Saving Rome - is Germania enough?

[Shogun]

The Germans were renowned for their fighting prowess

More so than the Gauls before Julius Caesar conquered them?

 

[Saepe Fidelis]

More so than the Gauls before Julius Caesar conquered them?

Well Caesar himself said that the Belgians were the fiercest warriors because they were most influenced by the Germans, so yeah, he recognised them as the most renowned warriors.

 

[Eurofed]

Ok, to answer your points in order:
1. Yes, they had trade with Ireland and other non-Mediterranean sea lanes. However, that does not entail conquest. On this board, the quickest way to show yourself to be a fool is to suggest the Romans could and would conqur Ireland, and so why would the Romans go to the bother of changing their trade patterns extensively just for Germany? It's not that valuable.

Those trade routes prove that Roman sailors were perfectly able to master non-Mediterranean sea lanes in routine conditions, and the Atlantic and the North Sea were no bogeyman for them. Trade routes shall spontaneously expand to include Germania when its resources are made available by conquest, and when agricultural and urban development creates a sizable market there.

2. As for building roads; perhaps I was a little hyperbolic when I suggested building the roads would be harder, but it would take longer, would requrie the movements of large bodies of material thousands of miles by cart or some equivalent means of non-waterborne transport, and would eat up the legions' time when they're supposed to be, well, legions. Between building roads, cities, camps and anything else needed, they'd have no time to pacify the countryside. I'm saying that the legions would need to expend so much time and resources on maintaining fragile lines of communication that they would be unable to effectively counter Germanic insurgencies or resistance.

The Roman legions were very well geared to split their time so that they could tackle both fighting and infrastructure-building, and they reliably did so in all the lands Rome conquered, including several where there was no ready access to Mediterranean sealanes for logistical support. Your pleading for Germania to be a special case has no justification.

3. Yes, Germania does have iron, slaves and amber, but would the Romans bother? The Germans were renowned for their fighting prowess, and their land was inhospitable and alien to the Romans. Now, would they fight a war of conquest for iron and slavse? No! They wouldn't; iron was plentiful elsewhere and anyway, Rome's industry was nowhere near developed enough to require any kind of concerted effort to obtain iron-it wasn't economical to move iron around in those days for any significant distance.
So no, Germany's resources don't qualify it for conquest; too much effort for far too little.

The fact is, under Caesar and Augustus, conquest of Germania was planned and later started and executed up to a point. Regardless of the reason the enterprise was started for, which is not necessarily a specific quest for Germanian resources, it may have been strategic concerns, search for military golory, or whatnot, once the region is pacified, Rome shall find itself with access for Germanian resources, iron, amber, slaves, timber, etc. which would be worth tapping and developing, even if there were other sources elsewhere (which is not true for amber by the way. The alternative source for that is the Baltic lands). The Germans had no more fighting prowess, nor their land be more inhospitable, than other peoples and lands that Rome mastered. Again, you are pleading for Germania to be a special case.

4. My point wasn't that the land isn't worth anything, it's that the land isn't worth anything to the established patricians who control the Roman army and Roman agriculture. If you've got vast latifundia estates in Southern Italy, North Africa and Egypt, worked by thousands of slaves and earning you huge amounts of money which you use to bribe your way into high office, and the oppurtunity arises for you to conquer some new lands which you could own (which would be useless because it was uneconomical to shift grain from Germany to Rome, unlike from Egypt or Africa) then you wouldn't be too interested.

The Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire expanded in and eagerly held many lands that were not Southern Italy, North Africa and Egypt, and were outside the Mediterranean shores, so the concerns you quote were not as overwhelming and one-sided as you think. Again, post-Roman history of Germany shows that once properly developed, the land was far, far from useless to land-owning and trading concerns, and trade routes to and from the Mediterranean and Northern Europe did exist even in Greco-Roman times, and would only strenghten with Romanization.

As I've said, the landed gentry don't go colonising. How many viscounts or earls do you think went from England to America? None, because they had their land and their wealth and were happy with what they had, and so were the Roman elites.

The creole landed gentry of the Spanish Empire and the Dixie planter elite would like to have a word with you.

The reason the German warlords of the middle ages valued their land was because distribution networks were poor and so grain always had to be produced locally by smallholding peasants, unlike the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the feudal system lniked their power and influence to the amount of peasants they 'owned' and how much land they could tax. Such a concept did not and does not exist in Roman Italy, where the elites directly owned large estates managed by slaves, rather than leasing out land to smallholders.

Two things: once Germania has been Romanized, a local market is going to develop which would make local agricultural output valuable. Roman distribution networks were much better, sure, and yet they clung tenaciously to many lands that were outside your precious Italy-Africa-Egypt triad. In all evidence they saw reasons to do so that escape your narrow-minded vision of the Roman economy, and would be equally valid for Germania.

5. You say that the army would drive its own expansion in the first century. The army in the first century under Augustus had far less influence than in the 3rd or 4th centuries. If Augustus wanted to conquer Germany, he could, and would, but he didn't want to.

This is ridiculous. What do you think the legions were in Teutoburg for, making a stroll in the forest ?

The soldiers, happy with increased pay and peace, didn't want wars and if they did, wanted plunder not land.

Oh, sure, we all know they mutinied when they were sent to conquer Britannia and Dacia.

