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[Assistant] And that is to say nothing of course of the battles fought between the colonies themselves over boundary lines and access to resources as migrating families simply settled places and dared anyone to try to kick them off.


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[Assistant] So finally we come to the southern colonies. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. With Maryland sort of hanging out as a border state.


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[Assistant] The southern colonies of course developed a very different and far more pernicious social and economic life. But even still, there were differences among them.


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[Assistant] First, we'll clear out the unique border colony of Maryland, the land for which was handed over to the family of Lord Baltimore in 1632.


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[Assistant] Lord Baltimore was a devout Catholic, and he saw Maryland, which was probably named after Queen Henrietta Maria, Catholic wife of Charles I, as a refuge for his rich Catholic buddies.


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[Assistant] Because as much as the Puritans of England saw King Charles and Archbishop Laud engaged in some popish plot, the Catholics of England knew better.


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[Assistant] And like the Puritans, on the other side of the religious spectrum, Lord Baltimore saw the New World as a place to escape persecution.


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[Assistant] But, soon enough, that original intent was washed away by the flood of Protestant settlers coming up mostly from Virginia.


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[Assistant] By 1649, Baltimore had to give way, and he granted freedom of worship, making Maryland the second colony after, you guessed it, Rhode Island, to do so.


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[Assistant] The Great Colony of the South, and indeed the Great Colony of British North America, was of course Virginia, occasionally known as the Prussia of America.


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[Assistant] By the time of the revolution, it would be the oldest, largest, richest, and most populous colony in North America. And its leaders knew it.


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[Assistant] After the mysterious false start that is the lost colony of Roanoke, a new settlement called Jamestown was constructed beside the James River in 1607.


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[Assistant] For those of you who are interested in the whole sordid history of early Virginia, should read American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund Morgan, which has surprisingly little to say about slavery, but a great deal about the struggles, failures, and hardships of 17th century Virginia.


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[Assistant] Including their persistent inability to grow enough food to live despite having planted themselves in some of the most fertile soil in the world.


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[Assistant] Initially, this was the result of the colonists themselves, a mix of indentured servants and gentleman adventurers, just not doing what it took to survive.


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[Assistant] But then John Rolfe discovered the miracle of tobacco, which became the cash crop of British North America.


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[Assistant] From then on, it wasn't so much about screwing around when you were supposed to be working, so much as refusing to be distracted from tobacco long enough to grow some food.


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[Assistant] So early Virginia was a mess, but by the 1700s it had established itself as the old Dominion.


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[Assistant] And more than any other colony resembled the socioeconomic structure of England, with large landowners, really a collection of about a hundred families, dominating a population of indebted freeholders, indentured servants, and African slaves.


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[Assistant] These large landowners propped up the established Anglican Church, Virginia being the one place in North America that the Church of England really took root, and they all believed mightily in their rights as Englishmen, especially their rights as gentlemen landlords.


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[Assistant] But the truly defining feature of economic life in Virginia, besides the complete reliance on tobacco as both export commodity and means of internal exchange,


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[Assistant] Was that everyone, from the largest plantation owner to the smallest little freeholder, was deeply in debt.


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[Assistant] Everyone bought on liberally extended credit from England that would always come due with the next tobacco crop.


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[Assistant] And this caused more than a little tension, I promise you.


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[Assistant] South of Virginia were the Carolinas, founded in 1629 and named after our old friend Charles I.


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[Assistant] Carolina was established initially as one big proprietary colony, but in 1712 the disaffected northern settlements broke away, and the territory was reformed as North Carolina and South Carolina.


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[Assistant] Initially, the Carolinas followed the Virginia path into plantation tobacco, with a smattering of pitch and lumber thrown in there.


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[Assistant] But eventually South Carolina became deeply involved in the cultivation of rice and indigo, a newly discovered plant that was being used for dye.


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[Assistant] Both commodities, unique to South Carolina, will become sticking points in the Continental Congress as the pan-colonial alliance was taking shape.


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[Assistant] South Carolina also housed the only real city in the south, Charleston, named after, guess who, which grew to about 10,000 people as the revolution broke out.


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[Assistant] Now the reason the southern colonies never developed major urban centers like the northern colonies did was because the region had so many deep, navigable rivers that any landowner could just throw up a dock without needing to ship his commodities overland to a central hub like they had to do up in the north with Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.


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[Assistant] South of the Carolinas was Georgia, the last colony established.


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[Assistant] Not founded until 1733, Georgia was a proprietary colony dreamed up by James Oglethorpe and a group of benevolent utopians who saw the colony as a way to rehabilitate and put to good use the desperate poor of England.


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[Assistant] But their excruciatingly detailed plans for how land would be allocated, what you could grow, what you could import, and what you could export, ran smack into the reality of, well, life in Georgia.


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[Assistant] Which was, for example, not conducive to growing silk, which the proprietors of Georgia were convinced the colony ought to be hemorrhaging by now.


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[Assistant] Facing almost certain destruction, many of the poor colonists shipped over found life in Oglethorpe's utopia dangerously rigid, and fled to the relative freedom of Carolina.


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[Assistant] The proprietors of Georgia finally gave up in 1752 and handed control of the colony back to the Crown.


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[Assistant] So in broad terms, that covers where the colonies came from, and a little bit of what they were up to economically by the time the revolution broke out.


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[Assistant] It is important to always remember as we walk through this, though, that the colonies were very much separate entities from each other.


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[Assistant] And they bickered constantly over land and boundaries and access to resources.


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[Assistant] Really, only their shared attachment to England uniting them. But there was at least one big similarity between them all.


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[Assistant] Led them all to enjoy a great deal of local political autonomy.


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[Assistant] Every colony had some kind of central assembly that engaged in practical administration, dispensing of justice, and of course, taxing the inhabitants.


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[Assistant] It should not be underestimated just how much the roughly century and a half of English neglect influenced the course of the American Revolution.


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[Assistant] It certainly helped transform some pretty innocuous taxes into a belief that tyranny and slavery were just around the corner.


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[Assistant] And that segues us nicely into a discussion of the two groups we haven't talked about yet, but who represent the deep hypocrisy that unfortunately lies at the heart of the American Revolution. Slaves and American Indians.


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[Assistant] How can we reconcile the ideology of liberty and equality that fueled the revolution with an all but genocidal policy towards the Indians and the stark reality of African slavery? The answer is, you can't. Really. At least I can't. It's just something that is unavoidably there.


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[Assistant] To take the American Indians first, we obviously can't dive into a comprehensive history of native peoples in the New World, because for one, we're talking about dozens of individual tribes and nations, ranging from frozen Canada down to swampy Florida.


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[Assistant] The Iroquois, Shawnee, Cherokee, these are all major nations, with rich and unique histories all their own.


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[Assistant] But what they shared in common was an encounter with Europeans that generally followed a similar trajectory in all the colonies.


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[Assistant] The first white men appear in small numbers and find themselves incapable of surviving in the new world.


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[Assistant] These helpless colonists make contact with the local tribes and often begin exchanging commercial products for food.


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[Assistant] Once the European settlers established themselves, more colonists arrived.


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[Assistant] Indian land is encroached upon, leading to intermittent and increasingly bitter skirmishes and or massacres on both sides.


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[Assistant] Then, a combination of numbers, firepower, and disease lead the Europeans to pretty quickly get the upper hand, and the Indians get pushed west.


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[Assistant] By the mid 1700s, the Indians have been pretty well pushed off the eastern seaboard, but they were able to maintain some kind of independent sovereignty by playing the British off the French.


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[Assistant] As long as there were two imperial powers competing for the fur trade and the affection of the tribes, there was hope of national survival.


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[Assistant] We certainly hope that the British-American colonists would be confined to the land east of the Appalachian Mountains.


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[Assistant] This is what led the majority of Indians to fight with the French in the American theater of the Seven Years War, which we're about to talk about, and then hop over to side with the British during the American Revolution.


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[Assistant] Because to put it bluntly, the worst case scenario for the Indians was to be left alone on the continent with the Americans, who were hungry for land, and never really felt too constrained by moral or political duty when it came to the Indians.


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[Assistant] The other great hypocrisy deep in the heart of the revolution is of course slavery.


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[Assistant] At the time of the revolution, there were about 400,000 slaves living in the US, mostly in the southern colonies.


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[Assistant] They had been present from almost the beginning, with the first 19 Africans arriving in Virginia in 1619.


