When is Roman Germania Viable?

[Captain Jack]

So, it seems like the general consensus on this board is that Germania around the year 0AD was too undeveloped and sparsely inhabited to be a viable region for Roman conquest and colonization. I am not entirely convinced of this notion, but that is really a subject for another thread. So we'll go with the theory that Germania wasn't suitable for integration into the Roman empire in the mold of Gaul before and Britannia after due to a lack of development in the region. However, this raises the question of when, exactly, Germania reached the level of development necessary to be a viable target for Roman expansion.

I think that, developmentally at least, Germania was at that point by the migration period and the end of the Roman Empire in the West. At that stage the various German tribes had established fairly substantial kingdoms with meaningful institutions so I think the tipping point, again, purely in terms of Germanian development, has to come somehwere in between the two. Conceivably, this developmental threshold may have occurred in different areas at different times. For example, it seems to me that the area ruled by the Marcomanni would have been more suitable for Roman conquest earlier on than other parts of Germany. The Marcomanni certainly seem to have had fairly well organized state structures under Maroboduus and when they fought Marcus Aurelius they were well enough organized to pose a real challenge militarily. To me, those events seem more like the Roman wars with the Dacians than they do the periodic encurions into western Germania to play tribal power politics.

Perhaps the Alemanni's confederation and invasion in the mid 3rd-century represents such a tipping point? They seem to have been relatively well organized, but I don't know if it was more like the migratory invasions of, say, the Cimbri and Teutones and the later Goths, or the wars against the kingdoms of Maroboduus and Decebalus.

So, what do you all think? What are the necessary elements of development for Germania to be a viable Roman conquest? When do you think those elements were present?

 

[Capuleten]

I mean, they conquered Britain, and it was about the same AND across a channel of water. It just seems like they needed intense political pressure to actually invade somewhere and some reason it can't be in the Mid East, and.... that's it.

 

[GauchoBadger]

I'd argue that just surviving long enough till the heavy plow is invented, and striking into Germania early enough before the local kingdoms consolidate into large enough "empires" or confederations (while exploiting rivalries), would be the Empire's best bet for an Elbe frontier. That'd require a PoD after the 3rd or 4th centuries.

 

[Captain Jack]

I mean, they conquered Britain, and it was about the same AND across a channel of water. It just seems like they needed intense political pressure to actually invade somewhere and some reason it can't be in the Mid East, and.... that's it.

I would actually tend to agree with that. I think conquest of Germania really depends on Roman political commitement to conquering and, critically, holding the territory. I mean, they'd already started to do that IOTL pre-Teutoberg Forest in terms of planting Roman settlements in the regions. It was just the one-two-punch of the Illyrian Revolt and the defeat at Teutoberg that made them abandon the region to divert the troops elsewhere. However, when I look at the prior threads on here that discuss the question it seems to be a chorus of voices talking about how Germania wasn't developed enough to be retained by Rome.

I'd argue that just surviving long enough till the heavy plow is invented, and striking into Germania early enough before the local kingdoms consolidate into large enough "empires" or confederations (while exploiting rivalries), would be the Empire's best bet for an Elbe frontier. That'd require a PoD after the 3rd or 4th centuries.

Interesting. So you're saying that Roman conquest would best come before the tribal groupings can consolidate into larger quasi-states? This raises the question of if a region would be more suitable for conquest when it is still fragmented along tribal lines and into tribal kingdoms, or after it has consolidated into a number of stronger more centralized polities. Gaul and Britannia would seem to be examples of the first, whereas the Roman conquests in the Middle East would be examples of the later model.

Either way, would you say a POD around Constantine's reign is too early for what you suggest?

 

[GauchoBadger]

Either way, would you say a POD around Constantine's reign is too early for what you suggest?

Nope. For a best-case scenario:
Have Crispus, eldest son of Constantine I, not be executed over his affair with Fausta. His survival could result in a more orderly partition of the Empire, or even Crispus inheriting the whole thing itself. The succession war that burst out between Constans, Constantine II and Constantius II after Constantine I died could be avoided, preventing the setup of Alemannic raids into Gaul that led to the Battle of Argentoratum, and perhaps also the disaster at Adrianople.

