Hannibal Barca

Hannibal took part in 1 war:
 * 1) Second Punic War

3 failed attempts to capture Nola after which Hannibal gave up
The First Battle of Nola was fought in 216 BC between the forces of Hannibal and a Roman force led by Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Hannibal was attempting to seize the town of Nola: He failed, and would make two more unsuccessful attempts on the city in the next two years. The Second Battle of Nola was fought in 215 BC between Hannibal's army and a Roman Army under Marcus Claudius Marcellus. It was Hannibal's second attempt to seize Nola after a failure the year before. He was again repelled, and made one more, also unsuccessful attempt the next year. The Third Battle of Nola was fought in 214 BC between Hannibal and a Roman army led by Marcus Claudius Marcellus. It was Hannibal's third attempt to take the town of Nola. Once again, Marcellus successfully prevented the town's capture. Marcellus repelled the attacks and managed to keep the city from the grasp of Hannibal. Although the battle at Nola was rather unimportant in regards to the Second Punic War as a whole, the victory was “important from its moral effect, as the first check, however slight, that Hannibal had yet received.”

Battle of Zama in which Hannibal lost Carthage the entire Second Punic war
Crossing the Alps, Hannibal reached the Italian peninsula in 218 BC and won several major victories against the Roman armies. Having failed to defeat Hannibal or drive him from Italy, the Romans changed strategy and decided to attack Carthage, forcing the Carthaginians to recall Hannibal. He was still in Italy, although confined to the south of the peninsula, when Scipio landed in Africa in 203 BC. Hannibal's army consisted of 45,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and 80 war elephants, while Scipio had a total of 34,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Putting his experienced cavalry on the flanks, Hannibal aligned his troops in three straight lines behind his eighty war elephants. The first line consisted of mixed infantry of mercenaries from Gaul, Liguria, and Baleria. In his second line he placed the Carthaginian and Libyan citizen levies, while his veterans from Italy were placed in the third line.Hannibal intentionally held back his third infantry line, in order to thwart Scipio's tendency to pin the Carthaginian center and envelop his opponent's lines, as he had previously done at the Battle of Ilipa. Scipio deployed his army in three lines: the first line was composed of the hastati, the second line of principes and the third line of the triarii. The stronger right wing was composed of the Numidian cavalry and commanded by Masinissa while the left wing was composed of the Italian cavalry under the command of Laelius. Scipio predicted that intentionally opening gaps in his troops would result in the elephants simply continuing between them, without harming any of his soldiers. Scipio created the lanes between the army regiments across the depth of his troops and hid them with maniples of skirmishers. The plan was that when the elephants charged these lanes would open allowing them to pass through the legionaries' ranks and be dealt with at the rear of the army. Hannibal and the Carthaginians had relied on cavalry superiority in previous battles (e.g. Battle of Cannae), but Scipio, recognizing the importance, held the cavalry advantage at Zama. This was due in part to his raising of a new cavalry regiment in Sicily and careful courting of Masinissa as an ally. At the outset of the battle, Hannibal unleashed his elephants and skirmishers against the Roman troops in order to break the cohesion of their lines and exploit the breaches that could be opened. The attack was confronted by the Roman skirmishers. In addition, Scipio ordered the cavalry to blow loud horns to frighten the beasts, which partly succeeded, and several rampaging elephants turned towards the Carthaginian left wing and disordered it completely. Seizing this opportunity, Masinissa led his Numidian cavalry and charged at the Carthaginian left wing, also composed of Numidian cavalry, and was unknowingly lured off the field. Meanwhile, the rest of the elephants were carefully lured through the lanes and taken to the rear of the Roman army, where they were dealt with. Scipio's plan to neutralize the threat of the elephants had worked. Scipio's troops then fell back into traditional Roman battle formation. Laelius, the commander of Roman left wing, charged against the Carthaginian right. The Carthaginian cavalry, acting on the instructions of Hannibal, allowed the Roman cavalry to chase them so as to lure them away from the battlefield so that they wouldn't attack the Carthaginian armies in the rear. Scipio now marched with his center towards the Carthaginian center, which was under the direct command of Hannibal. Hannibal moved forward with only two lines and the third line of veterans was kept in reserve. After a close contest, the first line of Hannibal was pushed back by the Roman hastati. Hannibal ordered his second line not to allow the first line in their ranks. The bulk of them managed to escape and to position themselves on the wings of the second line on Hannibal's instructions. Hannibal now charged with his second line. A furious struggle ensued and the Roman hastati were pushed back with heavy losses. Scipio reinforced the hastati with the second line principes. With this reinforcement the Roman front renewed their attack and defeated Hannibal's second line. Again, the second line was not allowed to merge with the third line and was forced to the wings along with the first line. Carthaginian cavalry carried out Hannibal's instructions well and there was no sign of Roman cavalry on the battlefield. Once they were far enough away, they turned and attacked the Roman cavalry but were routed in the end. At this point there was a pause in the battle as both sides redeployed their troops. Scipio played for time as he redeployed his troops in a single line with the hastati in the middle and the principes in the inner wings and the triarii on the outer wings. Hannibal waited for Scipio to attack. The resulting clash was fierce and bloody, with neither side achieving local superiority. The battle finally turned into Roman favor as the Roman cavalry returned onto the battlefield and attacked the Carthaginian line from behind. The Carthaginian infantry was encircled and annihilated. Hannibal experienced a major defeat that put an end to all resistance on the part of Carthage.

Conclusion: Not a great commander.