Hannibal marched 37 elephants across the alps. Weren't they cold?

clothing? wrote:

renowned mahout wrote:

Freezing temperatures, marching through deep snow, with very little food. How does an elephant from africa survive that? I read that most of the elephants didn't survive the journey but it seems like most died in the fighting and from falling off cliffs. There's no mention of any succumbing to hypothermia 🤔

in my research on this topic I visited Chester zoo on a cold day. the temperatures high up in the alps are much lower but nevertheless at the zoo the elephants all stayed indoors where it was much warmer. From this observed behaviour I was able to conclude as per my hypothesis that elephants do not enjoy being cold. However it seems clear they can survive periods outdoors in cold weather because there were fresh piles of steaming crap outside. So how long is too long and how cold is too cold?

They could have made coats or blankets for the elephants ...

Kvothe wrote:

history class is propaganda wrote:

1) elephants are huge creatures shouldn't be all that vulnerable to cold. Volume to surface area of megafauna and all that. Probably gets cold in some of their range in South Africa.

2) After crossing the Alps, Hannibal rampaged throughout Italy for 15 years. The Romans cowered helplessly inside their walled cities, watching their countryside get pillaged. Only political intrigue in Carthage could stop him, as his support from home was undermined.

Schools are 100% pro Latin and pro Greek. The narrative is about the elephants to make Hannibal look dumb. They don't tell you about the Romans cowering in their walled cities for 15 years.

There are multiple subspecies of elephant. The ones employed by the Carthaginians would have been native to the North African savannah and unadapted to cold.

Rome's dictator, Fabius Maximus, determined that Hannibal had more military prowess than any of their generals. This was only further proven when he crushed a field army at Canae and in subsequent years when he forced some small forces to give battle. Fabius's strategy was to not give battle, consolidate Italy, and have Hannibal's force wither away to lack of supply, and no reinforcement. This was effective. By the end of the Italian campaign, most of Hannibal's initial gains were lost. Attempts to reinforce Hannibal were defeated - and this changed the political calculus in Carthage so no more attempts at reinforcement were made. Hannibal initially persuaded many polities to side with Carthage, but with no resupply, all but the most anti-Roman either abandoned him or were taken by Rome after grinding Hannibal's army down through battles, even if the Romans were defeated. A corps of 20k veterans or so just wasn't enough to force anything decisive in Italy and that's about what Hannibal was left with in the later part of the Italian campaign.

It was the immediate threat to Carthage by Roman invasion (Scipio), not political maneuvering that caused Hannibal to depart though. Scipio defeated Carthage's armies, so the only choice they had was to recall Hannibal and hope his military genius was enough.

Hannibal wasn't dumb, but without resupply, he didn't have the means to force a decisive end to the war in Italy. The Roman leadership was competent enough to keep him from isolating Rome and preserve a fighting force strong enough to prevent him from forcing an end to conflict.

history class is propaganda wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

There are multiple subspecies of elephant. The ones employed by the Carthaginians would have been native to the North African savannah and unadapted to cold.

Rome's dictator, Fabius Maximus, determined that Hannibal had more military prowess than any of their generals. This was only further proven when he crushed a field army at Canae and in subsequent years when he forced some small forces to give battle. Fabius's strategy was to not give battle, consolidate Italy, and have Hannibal's force wither away to lack of supply, and no reinforcement. This was effective. By the end of the Italian campaign, most of Hannibal's initial gains were lost. Attempts to reinforce Hannibal were defeated - and this changed the political calculus in Carthage so no more attempts at reinforcement were made. Hannibal initially persuaded many polities to side with Carthage, but with no resupply, all but the most anti-Roman either abandoned him or were taken by Rome after grinding Hannibal's army down through battles, even if the Romans were defeated. A corps of 20k veterans or so just wasn't enough to force anything decisive in Italy and that's about what Hannibal was left with in the later part of the Italian campaign.

It was the immediate threat to Carthage by Roman invasion (Scipio), not political maneuvering that caused Hannibal to depart though. Scipio defeated Carthage's armies, so the only choice they had was to recall Hannibal and hope his military genius was enough.

