I agree with this, but all great generals are.
There, I said it. One need only look at his most famous victory, the Battle of Cannae, to see that it was nowhere near as consclusive and one-sided as is usually supposed - mostly because many people use Livy, noted for his super-bias, as their primary source - to see that. Also, he made several ridiculous errors during his Italian campaign. Then there's his conduct in Gaul and Africa, which was mediocre at best.
I disagree, Cannae was a crushing victory, and virtually destroyed the Roman field army (granted some managed to escape). The main sources we have on the Punic Wars are all heavily biased in favour of the Romans (and for the figures the figures say Livy arrives for at Cannae could well be symbolic)... whatever the true figures, Cannae was a crushing Roman defeat... I'm not sure what ridiculous errors you refer to in his Italian campaign, but I see some great work by Hannibal, though naturally he didn't have the benefit of hindsight and he was just a man capable of making mistakes too. It wasn't his generalship that let him down there, but the very nature of the political situation on the peninsular and Rome's military response... Hannibal correctly identified Roman domination of Italy was an important source of Rome's power, sadly he couldn't build up a network of alliances. Much of his support he received on the peninsular was not from a positive desire to support him, but from local issues that had little to do with the wider conflict, driven by internal political considerations and the opportunity to establish their own areas of influence... Hannibal's strategy may have failed, but it came dangerously close to succeeding and tested Rome's control of Italy severely.
What was wrong with his conduct in Gaul and Africa?
He was also a fairly short-sighted strategist. What exactly did he think he was going to do to Rome once he reached Italy? Breach its walls with harsh language? The man had no siege train, no support from any dissident Roman groups, and no means of getting supplies to Italy on a regular basis. If Capua hadn't rallied to him, he wouldn't have survived nearly as long as he did.
Short-sighted? He had a great strategy, really the only one available to him... The Romans didn't believe for a minute the war would be fought in Italy, and I believe that it was largely Rome's fault than Hannibal and Carthage's for the start of the war (gods forbid they'd admit to starting a war that caused so much devastation in their own doorstep and wasn't divinely justified!), which they may well have been planning as early as 225 BC according to an interesting article by Paul Erdkamp (I'll e-mail you that one if you want). After Cannae, Carthage was preparing to support Hannibal from Africa with an army, while Hasdrubal Barca was planning on leaving Spain, but Hasdrubal Barca's defeat by the Scipio brothers at the Battle of Dertossa in 215 BC saw no reinforcements from these quarters... had Hasdrubal won he would have turned up in Northern Italy with a large army further supported by the Gauls, while Hannibal would have received more troops to protect the towns and cities that had sided with him, and after Cannae, who knew what would happen with these armies operating on their own doorstep. Capua was a helpful ally, but not a great one, they made their own military decisions which were disastrous, and Hannibal actually had to support Capua with food and supplies... making it a lot more trouble than it was worth considering the lack of military support from them... remember, even if they didn't join Hannibal's army and military endeavors, neither could their resources be used by the Romans... Another thing to consider for his invasion of Italy was what the Romans were planning - his invasion stopped the Romans from invading at least Africa and put Carthage on the initiative, and for the first few years, Rome were mainly reacting to what Hannibal was doing...
I'm really not sure where people get the idea he had no siege equipment, as this is not backed up by a reading of the sources. There is abundant evidence that Hannibal used siege weapons throughout his Italian campaign, building them when needed. Appian mentions siege engines in Hannibal's attack on the town of Petilia shortly after the battle of Cannae (App. Hann. 5.29). Livy makes mention of various different siege machinery. One attempt at capturing Nola in 216 BC, Hannibal ordered his men to bring up the equipment needed for an assault of the town (Livy. 21.16.11-12). The assault failed, but he moved onto Acerrae, where he again made siege and assault preparations. The town was circumvalleted and the town was captured (Livy 23.17.4-6). Later that year Hannibal used mantelets and dug saps when he assaulted Casilinum (Livy. 23.18.8-9). The following year he had to wait for a day in his attempt to capture Cumae as he had to bring up the necessary equipment from camp (Livy. 23.36.5-8). When he assaulted the town, he made use of a high wooden tower against the wall. He also used artillery and siege engines against the citadel of Tarentum. His siege capability was not as bad as historians make out, and he did in fact storm a few places, and it is only the ones he failed to take that gets attention.
In fact, very few cities in the war were taken by assault and the capture of fortified places has always been extremely difficult. According to Goldsworthy, 'as we have seen, direct attacks on a large city were only successful when they combined surprise with treachery from the inside or special knowledge of a weakness in the defences.' (p.313)
The man was actually a better administrator than he was a general. It's unfortunate that he didn't devote his whole life to reforming Carthage, instead of just the end of it. He obviously possessed great talents in that area, as evidenced by his time as a Suffete of Carthage.
