AHC: Rome goes northeast

Hey, it's Tuareg!


Teutoberg wasn't successful because it was an ambush in the forest. The Romans were perfectly capable of fighting their way out of forest ambushes, as they almost did at Teutoburg. The thing with Teutoburg was that it had just rained-the ground was a mess, and the Romans couldn't find any solid ground. THAT was what did the Romans in. It is really an insult to the Roman fighting abilities to say that just ambushing them in a forest was enough to defeat them. Remember, Teutoburg took 3 days-and in a similar style ambush Ariminius tried on Germanicus, this time on solid ground, the ambush backfired pretty badly and the Romans easily fought themselves out of it.

So just saying, "Well, the Romans are gonna get ambushed in forests" is, quite frankly, a ridiculous argument.


I explained in this thread and many other threads why economical viability is far from the only concern (many times not even the main concern) for Roman territorial expansion.

And I swear if anyone brings up Hadrian...Mesopotamia in 117-118- a province that Trajan had already effectively withdrawn from, was almost completely out of Roman control anyway by the time it was abandoned, and had just finished being conquered (all the while there's a Jewish revolt going on, and Hadrian has to get back to Rome quickly to secure his position) is a completely different situation.

Ambushes in forests or elsewhere are militarily dangerous. Germanicus' troops were steadier than those of Quinctilius Varus. Even so, if my memory of Tacitus is correct, they needed to be rallied after almost panicking. The psychological effect of the clades variana was not inconsiderable.

I have only just joined this forum and so have not read your other threads. Nonetheless, economic viability was an important practical consideration for the reasons I have given a few posts ago. Drummond and Nelson, The Western Frontiers of Imperial Rome, has some good work on this.

It is true that Britannia was an economic liability when Claudius conquered it in the mid first century, but it had potential. By the fourth century, it had become a net exporter of grain to the Rhenish legions. But it took considerable investment to achieve this and the N and W of the province were always poorer and a net liability. And yes, Claudius' motives were principally political and military - the need to acquire Gloria because of his rather unorthodox accession and to prove himself to the army - but Tacitus in the Agricola also mentions the desire for British pearls as a motivation. E. Germany and Poland were simply impractical as sites for Roman provinces.
 
Ambushes in forests or elsewhere are militarily dangerous. Germanicus' troops were steadier than those of Quinctilius Varus. Even so, if my memory of Tacitus is correct, they needed to be rallied after almost panicking. The psychological effect of the clades variana was not inconsiderable.
Yes, it had an impact. But the Romans were generally, under any commander worth their stripes, able to extract themselves from any ambush. Like I said, under a bumbler like Varrus they were almost able to do it, and almost certainly would have had the ground not been a mudpit.


I have only just joined this forum and so have not read your other threads. Nonetheless, economic viability was an important practical consideration for the reasons I have given a few posts ago. Drummond and Nelson, The Western Frontiers of Imperial Rome, has some good work on this.
Here's why Augustus was so adamant about conquering Germania to the Elbe. All his conquests were about providing buffers around Italy. This is why he put so much effort on conquering the Balkans, the Alps, and Pannonia. It is why he invaded Germania to begin with-it was the final piece in the pie. Similarly, the Elbe border was considerably shorter than the Rhine border.

When the Romans came to Germania, they came to stay. Augustus had a number of legions there originally, and was planning on a conquest of Marcomannia to solidify his control over Germania to the Elbe (Marcomannia being the only centralized German state). THe Great Illyrian Revolt put a halt to that and forced him to recall Tiberius and most of the legions. It drained Roman manpower down to nothing, which is why Teutoburg was so disasterous (Ive said this on this very thread actually).

Still, Varrus was an administrator, not a commander. Augustus made his intentions clear: He was going to incorporate Germania as a function Roman province. Varrus is the kind of guy he would send in to do that-far from an incompetent nobody, he had proven his administrative ability in Syria (in and of itself a sign of importance, not just anybody got Syria), and had connections with Augustus. If Augustus wasn't intending to stay, he'd send another commander, meant to command armies, not administer the region. That's how we know the Romans wanted to stay.

