Romans win battle of teutoburg forest: What is the result.

The battle of teutoburg forest is undoubtably one of the most decisive battles in history. The tide of relentless roman expansion was curbed in that area, and the romans started going on the defensive- an ultamatly fatal move as i believe that this was what effectivly doomed the empire in the long run.

Now, there are tonnes of essays and threads on this subjest, yet NOT ONE actually comes to a clear conclusion. Instead saying rediculouse things like " Kaiser wilhelm would be a dwarf." Wait what? How?

I think its time to see what your view is and try to work out within plausability exactly what would happen and awnsewr that nagging question?
Would this enable the empire to survive?

I think it would, or rather, survive a lot longer. Germania was actually rapidly " Romanising," with cities like modern day cologne and worms being established as ordered, very roman centres of govorment. Settlers, like they did after the conquest of Gaul, were settling in the new land. The chiefs were adopting roman dress, customs and systems of govorment. Many activly supported the roman regiem-including,for a long time-a young german called Arminius.

I fancy germaia would end up like britania, with the west being relitivle settled with the east being an area of constant rebellion and raids across the new boundery-possibly the oder river, or even beyond. The constant raids would not overwhelm romes's borders, and the new wave of expansion would help to constantly resupply the imperial coffers with cash and slaves-instead of stagnating and forcing inflation OTL. Emporers could also redirect their army and the publics attention to glory abroad, instead of focusing on scheaming and plotting against him.

Or the empire would overreach itself and falter faster.

But whats your opinion? Please let me know!
 

Esopo

Banned
T
Would this enable the empire to survive?

One problem is that the empire becoming bigger expanding in a barbaric region like that means more importance to the military, and hence another element of instaiblity during the period of the civil wars.
That said yes, it would help to have another province as a shield to the rich gallia and italia.
 
i see a roman victory stabalising, like you said, the area for a while, but i cant see the romans expanding as rapidly as they did after it...depending on how the battle goes, even in a victory, the romans are gonna take heavy losses and will need to rethink their strategy, as well as still go on a bit of a defensive, when it comes to germania....

itll help keep the empire longer, but it doesnt change the fundamental problems that the empire was already suffering, and actually might advance them further, even if they seem to be getting things better....though it might produce a more stable collapse, with some form of roman civilisation staying in the mediterranian (not the ERE), even suriving to the 1000's
 
i see a roman victory stabalising, like you said, the area for a while, but i cant see the romans expanding as rapidly as they did after it...depending on how the battle goes, even in a victory, the romans are gonna take heavy losses and will need to rethink their strategy, as well as still go on a bit of a defensive, when it comes to germania....

itll help keep the empire longer, but it doesnt change the fundamental problems that the empire was already suffering, and actually might advance them further, even if they seem to be getting things better....though it might produce a more stable collapse, with some form of roman civilisation staying in the mediterranian (not the ERE), even suriving to the 1000's

The empire wont be so relient on germanic mercanaries as it did later on OTL. and with the base for all modern day germanic based languages ( e.g english) erased, roman languge,laws and systems of govormenty will likely survive long after any collapse-with no " dark age" as in OTL. The world could be more stable for longer-but democracy as we know it wouldnt develop.
 
I don't see Germania (or the greater part of it) being incorporated into the Empire as a result of a successful Tuetoberg. It didn't really offer anything economically and a continuing Roman presence would be of a military frontier nature. The biggest short-term effect would be a honors for Varus and a furthering of his political fortunes. Longer term, perhaps more romanization of German elites. Really won't change the ultimate fortunes of the Empire.
 
I've always seen Teutoburg as more of a crystallizing event. It didn't need to be fatal to the Romans in Germania, and if they'd really wanted to hold onto the area, they could have. Like most Germanic political systems of the era, Arminius's was weak, uninstitutionalized and dependent on his personality. His position would have crumbled under any determined long-term campaign.

Instead, after Teutoburg the Romans just decided that Germania wasn't worth it. Compared to Gallic culture on the other side of the Rhine, Roman-occupied Germania had drastically lower population density and economic development. Holding it would have required massive initial and recurring investment that just wasn't worth it from the 1st century Roman POV. I would guess, that even if Teutoburg had never happened, some other event would have triggered the Roman withdrawal.

The big problem for the Romans was their failure to really appreciate the POTENTIAL of Central and Eastern Europe. So Romans basically failed to notice the impact of economic and demographic growth, and attendant political development in these areas between 0 and 500 AD. And a victory at Teutoburg isn't going to remove that problem.