He was a brilliant administrator, and admittedly achieved more for Carthage in one year as Suffete than the 20 he was a general!
.Hasdrubal was several years behind Hannibal, was he not? Not a very good plan, especially considering how risky Hannibal's own crossing of the Alps was. And I think he called for Hasdrubal later, when he realised he needed to beseige Rome. Hannibal seemed to be of the opinion that all of Italy would rise in revolt against Rome, when really the only city worthy of the name which rallied to him was Capua. Admittedly, Capua was pretty damn important, but it was nowhere near enough. Who else declared for him, Brundisium and Apulia? Outskirts, no great loss, especially once the Romans had subdued Sicily. He gained no Gallic allies and no allies in Northern Italy. It was very much a case of 'hope for the best' when Hannibal invaded Italy.
As I mentioned above, Hasdrubal's original attempt was crushed by the Scipios in what I think was the most desicive battle of the war and one that could have possibly won it for the Romans in the long run. Hannibal's difficulties during the crossing of the Alps is largely nonsense - Carthaginian armies were usually always presented as colossal beasts, and what better way to show how mad Hannibal was prepared to kill his own army to 'destroy' Rome. When Hannibal left New Carthage during the late Spring of 218 BC, according to Polybius his army amounted to 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry (Polybius, 3.35), while Appian adds 37 elephants to the number. Clearly, the size of his infantry and cavalry are exaggerated, and the true size of Hannibal's invasion force will not be known with certainty, but there are a few considerations – particularly logistical – to take into account when viewing these figures.
First we must discover the reported figures for the size of the Carthaginian army before Hannibal took over – when Hasdrubal the Fair was in charge. According to Diodorus, in retaliation for the betrayal and killing of Hannibal's father, Hamilcar in 225 BC, Hasdrubal moved against the Oretani with an army made up of 50,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and 200 elephants (Gabriel, Hannibal, p.72). Four years later, after his assassination and Hannibal took command, that number had increased to 60,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry - in a four year time period (225-221 BC) the number had risen 10,000 and 2000 respectively. It was with this army Hannibal conducted two successful campaigns against the Spanish between 221-218 BC, along with the siege of Saguntum before retiring his troops to winter quarters. If we take Polybius' numbers, we have to believe that Hannibal had just a matter of months to raise 30,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry to make up this number over the course of the winter.
Polybius tells us that Hannibal also left behind a force with his brother, Hasdrubal, made up of 12,650 infantry and 2550 cavalry to guard the Spanish coast. In order to do this Hannibal would have had to make up 42,000 new infantry and 6,550 new cavalry in the winter to be able to raise the force for Hasdrubal and still have 90,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry declared by Polybius in the few months of winter. Gabriel believes new reinforcements could not have come from Carthage. The reported troop transfers were nothing more than swapping Spanish infantry for more reliable African infantry with no real gain of numerical strength. (Gabriel, Hannibal, pp.101-3).
Engels (Alexander the Great, pp.3-18)has estimated that there was one mule per 50 men for transport, and one camp follower for every three soldiers – which would increase the total number of people to 136,000 for Hannibal's march. Per day per man would need 3 pounds of rations. This would make it necessary that a total of 408,000 pounds of rations had to be obtained daily to feed the troops. Add to this the 120,000 pounds of grain needed for the horses per day. Around 2700 pack animals would be needed to carry this amount of food for a day, plus another 2000 or so for equipment and heavy baggage. To feed these pack animals, troops and horses for ten days, one would need 55,520 pack animals:
(Shean, Hannibal's Mules, p.171 Table 1)
Gabriel has calculated the length of Hannibal's column would have been more than 100 miles long based on American logistical calculations that an infantry brigade comprising 6310 men and 1021 animals occupied a road space of 4.8 miles, (Gabriel, p.103) – a column of Hannibal's length could not make the reported 80 stades (9 miles) a day that Polybius implies was Hannibal's rate of movement (Polyb. 3.50)
What then, were his numbers? We have to take into account of attrition during Hannibal's campaigns in Spain from 221-218 BC – but we have very little to estimate casualty figures. Gabriel assumes that we should look at a 10 percent casualty figure for these campaigns (including Saguntum) which would make the figure of Hannibal's army before he dispersed for winter around 54,000 infantry and 7000 horse. From this we can deduct the force given to Hasdrubal Barca leaving Hannibal's invasion force a much more manageable 40,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry.
With this force he supposedly fought four tribes north of the Ebro river; the Ilurgetes, the Bargusii, the Aerenosii and the Andosini, leaving Hanno in command of a force made up of 10,000 infantry and 1000 cavalry (along with his heavy baggage) to defend the region. The only tribe of significance were the Ilurgetes, and even coming up against token resistance Hannibal could not have marched an army 100,000 strong in the time Polybius and Livy imply Hannibal took to cover the distance from the Ebro to Emporion.