My argument was that if the army did move east and became the main redistributer of land to retired soldiers, then the army would become more and more important making Rome a military dictatorship and then precipitating a crisis similar to that of the 3rd century but far worse and far more long lasting.

As others have noted, adding Germania to the Empire would mean adding another Gallia to the mix. Dacia was conquered anyway IOTL. The other Roman conquests in Europe did not have the massive destabilizing effects on the army you argue, so again you are asking for Germania to be a special case.

I'm saying that the Germans would arlly together in the face of the Romans and that, although they probably wouldn't win (although I don't fancy Rome's chances east of the Elba, different terrain, different peoples, fiercer, with better local knowledge. Not good for an imperialist power-ask LBJ) they could make it so difficult and so costly for the Romans that their conquests wouldn't be worth the farm land.

Absolutely no difference with the Gauls, Hispanics, Britons, Dacians. None of them were a pushover, all of them allied together (to a degree) against Rome, has better local knowledge and whatnot, yet Rome eventually vanquished them all.

If the only reason for expansion is for soldiers to get land, and the soldiers say' forget it, this isn't worth it, I just want some money please' then the cassus belli collapses and the expansion halts, if not falling apart entirely because of plummeting morale. More than once have tired and war weary soldiers turned back an over enthusiastic general.

Please remind me of how many such mutinies took place during the conquests of Hispania, Gaul, Britannia, and Dacia.

7. I'm not arguing about the early empire here. I'm saying that, as the theoretical army I've postulated has become more powerful and more dominant in politics, then the generals who inevitably fancy themselves Caesar will move closer to Rome with their soldiers (who will support only them because they'll have been stuck on some frontier together for decades) and thereby abandon the already fragile lines of communcation.

Military coups and civil wars did happen in Rome, sure, but the Empire had garrisons in places the were as far-flung as eastern Germania, yet were no more prone to rebellion than the rest. Roman history tells that the garrisons in Britannia or Armenia were no more prone to rebel than the ones on the Rhine, Danube, or Euphrates.

8. Yes, I am saying that Rome can't create a civil bureaucracy.

The Byzantines did so, which disproves your argument.

As for the Byzantines, they only became properly Imperial because of the infusion of Christianity. Christianity made the Emperor equal of the apostles, and conferred upon him almost theocratic rule.

There are other religions that could flourish in a successful Rome, and come to play a similar role. Sol Invictus and Mithraism come to mind.

This gave him a veneer of respectability which was unprecedented in Rome. That's why they opposed Constantine so harshy, not only because he was imposing a subversive cult upon the empire, but also because he was the cult leader and, at least until the ascendency of the Papacy, could exert considerable influence upon the Church, thereby rinforcing his own autocratic rule.

Huh ? Constantine did not get any more opposition to his ascent than your typical usurper in the late empire.

 

[Eurofed]

Well Caesar himself said that the Belgians were the fiercest warriors because they were most influenced by the Germans, so yeah, he recognised them as the most renowned warriors.

As much as I'm a Germanophile, all this wankage of the invincible Germanic warrior is starting to sicken me.

 

[nlspeed]

And Belgicae didn't trade with others which made them wifes (or something like that, the text is on WIkipedia if I remember correctly).

 

[Shogun]

You are of course quite right, I should have said conquering Mesopotamia. Although owning Persia would be quite valuable to Rome, both by itself and because it gives total control of trade routes to India and China, it was not essential. Owning Mesopotamia, however, it is key to cripple the Parthian/Sassanid threat for good while enriching Rome considerably in the process. It is quite true that the Zagros border would have been quite good for Rome.

Also, wouldn't it make more sense for Mesopotamia to be conquered first before any attempt is made on conquering Germania? The extra time alloted to the Germanic tribes to develop their agricultural and socio-political systems would eventually result in Germania becoming more heavily populated, centralized, and developed (as in OTL...particularly from the 3rd century onward) -certainly more ripe for Rome to pluck, and worth the time and effort to conquer and occupy the region. And I haven't yet mentioned the fact that with Mesopotamia secured as a Roman province and Parthia/Sassanid Persia effectively emasculated, there would be less likelihood of major distractions arising from the Eastern theater while the Roman Empire is concentrated on the looming threat to its north.

 

[Monty Burns]

Also, wouldn't it make more sense for Mesopotamia to be conquered first before any attempt is made on conquering Germania?

That seems reasonable in terms of "return on conquest". The problem, though, is that Mesopotamia conquered leaves a still powerful Persian entity in the Persian highlands. Securing Germania from outside invaders is by far easier than securing Mesopotamia, which likely requires conquest of at least the western mountain regions of the Persian highlands, I'd say.

Another point: In the North, Rome was "on the run" under Caesar or Augustus. Just let that continue. On the other side, Persian wars were major campaigns.

 

[El Zilcho]

Even if they don't conquer the majority of Germania, only conquering up to the Elbe would create a convinent "buffer" zone to perhaps save the Empire. Not sure it would have a massive effect, but if there are no Germanic peoples to be displaced by the maruading invaders from the steppe in the 5th Century, Rome could fight the Huns on it's own without having to deal with the migrations in the aftermath of Attila's rampage. This is the main advantage I can think of.

 

[mrmandias]

Indirectly it'll bring them more into contact with India which...would be very profitable.

The bacteria agree.