Explanation: During the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian ('Punic') general Hannibal Barca made a daring march overland across the Alps, considered a foolhardy move. While it did lose him a significant portion of his force, he managed to use the Alps to evade Roman forces and strike at the heartland of Italy, with war elephants in tow. He would go on to wage war in Italy for some 15 years before being recalled to North Africa.
War elephants were not entirely unknown to the Roman Republic - having dubbed them 'Lucanian Cows' ('Luca Bos') on their first encounter with a foreign army bringing elephants (into Lucania, Italy, hence the name). However, it was considered that the journey through the Alps was so treacherous that any army would be lucky to emerge the other end, and that to move great beasts such as war elephants through the region was impossible!
Later in the Italian campaign, Hannibal would lose the use of one of his eyes, and one of the last surviving elephants had only one tusk, which he took as his personal mount/observation post during battles.