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Belisarius led armies from the Byzantine (or Eastern Roman)
empire in the 6th century AD. He fought the Persians on the eastern
front of the empire and eventually fought a long war to reclaim Italy from
Gothic tribesmen. The subject of interest here is the Vandal war in North
Africa. The Emperor Justinian, taking advantage of a revolt against Vandal rule
and a peace with the Persians, sent Belisarius with a small force of ten
thousand men to attack the formerly held territories of the Roman Empire in
North Africa.
One the invasion landed on the beach; Belisarius marched
towards the Vandal’s capital at Carthage. He ordered his soldiers to pay for
their supplies and forbade them from pillaging. As a result, they had the
support of the people and moved “as if in their own land.”[1] Gelimer, the Vandal king, planned an ambush along their likely route. At Ad
Decimum, Gelimer planned a three-pronged attack. His brother, Ammatas, would
attack the advance of Belisarius from the front. Another force under Gibamundus
would attack Belisarius from the left flank. And Gelimer would use his local knowledge
of roads to take an interior route to attack Belisarius from the rear. 
The plan compensated for the division of forces by relying
on the surprise of attacking simultaneously form multiple directions. Unfortunately,
the plan collapsed quickly. The cavalry of Belisarius defeated the flank attack
led by Gibamundus and the latter fell among the fighting. A short time later
the frontal attack led by Ammatas smashed into the Byzantine force. He engaged
the vanguard of Belisarius’ army, but the former hadn’t prepared to attack
Belisarius so far north; as a result, Ammatas had his army spaced out along the
road. The forward units were defeated piecemeal as they marched into the
Byzantines, and then as those units retreated, they affected the next column and
forced them to retreat and so on. His entire force ended up fleeing in a panic
back towards Carthage. 
Finally, Gelimer arrived and attacked towards the north at
what he thought was the rear, and already engaged, army of Belisarius. If the
plan had worked, the two attacks by Gibamundus and Ammatus would mean that
Gelimer attacked the rear for a coup de grace like Helamans “furious” attack
upon the rear of the Lamanite army in Alma 56:52 with his Stripling Warriors.
Gelimer routed the screening cavalry (the force that defeated Ammatas earlier),
who then fled to the safety of the main camp of Belisarius. Gelimer regrouped
his forces and stood poised to attack the bulk of the army of Belisarius. He
hadn’t achieved his goal of attacking in the rear for the finishing blow, but
still commanded motivated soldiers flushed with initial victory, while
Belisarius, seemingly under attack from every direction, was trying to reorder
his forces. Yet upon seeing the dead body of his brother Ammatus, Gelimer
paused to assess the situation.[2] The
pause by Gelimer allowed Belisarius to rally his fleeing cavalry, and counterattack
with his entire force. Gelimer fled south, and Belisarius had an open road to
Carthage. He took the city, defeated the resurgent Gelimer and reclaimed North
Africa for the Byzantine Empire.
This story provides several insights into the Book of Mormon. The hook that invited
the comparison was the use of hilly terrain to set up an ambush along an
expected route. In Alma 43 Moroni anticipated the expected Lamanite attack. He
hid an army on east side of the river Sidon behind a hill, and two on the other
side. When the Lamanites crossed the river heading west, Lehi “encircled the
Lamanites about on the east in their rear” (Alma 43:35). Lehi drove them where
they met Moroni “on the other side of the river Sidon” (Alma 43:41). The
Lamanites then fled towards Manti taking another route and “they were met again
by the armies of Moroni” (Alma 43:41). [Insert Nibley Map}
Unlike the defeated Gelimer, the tactics of Moroni were
resoundingly successful. Stuck in the trap the Lamanites responded with fury
that had never been seen before which approached the power of dragons (Alma
43:44). But their tactical advantage couldn’t offset the superior positioning
of Moroni’s forces. The Lamanites could not re-cross the river Sidon with Lehi
on that side (though Alma the younger crossed the ford in the face of a hostile
enemy- Alma 2:27), nor could they retreat towards Manti and then their own
lands, and they could not hack their way through the Nephites to their goal of
raiding Zarahemla to the north.