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[Assistant] But for the rest of the century, African slavery was more of a supplement to the far more common use of indentured servants as the colonial labor force.


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[Assistant] Since mortality rates were so high in colonial America, it was cheaper to pay for seven years' labour than a lifetime of labour, since the labourer was going to be dead in three years anyway.


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[Assistant] But once mortality rates began to improve, it became increasingly common to invest in a slave for life since you would never have to let them go, nor deal with the pressure from ex-indentured servants who now wanted land and political rights.


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[Assistant] So by 1700, the African slaves that had been getting mostly shipped to work in the horrific sugar plantations of the British West Indies started being funneled north to work the estates of major landowners.


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[Assistant] Kind of guys who could actually scrape together enough cash to buy a slave.


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[Assistant] Now, this point has been made 10,000 times before, so there's no reason to belabor it. But basically, all the southern leaders of the American Revolution were slaveholders. And they weren't conservative fence-sitters, either. I mean, we're talking about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason, James Madison,


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[Assistant] These were the guys who defined American liberty, fought a war to protect American liberty, and then built a new government to preserve American liberty. And they all owned slaves. It's ridiculous.


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[Assistant] Now had these guys followed through on the logic of their own argument to its conclusion, that is that all men are created equal, and like, freed their slaves, that is, had George Washington issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the American Revolution would have been the greatest historical event in world history.


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[Assistant] They simply couldn't see a way out of the economic implications of emancipation.


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[Assistant] So the legacy of the revolution remains forever tarnished.


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[Assistant] We'll wrap up today with the war that set the stage for the conflict between Britain and her North American colonies. In the United States, we call it the French and Indian War. It is known elsewhere as the Seven Years War, a wide-ranging conflict between France and Britain, which North America was simply one theater.


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[Assistant] The war technically started in 1754, but had been in the making for some time.


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[Assistant] As the British began to colonize North America, the French got in on the action, and established a foothold in the far north along the St. Lawrence River.


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[Assistant] From their main bases in Quebec City and Montreal, they grew out a primarily fur-based trade network that extended deep into the interior.


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[Assistant] Now though it took a while, eventually British Colonials started pushing west in search of more land, and they ran up against the French traders in the Ohio Valley.


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[Assistant] Both sides claimed sovereignty over the land, and the local Indians were caught in the middle.


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[Assistant] The resulting war is intricate enough and dramatic enough to sustain a multi-episode arc all its own, from Braddock's initial disastrous march to Wolfe's final victory at the Plains of Abraham.


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[Assistant] But for our purposes, we need only note that the British won and the French lost.


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[Assistant] The final piece was signed in Paris in 1763, leaving the British in sole control of North America.


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[Assistant] The story of the American Revolution begins just as the ink is drying on the Treaty of Paris. The cost of the war, and the cost of their empire,


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[Assistant] Let Britain's political leadership, both in Parliament and the Royal Ministry,


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[Assistant] To reevaluate how that empire was governed and financed.


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[Assistant] In many ways, their goal was both prudent and far-sighted. Make the colonies self-sufficient.


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[Assistant] But the instruments they devised to achieve this goal were heavy-handed in the manner they were employed clumsy and the justifications offered downright arrogant.


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[Assistant] So next week, we will kick things off with the first of two episodes, covering the 1760s and early 1770s, which saw American anger expand and contract in turn, as the Stamp Act was passed and repealed, the Townsend Acts were passed and mostly repealed, and then the Tea Act was passed and, well, by then things had gotten out of hand.


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[Assistant] Then we will move on into the campaigns of the Revolutionary War, on our way to American Independence, and then finally the ratification of the United States Constitution.


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[Assistant] Which is either the ultimate embodiment of the ideals of the revolution, or an abject betrayal of the ideals of the revolution, depending on who you talk to.


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[Assistant] So I want to start this week with a brief note about Thomas Paine's Common Sense, helpfully provided in the comments by listener T. Scott Johnson.


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[Assistant] It would appear that a recent book called The Republic in Print has pretty effectively debunked the myth that common sense reached anywhere near a hundred thousand printed copies. Which I'm glad to hear because as I said, a hundred thousand copies was an impossibly huge number. And it turns out that I was right about that.


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[Assistant] Thank you T. Scott Johnson, and good luck with the PhD.


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[Assistant] Last week, we left General Washington and his boys at a low point, having spent their first campaign season being beaten, outmaneuvered, and run off.


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[Assistant] By early December 1776, the only thing Washington can point to as a success was that his army was still in the field at all.


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[Assistant] But in a few weeks, even that small constellation might evaporate.


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[Assistant] Washington had escaped across the Delaware River with 3,000 men, half of whom had enlistments that were due to expire December 31st.


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[Assistant] And that was on top of the 2,000 men who had already gone home when their enlistments ran out November 30.


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[Assistant] With nothing going for the American army at all, what was to stop it from simply melting away?


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[Assistant] Washington had managed to escape the clutches of General Howe, but could he escape the clutches of crushingly low morale? The answer turned out to be yes. Yes he could.


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[Assistant] As you will recall, when General Howe opted to put his men into winter quarters, he left the Hessians to guard the frontier of the Delaware River, which marked the border between New Jersey to the east and Pennsylvania to the west.


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[Assistant] The Hessians manned a string of garrisons up and down the river, including the city of Trenton, which was right smack dab in the middle of that border. I actually managed to put a map up this week, and managed to do one for the New York campaigns from last week that I couldn't get to.


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[Assistant] These Hessian garrisons provided a desperate Washington with one last chance to steal a victory before the year was up and his entire army went home.


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[Assistant] Now, incredibly, as Washington got to planning his operation, he received no reinforcements from the army he had left back up in New York. You remember them? The 5,500 men commanded by General Charles Lee?


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[Assistant] Despite Washington's repeated pleas to send troops, Lee just didn't do it. Mostly because Lee was busy waiting for the Congress to come to its senses, ditch Washington, and put him in charge of the Continental Army.


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[Assistant] And though Lee's belligerent ego was mostly what was at work here, on paper, he kind of had a point.


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[Assistant] Charles Lee was born in England in February 1732, so just a few weeks before Washington himself.


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[Assistant] The son of a major, he entered the regular army as a junior officer at the age of 15 and never looked back. He served throughout the French and Indian War, taking an American Indian wife in the process. Then he returned to Europe, served in Portugal, and then when his regiment was disbanded after peace with France, he went off to serve as a mercenary in Poland.


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[Assistant] Returning to Britain, he found himself so sympathetic to the American cause that he emigrated to Virginia in 1773, and when war broke out, he immediately volunteered for service.


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[Assistant] Given his record, he had little doubt Congress would appoint him Commander-in-Chief.


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[Assistant] But of course, there is also the matter of Charles Lee's personality. He was ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, slovenly, and followed everywhere by a loyal pack of dogs who were really his only friends.


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[Assistant] But probably the thing that really sunk him was that he demanded pay. Pay that George Washington announced would be beneath his own dignity to accept.


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[Assistant] So Lee wound up instead being given command of the Southern Department, and in mid-1776 he received credit for helping ward off an attack on Charleston, although that warding off was only accomplished after Lee's own expert advice was ignored.


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[Assistant] After Lee was transferred back up to New York, Washington did everything he could to placate Lee's ego because Washington was himself always entranced by the European way of war, a way that Lee knew better than anyone.


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[Assistant] It was indeed likely an overdose of respect that led Washington to merely encourage, rather than explicitly order, Lee to march from New York down to Pennsylvania.


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[Assistant] But Lee did not reciprocate this respect at all, and wasn't going to lift a finger to help Washington.


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[Assistant] Because Lee was busy telling everyone who would listen, including the Congress in a steady stream of letters, that Washington was in way over his head and basically losing the war.


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[Assistant] On the road, Commander in Chief, in his own mind, Lee, decided to spend the night in a tavern, well removed from the rest of his army.


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[Assistant] Lee would spend the next six months in British custody before being exchanged for a captured British general. Given his conduct at Monmouth Courthouse, it probably would have been better for the Americans to exchange the captured British general for a sack of potatoes.


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[Assistant] So without further reinforcements, Washington was forced to drop a plan to attack Trenton with what men he had on hand, and oh what a plan it was. Because as much as Washington was the master of the flawless retreat,


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[Assistant] He was also the master of the insanely complicated battle plan, and he was always coming up with these schemes that involved 27 different moving parts that needed to work in perfect synchronization, and his plan for Trenton was classic Washington.


