If we want to say that the most dangerous opponent of the famous Julius Caesar, it is estimated that the commander-in-chief of the Gallic army, Vichintoli, and the famous general of the Roman Republic, Pompey, can compete, but if it is said that Caesar's opponents and exhaustive military strategies still usher in a fiasco and have to survive in a backwater posture, then naturally Pompey is even more dangerous and terrible.
Julius Caesar
In the winter of 49 BC, the Roman Republic at this time has reached a critical moment when two heroes are dueling one and the other, and the confrontation between Caesar, who has pacified Gaul and risen in middle age, and Pompey, who has become famous in his youth and shocked the East, will determine the fate of the Roman Republic. Caesar, who led a legion to capture the capital and then pacify Spain and other rears, was now planning to cross the cold sea and enter Greece in the hands of Pompey, who held the senate of the central organ of the Roman Republic.
In November of that year, Caesar led seven legions to the western coast of the Greek peninsula by sea, and Caesar's action was unexpected by Pompey, because it was a very dangerous thing to transport troops by sea in winter, not to mention that Pompey had more troops in the local area than Caesar had at hand. Therefore, Pompey's troops were scattered throughout the west bank of the Greek peninsula to facilitate supplies and training, which is why Caesar was able to avoid the attack of the superior Pompey army after landing.
Caesar conquered many cities by marching alone
After Caesar landed, he immediately arranged for his subordinates Carennas to quickly lead some of the transport ships back to the port of Brindisi, Italy, to meet the follow-up troops, and he immediately went north, targeting Pompey's important local stronghold of Dulachium, and pompeii, who had already crossed the sea from Caesar, was not concerned about continuing to train new soldiers, and he quickly led his men and horses to the west, in an attempt to block the strong enemy before Caesar arrived at Durakium, and at the same time sent people to gather troops scattered everywhere.
According to common sense, Caesar's lone army crossed the sea, and it was bound to be slow to march with concern for the garrisons of the surrounding cities, and eventually it was met by Pompey's army, but Caesar's prestige at this time actually forced the cities along the road to fall, so that Pompey had to send his current cadre, Rabi Enus, to Dulachium to regroup and consolidate the defense. In this way, Pompey did not lose this important stronghold in a vacuum.
Rabienus was Caesar's number one capable officer during the Gallic War
This Rabbienus is also a legendary figure, this person was originally Caesar's hardcore in the Gallic War, it can be said that Antony, who later fought with Caesar's adopted son Octavian, his position in Caesar's army is actually inferior to this Rabienus, that is, in Caesar's decisive battle in Gaul, Rabienus was also a brave general who led his troops to death, and there is no problem in saying that this man is the second in command of Caesar's army. Unfortunately, Rabieus's family has served Pompey's family for generations, so after Caesar and Pompey decided to meet each other, Rabienus resolutely left Caesar, Caesar did not embarrass the most powerful general, and specially packed his bags, from then on the two masters and ministers parted ways, and when they met again, they were already enemies of the battlefield.
While Rabienus consolidated the hearts and minds of the city, Pompey finally arrived in the area in time, which led to caesar's assault having to be terminated, and the two armies confronted each other in the north and south of the Apsus River south of Durakium, and the situation quickly developed in a direction that was extremely unfavorable to Caesar, as Pompey's navy began to move.
Colored restoration of the statue of Pompey
Pompey, who had controlled the Roman regime for many years, had far more resources at his disposal than Caesar, especially the expensive navy was also controlled by Pompey, and although Caesar successfully crossed the sea, when Pompey's navy reacted, the situation changed immediately. First of all, The Fleet of Carrenas, having just returned to mainland Italy and had only let Caesar's successor legions board the ship, received an urgent order from Caesar to stop sailing and disembark. Kallenas hurried to carry out the order, but a ship had already set sail ahead of schedule, and as a result, the ship was captured and executed without accident, and Caesar cut off support. At the same time, part of Pompey's fleet also ran to the sea near Caesar's camp to garrison, and the Pompey army on the sea and the Caesar army on the road stared at each other, and both sides fell into a stalemate of supplies shortage, and even the commander of Pompey's navy was suddenly killed in the process, and you can imagine how embarrassing the situation was at that time.