The empire wont be so relient on germanic mercanaries as it did later on OTL. and with the base for all modern day germanic based languages ( e.g english) erased, roman languge,laws and systems of govormenty will likely survive long after any collapse-with no " dark age" as in OTL. The world could be more stable for longer-but democracy as we know it wouldnt develop.

But the area the Romans occupied before Teutoburg was NOT the sole base for modern day germanic languages, nor was home to the major germanic groups that participated in the crises of the West's last century. Germanic groups were dominant at least as far as the Vistula, in the Baltic, and in much of Ukraine, as well as everything from there to the Roman frontier. Now in many of these areas they may have been only POLITICALLY dominant, over non-germanic other populations (we don't and will never know). But at any rate there will still be plenty of Germans around, and given that language-transition under the Empire was spotty, locationally varied and poorly understood, no guarantee that even the occupied areas make the shift. The area the Romans would keep in your idea is basically the Rhine section of the Imperial Inner Periphery, and it doesnt include Goths, Vandals, etc... There is still a very good chance that these more distant Germanic populations will eventually try to carve bits off the empire, and the general economic-political power dynamics that drove them to do so in OTL will not be altered here, even if we butterfly the Huns away as a trigger.
 
I don't see the Romans winning the battle of Teutoburg forest. Instead, just make the battle of Teutoburg forest never happen. That isn't that hard to do, as anybody was not Varrus could have prevented the battle from occurring.

Also, like mentioned, Germania up to the Elbe would become more like Gaul. Not to mention, it would open up Rome to an enormous amount of manpower to be tapped. It would also allow them to focus more on areas like Dacia and the east, and this would allow Marcus Aurelius to accomplish his goal of explanding that border further north to a more defensible position. (In OTL he had to spend most of his time fighting off germanic incursions into the empire.
 
i see a roman victory stabalising, like you said, the area for a while, but i cant see the romans expanding as rapidly as they did after it...depending on how the battle goes, even in a victory, the romans are gonna take heavy losses and will need to rethink their strategy, as well as still go on a bit of a defensive, when it comes to germania....

Not neccessary. After Teutoburg Romans went back and kicked some serious Germanic asses. Romans could and did defeat them, TF was just an event where everything was stacked against Romans.

But overall Germania would be a net drain on empire. It had little in terms of cities and taxable wealth, lowly developed ifrastructure and agriculture. Instead of Romans getting oney from it they will have to pour money into it. Or it's possible it would be abandoned soon.
 
I've always seen Teutoburg as more of a crystallizing event. It didn't need to be fatal to the Romans in Germania, and if they'd really wanted to hold onto the area, they could have. Like most Germanic political systems of the era, Arminius's was weak, uninstitutionalized and dependent on his personality. His position would have crumbled under any determined long-term campaign.

Instead, after Teutoburg the Romans just decided that Germania wasn't worth it. Compared to Gallic culture on the other side of the Rhine, Roman-occupied Germania had drastically lower population density and economic development. Holding it would have required massive initial and recurring investment that just wasn't worth it from the 1st century Roman POV. I would guess, that even if Teutoburg had never happened, some other event would have triggered the Roman withdrawal.

The big problem for the Romans was their failure to really appreciate the POTENTIAL of Central and Eastern Europe. So Romans basically failed to notice the impact of economic and demographic growth, and attendant political development in these areas between 0 and 500 AD. And a victory at Teutoburg isn't going to remove that problem.



But the area the Romans occupied before Teutoburg was NOT the sole base for modern day germanic languages, nor was home to the major germanic groups that participated in the crises of the West's last century. Germanic groups were dominant at least as far as the Vistula, in the Baltic, and in much of Ukraine, as well as everything from there to the Roman frontier. Now in many of these areas they may have been only POLITICALLY dominant, over non-germanic other populations (we don't and will never know). But at any rate there will still be plenty of Germans around, and given that language-transition under the Empire was spotty, locationally varied and poorly understood, no guarantee that even the occupied areas make the shift. The area the Romans would keep in your idea is basically the Rhine section of the Imperial Inner Periphery, and it doesnt include Goths, Vandals, etc... There is still a very good chance that these more distant Germanic populations will eventually try to carve bits off the empire, and the general economic-political power dynamics that drove them to do so in OTL will not be altered here, even if we butterfly the Huns away as a trigger.

What i think you fail to appreciate is that Germania WAS occupied pretty succesfully for several years by the romans before arminius. It was, according to several accounts " a peacful of placid people loyal to their govrement." This to say, it was becoming a more peaceful version of Gaul.

