Comparing The Battle Of Cannae And George Pickett's Charge

The average person considers history as an enormous mess. To be honest, they are not wrong. There are countless clashes and various conflicts. Within a battle itself, there can be other engagements. For example, the Battle of Gettysburg involved so many components like Pickett’s Charge, in which George Pickett of the Confederate Army led an unsuccessful charge against the Union Army. We must know more about our past, so we will not make the same mistakes in the future. The tactics between these two battles in different time periods, centuries apart, are mimicked. These two battles are over two centuries apart and share a common similarity that less than 1% of the human population know about: double envelopment.

Firstly, what even is double
What seemed like what would be an easy Roman victory, turned into utter destruction. The night before the battle, Hannibal Barca, the Commander of the Carthaginians, formulated a plan to destroy the Romans. First, Hannibal would have the center of his army slowly fall back. After that, Hannibal would engage with the Roman flanks. On the day of the battle, the Romans boasted 80,000 ground troops and 6,000 cavalry, while the Carthaginians just had 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. Many Libyan, Numidian, Spaniard, and Celt mercenaries, joined the Carthaginians Army and greatly assisted in the victory. In the beginning, the Romans created a massive push forward, which succeeded in pushing Carthage back. After that, the Carthaginians attacked the flanks of the Roman Army. The Carthaginians are now so close to surrounding the Roman Army. During this time, the Carthaginian Cavalry, with help from the elite Numidian Cavalry, was able to drive the Roman Cavalry off the field. The cavalry then joined the rest of the Carthaginians, and completely encircled the Roman Army. At the end of the battle, the Romans had lost between 50,000 and 70,000 thousand men, while the Carthaginians only lost 6,000. (Andrews) Even though many tens of thousands of men died in the Battle of Cannae, this is nothing compared to the next battle we are going to look at: the Battle of
The Nazi Army became encircled, and Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered: the first Nazi General to ever do so. On September 3rd, 1942, the German Sixth Army, under Field Marshal Paulus arrived on the outskirts of Stalingrad and expected to quickly and efficiently capture the city with low casualties. However, the Soviets had been preparing their defenses, and continuously brought in more and more reinforcements. By the end of September, the Nazis had taken over parts of the city. The battle had turned into urban combat, with Germans and Soviets fighting in the streets and buildings. In mid-November, the Nazis were running low on men and munitions. Soviet Marshal Georgii Zhukov ordered an encirclement of the Nazi Army. The Germans would have retreated, but Hitler ordered them to stay. Air Marshal Hermann Goring strived to resupply the Nazi Army by supply drops, but it was a failure. After that, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein attempted a rescue mission to save the trapped Germans, but it was also useless. On February 2nd, 1943, Field Marshal Paulus surrendered his 91,000 remaining men. During the Battle of Stalingrad, casualties totaled nearly two million, including the Germans, Soviets, and civilians. Battle of Stalingrad turned the tide in the Allies favor during World War II. (Barnes) However, this victory came at a