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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Quote:Unlike Roman military discipline, there was probably only a loose chain of command cascading from Boudica, or others

Yes, the question of who was in control of the British rebellion is fascinating. We assume that Boudica was supreme commander, based on Tacitus and Dio - but she could have been a figurehead, and appealed to the Roman writers' taste for the bizarre and 'barbaric'... In any case, we probably can't assume that she had any great military ability (where would she have learned it?), nor indeed that any of the British leaders were experienced in the sort of long-distance warfare of strategy and manoeuvre that Paulinus seems to have engaged in. Holding a huge and diverse rebel army together and directing it from place to place must have been an extremely difficult business.

So I tend to agree with you that our battles site needs to be close to London (unless we follow John's ideas and have the rebels dispersing to their homes and then reforming for the final confrontation). As I've said before, anywhere further than a few days cart ride and the risks of Boudica's army fracturing and dispersing would be too great - some groups falling out about war aims, others wanting to return home with their loot, others going off plundering on their own account, etc. For this reason, I also tend to think that the British would need to stick fairly close to their own homelands, and not, for example, head off into the west with the sole object of locating and fighting the Romans (I've never been much taken with this 'duel' theory!)

Perhaps we could best imagine the movement of the Britons as less like a disciplined army (John's notorious 'parade') and more like a swarm of bees? They mass around one particular location - Colchester, or London - drawn by the promise of plunder, then afterwards disperse into a multitude of smaller bands, spreading across the countryside in all directions before once more coalescing around a new location. Paulinus could only decisively strike at them if he could force them all together in one place - and so we get the plain and the defile...

I don't see either Staines or Virginia Water as being too far away, though - both lie within foraging-distance of London and a Roman force at either place would be picked up by the 'radar' (so to speak) of the rebels.


Quote:This I interpret as describing the actual situation, with the enemy in front... and that the enemy might have approached from a different direction, had it chosen to do so.

Or that there was potentially another enemy force somewhere to the rear of Paulinus's position? I would interpret this, for my Dunstable theory, as a reference to the 'hostile population' in the Midlands: Paulinus ensured that there were no rebel groups closing in to threaten him from the north before taking up his position against the main army advancing from the south... (the weakness of the position to a simultaneous attack from both directions has been noted!)
Nathan Ross
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Messages In This Thread
Re: Calling all armchair generals! - by Ensifer - 03-11-2010, 03:13 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-18-2012, 06:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 12:02 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 02:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 05:40 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 11:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 09:42 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 10:10 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:25 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 08:36 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-26-2012, 02:57 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-27-2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012, 02:24 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Nathan Ross - 09-08-2013, 12:22 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-07-2014, 02:18 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-08-2014, 01:50 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-11-2014, 02:03 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-20-2014, 02:37 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-25-2014, 08:29 AM

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