I think that if we were to avoid Varus, the relitivly peacful transition of power would has continued, with chieftens maintaining nominal local dominence, yet at the same time paying roman tribute, providing solders and obeying roman law.

Now this raises an interesting possiblity that few have really considered: that germania, rather then the next roman province, became a " semi-civilised" buffer zone between rome and the vistula, protecting the rhine from assult and at the same time maintaining friendly trading partners and a huge source of recruitment. Its not hard to imagin these german mercanaries intergrating into the system and reaching high positions ( as OTL) while across the rhine many germanic tribes would rapidly adopt roman customs and build cities-as in gaul and to a lesser extent brittania.

This relationship that could have arisin from a " anyone else BUT varus" scenario means that not only is germania secure and the barbarians are far away WITHOUT pverreaching its garrisons, it also means that Rome can redeploy troops from the rhine to the euphrates and the east. Parthia, the silk routs and lands described during alexanders conquest would would definatly wetted roman appetite for expansion in that region and, having learned ( mostly) from the mistakes at carrhae, put them in a position to conquere lands in the east.

This would fill roman coffers, thus avoiding the stagnation and inflation of later OTL years, get rid of a mojor drain on romes resources and make rome the only major superpower east or west. ( this would probibly butterfly away islam as arabia would become another client state.)

Thus, rome need not conquer or exploit centeral europe-but it will enable them to pacify and then refocus on richer, more appetising lands.
 

RousseauX

Donor
The battle of teutoburg forest is undoubtably one of the most decisive battles in history. The tide of relentless roman expansion was curbed in that area, and the romans started going on the defensive- an ultamatly fatal move as i believe that this was what effectivly doomed the empire in the long run.
Hardly, the Roman tried again to pacify the area with more troops just a few years later, the idea that it was a single battle which stopped Roman expansion is a myth.
 
And yet.. the south of modern Germany, the climate dont don't seem so bad, there is even wineries there, no? I can see, if they managed to go so far, taking some of it.

It's not any worse than modern Belgium, that they had at least a part. Or Britain.

And it's geographically closer, so..
 
Over in Caledonia, they did win the Battle of Mons Graupius, but come back twenty years later and things weren't all that different from Germany.

In both places, there wasn't enough worth stealing, so sooner or later an Emperor got fed up and took the legions east to somewhere with serious plunder to be had.
 
Wasn't one of the problems Rome had over-extension? So would adding another large province really help the problem? Even if Rome pacifies all or most of Germania would it remain Roman or would it end up abandoned like Emperor Trajan's conquests as to hard to defend?
 
Over in Caledonia, they did win the Battle of Mons Graupius, but come back twenty years later and things weren't all that different from Germany.

In both places, there wasn't enough worth stealing, so sooner or later an Emperor got fed up and took the legions east to somewhere with serious plunder to be had.

Good logging? Ores maybe? that kind of things? And maybe there is nice strategic points around to help defence, like the Black Forest.. mountains..
 
What i think you fail to appreciate is that Germania WAS occupied pretty succesfully for several years by the romans before arminius. It was, according to several accounts " a peacful of placid people loyal to their govrement." This to say, it was becoming a more peaceful version of Gaul.

No. I do appreciate that. What it really comes down to is this: What does it mean to be "successfull"? I'm not disputing that the Romans could have put more effort into holding the place. Indeed I stipulated that clearly, while you are the one using the magic thinking that everything was perfect then Teutoburg ruined it.

The simple problem is this: There is a massive demographic/economic/social gradient that you hit, almost exactly at the Rhine in this period, and this PRECEDES Roman conquest. To the West, you have MUCH higher population levels, MUCH more advanced economic activity, permanent settlements are regular, advanced social-political structures that could be reorganized into the Roman system, etc... To the East you have small, less organized, communities, MUCH lower population density, economic activity is at a much lower level, no permanent settlements, etc...

Any frontier region is going to have periodic problems of political stability. But the problem with Germania, the problem that Teutoburg brought into focus, was that Germania simply wasn't worth it. The investment that would be necessary to hold it long-term, the strategic issues it posed for the entire border, just weren't worth it to hold a bunch of under-populated economically backwards land. It would not have been "Like Gaul". It would have taken a long time just to get Germania to where Gaul was BEFORE Roman conquest.

Whether or not Germania could, in the very long run, have been an important and useful part of the Empire is worth debating (although the butterflies are crazy and unpredictable, though you seem reluctant to acknowledge this). But that is NOT the question here. The question is whether Teutoburg changed the face of Europe forever, which you seem to believe. And it simply didn't. The Romans probably would have left sooner or later no matter what, because 1st century Germania simply wasn't worth it for them. To see the region's potential, the Romans would have had to have a forward looking understanding of economic, social and demographic growth that they simply did not.

