Employing war elephants

[Jona Lendering]

A question from a friend who is preparing an article on a graffito from Cairo showing a ship used for the transport of elephants:

She has always understood that elephants were usually misemployed. The big animals were only useful if the commander knew how to use them, and generals appear to have been extremely inapt in the use of elephants. Can anybody confirm this? Which (modern) author has written about this subject?

I know about H. H. Scullard's The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World, but have never read it, nor seen a copy.

[Alexandr K]

Hi,
here are some articles:

Glover, R. F. (1944). The Elephant in Ancient War. The Classical Journal, 39(5), 257-269.

Glover, R. F. (1948). The Tactical Handling of the Elephant. Greece & Rome, 14, 1-11.

Gowers, W. (1947). The African Elephant in Warfare. African Affairs, 46, 42-49.

Meurig Davies, E. L. B. (1951). Elephant Tactics: Amm. Marc. 25. 1. 14; Sil. 9. 581-3; Lucr. 2. 537-9. The Classical Quarterly, 1, 153-155.

Moore, J. (1986). Elephants in War. Canadian Veterinary Journal, 27, 312-313.

Rance, P. (2003). Elephants in Warfare in Late Antiquity. Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 43(3-4), 355-384.

Hope this helps. I sent you a PM.
Greetings
Alexandr

[Mitra]

"War Elephant" (2006) by J.M.Kistler, ed. Praeger Publisher

A very good book

[D B Campbell]

For transporting elephants, see:
S. O'Bryhim, "Hannibal's elephants and the crossing of the Rhone", Class. Q. 41 (1991), pp. 121-125.

[SOCL]

This isn't quite relevant and likely not helpful, but there was a fun little illustrated novel from the 1940s or 1950s called Hannibal's Elephants by a fellow named Powers. It wasn't at all a study of the use of elephants in warfare, but I believe it would help to show the fascination the public has with war-elephants in general. Maybe..........

[jc02005]

I only think i know that the carthiginien used their elephants to war against the romans During the civil War

[Et tu brute]

Don't you mean te punic war/s?

[philsidnell]

I think its an overexaggeration to say elephants were usually misemployed. It is true that they were a fragile weapon that could end up being a danger to their own side, but had they not had quite regular successes, they would not have been used for so long. To give just a brief off-the-top-of-my-head shortlist of examples:

Alexander the Great's toughest battle was at the River Hydapses. This was the first battle where he had a superiority in cavalry, yet he couldn't make his trademark decisive cavalry charge through the enemy line because his cavalry could make no headway against the Indian elephants who were posted at regular intervals in the Indian line.

Among Alexander's Successors, elephants were widely used. The most cautious (and yet in its own way most decisive) use of elephants was their use as a reserve at Ipsus in 301 BC. When his own cavalry on one flank was routed by Antigonus' superior cavalry, Seleucus redeployed his 400 elephants as an anticavalry screen facing to the rear. Antigonus victorious cavalry was completely unable/unwilling to get back past the elephants to rejoin the battle in the centre, resulting in Antigonus defeat and death.

Xanthippus defeat of the Romans at the Bagradas River was chiefly through a frontal assault by elephants (followed up with envelopment by cavalry on both wings)

Pyrrhus defeated the Romans twice, at Heraclea and Asculum, and in both cases the elephants achieved breakthroughs at crucial moments.

Hannibal's few remaining elephants played a significant part in his victory at the Trebbia River (though all but one died from cold/fatigue afterwards).

Like I said, just the examples that spring readily to mind, but sure there are more. Elephants needed very careful handling to be succesful, but then so do most weapon systems.

Interesting (and annoying) to hear that someone has recently done a book devoted to war elephants, as it was something I was thinking of commissioning, or even writing, myself. I hadn't come across the Kistler book, but will put it on my Christmas list.


Phil Sidnell

[Sardaukar]

Indeed, since horses fear elephants, most useful way to deploy war elephants was anti-cavalry screen. No cavalry will get thru line of war elephants because horses refuse to close them (at least that's what is said..and it makes sense).