It takes a disaster on Teutoburg proportions on top of having manpower drained to zero for Augustus to pull back. And even if there are going to be ambushes, getting 3 legions wiped out is a once in a million opportunity.

I would continue, but I have to go do something. The rest I have to say I wrote earlier on this thread.


E. Germany and Poland were simply impractical as sites for Roman provinces.
^I agree, anything further east than the Elbe is completely ridiculous.
 
Yes, it had an impact. But the Romans were generally, under any commander worth their stripes, able to extract themselves from any ambush. Like I said, under a bumbler like Varrus they were almost able to do it, and almost certainly would have had the ground not been a mudpit.



Here's why Augustus was so adamant about conquering Germania to the Elbe. All his conquests were about providing buffers around Italy. This is why he put so much effort on conquering the Balkans, the Alps, and Pannonia. It is why he invaded Germania to begin with-it was the final piece in the pie. Similarly, the Elbe border was considerably shorter than the Rhine border.

When the Romans came to Germania, they came to stay. Augustus had a number of legions there originally, and was planning on a conquest of Marcomannia to solidify his control over Germania to the Elbe (Marcomannia being the only centralized German state). THe Great Illyrian Revolt put a halt to that and forced him to recall Tiberius and most of the legions. It drained Roman manpower down to nothing, which is why Teutoburg was so disasterous (Ive said this on this very thread actually).

Still, Varrus was an administrator, not a commander. Augustus made his intentions clear: He was going to incorporate Germania as a function Roman province. Varrus is the kind of guy he would send in to do that-far from an incompetent nobody, he had proven his administrative ability in Syria (in and of itself a sign of importance, not just anybody got Syria), and had connections with Augustus. If Augustus wasn't intending to stay, he'd send another commander, meant to command armies, not administer the region. That's how we know the Romans wanted to stay.

It takes a disaster on Teutoburg proportions on top of having manpower drained to zero for Augustus to pull back. And even if there are going to be ambushes, getting 3 legions wiped out is a once in a million opportunity.

I would continue, but I have to go do something. The rest I have to say I wrote earlier on this thread.



^I agree, anything further east than the Elbe is completely ridiculous.

Well, the first ten books of Livy have a number of examples of ambushes defeating Romans.

Germany is pretty far from Italy to be a mere buffer though in general I agree with your assessment that he wanted to secure Italy. Beyond that, he surely wanted to compete for gloria in the manner traditional for a Roman aristocrat. That most likely explains Germania. I know of Varus' career and agree that Augustus intended for Germany to be permanently occupied. It was, however, heavily forested and would have taken a very long time to become economically viable. That said, I don't think that we are disagreeing much in the particulars. Suetonius ascribes the desire not to expand the empire further to the elderly Augustus after the clades Variana. That certainly influenced Tiberius in halting Germanicus' victorious campaigns of AD 14-17. An old campaigner like Tiberius knew that reconquest simply wasn't worth it - quite aside from any political considerations concerning Germanicus.
 

katchen

Banned
Gaul and Brittania were heavily forested too. That did not stop the Romans from conquering or ruling both places.
Let's consider a POD in which Varus does NOT allow himself to be double-crossed by Arminius. Maybe getting his legions strung out three abreast in a forest makes him smell a rat or something. Varus stays out of Teutobourg Forest at that time and puts down the Cherusci Revolt at a time and place of his own choosing. The Elbe becomes the frontier of Rome for now. Maybe it gets extended to the Oder or later, even the Vistula--for security reasons.
If Rome subdues all of the Germans, is the Empire in fact in a better position to survive the Fourth Century? Is the Dniester-Niemans Line at the base of the broader European Peninsula (and the shortest defensive line Europe can have) the best defensive line for Rome? Will it hold off invaders from farther east?
Or is it merely (besides the Huns of course) replacing Germanic invaders with Slavic and Baltic and Uralic invaders?
 
