10 July 2026
Pachyderms would have lost substantial amounts of weight traversing the mountains, as would horses and soldiers.
An alpine pass called Col de la Traversette would have provided the lowest-energy route for Hannibal’s army, but even that route would have been punishing. Credit: Science History Images/Alamy
In 218 bc, the Carthaginian general Hannibal famously caught Roman armies by surprise after taking his army of 46,000 men — with 37 war elephants — on an improbable mountain trek across the Alps.
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