In the process, Caesar had hoped to negotiate with Pompey again, but was now interrupted by Pompey's right-hand man Rabienus sending troops to interrupt the meeting between the representatives of the two sides, perhaps in Rabbienus's view, his old superior's ambitions were a hundred times better than Pompey's, any negotiation from Caesar was just a blindfold to win, in short, the die-hard people in the Pompeian faction led by Rabienus had made it impossible for the two to stop for even a minute.
Caesar lacked naval support
Caesar crossed the sea at the end of November 49 BC, but the situation did not change until February 48 BC, and during these 3 months, Caesar's troops remained in confrontation with Pompey's troops, and in Italy Caesar's army, led by Antony and others, they were on the one hand fighting with the Pompey navy approaching Italy, on the one hand, they were actively waiting for the opportunity to go to sea, and in February, the opportunity finally came.
On February 15, a south wind suddenly blew up near the port of Brindisi, Antony, Carenas and others concluded that the time had come, so they immediately loaded the ship, with the help of the south wind, the gang actually ran away under the eyes of the Pompey Navy, and when the south wind stopped, the Pompey Navy chased after them for a long time, and watched to catch up with them again, and the result was that the South Wind blew again, and at this time the Pompey Navy was really helpless, and the people came ashore.
Near the shore of Antony's people was the city of Lisus, north of Durakium, which belonged to the Province of Illyria of the Roman Republic, where Caesar had been governor, so the people here were from Caesar's own faction, so they warmly entertained Antony and the others, and replenished them, and Antony went south as soon as everything was ready, ready to take a total of 20,000 horses with him and Caesar to make peace.
Anthony in the TV series Roma
News of Antony's landing reached Pompey and Caesar 3 days later, and Caesar was greatly encouraged and immediately prepared to march eastward, while Pompey frowned and had to consider how to interrupt the opponent's plan to join forces. By this time, Pompey had shown his incredible ability to command his army, and with twice as many troops as Caesar's, he had actually reached an ambush near the city of Tirana, east of Durakium, a day earlier, preparing to destroy Antony's troops in one fell swoop, but he did not think that Caesar's intelligence system was too strong, and Antony actually knew pompey's movements in advance through the local Greeks, simply built a fortress on the spot to defend, and immediately sent a well-ridden messenger to inform Caesar Pompey of his movements.
Pompey, on his side, suddenly found that Antony's army was defending in place, and Caesar's troops were about to arrive, and he suddenly found that the latter had the possibility of sandwiching two breads, so he immediately returned to Dulachium, so that Caesar could make peace with Antony. At this time of the war, neither Caesar nor Pompey felt that there was any certainty of victory, so they began their respective deployments, Pompey ordered the Syrian provinces to lead the army north to meet the division, while Caesar divided his troops under the condition of inferior troops, to collect grain and grass and prevent Pompey's Syrian reinforcements from going north.
Caesar's army consisted of a large number of veterans of the Gallic Wars
Pompey returned to Dulachium, Caesar refused to let go of his old rival, he chased after Pompey to the Genussus River just south of Durakium, Caesar tried to challenge Pompey, but the latter just could not hold out, compared to Caesar, Pompey had far more than his sufficient supplies, so he was not afraid of a long stalemate, but Caesar was completely different, he went deep into Pompey's territory, and there was basically no naval support, even the remnants of the earlier transport ships were burned by the fleet led by Pompey's son Pompeo Jr. However, Caesar's legion had a huge number of veterans far more than Pompey's army, and these people were elite divisions who had experienced the Gallic War, which was one of the important reasons why Pompey avoided war.
Caesar was a daring commander, not at all like his cautious opponent Pompey, so he actually came up with a very aggressive tactic, that is, to lead the army back to the middle of Pompey and the city of Durakium, blocking Pompey's land supply line, in order to realize this plan, Caesar deliberately marched east on the day of the march 3, deliberately detouring northwest from a very rugged mountain road, and in less than 24 hours, he crossed more than 60 kilometers of mountain roads and crossed two rivers. Successfully arrived at the predetermined location with incredible speed.