 

[Swedish luck]

Dont have cesaer invade britania therfore noboody els would do it which mean more forces to invade germania and then you could have cesear try to invade germania for a while which would get Claudius to try it later and probably suced

 

[DarkKayder]

Germania's problem was never underpopulation. The very fact that incursions across the Rhine started becoming increasingly common is quite a telling sign of the increasing population pressure in the area. The issue that it presented compared to the Celtic and Daco-Thracian regions provincilized by the empire was that it was not urbanized to any meaningful extent. That said I'm very skeptical of the notion that that would somehow had been a long term impediment for conquest, it would simply had meant starting from a lower "level" of development. This is not significantly different than the very rural interior and western parts of Britannia. I would argue that a Germanian conquest, whatever it's hurdles, would had been much more profitable than the Britannian one, as Britannia required the stationing of three permanent legions to quench unrest, whereas an Elbe border would probably had reduced the number of legions on the border by shortening it significantly. There are few things that I can think off that would had resulted in the Romans, in the scenario of a successful conquest by Augustus, thinking abandoning the province was a good idea on the basis that it's too underdeveloped. We have to take into account that recently conquered provinces where first and foremost a source of slaves and raw resources, and in that regard Germania is as good if not better than Britannia. If you really want a later date for conquest, though, Claudius is probably your best shot.

 

[The Professor]

To be honest I think that after Britannia it was thought that Germania beyond the Rhine was not worth conquering if it meant stationing a similar number of legions for less gain.
Perhaps if Britain is retained as client kingdoms far longer, at least one Emperor could decide Germania is a better option.

 

[piratedude]

If you really want a later date for conquest, though, Claudius is probably your best shot.

Perhaps if Britain is retained as client kingdoms far longer, at least one Emperor could decide Germania is a better option.

What would it take to convince Claudius that Germany is a better target than Britain? Or at least easier?
I don't know a lot about Claudius, but if he's particularly religious then I suppose an omen or two might have him go into magna germania. Or maybe while he's getting his legions prepped for the crossing, German raids on their territory pick up?

 

[DarkKayder]

What would it take to convince Claudius that Germany is a better target than Britain? Or at least easier?
I don't know a lot about Claudius, but if he's particularly religious then I suppose an omen or two might have him go into magna germania. Or maybe while he's getting his legions prepped for the crossing, German raids on their territory pick up?

Claudius invaded Britain because he wanted to be seen as the one who bested Caesar (at something), and decided that Britain would be easier than other options. A possibility is to simply have Caesar never invade Britannia in the first place, and so Claudius may attempt to best Augustus instead. You could also have a "Caesar is no assassinated" scenario, where after his planned Dacian and Parthian wars he goes back to finish what he started in Britain. With that already covered, an ambitious successor would have nowhere else to go except Germania.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Claudius invaded Britain because he wanted to be seen as the one who bested Caesar (at something), and decided that Britain would be easier than other options.

That's probably part of it, but it's also true that some sort of expedition to Britain was on the Roman-to-do list for some time. The political and economic relationships that Caesar had established had broken down, and another military expedition was sorely needed, with Claudius not being the first to prepare one (that honor would go to Caligula). So it provided a double benefit-Claudius could add a military victory to his resume, one upping Caesar in the process, and also fulfill a genuine strategic objective of the empire.

 

[Sciox]

Claudius invaded Britain because he wanted to be seen as the one who bested Caesar (at something), and decided that Britain would be easier than other options. A possibility is to simply have Caesar never invade Britannia in the first place, and so Claudius may attempt to best Augustus instead. You could also have a "Caesar is no assassinated" scenario, where after his planned Dacian and Parthian wars he goes back to finish what he started in Britain. With that already covered, an ambitious successor would have nowhere else to go except Germania.

Maybe instead of looking to one up Caesar Claudius looks to one up Augustus and finish what his brother started. On that note a good PoD might be Tiberius dying in 15 or 16 leaving Germanicus, a universally popular and proven general, to become Augustus, with all of Rome's armies and the fiscus at his command Germanicus would be in a perfect position to carry on with his campaign beyond the Rhine. At this point the Britons are still paying tribute to Rome and relations with the Parthians are relatively peaceful so it's a pretty good time to go for the Elbe, and Emperors after him would likely find it relatively easy to push out to the Oder and then the Vistula from a developed province of Germania with the Danube on their southern flank and if they attempt to push beyond the Danube the Dnieper/Carpathians and perhaps even the Dniester could make an effective frontier border with the Vistula.