Page "Battle of Cannae" Paragraph 29

Hannibal stood with his men in the weak center and held them to a controlled retreat.

The crescent of Hispanic and Gallic troops buckled inwards as they gradually withdrew.

Knowing the superiority of the Roman infantry, Hannibal had instructed his infantry to withdraw deliberately, thus creating an even tighter semicircle around the attacking Roman forces.

By doing so, he had turned the strength of the Roman infantry into a weakness.

Furthermore, while the front ranks were gradually advancing, the bulk of the Roman troops began to lose their cohesion, as they began crowding themselves into the growing gap.

Soon they were compacted together so closely that they had little space to wield their weapons.

In pressing so far forward in their desire to destroy the retreating and collapsing line of Hispanic and Gallic troops, the Romans had ignored ( possibly due to the dust previously mentioned ) the African troops that stood uncommitted on the projecting ends of this now reversed-crescent.

This also gave the Carthaginian cavalry time to drive the Roman cavalry off on both flanks and attack the Roman center in the rear.

The Roman infantry, now stripped of both its flanks, formed a wedge that drove deeper and deeper into the Carthaginian semicircle, driving itself into an alley that was formed by the African Infantry stationed on the wings.

At this decisive point, Hannibal ordered his African Infantry to turn inwards and advance against the Roman flanks, creating an encirclement of the Roman infantry in one of the earliest known examples of the pincer movement.