There were few Germanics who opposed the Romans near the Rhine, the Marsi had been totally defeated the year before, their warriors defeated in battle and the rest of their tribe massacred during a religious ceremony, while the Tubantes and Usipetes and been made to submit to Rome. The Bructeri sent forth as many men as they could muster but this was only a few thousand, many of their fighting men had been slain fighting the Romans over the last few years and the ravaging of their territory by Lucius Stertinius had made the winter a particularly hard one. When this last army of the Bructeri met the Romans and saw that they were outnumbered more than four to one most opted to quit the field with their lives while a few hundred fanatics preferred dying in battle and charged the Roman line, these men were largely cut down by javelins as they charged with only a handful meeting their fates at the end of Roman swords.
The Bructeri only saw a small part of the army Germanicus had assembled, as the Princeps had anticipated only light resistance near the Rhine and so had had divided him army into two divisions, in the north a force of 20,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry under the command of Gaius Sillius advanced from Vetera* into the territory of the Bructeri, this was the force that had routed their last army and would go on to ravage their territory a second time, which would lead to the disappearance of the Bructeri as a distinct group, before establishing garrisons in the region. Meanwhile a larger army of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavaly under Germanicus’ personal command advanced from Ubiorom** into the lands of the Chatti before marching north and across the Visurgis*** river to ravage the lands of the Cherusci, Arminius’ homeland, in early April. Wells were poisoned, farms and homes burned, temples were looted and desecrated, livestock was taken to feed the army, any fortifications that were of no use to the Romans were torn down or burned, anyone who offered the slightest resistance was put to death and those who offered no resistance were taken captive to be sold as slaves. The only way to survive was to flee, which many Germanics did, with thousands of families packing up and migrating east into the lands of the Semnones on the eastern side of the Albis and some went even further east, moving into the territory of the Slavs who lived in the between the Viadrua**** and Vistula rivers, the land that would become known as Slavica*****. In time this displacement would cause conflict in the region between the Slavs and the Germanics which would disrupt the rich amber road trade route and lead to the rise of the sea trade route between the lands of the Aesti, on the Amber Coast, and Roman Germania.
As brutal as these actions were Germanicus was not acting for mindless vengeance, during the last few years of hit and run fighting the Princeps had learned that if he did enough damage he could force the Germanics to meet him in pitched battle where Roman numbers, discipline and arms would prove decisive. The Princeps also desired to destroy any base of support for further Germanic resistance, either by Arminius, should he escape Drusus and Maroboduus, or by another hostile chieftain.
Whether this strategy would have an effect was revealed at the beginning of May when a detachment of Germanicus’ army, the Legio XXI Rapax, four thousand auxiliaries and some eight hundred cavalry, suffered an attack upon their camp by a group of Germanics armed with bows who fired upon them from a nearby tree line. The detachment had set up their camp and fortifications upon a hill that was bordered on one side by a small river known as the Lagina******, the camp was to serve as a base for the continuing ravaging of the countryside and for the construction of a bridge, the water in the area being too shallow for the Roman ships that had sailed across the sea from Gaul and up river into Germania. It was during the initial construction of the bridge that the Germanics made their first attack, felling a few romans before being driven away by arrows from the auxiliaries and a small group of legionaries that crossed the river on a barge and charged the tree line, however the Germanics escaped without casualties. Work resumed later in the day with a century posted on the far shore to deter another attack but none came and at nightfall the troops were ferried back across the river to the fort for the night. The next day the century was back across the river on watch and the day passed without issue until the afternoon when the Germanics in the trees began firing arrows at the Romans again, again the century charged the trees, and again the Germanics withdrew without the Romans pursuing and when night fell the century was withdrawn to camp. On the third day the bridge was finished early in the morning and a cohort of infantry was dispatched into the woods to hunt down the archers that had been pestering the construction. The Romans only had to march a short distance before they came upon their foe’s camp and the small group of Germanics that had been firing arrows, the cohort easily surrounded the camp but before they could close in they found themselves under attack and not by poorly clothed and bow armed peasants but fearsome warriors armed with swords, shields and clad in mail armour, the Romans attempted a fighting retreat but in the trees they were quickly surrounded and cut down.
The Romans at the bridge could hear the sounds of a battle being fought and sent word back to the camp where the officer in charge, Legatus Silius Duvianus, immediately ordered his infantry to gather up and march to the bridge while he ordered his cavalry to ride swiftly to the aid of his soldiers in the forest and help them retreat to the bridge. But by the time the cavalry set off it was already too late, the cohort in the forest had been wiped out and when the cavalry, two ala of skilled Gallic riders, rode into the woods they themselves fell into the ambush but after a brief skirmish managed to turn and withdraw with few casualties. Upon their return to the bridge the rest of the legion and the auxiliaries had arrived and the Gauls reported that the cohort in the forest had been wiped out and a large number of Germanics were at large amongst the trees. Some of the soldiers pressed their commander to order them into the woods to avenge their fallen comrades but the Legatus recognised that he would face the same fate as Varus if he heeded their requests and so ordered his men to hold firm on the opposite side of the river from the forest. He hoped that the Germanics, now that they had their blood up, would charge across the bridge and be steadily cut down by the Romans but unfortunately for Duvianus the Germanics he faced across the river were only a small part of a much larger force.