What then, was the purpose of Hanno's force? We have to question its historicity by the actions that followed. Hanno was reportedly more than 150 miles south of the only strategic location in the region; that of the Greek coastal city of Emporion, supposedly fighting rebels. Hanno did not attempt to lay siege to the city that would see Gnaeus Scipio disembark at the head of a Roman army a few months later. Hanno made no attempt to protect the Spanish coast. The answer was his force was unable to conduct offensive operations. It is more likely that Hannibal did not in fact leave such a force behind as it would have achieved nothing of significance in the region, being unable to defend the Spanish coast or capture the strategic Greek city of Emporion (Gabriel, p.105-6). Hannibal only had around 40,000 troops, and could hardly have afforded to leave such a pointless force behind. More likely, his plan was to defend and hold the line at the Ebro River, where Hasdrubal's main force was located, and where there was friendly tribes and well supplied magazines and solid interior lines linking up with New Carthage. Hannibal was well aware that he could not defend the area north of the Ebro sufficiently against Rome's superior numbers of warships and transports.
Naturally, any attempt to discover the true figure is impossible, and the above analysis is flawed due to the nature of reported ancient figures and ancient sources in general - but Gabriel's approach is certainly an interesting and fresh perspective of the numbers - despite the unreliability of the source figure of Diodorus' in regards to the size of Hasdrubal the Fair's army in 225 BC!
It's also flawed due to ultimately guess-work on ancient logistics, but it does give a good idea how supplying armies (especially stupidly large ones) would have been far from simple. Ultimately, Hannibal knew the difficulties of suppling armies, and wouldn't have left Spain virtually undefended (particularly when half of their area of influence had only recently - within a couple of years - been conquered) to march to Italy with a force virtually half of which would have been very raw indeed...
Hannibal seemed to be of the opinion that all of Italy would rise in revolt against Rome,
That appears to be a very dangerous assumption, you and I have no idea what he thought would happen...
when really the only city worthy of the name which rallied to him was Capua. Admittedly, Capua was pretty damn important, but it was nowhere near enough. Who else declared for him, Brundisium and Apulia? Outskirts, no great loss, especially once the Romans had subdued Sicily. He gained no Gallic allies and no allies in Northern Italy. It was very much a case of 'hope for the best' when Hannibal invaded Italy.
Large Roman armies had to be stationed and hostages taken in Northern Italy, particularly in Etruria which was apparently wavering in loyalty, while 12 of 30 Latin colonies refused to support Rome by 209 BC. The Gauls were tying up Roman legions in the north as well... but appear to be more interested in protecting themselves. Syracuse sided with Carthage which was a great threat to the Roman supply of grain from the island, and only a plague that wiped out the Carthaginian army and betrayal (from both Muttines in the field and those in Syracuse for the Roman cause) returned Sicily back into Roman hands. Lucanians, Apulians and Bruttians actively supported Hannibal. As I mentioned above, the evidence seems to point to local factors, both interstate contacts or conflicts and domestic politics, as being the most influential factors in decisions on whether to remain in alliance with Rome, and a lot was, admittedly out of Hannibal's hands.
Overall though, as Adrian Goldsworthy puts it:
It is difficult to see what more Hannibal could have done to attain victory. We can never know how close the Romans came to conceding defeat. Perhaps a march on Rome after Cannae would have broken the Roman's nerve, but we cannot be sure of this and such a move would have been a great gamble. One major problem for the Carthaginians was that they had one superb commander with an excellent army, whilst elsewhere they had poor commanders with average armies or average commanders with poor armies. From the beginning the Romans were able to produce in considerable quantity armies which were average in quality and the skill of their commanders, giving them an advantage over all but Hannibal. As the war progressed and Roman leaders and soldiers gained experience, their superiority over the other Punic armies became even more marked.
The Fall of Carthage by Adrian Goldsworthy, p.314
Another point to consider for great generals is brought up well by Richard Miles:
Hannibal was blessed with two much sought-after qualities; leadership and to know men, both of which are difficult to define and analyze historically. They are perhaps harder to learn or acquire. Yet it may be that these charismatic attributes are what really separated great generals in antiquity, such as Hannibal, from lesser contemporaries (Miles, Hannibal: Tactics, Strategy, and Geostrategy, A Companion to the Punic Wars (ed. Hoyos), p.258)
That's one of my major problems with all threads of this type.
Agreed - perhaps we should just have a thread entitled 'Favorite General' or something along those lines. There are so many variables to consider it is of course, utter nonsense to objectively pinpoint the greatest general ever!