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[Assistant] It was laid out in three phases. First, 700 men would silently cross the Delaware River and seize a key bridge south of Trenton. Then, another 1500 militia men would cross even further south and launch a diversionary attack on the garrison at Bordentown.


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[Assistant] Then, Washington and his main force of 2,400 men would cross the Delaware themselves at midnight, divide into two columns, and take separate roads the nine miles to Trenton. Then, they would all simultaneously be in position to strike the city no later than 5am.


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[Assistant] So what we've got here is four different columns that will be moving in different directions at different times in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter, all without tipping off the Hessians.


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[Assistant] And oh, by the way, if this doesn't work, that's the end of the war.


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[Assistant] Needless to say, this did not all unfold the way Washington planned. And it's frankly, a wonder it all turned out as well as it did.


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[Assistant] The first two phases of the operation, for example, failed immediately, as neither the advanced unit nor the diversionary force had been able to cross at their assigned locations due to the icy conditions of the Delaware River.


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[Assistant] Facts Washington did not learn until well after the battle was over.


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[Assistant] Then, those same icy conditions destroyed his own timetable, and though everyone worked as fast and as well as they could, Washington's army wasn't even ready to start marching until 4am, and according to the plan, they were already supposed to be at Trenton by now. But Washington pressed on, I mean, what else could he do?


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[Assistant] He divided his 2400 men into the two columns, one that would approach Trenton from the north, and one that would come up and around from the south.


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[Assistant] Amazingly, both these columns hit their marks at almost the same time, just about 8am.


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[Assistant] As Washington led the final approach though, he ran into a small independent company of about 50 Americans who knew nothing about the planned attack and were returning from a little raid on Trenton of their own. A raid that had seen them exchange gunfire with Hessian sentries.


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[Assistant] Washington was mortified and thought his entire operation was now exposed, but it's possible that this raid actually put the Hessians' mind at ease. You see, the Hessian Colonel in charge of Trenton had been tipped off a few days earlier to watch out for a possible attack, and he had kept his men on high alert and running frequent patrols.


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[Assistant] When this little raiding party came and went, they thought the quote unquote attack had now come and gone. And relaxed. Because it went without saying that in this crappy weather, nothing more could be expected from the Americans.


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[Assistant] And that brings us to the myth of the drunk and or hungover Hessians.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, for those of us who like a good story, the myth is just that, a myth. And eyewitnesses report that the Hessians, though caught off guard because they were really not expecting a major attack given the rotten weather, they were stone sober before, during, and after the battle.


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[Assistant] As Washington led his column to the north side of Trenton, they skirmished with an outpost about a mile outside the city, forcing the Hessian guards into a fighting retreat that alerted the rest of the garrison in Trenton that something much bigger was on the way.


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[Assistant] But the Americans were able to place their artillery in time, one battery which was commanded by a young artillery captain named Alexander Hamilton.


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[Assistant] As the Hessians tried to form up for battle, they were blasted into a chaotic mess. The Hessian colonel rushed around reforming his men for a counterattack, but wound up mortally wounded for his trouble.


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[Assistant] By now, the Hessians were squeezed between the advancing enemy on both sides, and within an hour, the Battle of Trenton was over.


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[Assistant] The Americans suffered just two combat deaths and a few light wounds.


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[Assistant] It was exactly the kind of unambiguous absolutely clear cut victory that Washington and the Americans needed. The whole thing had been an enormous gamble.


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[Assistant] And had it failed, who knows whether the American rebellion would have gone down as little more than a historical footnote.


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[Assistant] Now Washington's original plan was as ambitious as it was complicated, and he hoped to use the momentum from Trenton to immediately push on to Princeton.


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[Assistant] But the night's delays, coupled with exhaustion, coupled with the news that the other advanced units never had crossed the river, led Washington to call it good right there. And he led his men and prisoners back across the Delaware, away from easy British retaliation.


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[Assistant] The next day though, Washington and his war council learned that the militia men that were supposed to have been running the diversion down south and now operating independently had elected to cross the Delaware.


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[Assistant] With this force already on the other side, Washington decided to follow them back into New Jersey.


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[Assistant] So on December the 29th, Washington sent his men back across the river to re-occupy Trenton, which had the added benefit of making it just a little bit harder for those men who planned to ditch out on January the 1st to do so.


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[Assistant] When that fateful day did arrive, Washington gave impassioned addresses and offered bounties for just six more weeks service. And of the roughly 5,000 he now had on hand, he was able to hold 3,000, at least for the time being.


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[Assistant] Joined by the militiamen who had crossed further south, Washington now had five or six thousand men under his immediate command.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, General Howe was not going to take the attack on Trenton lying down. Well, maybe he would, but his army sure wouldn't, and he dispatched 8,000 men under Lord Cornwallis to stamp out this burgeoning American resilience.


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[Assistant] Cornwallis marched through Princeton, dropped off at Garrison, and then headed down to Trenton with 5,500 men.


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[Assistant] He was harassed the entire way by American Forward Unit, whose sole job was to make him and his men hate their rotten luck for being stuck on this assignment.


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[Assistant] When Cornwallis got to Trenton, he found the Americans drawn up on a ridge south of town, with a creek between them and the approaching British.


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[Assistant] Cornwallis tried three times to cross the creek's bridge, but when each attempt failed, he decided to halt for the day and resume the attack in the morning, because from where he was sitting, Washington and his men were basically trapped up on that ridge.


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[Assistant] But local knowledge can be a powerful weapon, and during the night, leaving a few men behind to tend the line of fires and shoot random cannon shots, Washington led his army down back roads that weren't on any map.


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[Assistant] When dawn broke on January the 2nd, Cornwallis found the ridge empty, and the British garrison left at Princeton found itself under attack.


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[Assistant] The garrison was already on their way to join Cornwallis for their final assault on the ridge when they were hit by the army that was supposed to be trapped up on that ridge.


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[Assistant] In the initial fighting, the Americans were driven back and started to run for it, but Washington himself soon appeared on horseback, re-raviled the fleeing men, and pointed them back in the right direction.


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[Assistant] In the midst of all this, there was a moment when Washington was riding around between the two lines, shouting encouragement to his men, when both sides started firing at once.


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[Assistant] Following this miracle the bulk of the British forces were able to push through and run south for Trenton, while the rest were pushed back and captured in Princeton.


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[Assistant] With yet another victory in hand, and Cornwallis bearing down on him, Washington decided that it really was time to call it quits for the year. And he led his men into winter quarters in Morristown, New Jersey.


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[Assistant] Morristown was about 25 miles west of New York City, and well situated to stymie the British if they got it in their heads to move on Philadelphia or move up the Hudson River.


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[Assistant] Now as we will see, winter was a dreadful time to be a soldier in the Continental Army. We're talking no clothes, no food, only super rudimentary shelter, there was disease, it was just the pits.


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[Assistant] But we'll talk more about it when we get to the famously hard winter next year at Valley Forge, and then a bit more when we talk about the less famously but even harder winter back in Morristown the year after that.


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[Assistant] These conditions made retaining soldiers so difficult that the fact that anyone stayed at all is positively miraculous.


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[Assistant] Washington's whole army was down to just 3,000 men by March, with expiring terms, desertion, and smallpox taking their heavy toll.


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[Assistant] As spring came, recruiters for the Continental Army did their best, and the total was back up to 9,000. But these recruiters were stymied by Washington's old nemesis, the Colonial Militias, who offered higher bounties, better pay, and better terms of service.


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[Assistant] Begging, pleading, and demanding that local leaders stop poaching able-bodied men would be a constant refrain from Washington all through the war.


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[Assistant] But, at least for the moment, his other bouts of begging, pleading, and demanding for guns and supplies got a little boost when American agents in France were able to set up back-channel supply lines from the French government run through a front company in Paris.


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[Assistant] The French were obviously interested in seeing the Colonials take it to their British enemies,


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[Assistant] But throwing in with the Americans completely was still out of the question.


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[Assistant] Today, we're gonna stick with General Washington, as he fails to keep the British out of Philadelphia, and then fails to knock them out after they seize the capital. That will take us all the way to the end of the year.


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[Assistant] But of course, as this is unfolding in Pennsylvania, the turning point of the war is unfolding in upstate New York, and we will talk about that next week, because otherwise it'll just be too much hopping around, as everything is happening simultaneously in September and October 1777.


