Need a little bit of help on Augustus and Teutoburgerwald.

[giantlemon]

thanks for the information guys. you have been really helpful and as well as increasing my understanding have provided me with some oral accounts as i will use quotes from this page. if you don't like that idea just post to me and i won't but than ks again. i didn't think arminius was a fool as he had obviously outwitted Varus and Varus sufferewd because of it. The reason i had believed Varus to be a fool was because he had allowed himself to march his collumn down the narrow area allowing it to be ambushed and then had panicked and fled. The area was 4 miles long and only 200 yards wide due to the rising water table and the natural topography. also Varus had already been ambushed at least once before entering this 'lobster pot'. Surely a sensible commander would have attempted to navigate around the death trap. On the other hand though it is understandable that to bring out the Germans who were showing Guerilla Tactics Varus may have had to walk into an ambush just to be able to fight them. Even when ambushed though I am surprised that Varus could lose the battle as he had fourteen thousand troops to the Germans fifteen thousand. Surely making a shield wall in this narrow area would have been sufficient. (I am gaining my figures from 'The Art of War Great Commanders of the Ancient and Medieval World' by Quercus).

[Sardaukar]

Problem about campaigns in Germania was lack of infrastructure in way of roads, for example. While Germania was probably not impenetrable forest depicted by many Roman writers, usable roads and trails for troop movements were few. Varus probably didn't have much choise when choosing his path of march, considering he did need to move the baggage train. And similarly, Arminius didn't need to be military genius to guess where Romans would be going.

And even if Varus had tried to choose surprise route, it would have ment leaving baggage train and camp followers..itself a tremendous blow to Roman prestige.

Difficulty of moving large forces can be clearly seen in campaigns fought by Tiberius and Germanicus, often depending from rivers as supply routes.

[giantlemon]

But surely if he knew he had to take certain paths he would be more prepared and expectant of ambush and therefore surround the vulnerable baggage train and camp followers with the legion. This would limit rotating the units to a certain degree and reduce efficiency and visability but the advantages of having units in virtually ready formations reduces the effectiveness of ambush. Men won't go to the baggage train to protect their possessions and there is far less chance of the battle being reduced to one on one combat.

The main thing that confuses me though is how on earth could a numerically similar force with inferior armour and weaponry win against the Roman legions even considering the aspect of surprise. I mean i obviously don't know as much as the guys here but when you realise you have walked into the 'lobster pot' your being attacked only from behind and in front due to the water levels stopping attacks from the sides. therefore the vanguard and rearguard will still form a shield wall won't they? Or am I missing something?

[LvpvsRomanvs]

I think that the veteran legions would have stayed put in the column. However, I have heard a theory that some of the other legionaries had families travelling with the baggage train, and may have even accompanied them, as firstly they weren't expecting resistance. Perhaps the Romans were defeated because their forces were too thinly distributed?

Even if they were not, it is possible that some of the soldiers, once they knew what was going on, would have been concerned for their families' lives.

The Germans also constructed some form of wall within the trees where they threw their spears down onto the Romans. A group of veteran legionaries rushed towards the wall and tried to mount it and kill the Germans on top of it, but they were repulsed. The Germans were known for climbing into the trees to hurl down missiles onto the enemy - we can see this in the campaigns of Germanicus when he would auxiliaries ahead of the column to shoot the enemy from the trees.

There are several reasons why the Romans were defeated:

Poor leadership - Varus chose to move on even after numerous signs of enemy forces (though, I do not think he knew the scale of the enemy until it was too late) - whilst marching they came across the bodies of the slain auxiliaries who had been sent to scout ahead of the column, he had also had numerous reports of activity in the forest. I think the reason why he did not take a detour is because he did not expect the sheer scale of the enemy. Germanicus, when returning back to the Rhine after 'raiding' German territory anticipated the enemy's movements and tactics (probably because of the disaster at Teutoburger Wald), and deployed his men in a square formation into an area where they were not restricted or funelled in. When it came to the actual combat, Germanicus raced to the rear of the square (where he knew most of the fighting would take place) and encouraged his men. Varus, as far as I know, panicked.

The Germans were on their own turf - they knew the land well, and they knew how to use in such a way as to destroy the Romans. With this knowledge, they were able to break up the Roman column into small groups, where they would surround them and butcher them.

Fighting styles - the Romans were no good at fighting in thickly wooded, we have seen this in Caledonia too. When deployed into a more loose formation the Romans broke up into smaller bands that were enveloped and hacked to pieces by the Germans, and when deployed in a tight, compacted formation they were vulnerable to missile fire - we are talking about thousands of sharpened pieces of wood hardened with fire descending on them. We can see heavy infantry loose to missile troops in various battles of the ancient era - the Spartans at Sphacteria, Crassus at Carrhae. If the Romans would have been in flat open terrain, it would have been butcher's work - and the Germans knew this. But they were not, and the Germans took advantage of the situation.

