HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS.
It is difficult for any ogee who ha-, not actually seen such mountain
scenery as is presented by the Alps, to form any clear conception of its
magnificence and grandeur. Hannibal had never seen the Alps, but the
world was filled then, as now, with their fame.
Some of the leading features of sublimity and grandeur which these
mountains exhibit, result mainly from the perpetual cold which reigns
upon their summits. This is owing simply to their elevation. In every
part of the earth, as we ascend from the surface of the ground into the
atmosphere, it becomes, for some mysterious reason or other, more and
more cold as we rise, so that over our heads, wherever we are, there
reigns, at a distance of two or three miles above us, an intense and
perpetual cold. This is true not only in cool and temperate latitudes,
but also in the most torrid regions of the globe. If we were to ascend
in a balloon at Borneo at midday, when the burning sun of the tropics
was directly over our heads, to an elevation of five or six miles, we
should find that although we had been moving nearer to the sun all the
time, its rays would have lost, gradually, all their power. They would
fall upon us as brightly as ever, but their heat would be gone. They
would feel like moonbeams, and we should be surrounded with an
atmosphere as frosty as that of the icebergs of the Frigid Zone.
It is from this region of perpetual cold that hailstones descend upon us
in the midst of summer, and snow is continually forming and falling
there; but the light and fleecy flakes melt before they reach the earth,
so that, while the hail has such solidity and momentum that it forces
its way through, the snow dissolves, and falls upon us as a cool and
refreshing rain. Rain cools the air around us and the ground, because it
comes from cooler regions of the air above.
Now it happens that not only the summits, but extensive portions of the
upper declivities of the Alps, rise into the region of perpetual winter.
Of course ice conceals continually there, aria the snow which forms
falls to the ground as snow, and accumulates in vast and permanent
stores. The summit of Mont Blanc is covered with a bed of snow of
enormous thickness, which is almost as much a permanent geological
stratum of the mountain as the granite which lies beneath it.
Of course, during the winter months, the whole country of the Alps,
valley as well as hill, is covered with snow. In the spring the snow
melts in the valleys and plains, and higher up it becomes damp and heavy
with partial melting, and slides down the declivities in vast
avalanches, which sometimes are of such enormous magnitude, and descend
with such resistless force, as to bring down earth, rocks, and even the
trees of the forest in their train. On the higher declivities, however,
and over all the rounded summits, the snow still clings to its place,
yielding but very little to the feeble beams of the sun, even in July.
There are vast ravines and valleys among the higher Alps where the
snow accumulates, being driven into them by the winds and storms in the
winter, and sliding into them, in great avalanches, in the spring. These
vast depositories of snow become changed into ice below the surface; for
at the surface there is a continual melting, and the water, flowing down
through the mass, freezes below. Thus there are valleys, or rather
ravines, some of them two or three miles wide and ten or fifteen miles
long, filled with ice, transparent, solid, and blue, hundreds of feet in
depth. They are called glaciers. And what is most astonishing in respect
to these icy accumulations is that, though the ice is perfectly compact
and solid, the whole mass is found to be continually in a state of slow
motion down the valley in which it lies, at the rate of about a foot in
twenty-four hours. By standing upon the surface and listening
attentively, we hear, from time to time, a grinding sound. The rocks
which lie along the sides are pulverized, and are continually moving
against each other and falling; and then, besides, which is a more
direct and positive proof still of the motion of the mass, a mark may be
set up upon the ice, as has been often done, and marks corresponding to
it made upon the solid rocks on each side of the valley, and by this
means the fact of the motion, and the exact rate of it, may be fully
ascertained.
Thus these valleys are really and literally rivers of ice, rising
among the summits of the mountains, and flowing, slowly it is true, but
with a continuous and certain current, to a sort of mouth in some great
and open valley below. Here the streams which have flowed over the
surface above, and descended into the mass through countless crevices
and chasms, into which the traveler looks down with terror, concentrate
and issue from under the ice in a turbid torrent, w hick comes out from
a vast archway made by the falling in of masses which the water has
undermined. This lower end of the glacier sometimes presents a
perpendicular wall hundreds of feet in height; sometimes it crowds down
into the fertile valley, advancing in some unusually cold summer into
the cultivated country, where, as it slowly moves on, it plows up the
ground, carries away the orchards and fields, and even drives the
inhabitants from the villages which it threatens. If the next summer
proves warm, the terrible monster slowly draws back its Rigid head, and
the inhabitants return to the ground It reluctantly evacuates, and
attempt to repair the damage it has done.