Caesar's actions had not yet enabled Pompey to take the initiative
This time, pompeii was dumbfounded, he did not fail to consider the possibility of being cut off from the land supply line, but from Pompey's point of view, his troops were no more than 40 kilometers away from Durakium, and they were all flat roads, even if Caesar was detoured, he could react in time, but Caesar's speed was too fast, and by the time he understood the latter's intentions, Caesar's army was actually in front of him! It's not that Pompey is too incompetent, it's that Caesar is too strong. However, Pompey did not panic, and he immediately went north to the port of Petra, southeast of Durakium, and with Durakium and Petra still in his hands, he could still get some supplies.
And this battlefield between Petra and Durakium, except for the coastline in the west, is almost covered by various lofty mountains and hills, there is not much flat land, the attack is relatively difficult, and Pompey's tactics have not changed at all, he ordered the eastern provinces under his command to change the direction of supply, with a large number of ships directly to Petra to transport grain and grass, determined not to fight a hard battle with Caesar, that is, to use a long-term confrontation to drag Down Caesar, then, how did Caesar deal with Pompey's almost rogue tactics?
Both sides began to demonstrate their civil engineering capabilities
At this time, Caesar decided to use the traditional skills of the Romans, that is, the strong ability of civil engineering. While Pompey was still avoiding battle, Caesar built fortifications along the various heights of the battlefield according to the terrain, and connected it little by little, combined with the sea west of Pompey's army, and finally surrounded Pompey near the coastline, trying to suppress Pompey's army a little bit, reduce the area of hay collection for opponents' warhorses, and at the same time trap Pompey a little bit, Caesar's move, in the past in the Gallic War, caused great trouble to the Gaulogian barbarians, but this time, Caesar was also opposite the Romans, and people would also engage in civil work. So Pompey also built his own defensive line in a tit-for-tat manner, and the two sides engaged in trench warfare among the hills and mountains, and for a time the infrastructure construction of the Epirus region was upgraded several notches.
In this way, the two sides launched a continuous small-scale battle, but no one could make a breakthrough, the operation in the hilly area was difficult to form a large-scale engagement, and both sides could rely on the defensive line to reorganize the troops, the attacking side could not conquer the other side's defense line, and the defenders could not take advantage of the victory after the defense was successful, Caesar once tried to lead the small troops to capture Durakium first, but the defenders of the city not only opened the door to attack it head-on, but also sent detachments to take ships and march along the mountain road to try to pinch and annihilate Caesar. If it weren't for Caesar's squad being particularly good at fighting, I'm afraid the future emperor would have been in the hands of a group of unknown people.
Caesar confronts Pompey in the Dorachium region
During this period, due to Pompey's army with many recruits and exceptionally weak willpower, photographed by Caesar's prestige, some soldiers secretly defected every day, and in contrast, in the long confrontation, some people in Caesar's army also defected to Pompey, and what was bad for Caesar was that two officers who were familiar with the deployment of Caesar's defense line defected, and these two men completely exposed the situation of Caesar's defense line in 1510, which eventually led Pompey to discover that Caesar had a defensive loophole in the south near the western coastline. So at the crack of dawn one day, Pompey took the initiative to launch a large-scale offensive instead of normal, crushing Caesar's defense line here, and relying on this, launched a fierce attack on Caesar from south to west, if it were not for Antony leading the twelve brigades of Caesar's Ninth Army from the hill to rush down from the hill to block Pompey's attack, it is estimated that Caesar would have been defeated on this day.
Pompey was a shining general, as soon as he occupied Caesar's southern defense line, he immediately arranged reinforcement works, transformed the situation of three sides into a situation of coastal and riverbank and Caesar on land, and built a wall extending to the southern bank of the river to protect his soldiers who took water at the place where he confronted Caesar, and if this situation was allowed to continue, Caesar's blockade of Pompey was basically a failure, so Caesar decided to launch a counterattack and re-blockade Pompey after the reorganization.
