Hannibal Barca is perhaps the most famous commander of ancient Carthage, who actively fought with the young Roman Republic for dominance in the Mediterranean Sea. Hannibal went down in history only by the fact that he managed to make the hardest military transition through the Alpine mountains. The logistical and military feat of the ancient Carthaginians, accomplished in the 3rd century BC, will be repeated only by the Russian army under the leadership of Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov in 1799 during the Italian campaigns.
Today we will not talk about the entire Alpine passage of Hannibal, but only about a separate very bright episode from this story. Nevertheless, it is worth recalling in broad strokes that this transition was made as part of the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage in 218-201 BC. The transition was carried out in order to go into the depths of Roman territory, achieve the defeat of the Roman army and bleed the Roman economy as much as possible with the help of robbery. As for the capture of Rome itself, today it is increasingly accepted that in reality Barca did not even set himself such a task.
In many ways, the decision to cross the Alps was made under the pressure of the recent serious defeat of the Carthaginians at sea during the First Punic War at the Battle of the Aegates. When exactly the legendary transition began is not known. However, it was extremely difficult for the Carthaginian army and cost Hannibal many lives. One often hears the figure of 13 thousand dead only in the mountains, but most likely the losses, like the Carthaginian army itself, were noticeably smaller. Scientists continue to argue about the exact route of the transition to this day.
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During the transition, there was an extremely dramatic moment when a landslide blocked the path of Hannibal Barca's army. The scouts could not find a workaround and then the engineers went into action. After the news appeared that the way forward was blocked in the army, exhausted by the hardest march, panic almost broke out, and then a riot. However, the Carthaginian engineers found a solution to the problem: to build a cornice over the landslide, thus paving a new road through the gorge. The work went on for many days until it turned out that the final section of the path was blocked by a massive rock brought from above by a landslide. There was no way to get around the rock. On one side was a mountain, and on the other, a steep abyss.
Then the Carthaginian engineers resorted to trickery. They decided to split the rock with a chemical reaction. This method was actively practiced in antiquity in the extraction and processing of stone for construction work. However, its implementation required a representative amount of vinegar. Then, stocks of sour wine were collected from the entire Carthaginian army, a significant part of which had already actually deteriorated by that time. Then the engineers laid out a lot of fires near the rock and heated the stone for a day. After that, the hot surface of the stone was doused with wine. There was a chemical reaction that led to the formation of cracks. Next, the engineers took up the pickaxes. As a result, in a few days of painstaking work in the rock-barrier, a passage the size of a horse was made.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about Why were the Romans banned? wear boots and pants.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/180422/62715/