Part 7

Pompey commanded a force sufficient to hold Cæsar at his mercy. So certain were his friends of victory that already they saw their chief at the head of the Roman state, and quarrelled about the honors and spoils. The cry to be led against Cæsar grew among soldiers and courtiers alike.

Pompey believed that Cæsar’s troops were not of the best; that he had few Gallic veterans; that his young soldiers could not stand adversity; that his own cavalry was superior to Cæsar’s; and that with the preponderance of numbers there could be no doubt of victory. There was abundant reason for his belief. But one lame premise lay in his argument. He forgot that he had Cæsar in his front. The great weakness in Pompey’s army was the lack of one head, one purpose to control and direct events.

Cæsar, on the other hand, _was_ his army. The whole body was instinct with his purpose. From low to high all worked on his own method. He controlled its every mood and act. He was the main-spring and balance-wheel alike. And he now felt that he could again rely upon his legions,--perhaps better than before their late defeat. He proposed to bring Pompey to battle.

The test soon came. In the battle of Pharsalus (Aug. 48) Pompey was, by tactical ability on Cæsar’s part and by the disgraceful conduct of his own cavalry, wholly defeated; fifteen thousand of his army were killed and twenty-four thousand captured. Pompey himself fled to Egypt, where he was murdered. In eighteen months from taking up arms, Cæsar had made himself master of the world by defeating the only man who disputed him this title.

Cæsar now committed one of those foolhardy acts of which several mar his reputation for wisdom, and from which only “Cæsar’s luck” delivered him. He followed Pompey to Egypt with but three thousand men, and attempted to dictate to the Government. In consequence of this heedless proceeding, he and this handful--he, the man who disposed of the forces of the whole world--were beleaguered in Alexandria by an Egyptian army for eight months, until he could procure the assistance of allies. He was finally rescued by Mithridates, King of Pergamus, and the Egyptians were defeated at the battle of the Nile.

The months thus wasted by Cæsar’s lack of caution gave the Pompeian party a breathing-spell and the opportunity of taking fresh root in Africa. This was what necessitated the two additional campaigns, one in Africa and one in Spain. Had Cæsar, immediately after Pharsalus, turned sharply upon Pompey’s adherents; or had he taken four or five legions with him to Alexandria; or had he put aside the question of the rule of Egypt by a temporizing policy, and turned to the more important questions at hand, he would have saved himself vast future trouble.

The force he carried with him was absurdly inadequate. By extreme good luck alone was he able to seize the citadel and arsenal, and the tower on the Pharos, and thus save himself from collapse. “There seems to be nothing remarkable about the campaign,” says Napoleon. “Egypt might well have become, but for Cæsar’s wonderful good fortune, the very grave of his reputation.”

Cæsar was now called against Pharnaces, King of Pontus, who, during the distractions of the Civil War, was seeking to enlarge his territory. It was this five days’ campaign (Aug. 47) which led Cæsar to exclaim, “Veni, Vidi, Vici!” And here again he committed the blunder of opening a campaign with too small a force, and came within an ace of failure. Fortune saved Alexander in many acts of rashness; she was called on to rescue Cæsar from many acts of folly.

Cæsar had barely arrived in Rome when his presence was demanded in Africa to put down the coalition of Pompey’s lieutenants; and for the fourth time he was guilty of the same imprudence. In his over-ardor to reach the scene, he gave indefinite orders to his fleet, and once more landed on the African coast with but three thousand men in his immediate command, while the enemy had near at hand quadruple the force, and along the coast, within two or three days’ march, some fifty thousand men. But again Cæsar’s audacity stood in stead of legions, and gradually reënforcements came to hand (Dec. 47). Time fails to follow up this campaign. Full of all that characterizes the great man and greater captain, it not only excites our wonder, but puzzles us by alternate hypercaution and intellectual daring. After a series of movements extending over four months, during which he made constant use of field fortifications, much in our own manner, Cæsar absolutely overthrew the Pompeians (Apr. 46) at Thapsus and dispersed the coalition to the winds. Only the two sons of Pompey in Spain remained in arms.