The Alps lie between France and Italy, and the great valleys and the
ranges of mountain land lie in such a direction that they must be
crossed in order to pass from one country to the other. These ranges
are, however, not regular. They are traversed by innumerable chasms,
fissures, and ravines; in some places they rise in vast rounded summits
and swells, covered with fields of spotless snow; in others they tower
in lofty, needle-like peaks, which even the chamois can not scale, and
where scarcely a flake of snow can find a place to rest. Around and
among these peaks and summits, and through these frightful defiles and
chasms, the roads twist and turn, in a zigzag and constantly ascending
course, creeping along the most frightful precipices, sometimes beneath
them and sometimes on the brink, penetrating the darkest and gloomiest
defiles, skirting the most impetuous and foaming torrents, and at last,
perhaps, emerging upon the surface of a glacier, to be lost in
interminable fields of ice and snow, where countless brooks run in
glassy channels, and crevices yawn, ready to take advantage of any slip
which may enable them to take down the traveler into their bottomless
abysses.
And yet, notwithstanding the awful desolation which reigns in the upper
regions of the Alps, the lower valleys, through which the streams
finally meander out into the open plains, and by which the traveler
gains access to the sublime scenes of the upper mountains, are
inexpressibly verdant and beautiful. They are fertilized by the deposits
of continual inundations in the early spring, and the sun beats down
into them with genial warmth in summer, which brings out millions of
flowers, of the most beautiful forms and colors, and ripens rapidly the
broadest and richest fields of grain. Cottages, of every picturesque and
beautiful form, tenanted by the cultivators, the shepherds and the
herdsmen, crown every little swell in the bottom of the valley, and
cling to the declivities of the mountains which rise on either hand.
Above them eternal forests of firs and pines wave, feathering over the
steepest and most rocky slopes with their somber foliage. Still higher,
gray precipices rise, and spires and pinnacles, far grander and more
picturesque, if not so symmetrically formed, than those constructed by
man. Between these there is seen, here and there, in the background,
vast towering masses of white and dazzling snow, which crown the summits
of the loftier mountains beyond.
Hannibal's determination to carry an army into Italy by way of the
Alps, instead of transporting them by galleys over the sea, has always
been regarded as one of the greatest undertakings of ancient times. He
hesitated for some time whether he should go down the Rhone, and meet
and give battle to Scipio, or whether he should leave the Roman army to
its course, and proceed himself directly toward the Alps and Italy. The
officers and soldiers of the army, who had now learned something of
their destination and of their leader's plans, wanted to go and meet the
Romans. They dreaded the Alps. They were willing to encounter a military
foe, however formidable, for this was a danger that they were
accustomed, to and could understand; but their imaginations were
appalled at the novel and awful images they formed of falling down
precipices of ragged rocks, or of gradually freezing, and being buried
half alive, during the process, in eternal snows.
Hannibal, when he found that his soldiers were afraid to proceed,
called the leading portions of his army together, and made them an
address. He remonstrated with them for yielding now to unworthy fears,
after having successfully met and triumphed over such dangers as they
had already incurred. "You have surmounted the Pyrenees," said he, "you
have crossed the Rhone. You are now actually in sight of the Alps, which
are the very gates of access to the country of the enemy. What do you
conceive the Alps to be? They are nothing but high mountains, after all.
Suppose they are higher than the Pyrenees, they do not reach to the
skies; and, since they do not, they can not be insurmountable. They are
surmounted, in fact, every day; they are even inhabited and cultivated,
and travelers continually pass over them to and fro. And what a single
man can do, an army can do, for an army is only a large number of single
men. In fact to a soldier, who has nothing to carry with him but the
implements of war, no way can be too difficult to be surmounted by
courage and energy."
After finishing his speech, Hannibal, finding his men reanimated and
encouraged by what he had said, ordered them to go to their tents and
refresh themselves, and prepare to march on the following day. They made
no further opposition to going on. Hannibal did not, however, proceed at
once directly toward the Alps. He did not know what the plans of Scipio
might be, who, it will be recollected, was below him, on the Rhone, with
the Roman army. He did not wish to waste his time and his strength in a
contest with Scipio in Gaul, but to press on and get across the Alps
into Italy as soon as possible. And so, fearing lest Scipio should
strike across the country, and intercept him if he should attempt to go
by the most direct route, he determined to move northwardly, up the
River Rhone, till he should get well into the interior, with a view of
reaching the Alps ultimately by a more circuitous journey.