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[Assistant] So sticking with Washington, the campaign season of 1777 did not get going until mid-June, when General Howe decided it was high time he set out on that one more year of good campaigning to finish off the rebellion.


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[Assistant] On June 17th, Hal moved a large force off Staten Island and flashed them around New Jersey hoping to lure Washington into a decisive battle, but Washington did not take the bait.


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[Assistant] A week later, Howe maneuvered around again trying to draw out the Americans, but Washington managed to squeeze his men out of a trap in the nick of time.


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[Assistant] These ploys having failed, Howell elected to abandon New Jersey and then pull off the mainland completely.


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[Assistant] Stunts like this were the great reason why the Americans were doomed without foreign assistance.


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[Assistant] Because without an enemy navy to stop him, Howe could do things like put 18,000 men on transport ships, set out onto the high seas, and then put them back in wherever he wanted. Which is exactly what he did in the summer of 1777.


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[Assistant] I mean, you could guess where his army was going to suddenly reappear, but there was no way of knowing for sure.


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[Assistant] Head north to link up with the Burgoyne Expedition coming down from Canada, that's what we're gonna talk about next week.


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[Assistant] Or transfer the whole focus of the war and head down to like, Charleston, South Carolina.


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[Assistant] Now from everyone's point of view, that is the British Ministry, the American War Council, the unanimous judgment of history, what Howe needed to do was go link up with Burgoyne.


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[Assistant] But for a variety of reasons we'll talk about next week, that did not happen.


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[Assistant] And from at least April forward, Howe had his eye on taking the rebel capital in Philadelphia. Once he put out to sea, the only question in his own mind was where exactly and when exactly he would land to make that attempt.


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[Assistant] The endlessly and helplessly frustrating days of speculation and inactivity finally ended for Washington at the end of August, when Hal put into Chesapeake Bay about 50 miles southwest of Philadelphia.


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[Assistant] While Howe let his men recuperate the month at sea had been pretty awful, Washington got his army marching south, picking up militia companies along the way until he commanded nearly 20,000 men.


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[Assistant] On the way to the confrontation with the British, the American army entered, and then marched as smartly as they could, through the streets of Philadelphia.


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[Assistant] Washington tried to put on as good a show as he could, but even a casual observer could tell that these boys did not step as lively nor look as sharp as a professional army ought to step and look.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, Howe was now on his way north with 15,000 men, harassed, as was now the custom, by small detachments of American forces.


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[Assistant] Washington moved west out of Philadelphia, and on September the 10th, he decided to draw up a line of about 14,000 continentals and militiamen at Brandywine Creek.


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[Assistant] There were only a few places the British army could ford the river, and the Americans worked to cover those spots and make the main road into Philadelphia impregnable.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, as had been the case at Long Island, the Americans left open a pair of Fords on the very far right of their line.


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[Assistant] Possibly because they just did not know they were there.


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[Assistant] Howe found out about these open Fords, so this time it was the British rather than the Americans who enjoyed that all-powerful weapon, local knowledge.


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[Assistant] At 4 a.m. on September the 11th, Howe sent forward a detachment of 5,000 men under one of the Hessian commanders to feign a frontal attack while he and Cornwallis led the rest of the army on a wide flanking maneuver across those unguarded forts.


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[Assistant] Now one of the questions looming over the Battle of Brandywine is that it appears Washington heard that something was up on his far right as early as 9.30am, but he did not act, and no one really knows why. But it was possibly just because he didn't believe the reports.


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[Assistant] But by two in the afternoon, the bulk of the British forces were across the creek, and threatening the utterly exposed American right flank.


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[Assistant] Quickly, the American forces reformed a line to stop them, and they were given a little breathing room because Howe and Cornwallis took their sweet time forming up for the attack.


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[Assistant] By four o'clock though, that attack came, and it quickly became apparent that the scrambling Americans had left a hole in their hastily reformed lines.


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[Assistant] The British poured through that hole, and though American reinforcements showed up and bought everyone some time, the fighting descended into brutal, ugly chaos, and the Americans broke and ran. Not in any kind of classic Washington-led order, this was panicked flight.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, back where Washington had thought the battle was going to take place, the Hessian commander had waited for the sound of Howe's attack to press right up the middle.


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[Assistant] They fought their way across the creek and engaged in fierce close quarters combat. But the fighting had started so late in the day that darkness soon forced both sides to pull back.


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[Assistant] Washington wasted no time catching his breath. He and his men were beaten and beaten bad. And they had to get the hell out of there and regroup.


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[Assistant] So, while the British did take a breather, the Americans spent the night in full retreat.


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[Assistant] The Battle of Brandywine was yet another clear-cut victory for Howe over Washington.


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[Assistant] Though, somehow, the American Army still stood between the British and Philadelphia.


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[Assistant] A week and a half later, though, Howe maneuvered around and tricked the battered Americans into following him away as up the Schuylkill River before doubling back and crossing at a lower ford. That left the way to Philadelphia wide open.


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[Assistant] On September 18th, the delegates of the Second Continental Congress, learning that they were exposed, booked it, eventually to York, Pennsylvania, where they would remain in exile for the next year.


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[Assistant] But when the British marched into Philadelphia on the 26th, looking every bit the professional army the Continentals had just shown themselves not to be, it wasn't the decisive blow Howe had hoped it would be.


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[Assistant] I mean, hello, I just took your capital. That means it's time to surrender. Hello? Do you guys even know how to play this game?


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[Assistant] But the Americans did not know how to play that game, and Washington and his men retreated 25 miles outside of the city to plan their next move.


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[Assistant] Once in Philadelphia, Howe had to scatter his forces so they wouldn't trip over each other trying to sleep and eat. But knowing that the American army was still out in the neighborhood, he concentrated 9,000 men at Germantown, about five miles north of the city.


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[Assistant] Washington and his officers decided that taking the forces at Germantown was risky, but too juicy to pass up because, for the moment, the Americans would actually outnumber the British there.


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[Assistant] And if it went totally right, a victory at Germantown, along with the utterly astounding American victory up at Saratoga, might just be enough to win the war. I mean, seriously, despite everything, the Americans were in a really good position to win the Revolutionary War right there in the fall of 1777.


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[Assistant] As with Trenton, Washington's battle plan for Germantown was a perfect work of art, just as long as it didn't try to like, leave the tent.


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[Assistant] It involved four columns setting out on night marches so that they could simultaneously attack Germantown from four different directions at dawn.


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[Assistant] It would be hard enough to pull off Washington's plan for Germantown with modern communications. Without them, well, good luck everybody.


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[Assistant] They did at least think to stick a piece of white paper in everyone's hat so that they could tell their friend from their enemy when they all got to the other side.


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[Assistant] A force marched through the night of October the 3rd and 4th, put the various columns close to Germantown without yet being detected.


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[Assistant] But only one of the flanking columns reached its intended position when dawn came.


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[Assistant] Finally, around 5am, the American column that was aiming right at the heart of town came rolling in and kicked off the battle by firing on British guards, who sounded the alarm.


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[Assistant] Now at this point, General Howe actually came writing out personally to convince these guards to hold firm, since they were only facing a few obnoxious raiders.


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[Assistant] When the American cannon started going off though, Howe pulled back and his men quickly followed him.


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[Assistant] This was no party of raiders. This was a full-scale attack.


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[Assistant] Instead of driving forward, they got bogged down at a stone house on the edge of town.


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[Assistant] Fortified by the British, Washington's options were either bypass it or try to take it.


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[Assistant] He almost elected to bypass it, but Henry Knox convinced him that the oldest war manuals in the world said never leave a strong point in your rear, and promised that his artillery boys could take it.


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[Assistant] But after an hour of banging cannonballs off the side of the house, it turned out that Knox's artillery boys could not in fact take it, and they were just wasting time, ammunition, and more than a few men.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, the other American column started pouring into town from their different directions. But the heavy fog made everything super confusing. One unit fell back because they thought they were exposed when they really weren't. Another detachment coming in from the flank took a wrong turn and wound up banging into those retreating guys and they all started firing at each other.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, the last column to arrive, led by Nathaniel Green, pushed into the mix, and his advanced companies managed to actually capture a bunch of prisoners. But then those advanced units were themselves surrounded.


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[Assistant] Washington ordered a full retreat, and his army was chased for nearly 10 miles before Green's forces were able to buy the rest time to get away completely.