Now this raises an interesting possiblity that few have really considered: that germania, rather then the next roman province, became a " semi-civilised" buffer zone between rome and the vistula, protecting the rhine from assult and at the same time maintaining friendly trading partners and a huge source of recruitment. Its not hard to imagin these german mercanaries intergrating into the system and reaching high positions ( as OTL) while across the rhine many germanic tribes would rapidly adopt roman customs and build cities-as in gaul and to a lesser extent brittania.

Actually, pretty much everyone has considered this. Including the Romans. Most of what you are describing, is pretty much what actually happened OTL with the Rhine-Danube border areas. The problem with this plan as it turns out, is:

1. Maintaining the loyalty of the subject groups is hard, especially when they're getting pressured from the other side/when they think they can do better by changing sides and attacking you.

2. The transfer of economic resources, via trade, income support for barbarian political leaders, and pay for barbarian soldiers, stimulates economic development that both increases the resources of the periphery (and thus their ability to fight you if they wish), and makes them constantly more attractive as a target for attack by forces from beyond the periphery.

Both problems emerged repeatedly in OTL.

The only thing you describe that didn't really happen was city-building, and that's for good reason. Only once we get close to around 400 is there enough economic surplus in these areas for city-building to even begin to make sense. These societies had already made the shift from non-permanent to semi-permanent or even fully permanent settlements. The problem is that city building in antiquity is a major government endeavor. While in modern times some countries (im looking at you Somalia) have cities that seem to thrive almost completely in absence of any government support, in antiquity cities of any real size needed the hard work of both local and urban authorities to maintain their delicate operations. And while Germanic political structures advanced massively between 0 and 500AD, they had yet to reach that point. And even as they started to, German leaders started to say

"Hey, how about instead of trying to build our own cities, we just take over those ones across the river?"
 
One of the primary reasons behind the idea of conquering and pacifying Magna Germania was to shorten Rome's border by pushing it east to the Elbe and Vltava rivers. The romans had already started to found both military camps like Haltern and Anreppen and civilian settlements like Waldgirmes east of the Rhine by the turn of the eras. Had Magna Germania been roman as long as Britannia was it would have been thoroughly romanized by the time of the crises of the 5th century and the later romano-germanic linguistic boundary would have run along or slightly to the west of the Elbe instead of the Rhine.
 
Another effect is, it would essentially keep Gaul safe. A major problem in later Roman years was protecting Gaul from the various German incursions across the Danube. That had a HUGE drain on Rome's resources, as emperors repeatedly had to focus on Gaul (Im looking at you Marcus Aurelius) instead of other concerns like Dacia or the east.
 
Another effect is, it would essentially keep Gaul safe. A major problem in later Roman years was protecting Gaul from the various German incursions across the Danube. That had a HUGE drain on Rome's resources, as emperors repeatedly had to focus on Gaul (Im looking at you Marcus Aurelius) instead of other concerns like Dacia or the east.

That's the problem with having a far flung empire with long frontiers and many enemies, and winning Teutoburg Wald is not going to change that one bit.
 
Good logging? Ores maybe? that kind of things? And maybe there is nice strategic points around to help defence, like the Black Forest.. mountains..

Germany was economically valuable, but the Romans didn't know it (and neither did the natives). It was not a question of not getting any returns out of it (though it is unlikely that Germania (all the way to the Elbe) would have produced more profit than its occupation cost. That would be as much a function of its status as a border province as of its value, though.

I think the biggest problem with the scenario is that Rome has limited grip on the Germanic tribes. There is no structure of govertnment to coopt. The political system is too fluid. Add to this the fact that Augustus at the time was mortally afraid of bad press, did not particularly need new territory (having just added loads) and had trouble finding recruits, and it becomes hard to see how the Romans make the effort to reconquer Germania. Certainly not for an elusive profit that would, in fact, be realised maybe half a century into the occupation, but of which they could not be sure.
 
Another effect is, it would essentially keep Gaul safe. A major problem in later Roman years was protecting Gaul from the various German incursions across the Danube. That had a HUGE drain on Rome's resources, as emperors repeatedly had to focus on Gaul (Im looking at you Marcus Aurelius) instead of other concerns like Dacia or the east.


However, in the 3C Franks raided all the way to Spain and Goths into Asia Minor. That doesn't sound as if the band of territory between Elbe and Rhine would give Gaul that much protection.
 
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