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Having won the victory at sea, the Romans had a free choice of how to continue the war, namely: they could either 1) weaken Carthage enough, taking Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica from it, to force it to make peace, or 2) attack Carthage itself, and thereby force him to conclude peace, if not completely subdue him.

It is not known for what reasons the Senate settled on the first strategic plan. The Romans undertook a campaign against Corsica, took Aleria by storm and conquered the whole island. The attack on Sardinia in 258 ended in failure; it was repeated the following year, but also failed. No new victories were won in Sicily either: the fortified cities of Panormus, Drepanum and Lilybeum resisted the attacks; at the same time, the Carthaginians had a skillful leader - Hamilcar Barca.

There were occasional fights, which, however, were of little importance; such was the battle that took place in 257 BC. e. at Cape Tyndara, not far west of Mile. The Romans stood in the bay and noticed the Carthaginians passing by in disorder; the consul hastily prepared the ships for battle and with the first 10 ships rushed at the enemy, but was surrounded by him; his ships were sunk, and he alone escaped thanks to the fact that his ship was especially well armed; the main forces of his fleet came to his aid and attacked the Carthaginians, sank 8 ships and captured 10; both sides attributed the victory in this battle to themselves.

With this mode of warfare, decisive results could not be expected; meanwhile, the maritime trade of the Romans had declined, and the losses they suffered exceeded those of the Carthaginians. Then, finally, they decided to follow the example of Agathocles, cross over to Africa and go straight to Carthage.

However, they did not want to take on this enterprise, like Agathocles, with insignificant forces. Therefore, a huge army was assembled, at the head of which two consuls were placed: Lucius Manlius Vulson and Attilius Regulus. The fleet consisted of no less than 330 warships - they were mostly penters, and only the flagships of both consuls were hexers (sixes); in addition, there were many transport ships. With this fleet, the Romans did not go straight south across the open sea in the spring, which was the shortest route to Carthage, but, being inexperienced in navigation, headed along the coast of Italy to Messana. From here they also did not go along the northern coast of Sicily, since they would have to pass by the Carthaginian harbors (Panormus and others), but headed around Cape Pachinus, along the southern coast of the island. At the mouth of the Himera River, not far from Eknomos, they found an army of forty thousand ready for a campaign, and put it on ships, mainly military ones, so that for each penter, in addition to 300 rowers, there were another 120 legionnaires; thus, the crew of the fleet, not counting the transport ships, totaled 140,000 people.

The Carthaginian fleet went to Lilybeum in the spring. The Carthaginians were already aware of the preparations of the Romans; their fleet consisted of 350 ships with a crew of 150,000 (the latter figure must be considered an exaggeration, since they had no army on their ships, and with a usual crew of 375 people, it turns out only 131,000). They learned of the departure of the Roman fleet, went to meet him and met him at Eknomos. With the exception of the Battle of Salamis, this time the largest fighting force that ever participated in a naval battle was assembled, namely: 680 ships and 290,000 people (or, according to other sources, 650 ships and 270,000 people).

The Romans divided their fleet into four squadrons according to the number of legions, and the fourth squadron was stronger than the first three and consisted of 90 ships, while the rest had 80 each; Consuls commanded the first and second squadrons. When building a battle order, the consuls set out to, firstly, prevent the Carthaginians from taking advantage of their advantages in speed and in the ability to maneuver; secondly, to cover the transport fleet.

To entrust the navy with the task of covering the transport fleet on a campaign across the sea to an enemy country before the dominance of the sea is fully secured should, in principle, be considered erroneous, since naval combat consists in movement and in the offensive, and therefore the commander of the fleet should be able to freely command the movements of all its vessels. Meanwhile, the need to guard the transport fleet interferes with this, and thus a contradiction is created between the offensive and the need to maintain, at least in part, a defensive course of action.

The consuls tried to reconcile these two requirements, for which they had to give up fast movements and ramming, which in those days, in fact, was an energetic attack; they chose the formation which afforded them the greatest offensive force in advancing, and at the same time afforded the best defense against a ram attack. They built their squadrons in a wedge, inside which the transport fleet was placed; the rearguard was located behind, which created, contrary to the practice of the time, a deep formation.