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[Assistant] The Battle of Germantown was yet another defeat for the Americans. But oddly enough, it actually helped Benjamin Franklin make the all-important case he was currently making to the French.


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[Assistant] Because despite it all ending in failure, European observers in America were impressed by the sophistication of the plan, the bravery of the troops, and as always, the disciplined retreat.


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[Assistant] It had all gone haywire in the fog, but you really can't blame them for that. And one or two breaks and Germantown would have been a smashing American success.


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[Assistant] So it was clear by the end of 1777 that the Continental Army had shaped up to be a real army, not just some pretend mob of hooligans.


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[Assistant] But this was little comfort for Washington himself as he and his army settled into their famously hard winter at Valley Forge because he was forced to dwell on the defeats at Brandywine in Germantown and question his own ability to win the war.


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[Assistant] And he was not the only one asking those questions.


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[Assistant] Next week though, we are going to go back in time to the spring of 1777, and run through the Saratoga campaigns up in the north, which started with British General John Burgoyne setting out on what he thought was some kind of luxurious triumphal parade, and ended with him handing over his sword.


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[Assistant] Rome had laid its ultimatum at the feet of the Carthaginian Senate after Hannibal had laid siege to Saguntum in Spain.


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[Assistant] If the Carthaginians did not immediately recall Hannibal from the field and cease their aggressive operations, Rome would declare war.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginians declined to do as the Romans asked and both sides immediately began to prepare for battle.


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[Assistant] The Roman consuls for the year, Cornelius Scipio, father of the famous Scipio Africanus, and Sempranius Longus, began to raise legions with the intention of simultaneously attacking both Spain and North Africa.


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[Assistant] But in Spain, Hannibal was making preparations of his own that would throw the Roman war plan into complete disarray.


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[Assistant] The Romans were worried about Gallic opportunism on their northern border.


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[Assistant] But did not anticipate a full-fledged Carthaginian invasion at all.


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[Assistant] Before passing into modern day France, Hannibal released the less reliable elements of his Spanish infantry and passed into Gaul with a force of about 50,000.


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[Assistant] In Rome, Hannibal's movements passed without notice.


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[Assistant] Scipio set out for Rome with two legions, and after five days at sea, poured into port at Messilia on the eastern banks of the Rome River.


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[Assistant] Flashing the first signs of his tactical brilliance lured the Gauls into a trap and broke them apart with little difficulty.


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[Assistant] The way clear, he quickly crossed the remainder of his army and marched on towards the Alps, which were the only thing standing between him and Italy.


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[Assistant] When Scipio arrived with his legions, the fires of the Carthaginian camp were still smoldering, but the army was gone.


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[Assistant] The consul decided against a pursuit which would have taken his two legions into an unknown and unfriendly territory to catch a much larger Carthaginian army.


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[Assistant] Hannibal's passage through the Alps is one of the most famous events in world history and with good reason.


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[Assistant] Not only did the 15 day crossing come as the snow was beginning to set in, making traversing the peaks difficult and nearly impossible,


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[Assistant] And that's why the Romans were in disbelief when reports began to arrive that a Carthaginian army would shortly be emerging from the mountains.


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[Assistant] But through it all, the personal magnetism of Hannibal kept his army together. For the most part anyway.


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[Assistant] The army that emerged on the far side had been considerably reduced in numbers.


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[Assistant] Entering with 50,000, they came out the other side with a mere 25,000 remaining.


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[Assistant] It would not be long before the war would begin in earnest.


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[Assistant] And the battle then ensued, the Romans matched up just fine with their infantry, but their cavalry was woefully inadequate in the face of their far superior Numidian counterparts.


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[Assistant] Whether the younger Scipio saved his father or not is debatable.


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[Assistant] But there is no doubt that he was at the battle that opened the war. He would ultimately win 16 years later.


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[Assistant] The Romans crossed back over the bridge and burned it to prevent the Carthaginians from pursuing.


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[Assistant] Scipio returned to his base on the far side of the north-south running Trebia River and sent out the call for reinforcements.


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[Assistant] Hannibal did not immediately press his advantage, but instead used the breathing space he had won for himself to reprovision, rest his exhausted troops, and accept Gallic reinforcements into his ranks.


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[Assistant] Sempronius Longus was called from his yet to be launched invasion and ordered to take his army north to join with Scipio and engage Hannibal.


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[Assistant] It would be another decade plus before the Romans revisited the idea of invading Africa.


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[Assistant] The next month, Longus arrived with his army and combined it with the existing troops.


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[Assistant] It was now December and the weather had turned from bad to worse.


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[Assistant] Wind, sleet, snow and rain combined in a mixture of all the worst possible conditions you can imagine.


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[Assistant] The kind of weather that makes you not even want to check your mail, let alone fight a war.


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[Assistant] But Sempranius Longus was determined to end the invasion before the next consular elections.


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[Assistant] And just as in the case with Regulus in the First Punic War, the pressing need for battle was driven more by personal vanity than careful calculation.


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[Assistant] Hannibal played the Romans like a fiddle, and he manipulated Longus into a battle in which the legions were in the worst possible position to win.


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[Assistant] Catching wind of the change in leadership and the impatience of the newly arrived consul, Hannibal baited the Romans into a trap.


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[Assistant] Early in the morning of a particularly horrible day, Hannibal sent out a large contingent of his cavalry to attack the Roman camp.


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[Assistant] As soon as they appeared, Longus ordered the full force of his infantry out in pursuit.


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[Assistant] This hasty decision left the Romans without something Hannibal would hope to deny them. A good warm breakfast.


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[Assistant] The Romans essentially rolled out of bed and charged off to fight.


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[Assistant] Compounding their hunger, Long has ordered them to immediately cross the Trebia, which in December is a swollen and freezing river.


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[Assistant] When they reached the other side, they found Hannibal waiting for them at the head of a well-fed, dry army. And as if this wasn't bad enough,


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[Assistant] Hannibal had hidden a thousand cavalry behind an outcrop of rocks and brush.


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[Assistant] Sempronius longest escape with his life, but left his reputation lying dead on the battlefield.


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[Assistant] According to the frantic rumors, the Carthaginians would come pouring into the city in a matter of days and nothing could stop them.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginian army settled in for the winter, and the war was put on hold until the following spring.


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[Assistant] When spring arrived, the Romans raised fresh legions and sent them out to man the frontier and prevent Hannibal from making it any further south.


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[Assistant] When Flaminius was elected in 217, he did not return to Rome to oversee the religious ceremonies that accompanied the transfer of power.


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[Assistant] Which speaks either to his noble disdain for the trappings of power, or a foolish irreverence that would lose him the favor of the gods.


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[Assistant] Sticking to a strategy of picking the most difficult routes of approach in order to surprise his enemy, Hannibal began 217 BC by marching through a swamp.


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[Assistant] The Romans had the roads covered, so Hannibal simply abandoned them.


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[Assistant] There was literally no dry ground anywhere, and sleeping was a matter of sitting in muddy water and trying not to drown.


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[Assistant] Hannibal brought up the rear riding an elephant and making sure that the army understood the only way to move was forward.


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[Assistant] The general shared the pain of his men though, his eyes having succumbed to an infection that would eventually lead to the removal of one of them.


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[Assistant] But because of the Horde's swamp march, Hannibal accomplished his goal and successfully outmaneuvered the Romans.


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[Assistant] He was now deep in Atruria, and no army stood between the Carthaginians and Rome.


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[Assistant] Fleminius had no doubt that Hannibal's goal was to march uncontested on Rome and immediately sent out at double time to catch the Carthaginians.


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[Assistant] But Hannibal, as I said, had no intention of attacking Rome. But he did have every intention of luring Flaminius into a trap, and he chose Lake Trasimene as the perfect site.


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[Assistant] Lake Trasimene is about 150 miles north of Rome, and its northern bank butts up against steep hills.


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[Assistant] Hannibal placed his infantry on the thin strip of land between the banks and the hills and waited for Flaminius to come charging in the narrow entrance to the north bank.


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[Assistant] In the hills above and around the lake, Hannibal hid his cavalry and a good portion of his ground troops.


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[Assistant] When Flaminious arrived, he passed through the narrow entrance without a second thought. Intend only on engaging Hannibal in battle.


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[Assistant] But as soon as his forces were through, the Carthaginian cavalry appeared and sealed up the entrance, trapping the leadens.