The Germanics in the woods were a detached force of from Arminius’ main army, which had crossed over to the western side of the river further upstream that morning and was now marching north. With reinforcements from the displaced Cherusci Arminius had at his direct command some thirty thousand troops, the detached force numbered five thousand under the command of Arminius’ uncle Inguiomer. Arminius had hoped that his uncle would draw the Romans out from behind their fortifications but when his scouts reported that he had a prime opportunity to pincer a substantial, but still outnumbered, Roman army between himself and his uncle Arminius drove his army as hard as he could. Arminius needed a resounding victory in this engagement, not just to defeat the much larger Roman army piece by piece, but to shore up his legitimacy as war leader, and eventually King. The newly recruited Cherusci had brought tales of the Roman atrocities against their people and this combined with the aborted engagement with Maroboduus and the heavy losses suffered in the lost battles with Germanicus and the Romans in the last two years had caused some of the Germanics to start questioning Arminius’ leadership, he could still claim his victory at the Teutoburg but that had been seven years ago and had been achieved via treachery, few believed that Arminius could fool Germanicus the way he’d fooled Varus.
Meanwhile Duvianus, discovering that even berserk Germanics wouldn’t charge straight across a narrow bridge into a killing field, had started marching some of his army across the bridge. He didn’t intend to march into the woods to die, but he hoped that he could perhaps present a more enticing target to the Germanics, unwittingly splitting up his force just as Arminius army appeared in the south. Duvianus, seeing the size of the enemy force and realising he was about to be trapped, immediately ordered a small group of cavalry to ride north as fast as they could to Germanicus’ camp to alert the Princeps that Duvianus was facing what could only be the army of Arminius and instructed the half of his army of the western side of the river to deploy in battle formation while the half on the eastern side withdrew. Although the Germanics had numbers on their side the Romans had the advantage of secure flanks, curtesy of the river and their fort.
About two thousand men remained on the eastern shore when the first blow of the battle was struck, Inguiomer finally ordered his army to leave the cover of the trees and charge the Romans who were outnumbered two to one but the first cohort of the legion formed a solid shield wall and resisted the Germanic assault for a time while the rest of the army continued to withdraw across the bridge.
On the other side Arminius’ army engaged the Romans, a first wave of ten thousand Germanics crashed against the Roman lines in a massive clatter of steel on steel. With the Roman left flank protected by the river Arminius decided to try and outflank them via the camp, presently serving as a superb point for the auxiliaries to rain arrows upon the Germanics from the walls and watchtowers, he sent a small force to try and tear down part of the palisade wall while he himself lead ten thousand around the fort to attack the Roman rear.
By this time Inguiomer’s men had pushed the first cohort back onto the bridge and when this was reported to him Duvianus decided to cut his losses and ordered the bridge burned. As the flames began to eat away at the bridge the first cohort disengaged and ran for the safety of the western side of the river with the Germanics in hot pursuit but one they reached solid ground the Romans turned and once more presented their shields to their foes, trapping them on the burning bridge. The Germanics had been so eager to pursue what they thought was a broken enemy that they had poured onto the bridge in great numbers and were now unable to escape, even as those in the front cried out that the bridge was burning the Germanics in the rear could not hear them and kept pushing forward. To escape the fire the Germanics were forced to leap into the river where many drowned and those who made it to the closest shore found Roman blades waiting for them. In the end half of Inguiomer’s army of five thousand died including their leader, although what exactly became of Arminius uncle varies, some say he was leading from the front and was cut down by the Romans, jumped into the river to save his own skin, burned alive rather than retreat. According to one legend he survived the battle and went into hiding under an assumed name, in this version of events Inguiomer is the true identity of the elderly Germanic man who made an attempt to assassinate Caligula on the eve of the Germanic Revolt.
Arminius’ assault on the Roman fort also went badly, the first attempt to cross the ditch surrounding the camp was a haphazard charge down into the ditch and up the embankment that was repulsed by a hail of arrows and javelins and while a second attempt managed to reach the wall using a testudo formation, before they could cut or pull down part of the palisade a quick thinking group of camp servants brought pots of boiling water up to the wall and dumped them on the attacking Germanics, their formation collapsed and they were quickly picked off by the soldiers manning the walls.
