I've been going through quite a bit of material in regards to the possibility of a Gaulish victory over the Romans, and they all have quite the common theme. Even if Caesar were to be defeated or even worse, killed. It seemed that Gaul was doomed to be subjugated ultimately by Rome. So I ask this simply, were the Gallic Wars simply a lose-lose situation for the Gauls, whether it be conquered by Caesar (albeit in an illegal war), or by another Roman commander. Was Gaul simply doomed and fated to ultimately become a Roman province?
Some seventy years before Caesar's proconsulship of Gaul, the land itself from the Atlantic to the Rhine was under the hegemony of the Arverni tribal-kingdom (Vercingetorix's nation). The Roman conquests of what would later become Gallia Narbonensis resulted in the defeat of the Arverni, which lost it's position of leadership among the other Gaulish tribes, which was the real cause of division among them. And was the situation that the Romans wanted to exploit to keep their borders safe. To the north of the Arverni of Aurvergne were their traditional political rivals in Gaul, the Aedui of Saone-et-Loire, who were previously the hegemonists of Gaul before the Arverni usurped them. Aedui sought Roman aid to help maintain their independence, making them an
Amici et Socii Populi Romani which guaranteed Roman military intervention in times of trouble. This being the pretext for Gaius Julius Caesar's wars with the Germanic Suebi invasion of Aedui lands in Gaul, as well as dealing with the Helveti migration into Aedui territory, despite the fact that they were specifically
invited to settle there by the anti-Roman Dumnorix, who was then the Vergobretus (incumbent elected chieftain) of the Aedui tribe.
Gaul, at the time, was rich in gold and silver, which is what really lured the Romans there, and this is thought to have been the source of economic power behind the political and military dominance of the Arverni over other Gallic tribes.
If the Romans had somehow not extended it's power into Gaul decades earlier, the Gauls may still have been under Arverni leadership and would have united against any Germanic migratory invasion. Or perhaps, they would have allowed the Germanics to settle in Gaul in return for their fealty.