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[Assistant] Hannibal stood over the dead and must have wondered to himself how the Romans could ever have conquered anything.


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[Assistant] Sure they were strong, but from what Hannibal had seen over the last year, they were about as savvy as a rock.


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[Assistant] The way to beat the Romans, clearly, was not to outfight them, but to outthink them.


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[Assistant] Hannibal now held Italy in the palm of his hand, but his coup de grace was yet to come.


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[Assistant] We will begin with the worst disaster in Roman military history, the Battle of Cannae.


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[Assistant] The Romans, shocked by the succession of defeats at the hand of this emerging national nightmare called Hannibal, will be left nearly catatonic when they get word of what happened to the legions at Cannae.


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[Assistant] After the disaster at Lake Trasimene, the Romans were understandably frightened at what the future had in store for them.


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[Assistant] Every army they threw at Hannibal met with total destruction, and their once unshakable sense of invincibility had now been thoroughly shaken.


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[Assistant] It would only be a matter of days, it seemed, before the Carthaginian army would march on Rome and conquer the once mighty city.


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[Assistant] Optimism was in short supply and lamentation flooded the market.


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[Assistant] In this depressed state, the Romans turn to an old psychological defense mechanism one last time to see them through the dark days ahead. The dictatorship.


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[Assistant] This time, the Reins were handed to Quintus Fabius Maximus, the well-respected head of the well-respected Fabii.


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[Assistant] It was not a popular plan. It was not a plan to win the war.


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[Assistant] It was not a plan to bring everlasting glory to Rome, and it was not even a plan that would bring everlasting glory to Fabius himself.


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[Assistant] It was a plan, however, that wouldn't cheer the survival of Rome.


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[Assistant] The plan earned Fabius a place in the annals of military history by affixing his name to a certain kind of strategy, known forever after as Fabian tactics, or the fine art of avoiding battle.


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[Assistant] Fabius had watched with horror as the consoles of the previous years had been goaded into pitched battles at the time and place of Hannibal's choosing.


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[Assistant] If he was going to fight Hannibal at all, he was not going to let the Carthaginian dictate the terms.


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[Assistant] But Hannibal was too savvy himself to be drawn into a battle he had not carefully orchestrated. So the upshot of Fabius' plan was that the two armies studiously avoided one another.


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[Assistant] Hannibal was laying waste to the countryside, and here Fabius was sitting on his hands and letting it go on.


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[Assistant] The only person who seemed to respect what Fabius was doing was Hannibal himself.


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[Assistant] Sure, he was causing a lot of havoc, but no matter how hard he tried to bait Fabius, the legions remained just out of reach and intact.


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[Assistant] The average Roman may not have fully understood what Fabius was doing, but the psychological benefit of simply keeping an army in the field was enormous.


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[Assistant] Days and months passed without news that yet another Roman army had been destroyed.


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[Assistant] Whether they appreciated it or not, Fabius was rebuilding Rome's confidence.


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[Assistant] But there was no deal, and Fabius, now and forever after nickname Fabius the Delayer,


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[Assistant] was simply biding his time until the right set of circumstances presented themselves.


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[Assistant] And when Hannibal marched his forces into Campania, Fabius saw his chance.


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[Assistant] It was only the genius of Hannibal combined with a little luck that saved the Carthaginian army from a decisive defeat by the Fabian legions.


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[Assistant] Without going too much into geography, the large valley of Campania has eight passes big enough to allow an army the size of Hannibals to march through.


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[Assistant] Five of them were either held solidly by the Romans or lay behind the unfordable Volternus River, leaving three possible exits for Hannibal from Campania.


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[Assistant] He had gone into the valley as part of his strategy to peel off Rome's major allies.


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[Assistant] The great city of Capua had risen to be the second strongest in Italy behind Rome, and Hannibal believed there was a good chance he could flip Capua.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginian army, having entered Campania, proceeded with their standard MO of terrorizing the countryside. But before they knew it, Fabius had moved the legions into each of the three escape routes, trapping them in the valley.


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[Assistant] Hannibal knew he had been outmaneuvered and racked his brains trying to think of a way out of the trap.


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[Assistant] One night, a few hours before dawn, Roman sentry spotted a mass procession of torches and immediately raised the alarm.


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[Assistant] Hannibal was attempting to break through one of the passes under cover of dark.


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[Assistant] Hannibal led his army through the unguarded pass, and the Carthaginians got away.


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[Assistant] By elevating a code dictator, the entire premise of the office was lost for good.


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[Assistant] The semi-magical spell of dictatorial infallibility had been broken for good, and not until the time of Sulla 200 years later would the concept of dictator reappear with any real meaning.


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[Assistant] Manutius took command of half the army and marched towards Hannibal with typical Roman aggression.


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[Assistant] But, like all his predecessors, Minutius was outmaneuvered by Hannibal, and the legions under his command were almost wiped out.


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[Assistant] Manutius, humbled by his experience, immediately placed himself back into a subordinate position to Fabius. And the rest of 217 passed without any major battle.


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[Assistant] Fabius, despite persistent calls for his head, had managed to lead Rome through an entire year without a major defeat.


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[Assistant] Rome, however, would not learn from Fabius' success and clamored for leaders who would take the fight to Hannibal.


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[Assistant] In 216 BC, they got what they asked for, and for their trouble, got everything Fabius predicted. A defeat so massive, it nearly ended the Roman Empire, right then and there.


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[Assistant] The dominant figure to emerge during Fabius' dictatorship was a man named Marcus Vero, who denounced at every opportunity the cowardly policies of the wealthy patrician dictator.


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[Assistant] He promised the people that if they elected him consul, he would raise the largest army Rome had ever seen and crush Hannibal once and for all.


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[Assistant] The people responded by overwhelmingly supporting Vero for the Consulship. His colleague for the year was the respected patrician, Lucius Amelius Paulus, who would play the super-ego to Vero's id.


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[Assistant] Together, they raised sixteen legions of Romans and allies and marched southeast from Rome to find and destroy Hannibal.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginian army had taken over the small but important town of Cannae.


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[Assistant] Or, as I have been incorrectly referring to it, Cannae. Thanks to those of you out there who have knocked some sense into my Latin poor tongue.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginians were set up in Cannae, and the legions marched straight for them, 80,000 strong.


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[Assistant] Hannibal had just over 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry and despite his track record against the Romans, he had to be nervous at the sight of the massive force deployed against him.


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[Assistant] When the Romans arrived, a disagreement arose between the two consuls.


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[Assistant] Varro, however, saw the nearly 2 to 1 advantage the Romans held and immediately wanted to fight an infantry battle in the field and simply overwhelm the Carthaginians.


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[Assistant] When two consoles are present at the same site, there were two ways of dividing the command equally between them.


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[Assistant] One was to divide the army in half and give each consul total discretion over his half of the army. The other, in force at Cannae,


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[Assistant] was for each consul to have total discretion over the whole army every other day.


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[Assistant] He ordered the army across a shallow river to where the Carthaginians were lining up for battle.


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[Assistant] Hannibal hoping to get the Romans to bite at a battle he could control with his superior mobile cavalry wings.


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[Assistant] His hope was to drive through the weaker Carthaginian infantry, divide Hannibal's army in half, and use the superior Roman numbers to annihilate the Carthaginian army.


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[Assistant] Vero's mistake was doubly compounded by the fact that Hannibal had deliberately lined his army up to lure the Romans into just such a trap.


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[Assistant] On the wings were the cavalry, and between the cavalry and the center were the Libyan infantry.


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[Assistant] After eyeing each other and letting the light skirmishers do their thing, Vero ordered the legions to attack.


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[Assistant] However, caught up in the heat of battle, the Romans did not notice that it was the center and the center only they were pushing back.


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[Assistant] The Libyans remained where they were, and pretty soon the curve of the Carthaginian line had been inverted, with the Libyans now forward of the center.


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[Assistant] The Romans continued to charge ahead and before they knew it, the Libyans had outflanked them even though they had not yet moved a muscle.


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[Assistant] The Romans were now hemmed in and suddenly found themselves fighting on three fronts.


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[Assistant] In the confusion, they were just beginning to work on extracting themselves from what was turning into a blood bath when Hannibal closed the trap.


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[Assistant] His cavalry easily drove off their Roman counterparts and then wheeled around on the Roman rear.