The comparison reminds the reader that an army is not such an easy thing to maneuver. The hapless General Lew Wallace discovered this on the American Civil War battlefield of Shiloh; Wallace had to march and re-march his soldiers through several different routes because of unclear orders that placed him on the wrong roads; and hence it took him an entire day to reinforce a front several miles away. Gelimer and Moroni had a plan that relied on surprise to compensate for numbers that were likely smaller than their enemies. This was compounded by the fact that their smaller armies were then placed into even smaller sub groups.
Gelimer had to
move three separate forces towards the enemy, and have them attack at the same
time. His force was largely horse based, so maneuvers like this were a bit more
common and easier to pull off than infantry-based armies (and modern readers)
might think. Moroni, in contrast, kept
his infantry-based armies stationary until the Lamanties passed his
positions. This is critical since the
movement of multiples armies to catch a moving army increased the difficulty of
Gelimer’s maneuver. Napoleon was a master and one of the greatest military
geniuses of all time in moving his men in separate columns to engage the enemy
on multiple fronts at the same time to achieve decisive victory.[3] Even
he found it extremely difficult to keep abreast of locations for half a dozen
corps under his command, the need to know their current marching orders and
future locations, the need to modify those orders in relation to the often
fragmentary and conflicting scouting reports concerning a dozen moving enemy
divisions, and the need to move the forces under his command in a way that
brought them into battle in favorable position.[4] The military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz
claimed that Napoleon compared the mass of life or death decisions based on
incomplete information to “mathematical
problems worthy of the gifts of Newton.”[5]
It is no surprise, then, that Gelimer did not catch Belisarius in his snare.
The group attacking from the front and the flank acted too quickly, and only
engaged the leading elements of the army. One attacking group seemed surprised
to see the army. That group entered the battle in fragments and turned what
should have been a decisive surprise into an ineffectual piecemeal attack.
Moroni made sure the entire Lamanite army passed the first
ambush on the east side of the river, which eased the difficulty level of his
maneuver. This also might imply that Moroni adopted a strategy that relatively
untrained foot soldiers could perform. Complex battlefield maneuvers were the
domain of groups like the professional Roman centurions,[6] intensely drilled Prussians, or elite Spartans. The Mongols and other cavalry-based
armies were well trained due to hunting and extensive experience in encircling
and attacking their enemies. But most militaries and most members of the
military in premodern times were part time soldiers impressed into duty during
a crisis.[7] Moroni likely adopted this strategy to compensate for inferior numbers, but
also for an untrained force. Moroni placed his soldiers in a place to succeed
through superior “stratagem” (Alma 43:30) which speaks highly of Moroni’s
skills as a strategist….
Read more in From
Sinners to Saints: Reassessing the Book of Mormon
[1]
Procopius, The Wars of Justinian 3.17.2
[2]
Ian Hughs, Belisarius: The Last Roman
General, (Yardley PA: Westholme Press, 2009) 94. This is different than the
traditional interpretation taken from Procopius in 3.19.3, which laid the blame
at Gilmer discovering his brother’s dead body. Hugh’s claims, and I agree, that
Gilmer discovered the remnants of the battle, and based on its location, and
the location of his dead brother, assumed that Belisarius had already moved
north towards Carthage. Therefore, he paused to assess the situation and
marshal his forces before making the next attack.
[3]
See the Battle of Jena-Auerstadt for a vivid example.
[4] Kristopner
A. Teters, “Dissecting the Mind of a Genius: An examination of the Tactics and
Strategies of Napoleon Bonaparte” Journal of Phi Alpha Theta 9 (2003): 16
(9-21).
[5] Carl
Von Clausewtiz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret trans.,
(Princeton University Press, 1984), 112.
[6]
Victor David Hanson, Carnage and Culture:
Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power, (New York: Anchor Books,
2001) 118. He quoted Josephus in describing the professionalism and prowess of
legions: “One would not be wrong in saying that their training maneuvers are
battles without bloodshed, and their battles maneuvers with bloodshed.“ (Jewish War: 3:102-107)
[7]
Morgan Deane, “Experiencing Battle in the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, 23 (2017), 239
(237-252).