Both flagships were at the head of the wedge, and the first squadron adjoined them with ledges on the right side, and the second squadron on the left side; from the rear side of the wedge, the third squadron was marching in the formation of the front, leading transport ships in tow; the entire formation was closed by the fourth squadron, which was also in the front line, parallel and behind the third squadron. In view of the fact that the number of ships in the fourth squadron was greater than in the others, its ends on both sides protruded beyond the line of transports, and on the right flank, in order to avoid a detour, it adjoined the coast. The purpose of this formation, obviously, was the intention to break through the middle of the enemy line with a wedge, take advantage of the superiority of forces, which was obtained as a result of a deep formation, and deliver a decisive blow in the place of the breakthrough; the reserve, meanwhile, was supposed to protect the entire formation from an attack from the rear, and the third squadron was to cover the transports or, if necessary, take them to a safe place.

This formation seemed advantageous in many respects: 1) it had the advantages of massiveness and depth, as opposed to the usual long and thin front lines; thanks to this, a better concentration of forces was achieved, 2) it provided the Romans with a superiority of forces at the point of attack, 3) the formation of ledges was best protected from attack by rams, and, finally, 4) the transport fleet was relatively well covered.

However, these were only apparent advantages, that is, those that could not be retained for a long time. There were many serious weaknesses in this formation, namely: a) this formation was too artificial, since it is almost impossible to maintain order in the ranks of ledges of 75-80 ships, even in good weather, calm seas and with very skillful crews; b) the entire fleet was forced to adjust its speed to the transport ships in tow; and c) the freedom of movement of individual ships, as well as divisions and other smaller units, was limited.

This formation had an offensive character, but the low speed and lack of flexibility necessary in a naval battle contradicted this character (placement of transports between the third and fourth squadrons). This circumstance, as well as the fact that part of the fleet was left in reserve, proves that the authors of this formation were people experienced in land warfare, but who did not understand naval warfare.

The Carthaginians, whose fleet was also divided into four squadrons, built a deployed front (in the form of a crescent moon) from them, and their right flank (the third squadron), which consisted of the fastest ships, protruded far towards the open sea for the location of the Romans. The fourth squadron on the extreme left flank was in the wake column in the bearing system, near and along the coast.

As soon as the top of the massive Roman wedge approached the Carthaginian center, the Carthaginian admiral Hamilcar ordered this center (the first and second squadrons) to turn and retreat. Consul Regulus, a hot and stubborn man, rushed after them with the first squadron, and in the heat of pursuit he soon developed full speed; another consul followed suit. Thus they separated themselves from the third squadron, which, having transports in tow, could not keep up with them; at the same time, it was difficult to observe the bearing formation, and therefore the order in the formation was violated; as a result, the cunningly conceived artificial battle formation of the Romans was upset by the trick of the Carthaginian admiral; the Roman fleet was divided into two parts, and the formation of both squadrons pursuing the enemy was broken.

Hamilcar, seeing that his goal was achieved, and finding that the distance between the two parts of the enemy fleet was so great that it made it possible to break them apart before they had time to give each other help, signaled to his center to turn around and attack those pursuing him and already upset in the pursuit of the Romans from the front, covering them at the same time from the flank and from the rear. Here a heated battle ensued, mainly with the first Roman squadron, to which the second soon came to the aid. As soon as the battle moved to close range, the Romans launched their "ravens".

Meanwhile, the left flank of the Carthaginians continued to move forward and, instead of attacking the Romans in the flank, built a deployed front and rushed to the third Roman squadron; this squadron immediately abandoned the tugboats, allowed the transports to take refuge under the shore in the bay near Fintias, and accepted the battle.

Almost at the same time, the right flank of the Carthaginians (the third squadron), bypassing the enemy fleet in an arc, approached the fourth Roman squadron, successfully attacked it in the flank and rear, and drove it to the shore, into the bay where the transports had taken refuge; here, however, the Romans managed to recover, build a developed front, and, although with great difficulty, repel the Carthaginians with the help of "ravens"; the latter did not dare to approach the Romans nose to nose. The third Roman squadron was also forced to retreat before the enemy and took refuge under the coast, since the battle on the high seas gave the Carthaginians too great advantages.

Thus the battle went on in three different, separated from each other, places; The battle order of the Romans was completely upset, but the number of ships on both sides in all three places was approximately the same.

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вторник, 10 декабря 2019 г.

Sant Anton has a reputation as a ski resort with lively nightlife and social life

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вторник, 10 декабря 2019 г.

Sant Anton has a reputation as a ski resort with lively nightlife and social life

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вторник, 10 декабря 2019 г.