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[Assistant] These totals included the cream of the Roman leadership, 29 military tribunes, and 80 men of senatorial rank, including the former master of horse, Marcus Rufus Minutius.


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[Assistant] Vero, however, upon whose head the entire debacle rested, had no such qualms about his honor, and fled for his life.


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[Assistant] The Battle of Cannae has gone down as one of the most famous battles in history.


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[Assistant] Though the total development is not nearly as impressive when you're commanding a much larger and more powerful army.


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[Assistant] It still shows how much this single battle has penetrated the collective consciousness.


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[Assistant] Because what he did with his stunning victory was absolutely nothing.


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[Assistant] Rome itself would have been more than a match for Hannibal and his paltry army of 35,000. But it is impossible to say for sure.


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[Assistant] We have no way of knowing what would have happened if Hannibal had gone for the gold. All we do know is that he didn't.


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[Assistant] After the utter devastation of Cannae, no one would have blamed the Romans had they just given up.


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[Assistant] Next week on the History of Carthage, we'll talk about Hannibal's falling out with Philip and the War in the East.


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[Assistant] But despite the obvious rationales for quitting the fight, Realm's determination to carry on was only bolstered by their defeats.


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[Assistant] That is not to say the Romans proceeded through their trial unchanged. On the contrary, the early years of the Second Punic War fundamentally altered life in Rome.


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[Assistant] It was simultaneously and paradoxically a time of both democratization and consolidation of power in the hands of the elites.


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[Assistant] The elite seized control, and for the most part, the people were content to go along.


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[Assistant] But at the same time the seizure of power was going on, the opportunities for political advancement had never been so readily available.


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[Assistant] The second Punic War was, by necessity, a time of great turnover in the leadership class, and it was based, again, out of necessity, on merit rather than blood.


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[Assistant] They had to both lower the youngest eligible age and raise the oldest eligible age.


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[Assistant] Hannibal's response to his smashing victory at canny was, as I said last week, to do nothing.


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[Assistant] He did not march on Rome and really forced the Romans to think about what they were doing.


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[Assistant] Instead, he returned to his strategy of cutting the Romans off from their allies.


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[Assistant] The history of the stabbed in the back theory stretches, as you can see, far back into antiquity.


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[Assistant] And in 216 BC, just after the Battle of Cannae, fate stepped in to deliver the island to the Carthaginians.


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[Assistant] He was succeeded by his grandson, Hieronymus, who had just turned 15.


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[Assistant] Though the old king had never faltered in his allegiance to Rome, a large bulk of the nobility was all for breaking away to the Carthaginians, especially after Cannae.


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[Assistant] But Hieronymus proved himself to be the prototypical depraved child tyrant, and his wanton displays of arrogant despotism soon raised the ire of many a Syracusian.


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[Assistant] They were still a sizable pro-Roman population within the upper class, and while Hieronymus was out on campaign, they had him assassinated, much to the relief of the general public.


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[Assistant] However, the conspirators then badly overplayed their hand and murdered the rest of Hiro's popular family and turned public opinion right back against them.


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[Assistant] Two Carthaginian generals who had been sent to the island to advise Hieronymus were raised up by the Syracusan soldiers and thrust into a position of supreme command.


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[Assistant] News of this unexpected and fortuitous turn of events was music to the ears of Hannibal in Italy and Hasdrubal in Spain.


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[Assistant] While Hannibal marched south to try and break the already shaky Roman allegiance of Magna Graecia, Hasdrubal attempted to coordinate a campaign against the Scipione brothers.


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[Assistant] Publius and Neus Scipio, the father and uncle of Scipio Africanus, however, were proving to be more than a match for the Carthaginian army sent against them in Spain.


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[Assistant] Plus, the loyalty of the Spanish mercenaries was always in doubt, as they made for the hills anytime there was real trouble.


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[Assistant] Hasdrubal was looking to dispatch the Scipiones and make for Italy himself to meet up with Hannibal, but the Romans were not going quietly into that good night.


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[Assistant] But then in 211 BC, the Scipiones made an ill-advised strategic decision that would bring them both to ruin.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginians had roughly 35,000 men at their disposal, and the Scipiones decided time was ripe to punch out the Carthaginians.


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[Assistant] They split their own army, with Neus leading about a third of the Roman and all the Celtabarians against Hasdrubal, while Publius led the bulk of the Romans against the other Carthaginian army.


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[Assistant] So, rather than having the advantage on both fronts, the Scipiones were outnumbered everywhere.


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[Assistant] Unaware of what had happened to his brother, Neus approached Haster with confidence.


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[Assistant] In the span of a few days, both Roman commanders and the bulk of the legions in Spain lay dead, and five years of careful campaigning had been for naught.


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[Assistant] How is it that the Romans lost every decisive battle and still managed to win the war? Well, I'll tell you.


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[Assistant] Back on the island, the Romans sent Marcus Claudius Marcellus to reinforce the two legions already stationed on the island at the time of Hiro's death.


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[Assistant] These numbers included the survivors of Cani, who were forced to serve in exile in Sicily without leave or any hope at all really of returning home.


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[Assistant] Broadly speaking, the troops who survived Cannae did their best to die in battle, where they could at least reclaim some of their lost honor. Marcellus's orders were simple.


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[Assistant] Take back Sicily and regain control of the vital food supplies Rome needed to survive with Hannibal off ravaging the Italian countryside.


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[Assistant] Marcellus immediately ordered a siege of Syracuse.


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[Assistant] The city had yet to be taken by an invading army and had repelled all commerce quite handily over the years.


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[Assistant] But Marcellus was intent on conquering the unconquerable city.


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[Assistant] The ace in the hole of the Syracusans was their great mathematician, physicist, astronomer, inventor, and all around super genius Archimedes, who designed a number of defensive weapons for the city to help repel invaders.


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[Assistant] It should come as no surprise to anyone that the great scientist died at the hands of a Roman soldier after the city was taken.


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[Assistant] Repelled in his initial assault, Marcelo settled in to starve the city out. Two and a half years would pass before the stalemate was broken.


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[Assistant] A group of pro-Roman nobles slipped through the lines and arranged to betray the city into Roman hands.


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[Assistant] To make matters worse, a plague swept across Italy in 211 BC, decimating the Carthaginian army, looking for an opportunity to aid the Syracusans, and bringing those trapped inside to their knees.


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[Assistant] After being abandoned by the Carthaginian generals, those still holding out inside the city surrendered, and Marcellus claimed Syracuse for Rome.


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[Assistant] The sack of Syracuse shocked even the Romans, who still looked with reverence on the great Greek city, and were horrified to hear how poorly its citizens, art and treasure had been treated.


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[Assistant] However, they were not so torn up that they did not celebrate novation for Marcellus upon his return to Rome.


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[Assistant] So we'll leave Rome on an upbeat this week, after ending the last two episodes with devastating Roman defeats.


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[Assistant] Even though they had lost the initiative in Spain, they had turned the situation in Sicily around and secured most of the island once again for Rome. Next week...


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[Assistant] We will return to Italy and trace the movement of Hannibal during these years and follow the Romans as they followed Hannibal around and flip back cities Hannibal had flipped to the Carthaginian cause.


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[Assistant] There were few out and out battles between the two armies, just a lot of territory swapping, and internal political machinations between rival factions inside the Italian cities.


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[Assistant] We will also introduce next week young Scipio Africanus who would take command of the situation in Spain and attempt to avenge his father's defeat there.


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[Assistant] We detoured out of Italy to cover the Second Punic War and its two foreign theaters, Spain and Sicily.


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[Assistant] This week, we will return to Hannibal's march through Rome's backyard and attempt to distill 10 years of complicated allegiance switching threats, revenge, and posturing into a single podcast.


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[Assistant] Well, actually half a podcast, because we must also return to Spain with young Scipio Africanus to pick up the ball where his father and uncle had left it.


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[Assistant] But before we get to our two main focuses today, we need to detour into the third major foreign theater of the war.


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[Assistant] Though critically important to the war effort, the struggle with the Macedonians in the east has thus far received little attention


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[Assistant] Though inextricably linked to the war with Hannibal, the First Macedonian War was, in many ways, a completely separate animal.


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[Assistant] Not long after canny, Hannibal and Philip V of Macedon signed a formal treaty with one another and pledged mutual support against each other's enemies.


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[Assistant] Philip was the young leader of a newly resurgent Macedon who had visions of reuniting Greece under Macedonian rule as his namesake Philip II, father of Alexander, had done.