An interesting fact in the campaigns of Cæsar, which cannot but impress itself on every American soldier, is the handiness of Cæsar’s legionaries in the use of pick and shovel. These entrenching tools, quite apart from fortifying the daily camp, seemed to be as important to the soldiers as their weapons or their shields. They often dug themselves into victory.

Cæsar’s manœuvring and fighting were equally good. The reason for some of his entrenching in Africa is hard to comprehend. Cæsar was a fighter in his way, but he often appeared disinclined to fight, even when his men were in the very mood to command success. He was so clever at manœuvring that he seemed to desire, for the mere art of the thing, to manœuvre his enemy into a corner before attack. His pausing at the opening of the battle of Thapsus has led to the remark, that while he prepared for the battle, it was his men who won it.

We cannot follow the Spanish campaign, which ended Cæsar’s military exploits, and which came to an end in the remarkable battle of Munda (March, 45), of which Cæsar remarked that he had often fought for victory, but here fought for life. We must treat of the man rather than events.

Cæsar had the inborn growth of the great captain. In the Civil War he made fewer errors than in the Gallic. His operations, all things considered, were well-nigh faultless. He first chose Rome, the most important thing, as his objective; and in sixty days, by mere moral ascendant, had got possession of the city. The enemy was on three sides of him, Spain, Africa, Greece,--he occupying the central position, and this he was very quick to see. He turned first on Spain, meanwhile holding Italy against Pompey by a curtain of troops. Spain settled, he moved over to Epirus with a temerity from which arch luck alone could save him, and, victorious here, he turned on Africa. There is no better example in history of the proper use of central lines on a gigantic scale, though the first recognition of these is often ascribed to Napoleon. In these splendid operations Cæsar made repeated errors of precipitancy,--at Dyrrachium, at Alexandria, in Pontus, in Africa. That, despite these errors, he was still victorious in so comparatively short a time he owes to his extraordinary ability, his simply stupendous good fortune, and the weakness of his opponents. In success he was brilliant, in disaster strong and elastic, and he never weakened in _morale_. It is adversity which proves the man.

Cæsar’s strategy was broad and far-seeing. His tactics were simple. There are no striking examples in his battles of tactical formations like Epaminondas’ oblique order at Leuctra, Alexander’s wedge at Arbela, Hannibal’s withdrawing salient at Cannæ. Though the military writers of this age exhibit great technical familiarity with tactical formations, Cæsar was uniformly simple in his.

From the beginning Cæsar grew in every department of the art of war. In strategy, tactics, fortification, sieges, logistics, he showed larger ability at the end of his career than at any previous time. To his personality his soldiers owed all they knew and all they were. Remarkable for discipline, _esprit de corps_, adaptiveness, toughness, patience in difficulty, self-denial, endurance and boldness in battle, attachment to and confidence in their general, his legionaries were an equal honor to Cæsar and to Rome, as they were a standing reproach to Roman rottenness in their splendid soldierly qualities. Pompey’s men could not compare with them in any sense, and this was because Pompey had made his soldiers and Cæsar had made his.

It is difficult to compare Cæsar with Alexander or Hannibal. To make such comparison leads towards the trivial. A few of their marked resemblances or differences can alone be pointed out and their elemental causes suggested; every one must draw his own conclusions; and the fact that the equipment of all great captains is the same will excuse apparent iteration of military virtues.

In Cæsar we can hardly divorce the ambitious statesman from the soldier. We are apt to lose sight of the soldier proper. The two characters are closely interwoven. In the motive of his labors Cæsar is unlike Alexander or Hannibal. He strove, in Gaul, solely for military power; after Pharsalus he worked with the ample power so gained. Hannibal was never anything but a subordinate of the Carthaginian Senate. He had no political ambition whatever; military success was his sole aim,--and this on patriotic grounds. Alexander was a monarch _ab initio_. His inspiration was the love of conquest,--the greed of territory, if you like,--but as a king.