Gaul and Brittania were heavily forested too. That did not stop the Romans from conquering or ruling both places.
Let's consider a POD in which Varus does NOT allow himself to be double-crossed by Arminius. Maybe getting his legions strung out three abreast in a forest makes him smell a rat or something. Varus stays out of Teutobourg Forest at that time and puts down the Cherusci Revolt at a time and place of his own choosing. The Elbe becomes the frontier of Rome for now. Maybe it gets extended to the Oder or later, even the Vistula--for security reasons.
If Rome subdues all of the Germans, is the Empire in fact in a better position to survive the Fourth Century? Is the Dniester-Niemans Line at the base of the broader European Peninsula (and the shortest defensive line Europe can have) the best defensive line for Rome? Will it hold off invaders from farther east?
Or is it merely (besides the Huns of course) replacing Germanic invaders with Slavic and Baltic and Uralic invaders?

Neither Gaul nor Britannia was as heavily forested as Germany and both had better agricultural land than N and E Germany, forests aside. The Romans had considerable trouble holding the wilder parts of Britannia which consequently were heavily garrisoned. It was often prone to turbulence even among legionary garrisons, let alone revolts, brigandage, German and Pictish raids, etc.

You are assuming that the Romans could have held continental Europe with large armies. The economic potential was lacking to sustain the necessary garrisons. Furthermore, the farther parts of Germania were far less politically and socially advanced than the areas nearer Rome, as Tacitus' Germania makes quite clear. In order to urbanise, you need a semblance of political and social complexity. The Romans always urbanised as a precursor to administration. Farther Germany lacked the essential preconditions for Roman rule, let alone Poland.

You are also assuming that the Romans could have maintained political stability within these provinces. This is unlikely because of their sheer distance from Rome and the lack of logistical capacity. Generals on the frontiers quite often revolted. A larger empire with poorer infrastructure would have exacerbated that problem. The infrastructure refers less to roads than water transportation which was crucial to Roman communications. A larger empire would have been more prone to centrifugalism. Consider the later example of the Mongols.

There are very complex political, social, economic and cultural reasons for the Romans not expanding much further than they did. These can't be swept aside by reason of river lines on maps that don't take consideration of terrain, transportation capacity, agricultural potential, etc. It is very easy to think in terms of sweeping campaigns because of such games as Rome Total War, but it doesn't reflect the political realities of the ancient world.
 

tenthring

Banned
The Celts in Gaul had a much more prosperous and urbanized civilization that was simply a better target for the empire. Not an easy windfall like the east, but if you can do it the way Ceaser did it the thing pays for itself. Germany was not the same.
 
The Celts in Gaul had a much more prosperous and urbanized civilization that was simply a better target for the empire. Not an easy windfall like the east, but if you can do it the way Ceaser did it the thing pays for itself. Germany was not the same.

Narbonensis was urbanised, but Gallia Comata was more proto-urban. Oppida weren't quite towns. But you are quite right that Gaul was a much better bet.
 
Gaul and Brittania were heavily forested too. That did not stop the Romans from conquering or ruling both places.

Wrong, sadly wrong.

Just listen to the Prime Minister in this thread and you won't go far wrong. Legions cost money, supplies, and food to recruit, outfit, transport, and maintain. Any legion that isn't totally self-sustaining while on garrison duty (buying food with coin taxed from the locals, repairing their equipment and making all their own supplies during off-duty hours) isn't going to last.
 
Wrong, sadly wrong.

Just listen to the Prime Minister in this thread and you won't go far wrong. Legions cost money, supplies, and food to recruit, outfit, transport, and maintain. Any legion that isn't totally self-sustaining while on garrison duty (buying food with coin taxed from the locals, repairing their equipment and making all their own supplies during off-duty hours) isn't going to last.

Thank you very kindly.
 

Avskygod0

Banned
Never

Germans hated the Romans

and there were arso Slavs who were believed to transform into wolves for a week at a certain time of the year, combined wit the dark woods it was 2spooky for them
 
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