Despite these failures however the main thrust of Arminius’s attack, the ten thousand men he was leading around the fort, managed to reach the rear of the Roman left flank. They were met by a Roman line that was waiting for them but to create this force Duvianus had been forced to use his reserves from across the battlefield and as a result when the left flank, near the charred remains of the bridge, began to collapse he had no troops remaining to plug the gap. The Legatus realised that he was losing the battle but as the fort was still firmly in Roman hands he chose to withdraw behind the fortifications, but soon after he began pulling back his most exposed troops, those who remained fighting the breach of the left flank, Arminius saw the movement of the Romans and ordered his own army to press forward, hoping to shatter the fort side flank, link up with his troops on the other side of the Roman line, and roll up the entire legion outside the fort. By sundown Arminius Germanics overcame the Roman’s discipline and forced a hole in the fort side flank, dividing the Roman army in two, but half of the Romans had already withdrawn to the fort and while dead legionaries littered the field by the time the Germanics had finished slaughtering the men who had been cut off it was hardly the overwhelming victory Arminius had been hoping for. He had lost some four thousand Germanics in exchange for five thousand Romans, which included the cohort that had been ambushed and killed by Inguiomer, crucially his forces had missed a detachment of the Roman cavalry that had slipped away earlier in the day and rode north to bring word of the battle to the Princeps.
Arminius wanted to immediately assault the fort, to finish the job before the Romans had a chance to rest and reinforce their defences but his men had marched since before sunup and gone straight into battle until sundown, they were tired and hungry. Arminius therefor ordered a camp be established to give the indication that they were settling in for a siege but he also gathered a small group of volunteers who, after a quick meal, felt up to continuing the fight through the night. This group put on black cloaks and attempted to sneak up to the palisade to open a hole in the wall but were discovered by the Romans and driven off, not with now quite precious water, but arrows, javelins and stones. With his first attempt defeated Arminius gathered a second group of volunteers and, promising that they would be excused from the next day’s fighting, sent them to the forest to gather wood for ladders to climb the Roman palisade.
The next morning Arminius sent a messenger to the Roman camp to offer terms, if the Romans laid down their weapons and swore an oath to return to Gaul and never return Arminius would let them go in peace. Duvianus refused to surrender, he was behind firm defences and thanks to the casualties suffered the day before the Romans had more than enough food to last until Germanicus arrived to relieve them, not to mention that the Legatus didn’t trust Arminius to not turn around and slaughter the Romans once they were out from behind their walls. Duvianus also realised that the Germanics’ greatest advantage in their war with Rome was their ability to retreat from fighting and flee into the forests where the legions could not follow and if he could keep Arminius tied up in this siege until Germanicus arrived he might just be able to trap the Germanic leader.
However, Arminius was already caught in a trap of his own making. He knew that there could be Roman reinforcements close by so he didn’t have the time to starve Duvianus out, but storming the Roman fort could prove to be a pyrrhic victory, leaving him without enough men to fight Germanicus. Based on that Arminius’ best choice would have been to retreat but with Germanicus’ army spread out across Cherusci territory and Drusus and Maroboduus’ combined army somewhere to the south, dispersing might just be a recipe for his army to be picked apart piece by piece by Roman patrols. Additionally, the battle the previous day had not gone as well as he hoped, his men were anxious about the fates of their families, and the whispers questioning his leadership had not gone away, if he ordered his army to retreat and disperse he might find that his warriors were ready to submit to the Romans to live out the rest of their days in peace, and ready to gift Arminius’ head to Germanicus to get that peace. With the walls, real and imagined, closing in and his olive branch rebuffed, Arminius ordered an assault upon the hill fort.
Just after midday the ladders were ready and the Germanics charged the walls. Well rested, prepared and fighting an enemy they believed trapped the Germanics were in high spirits but the Romans felt equally confident, Duvianus reminded his men that the Princeps was on his way with the rest of the army and he compared their present circumstances to the Spartans at Thermopylae, behind the fortifications the Germanics’ vast numbers would count for nothing. The assault quickly dissolved into a back and forth of the barbarians trying to secure the basic wood ladders to the wall, and the Romans up top throwing them back, occasionally with a few Germanics already on the ladder. During a successful attempt to breach the wall by cutting a hole in the palisade with axes the Legatus’ comparison to the Hot Gates proved accurate, as the Romans where able to bring superior numbers to bear in the area to cut down the barbarians, who could only come through the breach in small numbers.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon Arminius called off the assault, for both sides the dead only numbered in the hundreds but the Romans had won the day, having lost just over a hundred dead, but Arminius’ army had suffered just under a thousand dead and many more heavily injured.
Once again Arminius sent small parties to test the Roman defences during the night and once again they were thrown back however their presence and constant spoiling attacks prevented Roman attempts to repair the breach in the wall, meanwhile the Germanic leader ordered that spare weapons be taken and fashioned into crude hooks to affix to the top of the ladders. Arminius was determined to defeat the Romans the next day and slaughter them to the last man, but the barbarian leader’s preparations were for nought because when dawn broke there were standards on the horizon and they were Roman, Germanicus had arrived for his final battle with Arminius.
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*Xanten, Germany
**Cologne, Germany
***Weser river
****Oder river
*****North Western Poland/Prussia and parts of Lithuania
******This river is the OTL Leine. Lagina is a name for the Leine I came across on Wikipedia that’s from old saxon. I’ve gone with this for lack of a better option, at least it sounds vaguely Roman