As a soldier, pure and simple, however, Cæsar is on an equal level, though his campaigns were markedly colored by his political aspirations. Hannibal employed state-craft to further his warlike aims; Cæsar waged war to further his political aims. Alexander had no political aims. His ambition was to conquer; to make Macedon the mistress of the world, as he was master of Macedon, and then to weld his dominions into one body. Rome was already mistress of the world, and Cæsar aimed to make himself master of Rome. Each had his own motive as a keynote.

In personal character, Hannibal stands higher than either. His ambition was purely for Carthage. The man was always merged in the patriot. He himself could acquire no greatness, rank, or power. His service of his country after Zama abundantly demonstrates Hannibal’s lofty, self-abnegating public spirit. What we know of Hannibal is derived, mostly, from Roman writers, and these are, of necessity, prejudiced. How could they be otherwise towards a man who for more than half a generation had humiliated their country as she had never been humiliated before? But in reading between the lines you readily discover what manner of soldier and man Hannibal truly was.

In personal attributes there is a divinity which hedges Alexander beyond all others. Despite his passionate outbursts and their often lamentable consequences, a glamour surrounds him unlike any hero of antiquity. But in mind and will, in true martial bearing, all are alike. The conduct of each is equally a pattern to every soldier.

Alexander and Hannibal, from youth up, led a life of simplicity and exercise, and their physique, naturally good, became adapted to their soldier’s work. Cæsar led the youth of a man of the world, and was far from strong at birth. He did, however, curb his pleasure to his ambition until he grew easily to bear the fatigue incident to the command of armies. Throughout life he accomplished a fabulous amount of work, mental and physical. His nervous force was unparalleled.

Intelligence and character were alike pronounced in all. But Alexander, perhaps because young, exceeded Cæsar and Hannibal in fire and in unreasoning enthusiasm. Hannibal possessed far more quiet wisdom, power of weighing facts, and valor tempered with discretion. In Cæsar we find an unimpassioned pursuit of his one object with cold, calculating brain-tissue, and all the vigor of body and soul put at the service of his purpose to control the power of the Roman State.

In each, the will and intellect were balanced, as they must be in a great captain. But in Alexander, the will often outran the intelligence; in Hannibal the intelligence occasionally overruled the ambition to act; in Cæsar it was now one, now the other bias which took the upper hand. Alexander was always daring, never cautious. Hannibal was always cautious, often daring. Cæsar was over-daring and over-cautious by turns. This is perhaps to an extent due to the ages of each, already given,--twenty-five, thirty-four, fifty-two.

Each possessed breadth, depth, strength, energy, persistent activity throughout his entire career, a conception covering all fields, a brain able to cope with any problem. But in Alexander we find these qualities coupled with the effervescence of imaginative youth; in Hannibal, with singular sharpness and the judgment of maturity; in Cæsar, with the cool circumspection of years, not unmixed with a buoyant contempt of difficulty. The parts of each were equally developed by education. By contact with the world, perhaps most in Cæsar, least in Hannibal.

The high intellectuality of each is shown in the art of their plans, in their ability to cope with difficult problems in the cabinet, and work them out in the field; and with this went daring, caution, zeal, patience, nervous equipoise which never knew demoralization. With each, intelligence and decision grew with the demand. They were never overtaxed. Strain made them the more elastic. Danger lent them the greater valor. With each the brain worked faster and more precisely the graver the test. As good judgment became more essential, the power rightly to judge increased.

All were equally alert, untiring, vigilant, indomitable. But Alexander was sometimes carried beyond the bounds of reason by his defiance of danger. Cæsar’s intellectual powers were more pronounced in action than his physical. Hannibal was always, in brain and heart, the true captain; remembering his own necessity to his cause, but remembering also the necessity to his cause of victory.