It was, in fact, the plan of Scipio to come up with Hannibal and
attack him as soon as possible; and, accordingly, as soon as his
horsemen, or, rather, those who were left alive after the battle, had
returned and informed him that Hannibal and his army were near, he put
his camp in motion and moved rapidly up the river. He arrived at the
place where the Carthaginians had crossed a few days after they had
gone. The spot was in a terrible state of ruin and confusion. The grass
and herbage were trampled down for the circuit of a mile, and all over
the space were spots of black and smoldering remains, where the
campfires had been kindled. The tops and branches of trees lay every
where around, their leaves withering in the sun, and the groves and
forests were encumbered with limbs, and rejected trunks, and trees
felled and left where they lay. The shore was lined far down the stream
with ruins of boats and rafts, with weapons which had been lost or
abandoned, and with the bodies of those who had been drowned in the
passage, or killed in the contest on the shore. These and numerous other
vestiges remained but the army was gone.
There were, however, upon the ground groups of natives and other
visitors, who had come to look at the spot now destined to become so
memorable in history. From these men Scipio learned when and where
Hannibal had gone. He decided that it was useless to attempt to pursue
him. He was greatly perplexed to know what to do. In the casting of
lots, Spain had fallen to him, but now that the great enemy whom he had
come forth to meet had left Spain altogether, his only hope of
intercepting his progress was to sail back into Italy, and meet him as
he came down from the Alps into the great valley of the Po. Still, as
Spain had been assigned to him as his province, he could not well
entirely abandon it. He accordingly sent forward the largest part of his
army into Spain, to attack the forces that Hannibal had left there,
while he himself, with a smaller force, went down to the sea-shore and
sailed back to Italy again. He expected to find Roman forces in the
valley of the Po, with which he hoped to be strong enough to meet
Hannibal as he descended from the mountains, if he should succeed in
effecting a passage over them.
In the mean time Hannibal went on, drawing nearer and nearer to the
ranges of snowy summits which his soldiers had seen for many days in
their eastern horizon. These ranges were very resplendent and grand when
the sun went down in the west, for then it shone directly upon them. As
the army approached nearer and nearer to them, they gradually withdrew
from sight and disappeared, being concealed, by intervening summits less
lofty, but nearer. As the soldiers went on however, and began to
penetrate the valleys, and draw near to the awful chasms and precipices
among the mountains, and saw the turbid torrents descending from them,
their fears revived. It was, however, now too late to retreat. They
pressed forward, ascending continually, till their road grew extremely
precipitous and insecure, threading its way through almost impassable
defiles, with rugged cliffs overhanging them, and snowy summits towering
all around.
At last they came to a narrow defile through which they must necessarily
pass, but which was guarded by large bodies of armed men assembled on
the rocks and precipices above, ready to hurl stones and weapons of
every kind upon them if they should attempt to pass through. The army
halted. Hannibal ordered them to encamp where they were, until he could
consider what to do. In the course of the day he learned that the
mountaineers did not remain at their elevated posts during the night, on
account of the intense cold and exposure, knowing, too, that it would be
impossible for an army to traverse such a pass as they were attempting
to guard without daylight to guide them, for the road, or rather
pathway, which passes through these defiles, follows generally the
course of a mountain torrent, which flows through a succession of
frightful ravines and chasms, and often passes along on a shelf or
projection of the rock, hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet from
the bed of the stream, which foams and roars far below. There could, of
course, be no hope of passing safely by such a route without the light
of day.
The mountaineers, therefore, knowing that it was not necessary to
guard the pass at night,-its own terrible danger being then a sufficient
protection, were accustomed to disperse in the evening, and descend to
regions where they could find shelter and repose, and to return and
renew their watch in the morning. When Hannibal learned this, he
determined to anticipate them in getting up upon the rocks the next day,
and, in order to prevent their entertaining any suspicion of his design,
he pretended to be making all the arrangements for encamping for the
night on the ground he had taken. He accordingly pitched more tents, and
built, toward evening, a great many fires, and he began some
preparations indicating that it was his intention the next day to force
his way through the pass. He moved forward a strong detachment up to a
point near the entrance to the pass, and put them in a fortified
position there, as if to have them all ready to advance when the proper
time should arrive on the following day.
The mountaineers, seeing all these preparations going on, looked forward
to a conflict on the morrow, and, during the night, left their positions
as usual, to descend to places of shelter. The next morning, however,
when they began, at an early hour, to ascend to them again, they were
astonished to find all the lofty rocks, and cliffs, and shelving
projections which overhung the pass, covered with Carthaginians.
