the larger Roman army, and leading to the death of fifty thousand Romans (and the capture of twenty five thousand more). On the Carthaginian side, Hannibal lost four thousand Celts, fifteen hundred Iberians and Libyans, and about two hundred horses. The price of defeat was high for Rome, counting the battles of Trebbia, Trasimene, and Cannae; Rome had lost around one hundred thousand troops. Polybius wrote about the morale of both Rome and Hannibal’s troops after the battle of Cannae in the following manner:

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