All maintained discipline at an equal standard. All fired their soldiers to the utmost pitch in battle, all encouraged them to bear privation in the field, and bore it with them. All equally won their soldiers’ hearts. All obtained this control over men by scrupulous care of their army’s welfare, courage equal to any test, readiness to participate in the heat and labor of the day, personal magnetism, justice in rewards and punishments, friendliness in personal intercourse, and power of convincing men. In what they said, Alexander and Hannibal spoke plain truths plainly. Cæsar was a finished orator. But Cæsar and Alexander were so placed as readily to win the hearts of their soldiers. That Hannibal did so, and kept the fealty of his motley crowd of many nationalities throughout thirteen long years of disaster, is one of the phenomenal facts of history.

Personal indifference or cruelty can not be charged to the score of any one of them. Each gave frequent proof that he possessed abundant human kindness. But Alexander was at times guilty of acts of brutality and injustice. To Hannibal’s score can be put nothing of the kind. Cæsar by no means lacked the gentler virtues. Some claim for him sweetness equal to his genius. But he exhibited in the Gallic War a singularly blunted conscience. Peoples were mere stepping-stones to his progress. Judging Cæsar solely by his Commentaries, there goes hand in hand with a chivalrous sense a callousness which is unapproached. He could be liberal in his personal dealings, and unfeeling in his public acts; magnanimous and ruthless.

Alexander and Hannibal were ambitious, but nobly so, and generous withal. Cæsar’s ambition more nearly approached egotism. It was not honor, but power, he sought. Not that he loved Rome less, but Cæsar more. He was satisfied with nothing falling short of absolute control. But Cæsar was not miserly. Gold was only counted as it could contribute to his success. He was as lavish in the use of money as he was careless of his methods of getting it. So far as native generosity was concerned, Cæsar had, perhaps, as much as either of the others.

All three were keen in state-craft. But Alexander was frankly above-board in his dealings. Hannibal kept his own counsel, making no promises, nor giving his confidence to any. Cæsar was able, but underhanded whenever it suited his purpose. He could be more cunning in negotiation than even Hannibal, because less scrupulous. He could exert his powers to bring the wavering or inimical to his side in a most faultless manner.

In accomplishing vast results with meagre means, Alexander apparently did more than either Hannibal or Cæsar in contending with savage or semi-civilized tribes. The difference in numbers between Alexander and the Oriental armies he met was greater, as a rule, than anything Cæsar had to encounter. Yet on one or two occasions, as at the River Axona and at Alesia, Cæsar was faced by overwhelming odds. Hannibal was the only one of the three who contended against forces better armed, better equipped, more intelligent, and ably led. There is no denying him the palm in this. Of all the generals the world has ever seen, Hannibal fought against the greatest odds. Alexander never encountered armies which were such in the sense the Macedonian army was. Cæsar fought both against barbarians and against Romans. Not equal, perhaps, in his contests with the former, to Alexander, he was never taxed with such opponents as was Hannibal. It is difficult to say that either of the three accomplished more with slender means than the other. To reduce them to the level of statistics savors of the absurd.

Each devoted scrupulous care to the welfare of his troops; to feeding, clothing, and arming them; to properly resting them in winter quarters, or after great exertions, and to watching their health.

Fortune, that fickle jade, was splendid Alexander’s constant companion from birth till death. She forsook patient Hannibal after Cannæ, and thenceforward persistently frowned upon him. She occasionally left brilliant Cæsar,--but it was for a bare moment,--she always returned to save him from his follies, and was, on the whole, marvellously constant to him. Cæsar had to work for his results harder than Alexander, but in no sense like overtaxed, indomitable Hannibal. Alexander will always remain essentially the captain of fortune; Hannibal essentially the captain of misfortune; Cæsar holds a middle place. But had not Fortune on many occasions rushed to the rescue Cæsar would never have lived to be Cæsar.