Hannibal had aroused a strong body of his men at the earliest dawn, and
led them up, by steep climbing, to the places which the mountaineers had
left, so as to be there before them. The mountaineers paused,
astonished, at this spectacle, and their disappointment and rage were
much increased on looking down into the valley below, and seeing there
the remainder of the Carthaginian army quietly moving through the pass
in a long train, safe apparently from any molestation, since friends,
and not enemies, were now in possession of the cliffs above.
The mountaineers could not restrain their feelings of vexation and
anger, but immediately rushed down the declivities which they had in
part ascended, and attacked the army in the defile. An awful scene of
struggle and confusion ensued. Some were killed by weapons or by rocks
rolled down upon them. Others, contending together, and struggling
desperately in places of very narrow foothold, tumbled headlong down the
rugged rocks into the torrent below; and horses, laden with baggage and
stores, became frightened and unmanageable, and crowded each other over
the most frightful precipices. Hannibal, who was above, on the higher
rocks, looked down upon this scene for a time with the greatest anxiety
and terror. He did not dare to descend himself and mingle in the affray,
for fear of increasing the confusion. He soon found, however, that it
was absolutely necessary for him to interpose, and he came down as
rapidly as possible, his detachment with him. They descended by oblique
and zigzag paths, wherever they could get footing among the rocks, and
attacked the mountaineers with great fury. The result was, as he had
feared, a great increase at first of the confusion and the slaughter.
The horses were more and more terrified by the fresh energy of the
combat, and by the resounding of louder shouts and cries, which were
made doubly terrific by the echoes and reverberations of the mountains.
They crowded against each other, and fell, horses and men together, in
masses, over the cliffs to the rugged rocks below, ' where they lay in
confusion, some dead, and others dying, writhing helplessly in agony, or
vainly endeavoring to crawl away.
The mountaineers were, however, conquered and driven away at last,
and the pass was left clear. The Carthaginian column was restored to
order. The horses that had not fallen were calmed and quieted. The
baggage which had been thrown down was gathered up, and the wounded men
were placed or, litters, rudely constructed on the spot, that they b
might be borne on to a place of safety. In a short time all were ready
to move on, and the march was 'accordingly recommenced. There was no
further difficulty. The column advanced in a quiet and orderly manner
until they had passed the defile. At the extremity of it they came to a
spacious fort belonging to the natives. Hannibal took possession of this
fort, and paused for a little time there to rest and refreshes his men.
One of the greatest difficulties encountered by a general in conducting
an army through difficult and dangerous roads is that of providing food
for them.
An army can transport its own food only a very little way. Men traveling
over smooth roads can only carry provisions for a few days, and where
the roads are as difficult and dangerous as the passes of the Alps, they
can scarcely carry any. The commander must, accordingly, find
subsistence in the country through which he is marching. Hannibal had,
therefore, now not only to look out for the safety of his men, but their
food was exhausted, and he must take immediate measures to secure a
supply.
The lower slopes of lofty mountains afford usually abundant sustenance
for flocks and herds. The showers which are continually falling there,
and the moisture which comes down the sides of the mountains through the
ground keep the turf perpetually green, and sheep and cattle love to
pasture upon it; they climb to great heights, finding the herbage finer
and sweeter the higher they go. Thus the inhabitants of mountain ranges
are almost always shepherds and herdsmen. Grain can be raised in the
valleys below, but the slopes of the mountains, though they produce
grass to perfection, are too steep to be tilled.
As soon as Hannibal had got established in the fort, he sent around
small bodies of men to seize and drive in all the cattle and sheep that
they could find. These men were, of course, armed, in order that they
might be prepared to meet any resistance which they might encounter. The
mountaineers, however, did not attempt to resist them. They felt that
they were conquered, and they were accordingly disheartened and
discouraged. The only mode of saving their cattle which was left to them
was to drive them as fast as they could into concealed and inaccessible
places. They attempted to do this, and while Hannibal's parties were
ranging up the valleys all around them, examining every field, and barn,
and sheepfold that they could find, the wretched and despairing
inhabitants were flying in all directions, driving the cows and sheep,
on which their whole hope of subsistence depended, into the fastnesses
of the mountains. They urged them into wild thickets, and dark ravines
and chasms, and over dangerous glaciers, and up the steepest ascents,
wherever there was the readiest prospect of getting them out of the
plunderer's way.
These attempts, however, to save their little property were but very
partially successful. Hannibal's marauding parties kept corning home,
one after another, with droves of sheep and cattle before them, some
larger and some smaller, but making up a vast amount in all, Hannibal
subsisted his men three days on the food thus procured for them. It
requires an enormous store to feed ninety or a hundred thousand men,
even for three days; besides, in all such cases as this, an army always
waste and destroy far more than they really consume.
