Roman Victory at Teutoburg

What if Varus won or survived the Battle, or should I say massacre of Teutoburg? Maybe not all 3 Legions destroyed, but almost half of the Romans survive and make it to safety. Would Augustus declare war and try and conquer Germany out of revenge? Would he do anything, except for sacking Varus?
 
how did the romans win/come out alive?
They had a number of options from Varus listening to Arminus's father in law to successfully breaking out. Moreover, it was not a completely massacre in that officers were ransomed and legionaries enslaved.

Still, it was disasterous enough for Augustus to fix the boundary of the Roman Empire on the Rhine. When Germanicus campaigned to the east in AD16 he got into trouble with Tiberius for doing this (amongst other things) and was recalled to Rome.

Given that on most occasions the Romans gave the Germans a good hiding, there is no reason why they could not have rolled eastwards to the Oder. Whether it would have been strategically sustainable is another matter.
 
It's hard to see given the fluidity of political MOs at the time. By Roman lights, what had happened was a revolt by a client state. If the Roman legions had survived, they would likely have gone after the Cherusci and their allies. The land thus freed could have been used to pay off other tribes and secure their hold, but it is still tenuous. Germany in the first century has very little that Rome's mechanisms of rule can latch onto. I heard it compared to trying to nail jello to the wall once. It is still quite possible that Augustus or a later emperor will just give up in disgust.

If Varus manages to extricate himself, he's not going to be sacked, though. He might even make a career among Augstus' most trusted functionaries. What went wrong wasn't really the betrayal - that was almost expected at some point - but the defeat. Roman troops aren't supposed to *lose*.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
Well, the German tribes certainly weren't advanced enough for Rome to do its usual "find a friend, and force that friend to keep order so that we don't have to."

Rome's best way to secure Germany would honestly be to get rid of the Germans. But that is very hard for them to accomplish.
 
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