In common, these three great men obtained their results by their organized system of war, that is, war founded on a sound theory, properly worked out. To-day war has been reduced to a science which all may study. Alexander knew no such science, nor Hannibal, nor indeed Cæsar. What was, even so late as Cæsar’s day, known as the art of war, covered merely the discipline of the troops, camp and permanent fortifications, sieges according to the then existing means, and the tactics of drill and battle. What has come down to this generation, as a science, is a collection of the deeper lessons of these very men and a few others, reduced during the past century by able pens to a form which is comprehensible. Even Napoleon was annoyed at Jomini’s early publications, lest the world and his opponents should learn his methods of making war. We must remember that these captains of ancient times were great primarily, because they created what Napoleon calls _methodical_ war. It was many centuries before any one understood the secret of their success. But Gustavus, Frederick, and Napoleon guessed the secret and wrought according to it; and they made war in a day when busy brain-tissue could analyze their great deeds for the benefit of posterity.

Whatever their terms for designating their operations, the great captains of antiquity always had a safe and suitable base; always secured their rear, flanks, and communications; always sought the most important points as objective, generally the enemy himself; and divided their forces only for good reasons, at the proper moment again to bring them together. We find in their history few infractions of the present maxims of war, and only such as a genius is justified in making, because he feels his ability to dictate to circumstances.

War to these men was incessant labor, never leisure. It was only at rare intervals that they stopped even to gather breath; and this done, their work was again resumed with double vigor. Each sought to do that which his enemy least expected, and looked upon no obstacle as too great to be overcome. Each was careful in the matter of logistics, according to the existing conditions. Each was careful to husband his resources, and each had a far-reaching outlook on the future.

Their battle tactics were alike in suiting the means at disposal to the end to be accomplished, and in originating new methods of disturbing the equipoise of the enemy, and thus leading up to his defeat. Each of them used his victories to the utmost advantage. Even Hannibal, though after the first few years he was unable to reap any harvest from his wonderful work, continued his campaign by occasional minor victories, while awaiting recognition from home. Alexander’s and Cæsar’s victories were uniformly decisive; from the very nature of the case, Hannibal’s could not be so.

In field fortification, Cæsar was far in the lead. At a long interval followed Hannibal. Alexander made little or no use of this method of compelling victory. In regular sieges, both Alexander and Cæsar stand much higher than Hannibal, who disliked siege-work, and whose only brilliant example is the siege of Saguntum. Nor can this compare with Tyre or Alesia.

What has Cæsar done for the art of war? Nothing beyond what Alexander and Hannibal had done before him. But it has needed, in the history of war, that ever and anon there should come a master who could point the world to the right path of methodical war from which it is so easy to stray. Nothing shows this better than the fact that, for seventeen centuries succeeding Cæsar, there was no great captain. There were great warriors,--men who did great deeds, who saved Europe “from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran,” as Charles Martel did at Tours, or England from the craft of Rome and power of Philip, as Howard, Drake, and Hawkins did in destroying the Invincible Armada,--men who changed the course of the world’s events. But these were not great captains, in the sense that they taught us lessons in the art of war. The result of their victories was vast; but from their manner of conducting war we can learn nothing. Cæsar is of another stamp. In every campaign there are many lessons for the student of to-day. In his every soldierly attribute, intellectual and moral, we find something to invite imitation. It is because Cæsar waged war by the use of purely intellectual means, backed up by a character which overshadowed all men he ever met, that he is preëminent. Conquerors and warriors who win important battles, even battles decisive of the world’s history, are not, of necessity, great in this sense. All that Alexander, or Hannibal, or Cæsar would need in order to accomplish the same results in our day and generation which they accomplished before the Christian era, would be to adapt their work to the present means, material, and conditions. And it is the peculiar qualification of each that he was able, under any and all conditions, to fuse into success the elements as they existed, by the choice from the means at hand of those which were peculiarly suited to the bearings of the time.