Caesar who gathered his troops
Caesar had only more than 20,000 troops here, and Pompey had nearly 60,000 or so troops, but even so, Caesar still managed to gather an attacking force of about 10,000 men, ready to retake the captured defense line in one fell swoop, and he also learned that Pompey had sent a general named Toquatus to try to use the wall by the river as a new camp, so Caesar was ready to take advantage of the latter's slowness from the construction of the camp to the preparation of the battle. Two brigades were arranged prominently in the new fortifications to work on them, in order to mislead Pompey's scouts into believing that Caesar was busy rebuilding the new line.
Caesar's plan was half successful, and his left-wing troops defeated Toquatus and attacked the main camp in the southern defense line of Pompey's army, but the right-wing troops actually got lost! They mistakenly regarded the new wall from the target camp to the river as the wall on the front of the camp, and after advancing along the wall for a certain distance, they began to attack in a big way, successfully breaking through the wall, thinking that they and the left wing division had invaded the camp together, but in fact, they had run to the outside of the north wall of the camp, and were completely out of touch with Caesar's left wing.
Pompey may not have known why Caesar, who had always been cunning, had disjointed his troops, but he did not give up this great opportunity, he immediately arranged reinforcements to reinforce the defenders and launched a counterattack, and used a large number of cavalry to attack Caesar's right-wing army. Caesar's left wing army was then pushed near the camp gate by the morale-boosting Pompey army, and Caesar's right wing, which had been confused by the loss of the way, was beaten by a sudden large number of cavalry, of which Caesar's cavalry first slipped, which led to a great decrease in the morale of the remaining infantry, they saw that the friendly cavalry in the field of vision began to retreat rapidly, so they also fled in a hurry, and as a result, on the way through the narrow gap they had opened earlier, they suffered heavy casualties due to stampede, and the right wing army collapsed.
Caesar, who was nearly overwhelmed by the rout
Originally Caesar's left wing army was forced to stagnate because of the attack, after the collapse of the right wing army, their flanks were exposed to pompey's cavalry, and at the same time in front of them, the reinforcements sent by Pompey were still pouring into the camp, and when the news of the collapse of the right wing came, coupled with the impact of the previous breakthrough by Pompey's army, Caesar's left wing army also collapsed, and the soldiers began to retreat desperately, it is said that in the process Caesar once grabbed a soldier and tried to make him regain his strength. As a result, the soldier drew his weapon and nearly killed Caesar.
In the face of such a defeat, Caesar reluctantly gathered his troops and temporarily hid behind his own defenses, while Pompey did not use the pursuit to achieve further victory, first, because he was worried that Caesar would have an ambush behind him, and second, his cavalry was blocked by the dead soldiers of Caesar's army and his own walls. That night, Caesar, faced with the current misery, made the decision to move the battlefield, he quietly arranged for a retreat, ready to seek fighters again after regrouping, and Pompey's army was greatly encouraged, he was honored by the whole army as "Victory General", and decided to completely crush Caesar in the next battle.
Pompey's failure to complete the pursuit gave Caesar a second chance in a decisive battle
In this way, Caesar was greatly defeated by the latter in the case of deep penetration into Pompey's control, and he had to fight against the morale-boosting Pompey army in the absence of supplies and inferior military strength, and the crisis situation was more sinister than the Battle of Alesia, which was the most tragic defeat of his military career, in this defeated battle, Caesar was almost on the verge of total annihilation, if Pompey could pursue desperately, then the demoralized Caesar army could never fight back, so that the demoralized Caesar army could never fight back, so that, There is no Julius Caesar in history. And after paying the price of thousands of veteran casualties, even Caesar's former subordinate Rabienus advised Pompey to pursue Caesar after retreating. On the other hand, Pompey, who was able to control the fighter to give Caesar such a tragic defeat, did show the majesty of the eastern conqueror who once shook the world, but the real decisive battle between the two could not be until Pharsalus to usher in the final outcome.