Moroni's Tactics and the Vandal War

Belisarius led armies from the Byzantine (or Eastern Roman) empire in the 6^th 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).