Scipio Africanus by B.h. Liddell Hart

centre with a minimum expenditure of force, and thus to effect the maximum concentration for his decisive double manoeuvre.
    Hasdrubal’s wings destroyed, the centre, worn out by hunger and fatigue, fell back, at first in good order, but gradually under relentless pressure they broke up, fleeing to their entrenched camp. A drenching downpour, churning the ground in mud under the soldiers’ feet, gave them a temporary respite, and prevented the Romans storming the camp on their heels. During the night Hasdrubal evacuated his camp, but as Scipio’s strategic advance had placed the Romans across the line of retreat to Gades, he was forced to retire down the western bank towards the Atlantic. Nearly all his Spanish Allies deserted him.
    Scipio’s light troops were evidently alive to the duty of maintaining contact with the enemy, for he got word from them as soon as it was light of Hasdrabal’s departure. He at once
followed them up, sending the cavalry ahead, and so rapid was the pursuit that, despite being misled by guides in attempting a short cut to get across Hasdrubal’s new line of retreat, the cavalry and velites caught him up. Harassing him continuously, by attacks in flank or in rear, they forced such frequent halts that the legions were able to come up. “ After this it was no longer a fight, but a butchering as of cattle,” till only Hasdrubal and six thousand half-armed men escaped to the neighbouring hills, out of seventy odd thousand who had fought at Ilipa. The Carthaginians hastily fortified a camp on the highest summit, but though its inaccessibility hindered assault, lack of food caused a constant stream of deserters. At last Hasdrubal left his troops by night, and reaching the sea, not far distant, took ship to Gades, and Mago soon followed him.
    Scipio thereupon left Silanus with a force to await the inevitable surrender of the camp, and returned to Tarraco.
    Military history contains no more classic example of generalship than this battle of Ilipa. Rarely has so complete a victory been gained by a weaker over a stronger force, and this result was due to a perfect application of the principles of surprise and concentration, that is in essence an example for all time. How crude does
Frederick’s famed oblique order appear beside Scipio’s double oblique manoeuvre and envelopment, which effected a crushing concentration du fort au faible while the enemy’s centre was surely fixed. Scipio left the enemy no chance for the change of front which cost Frederick so dear at Kolin. Masterly as were his battle tactics, still more remarkable perhaps were the decisiveness and rapidity of their exploitation, which found no parallel in military history until Napoleon came to develop the pursuit as the vital complement of battle, and one of the supreme tests of generalship. To Scipio no cavalry leader could have complained as Maharbal, whether justly or not, to Hannibal, “ You know, indeed, how to win a victory, Hannibal, but you know not how to use one ! ”
    But Scipio, in whom the idea of strategic exploitation was as inborn as the tactical, was not content to rest on his laurels. Already he was looking to the future, directing his view on Africa. As he had seen that Cartagena was the key to Spain, that Spain was the key to the situation in Italy, so he saw that Africa was the key to the whole struggle. Strike at Africa, and he would not only relieve Italy of Hannibal’s ever-menacing presence—a menace which he had already reduced by paralysing Hannibal’s source of reinforcement,—but would undermine the
foundations of Carthaginian power, until the edifice itself collapsed in ruin.
    To the congratulations of his friends, who entreated him to take a rest, he replied “ that he had now to consider how he should begin the war against Carthage ; for up to now the Carthaginians had been making war on the Romans, but now fortune had given the Romans the