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The Battle of Cannae (216 b.C)

The Battle of Cannae       The battle of Cannae was the greatest victory of the general Hannibal Barca from Carthage. The strategy of Hannibal consisted in a weak front line, and make it move back. About the cavalry, Hannibal knew that his horsemen were stronger than the roman equites, so he decided to destroy them fast to encircle all the roman legionaries with his heavy lybian infantry, which were in the rear of the carthaginian army, in the front and with his strong cavalry charging in the back of the roman army (This is called the Incus and the Hammer). This battle is one of the most important battles in ancient times. This battle letted Hannibal conquer the most part of Italy. This domain were stopped in the 202 b.C by Scipio in the Battle of Zama. The Armies     The roman army was compound by about 40000 heavy roman legionaries, a similar amount of ally infantry, and more than 6000 horsemen. This strong army was guiend by the consuls Varr...

Battle of Leuctra

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The battle of Leuctra This battle was fought between the army of the Beothian League, leaded by Thebas, and the Spartan army. This battle was fought to destroy the Spartan hegemony in Greece and to reinstate the democracy. Whilst the Spartan tactic was based in a classical hoplite front, the Thebans strengthened their left flank to break the Spartan front. To complete this tactic, the Thebans formed the rest of their infantry in a stepped formation. Apart from that, both armies counted with some light infantrymen, but they didn´t have relevance in the battle, and some cavalrymen that helped the Thebans to destroy the Spartan flank. When the battle ended up, Thebas was the main city of Greece and the Spartan army was totally discredited. This situation ended when Lexander the Great conquered Thebas. The armies The Beotian army was composed by about 6000 hoplites and about 1500 cavalrymen, meanwhile the Spartan army was composed by about 11000 hoplites and 1000 cavalrymen....

The Battle of Austerlitz

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The Battle of Austerlitz The Battle The battle of Austerlitz confronted the French forces, commanded by Napoleon, and the Ally army, commanded by a group of Russian and Austrians noblemen. The French commander made his right flank weaker on purpose to force an ally attack there. With this, Napoleon forced the enemy to have a weaker centre, so he could attack charge there to brake the front and encyrcle the ally army from the rear. This plan worked due to the commander of the right flank, Louis Nicolas Davout, the troops that he received from Viena, and the fog that covered the attack of Napoleon to the centre. This battle is considered one of the best battles in the history due to the Napoleon military genius. The Armies The army of Napoleon, the Grand Armée, was composed by 72000 men, meanwhile the Ally army was composed by 85000 (the big majority of this men were Russian troops, but it also count with some Austrian infantry and cavalry). The French army lost aboout...

The Battle of Crécy

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The Battle of Crécy      The battle of Crécy was one of the most important battle during the Hundred Years´War. This battle confronted the King of England Edward the Third and the King of France Philip the Sixth. The English King placed his army in a high area, meanwhile the French King placed his cavalry in the plain. The French plan consisted in a front cavalry charge, meanwhile the English plan was a little bit more complicated. The king placed his army in the high ground, but he also selected a wet battlefield to complicate the French charge. He also gave a waterproof bag to his archers to protect the strings against the rain, meanwhile the Genovese crossbowmen fought with wet strings.  The first wave of french units, the crossbowmen, were destroyed by the archers. After that, the cavalry started charging against the English line, but the archers could stop this attack. This happened again and again until the entire French army were destroyed by the En...

Battle of Pharsalus(48b.C)

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The Battle of Pharsalus    The battle of Pharsalus was the definitive battle of the Caesar´s Civil War (wich confronted Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus). The battle seemed to be won by Pompeius, but Caesar show his tactical habilities in the battlefield. The Cavalry of Pomeius was more numerous than the Caesar´s one, so they charge against the cavalry of Caesar, but the general had placed some veteran cohorts behind the cavalry, so his cohorts and his cavalry could destroy the Pompeius cavalry.  After this, it was easy to encircle one of the Pompeius flanks, that was easily destroyed. After this, the rest of the Pompeius army fell back and returned to the camp just to submit to Caesar after a few days. The armies The Caesar army was compund by the veteran legionaries who fought in the Gallic Wars with Caesar About the numbers the Pompeius army was two times more numerous (35000 against 70000), but the infantry of Pompeius was formed by ...