[Duncan Head]

Which (modern) author has written about this subject?

Perhaps peripheral to your friend's (and the group's!) area of interest, but there's always:

"War Elephants in Ancient and Medieval China", Edward H. Schafer, Oriens, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1957), pp. 289-291.

The Chinese experience seems to parallel the Western in so far as elephants scare troops (and generals) who aren't used to them, but are not too hard to overcome by those who know what to do. Massed archery tends to feature as the main Chinese anti-elephant tactic, along with hidden pits (paralleling Ptolemy's iron spikes at Gaza) and gimmicks to scare the animals (paper lions rather than squealing pigs).

[Sardaukar]

One interesting thought is that (at least expressed by Delbrück (Delbruck) in his Warfare in Antiquity: History of the Art of War, Volume I) Hannibal, when faced by superior enemy cavalry in Zama (was about first time he had to face that situation), employed 2 tactics to negate it.

First, he employed war elephants for protection against cavalry. Secondly (when that failed), his weaker cavalry had to retreat in face of superior enemy cavalry, they draw all Roman/Allied cavalry in pursuit, effectively taking them out of battle. That made it basicly an infantry battle that he might have won without Scipio Africanus and his military talent. Scipio immediately responded to situation (when his troops had routed 2 echelons of enemy troops and were exhausted) by halting his disciplined infantry, replacing the first line with reserves and then engaged Hannibal's veterans. Interestingly, both sides used "triplex acies " and what is described by Delbrück, echelon tactics.

Still..battle remained undecided until Roman/Allied cavalry returned from pursuit.

So, it might first seem that Hannibal's decision to employ war elephants was eccentric or novel..but it actually was very sound decision and adds to his grasp of tactical situation..and his defeat does not deduct from him being one of the great commanders of antiquity.

As one older-time historian ( If I recall right it was Sir William Tarn) said: " Rome did not concede to fear any nation during their time, but they did admit to fear two persons, one was Hannibal, other was a woman".

[philsidnell]

For transporting elephants, see:
S. O'Bryhim, "Hannibal's elephants and the crossing of the Rhone", Class. Q. 41 (1991), pp. 121-125.

I've always found the account of the passage of the Rhone strange, since elephants, rather than being afraid of water, love the stuff and are strong swimmers so unlikely to be as terrified as Livy and Polybius believed. One nineteenth-century authority describes how in 1875 a batch of 79 Indian elephants (Elephas maximus) being moved from Dacca to Calcutta by way of the Ganges and several of its large tidal branches, swam 6 hours without touching the bottom then, after a rest on a sandbank, finished the trip in another 3 hour stint - adding that 'I have heard of more remarkable swims than these'.

African savannah (Loxodonta Africana)elephants apparently share the same love of water and it seems the problem was more likely to be getting the beasts to come out again.

Far be it from me to gainsay such an authority as Polybius; perhaps it just demonstrates the sheer force of the Rhone at that point (which I know nothing about) that even elephants were afraid to swim it. Or perhaps the African forest or bush elephant that the Carthaginians seem to have used mostly (almost certainly Loxodonta Africanus Cyclotis) does not share the penchant for swimmng of the other two species.

Phil Sidnell :?

[Nicholas Gaukroger]

One interesting thought is that (at least expressed by Delbrück (Delbruck) in his Warfare in Antiquity: History of the Art of War, Volume I) Hannibal, when faced by superior enemy cavalry in Zama (was about first time he had to face that situation), employed 2 tactics to negate it.

First, he employed war elephants for protection against cavalry.

I'm pretty certain that Hannibal at Zama deployed his elephants in front of his infantry and not the cavalry.

This is why Scipio unusually deployed the maniples directly behind each other rather than in the usual quincunx formation.

[MeinPanzer]

Could you possibly give us a little information on the graffito? Is it Hellenistic? How detailed is it? Is it part of a larger scene?

[philsidnell]

what graffito?

phil