During these three days the army was not stationary, but was moving
slowly on. The way, though still difficult and dangerous, was at least
open before them, as there was now no enemy to dispute their passage. So
they went on, rioting upon the abundant supplies they had obtained, and
rejoicing in the double victory they were gaining, over the hostility of
the people and the physical dangers and difficulties of the way. The
poor mountaineers returned to their cabins ruined and desolate, for
mountaineers who have lost their cows and their sheep have lost their
all.
The Alps are not all in Switzerland. Some of the most celebrated peaks
and ranges are in a neighboring state called Savoy. The whole country
is, in fact, divided into small states, called cantons at the present
day, and similar political divisions seem to have existed in the time of
the Romans. In his march onward from the pass which has been already
described, Hannibal, accordingly, soon approached the confines of
another canton. As he was advancing slowly into it, with the long train
of his army winding up with him through the valleys, he was met at the
borders of this new state by an embassage sent from the government of
it. They brought with them fresh stores of provisions, and a number of
guides. They said that they had heard of the terrible destruction which
had come upon the other canton in consequence of their effort to oppose
his progress, and that they had no intention of renewing so vain an
attempt. They came, therefore, they said, to offer Hannibal their
friendship and their aid. They had brought guides to show the army the
best way over the mountains, and a present of provisions; and to prove
the sincerity of their professions they offered Hannibal hostages. These
hostages were young men and boys, the sons of the principal inhabitants,
whom they offered to deliver into Hannibal's power, to be kept by him
until he should see that they were faithful and true in doing what they
offered.
Hannibal was so accustomed to stratagem and treachery himself, that
he was at first very much at a loss to decide whether these offers and
professions were honest and sincere, or whether they were only made to
put him off his guard. He thought it possible that it was their design
to induce him to place himself under their direction, so that they might
lead him into some dangerous defile or labyrinth of rocks, from which he
could not extricate himself, and where they could attack and destroy
him. He, however, decided to return them a favorable answer, but to
watch them very carefully, and to proceed under their guidance with the
utmost caution and care. He accepted of the provisions they offered, and
took the hostages. These last he delivered into the custody of a body of
his soldiers arid they marched on with the rest of the army. Then,
directing the new guides to lead the way, the army moved on after them.
The elephants went first, with a moderate force for their protection
preceding and accompanying them. Then came long trains of horses and
mules, loaded with military stores and baggage, and finally the foot
soldiers followed, marching irregularly in a long column. The whole
train must have extended many miles, and must have appeared from many of
the eminences around like an enormous serpent, winding its way
tortuously through the wild and desolate valleys.
Hannibal was right in his suspicions. The embassage was a stratagem. The
men who sent it had laid an ambuscade in a very narrow, pass, concealing
their forces in thickets and in chasms, and in nooks and corners among
the rugged rocks, and when the guides had led the army well into the
danger, a sudden signal was given, and these concealed enemies rushed
down upon them in great numbers, breaking into their ranks, and renewing
the scene of terrible uproar, tumult, and destruction which had been
witnessed in the other defile. One would have thought that the
elephants, being so unwieldy and so helpless in such a scene, would have
been the first objects of attack. But it was not so. The mountaineers
were afraid of them. They had never seen such animals before, and they
felt for them a mysterious awe, not knowing what terrible powers such
enormous beasts might be expected to wield. They kept away from them,
therefore, and from the horsemen, and poured sown upon the head of the
column of foot soldiers which followed in the rear.
They were quite successful at the first onset. They broke through the
head of the column, and drove the rest back. The horses and elephants,
in the mean time, moved forward, bearing the baggage with them, so that
the two portions of the army were soon entirely separated. Hannibal was
behind with the soldiers. The mountaineers made good their position,
and, as night came on, the contest ceased, for in such wilds as these no
one can move at all, except with the light of day. The mountaineers,
however, remained in their place, dividing the army and Hannibal
continued, during the night, in a state of great suspense and anxiety,
with the elephants and the baggage separated from him and apparently at
the mercy of the enemy.
During the night he made vigorous preparations for attacking the
mountaineers the next day. As soon as the morning light appeared, he
made the attack, and he succeeded in driving the enemy away, so far, at
least, as to allow him to get his army together again. He then began
once more to move on. The mountaineers, however, hovered about his way,
and did all they could to molest and embarrass his march. They concealed
themselves in ambuscades, and attacked the Carthaginians as they passed.
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