Battle of Pharsalus(48b.C)

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 recruits (but there were some veterasn to)
Despite the Pompeius genius, Caesar overcome this battle with one of the best tactic in the history of the ancient wars.


       Gaius Julius Caesar                     Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus            


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Battle of Austerlitz

Image
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...
Read more

The Battle of Crécy

Image
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...
Read more