Hannibal wasn't dumb, but without resupply, he didn't have the means to force a decisive end to the war in Italy. The Roman leadership was competent enough to keep him from isolating Rome and preserve a fighting force strong enough to prevent him from forcing an end to conflict.

you are regurgitating pro-Latin propaganda. Fact is Hannibal had his way with Italy so the Roman strategy was to cower inside their cities until he went away.

And your long winded post says exactly that, but tries to spin it with the pro-Latin narrative like some clever strategy to be proud of. How many Romans suffered for years on end while their elites desperately clung to power? They could have easily accepted subjugation. Subjugation wasn't so bad. The Roman people would have prospered as subjects of Carthage's mighty sea empire.

Kvothe wrote:

Ya, he got into Italy with most his elephants alive, but a few of them were killed at Trebia and most the rest died in the Northern Italian winter. The elephant corps never played much of a role in the 14 year Italian campaign.

At Zama, Hannibal deployed an elephant corps to disastrous effect - the Romans forced the elephants to retreat and they did so right through the Carthaginian cavalry, allowing the Romans to charge and rout it in the chaos.

In general, its like 50/50 as to whether elephants were effectively utilized in battle - about half the time they got scared and ran back through your own troops. Without drilling them extensively, they were never effective. They scared unfamiliar horses, but I can't think of a single major pitched battle where they actually broke an enemy formation, but maybe Persia or Carthage accomplished that at some point.

TheAdultInTheRoom wrote:

history class is propaganda wrote:

1) elephants are huge creatures shouldn't be all that vulnerable to cold. Volume to surface area of megafauna and all that. Probably gets cold in some of their range in South Africa.

2) After crossing the Alps, Hannibal rampaged throughout Italy for 15 years. The Romans cowered helplessly inside their walled cities, watching their countryside get pillaged. Only political intrigue in Carthage could stop him, as his support from home was undermined.

Schools are 100% pro Latin and pro Greek. The narrative is about the elephants to make Hannibal look dumb. They don't tell you about the Romans cowering in their walled cities for 15 years.

Yea the side that won is definitely the dumb side...

Invading Rome without siege weapons and ignoring Rome itself was a stroke of genius.

The Romans kicked Carthage out of Spain and controlled the seas. Fighting a war of attrition was Romes plan.

Hannibal's plan was hoping Romes Italian allies would abandon them.

Woops!

history class is propaganda wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

There are multiple subspecies of elephant. The ones employed by the Carthaginians would have been native to the North African savannah and unadapted to cold.

Rome's dictator, Fabius Maximus, determined that Hannibal had more military prowess than any of their generals. This was only further proven when he crushed a field army at Canae and in subsequent years when he forced some small forces to give battle. Fabius's strategy was to not give battle, consolidate Italy, and have Hannibal's force wither away to lack of supply, and no reinforcement. This was effective. By the end of the Italian campaign, most of Hannibal's initial gains were lost. Attempts to reinforce Hannibal were defeated - and this changed the political calculus in Carthage so no more attempts at reinforcement were made. Hannibal initially persuaded many polities to side with Carthage, but with no resupply, all but the most anti-Roman either abandoned him or were taken by Rome after grinding Hannibal's army down through battles, even if the Romans were defeated. A corps of 20k veterans or so just wasn't enough to force anything decisive in Italy and that's about what Hannibal was left with in the later part of the Italian campaign.

It was the immediate threat to Carthage by Roman invasion (Scipio), not political maneuvering that caused Hannibal to depart though. Scipio defeated Carthage's armies, so the only choice they had was to recall Hannibal and hope his military genius was enough.

Hannibal wasn't dumb, but without resupply, he didn't have the means to force a decisive end to the war in Italy. The Roman leadership was competent enough to keep him from isolating Rome and preserve a fighting force strong enough to prevent him from forcing an end to conflict.

you are regurgitating pro-Latin propaganda. Fact is Hannibal had his way with Italy so the Roman strategy was to cower inside their cities until he went away.

And your long winded post says exactly that, but tries to spin it with the pro-Latin narrative like some clever strategy to be proud of. How many Romans suffered for years on end while their elites desperately clung to power? They could have easily accepted subjugation. Subjugation wasn't so bad. The Roman people would have prospered as subjects of Carthage's mighty sea empire.