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[Assistant] After the disaster at Cannae, Hannibal made formal overtures to the Macedonian king, and Philip accepted at once.


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[Assistant] It also cemented a mutual sphere of influence that allayed both sides fears of territorial encroachment.


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[Assistant] Deal in hand, Philip's envoys return to Macedon. But on the way across the Adriatic, they were captured by the Roman Navy.


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[Assistant] Immediately recognizing the danger of Hannibal's Eastern Alliance, Rome was forced to turn its already divided attention to one more front.


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[Assistant] Specifically, Rome found a receptive audience in the Atollian League, a confederation of cities that stood between Macedon and Greece proper.


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[Assistant] The Macedonian king had his eye on driving the Romans out of their coastal garrisons in Illyria, so he could establish a port from which to launch attacks into Italy.


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[Assistant] The Etolians agreed to launch incursions into Macedon every time Philip tried to turn west.


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[Assistant] So, whenever Philip left for Illyria, the Aetolians would begin making trouble.


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[Assistant] It was the second Macedonian war that really marked the first time the Romans moved east and fought the Greeks directly.


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[Assistant] And this being the final upshot of all that fighting, we will leave it at that and return to the greater war at hand.


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[Assistant] One of the most important consequences of Hannibal's victory at Cannae was the decision by the nobility of Capua, the second most important city in Italy, to defect to the Carthaginian side.


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[Assistant] But for now, it was all still sunshine and roses for Hannibal.


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[Assistant] With Capilou in his back pocket and Syracuse recently brought into the Carthaginian fold, Hannibal marched south to Magna Graecia with high hopes.


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[Assistant] The apex of Carthaginian momentum came in 212 BC when Hannibal won control of the rich Greek port city of Tarentum.


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[Assistant] The pro-Roman party in the city was ousted by a group of young nobles who handed the city over to the Carthaginians.


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[Assistant] The Citadel at Tarrantown was situated on the coast and could be supplied independently of the rest of the city.


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[Assistant] Hannibal was never able to dislodge the garrison and so was denied a safe Italian port through which he could resupply his invasion force.


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[Assistant] Up until Tarentum, almost nothing had gone against Hannibal. This was the first time things hadn't gone exactly according to plan.


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[Assistant] Annoyed by this thorn in his side, Hannibal's attention was forced back north to Capua, where his new ally was under siege by Roman forces.


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[Assistant] After Cannae, the Roman Grand's strategy abandoned any hope of taking on Hannibal directly.


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[Assistant] They had by now touched that hot stove enough to recognize that it burned.


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[Assistant] So, rather than sending an army south to confront Hannibal, they laid siege to Capua and attempted to flip them back to the Roman side instead.


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[Assistant] If any of you out there have ever played the ancient Chinese board game Go, you are probably familiar with the proverb, when in doubt, tanuki.


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[Assistant] Which translates roughly, when in doubt, ignore your opponent. Good advice, and the Romans were wise to take it.


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[Assistant] Rome, for the first time in the war, held the initiative.


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[Assistant] They knew Hannibal's army was not nearly strong enough to take Rome by force, and so they only broke off a portion of their siege army to reinforce the city.


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[Assistant] Capua remained under arms and growing more desperate by the day.


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[Assistant] His bluff called, Hannibal was forced to withdraw. The pro-Carthaginian leadership of Capua, abandoned now by Hannibal, was overthrown by pro-Roman forces and the city surrendered.


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[Assistant] One of the main reasons I began the history of Rome in the first place was to distill the often mind-numbing minutiae of the ancient historians into digestible chunks.


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[Assistant] Specifically, the middle years of the Second Punic War is a period that cries for summarization.


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[Assistant] The experience of Capua and Tarantum was repeated ad nauseum over the next few years. Hannibal would take a city and then move on.


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[Assistant] The two armies occasionally came into direct contact. Sometimes Hannibal would win, sometimes the Romans would.


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[Assistant] Certainly, no Roman general was eager to take up the difficult task in Spain. All that remained in Iberia was the bare remnants of the defeated legions, a horde of Carthaginians and hostile Spanish tribes.


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[Assistant] Officially, Rome had no intention of giving up in Spain, but practically speaking, they were about to do just that.


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[Assistant] Into this leadership vacuum stepped a young man, Scipio Africanus, who was destined to become a towering figure in Roman history.


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[Assistant] In the lineage of truly great, great Romans, the shortlist begins with Romulus, passes to Camillus, and then passes to Scipio, perhaps the greatest of them all.


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[Assistant] It was not until Julius Caesar 250 years later that Rome would again see a man with the stature of Scipio Africanus.


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[Assistant] Now of course he was not called Scipio Africanus at this point. He was still simply Publius Scipio, son of Publius Scipio the Elder.


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[Assistant] He would not earn the Cognum Africanus until after he returned from Zama, having won the Second Cunic War for Rome. But that was still a ways in the future.


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[Assistant] Old war horses like Fabius do not like the look of young Scipio one bit.


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[Assistant] For another thing, he had a distressing habit of talking as if he personally spoke to the gods and was acting on their behalf.


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[Assistant] In later years he would often return from long strolls and announce battle plans as if they had been given to him by Mars himself.


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[Assistant] Finally, and most troublesome of all, to the keepers of tradition. Traditions Scipio seemed to delight in flouting. He was enormously charismatic.


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[Assistant] Scipio represented a changing of the guard, and despite his success, or perhaps because of it, he was looked upon with real fear by his elders.


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[Assistant] He was an incredibly magnetic cross between Jim Morrison, Alexander the Great, and Jesus. For those looking to keep things exactly as they are, a figure like that leads to many a sleepless night.


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[Assistant] But Scipio's flouting of tradition was the key to his success.


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[Assistant] He and old Fabius agreed on one thing, however. The Roman legions presently constituted were no match for the Carthaginians.


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[Assistant] But where Fabius read this to mean the Carthaginians should not be fought directly, Scipio read it to mean that the Romans had to fundamentally alter their tactics.


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[Assistant] Hannibal beat the Romans over and over again with cunning and imagination.


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[Assistant] Scipio hoped to give the Carthaginians a taste of their own medicine and outthink his opponents rather than simply try and outfight them.


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[Assistant] He arrived in Spain with 10,000 men in 210 BC with vague instructions to regain lost Roman territory.


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[Assistant] But Scipio had no intention of simply fighting a defensive war.


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[Assistant] His long-term goal was to end the war completely and saw Spain as his proving ground.


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[Assistant] If he succeeded here, the Senate might offer him overall command of the legions and allow him to pursue his real dream of invading North Africa and conquering Carthage.


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[Assistant] There was no way he could convince the conservative senate today.


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[Assistant] After spending his first year in Spain getting a feel for the land and the locals, he embarked on an audacious assault of the largest, strongest, and richest of the Carthaginian strongholds, New Carthage.


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[Assistant] The three Carthaginian armies still out in the field had no idea the new Roman commander would attempt such a suicidal move.


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[Assistant] But the element of surprise was the element Scipio coveted most and so he did the last thing anybody would expect of him and ordered his army to march on New Carthage.


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[Assistant] Not even his subordinate commanders knew their true destination.


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[Assistant] The only other Roman who was in on the plan was a close Scipio confident named Lelius, who commanded the Roman navy in the area.


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[Assistant] He was ordered to make for new Carthage and simultaneously attack from sea as Scipio engaged from the land.


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[Assistant] The small garrison at New Carthage was shocked when the Roman Navy appeared on the horizon.


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[Assistant] And was doubly shocked when a Roman army came marching over the hill.


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[Assistant] The nearest Carthaginian army was days away. More than enough time, Scipio felt, to take the city and fortify it before reinforcements could arrive.


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[Assistant] He attempted a direct assault on the first day but was repelled.


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[Assistant] That night, he received a critical piece of intelligence.


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[Assistant] The next morning, Skippia ordered a full assault on the front gate, and the defenders of the city concentrated all their attention on that spot.


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[Assistant] It was only a matter of time before the unprovisioned force in the Citadel was forced to surrender. In about 36 hours, Scipio had captured the Carthaginian capital.


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[Assistant] In a savvy move designed to gain Spanish support, Scipio released the members of the various local ruling families who had been held by the Carthaginians as hostages.


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[Assistant] By this one act alone, Scipio did more for the Roman position in Spain than all the battles in the world ever could.