Decidedly Grim

Today’s Steep Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In 218 B.C., the Carthaginian general Hannibal left southern Spain with some 90,000 soldiers, 12,000 horsemen, and three dozen elephants, crossed France, and climbed into the Alps on his way to attack Rome during the Second Punic War. In the mountains, the elephants were placed at the front of the column; the belligerent Celts and Gauls who lived in the mountains reportedly “beheld these beasts with superstitious awe.” After defeating its foes in a number of terrible skirmishes, Hannibal’s army reached a pass on October 26; to cheer his depleted, exhausted troops, Hannibal exclaimed that they had “climbed the ramparts of Italy, nay, of Rome. What lies still for us to accomplish is not difficult.” The trouble was that the Alps on the way down toward Italy proved far steeper than on the way up from France. Worse, November storms had covered the glaciers with snow, concealing deadly crevasses and loading the steeper slopes with heavy blankets of snow. Although they encountered no enemies during their descent, thousands of soldiers and horses were lost to avalanches. By the time the army reached the plains on the eastern slope of the mountains, some 18,000 men, 2,000 horses, and several elephants were lost, as many as half of them to cold and avalanches.

Culled from: The White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone

Facts