- Lorenzo.

[Ron Andrea]

Excellent.

[giantlemon]

well the best understanding i got was from Velleius Paterculus who served as a legionary legate during the Illyrian revolt of AD6-9 and clearly emphasises that poor leadership and cowardice caused the Teutoburg disaster :

‘An army unexcelled in bravery, the first of the Roman armies in discipline, energy and experience in the field, through negligence of its general, the treachery of the enemy and the unkindness of Fortune was surrounded, nor was as much opportunity as they had wished given to the soldiers either of fighting or of extricating themselves, except against heavy odds; indeed some were even chastised for using their weapons and showing the spirit of the Romans. Hemmed in by forest, marshes and ambuscades, it was destroyed almost to a man by the very enemy it had always slaughtered like cattle. … the general had more courage to die than to fight … [and] ran himself through with his sword. The two camp prefects … after most of the army had been destroyed, proposed its surrender, preferring to die by torture … than in battle. [The Legate] Vala Numonius … previously an honourable man, set a fearful example by leaving the infantry unprotected by the cavalry, attempting to flee to the Rhine. Fortune avenged his act … he died in the act of desertion. Varus’ body partially burned, was mutilated by the enemy; his head cut off. ’

[Matthew Amt]

But surely if he knew he had to take certain paths he would be more prepared and expectant of ambush and therefore surround the vulnerable baggage train and camp followers with the legion.

Didn't Varus send his experienced German auxiliaries out to scout the route? Sure, they were working for the other side, but he DID scout... The roads through there simply weren't wide enough to "surround" the baggage.

The main thing that confuses me though is how on earth could a numerically similar force with inferior armour and weaponry win against the Roman legions even considering the aspect of surprise. I mean i obviously don't know as much as the guys here but when you realise you have walked into the 'lobster pot' your being attacked only from behind and in front due to the water levels stopping attacks from the sides. therefore the vanguard and rearguard will still form a shield wall won't they? Or am I missing something?

Like any army on the march, the Roman column was strung out over literally miles of road. So the Germans never had to face 14,000 Romans at once, they could concentrate several thousand on the few hundreds at one spot. With the road crowded with men, wagons, animals, and camp followers, not to mention trees cut down by the Germans, it would be hard to get to a fight even a couple hundred yards away, much less 4 or 5 miles. You could try going off the road, but dragging a large shield and javelins through heavy brush WILL slow you down--try it sometime! Even without the mud and swamps. Plus, that just breaks up whatever mass you had on the road, leaving you more vulnerable to a sudden assault. You can't reinforce a unit under attack with 6 or 8 legionaries thrashing individually through the woods, you need hundreds in a more or less coherent mass, and there is simply no time to get that many men to the trouble spot before the Germans have done their damage and retreat out of range. Any group of legionaries under attack would certainly form some sort of line where they were, if only by facing the same direction and holding up their shields. If there were Germans on both sides of the road, well, the Romans on the right would face right, and those on the left would face left! Doesn't help when a javelin goes past you and spikes your buddy in the butt, or if your girlfriend gets beaned with a rock. Plus, when you stop to fight, the whole column behind you has to stop, causing more crowding and confusion, and assuring that you won't get into clear ground before dark. So the Germans didn't really have to *kill* a lot of Romans with these attacks, when they could do tremendous damage to morale, organization, and discipline just as it was.

I also think you may be underestimating the fighting ability of Romans in open order or rough terrain. Every one of these men was a highly trained professional, skilled and very aggressive, and better protected than most of his opponents. The scutum and gladius are just fine for one-on-one fighting (and German "long swords" were VERY rare!), and any advantages of lightness and agility a German warrior might have would not matter once he closed with a legionary. Sure, the Romans were even better in formation, and as we've said the Germans knew this. So they'd stay maybe 20 yards back off the road--not much chance of getting hit with a pilum through tangled branches at that range--rushing in now and then to chuck their own rocks and javelins. Any Romans trying to counterattack would get met with a hail of missiles, and their formation would naturally be broken up by trees and shrubbery. The Germans didn't need a formation, but could throw something at anyone who was exposed and not looking. (I've been in padded-weapon combats like this, and you really never see the one that gets you!) This was not "guerrilla warfare" at all, which refers more to small raids on supply trains, depots, foraging parties, small isolated units, etc. This battle was a series of savage assaults and ambushes on a strung-out column, the perfect situation to remove the Romans' usual advantages.

Finally, I fully agree that leadership is one of the paramount factors. Sure, the Romans were brilliant under a brilliant commander. But quite often they did just fine even under a mediocre commander. It took a combination of downright BAD leadership and a particularly horrible situation to really crush a decent Roman army, which is why Teutoberg Forest stands out so prominently.

Valete,

Matthew

[happyhippy]

Hi there,

Things that I haven't seen discussed:
1. As far as the Romans were concerned, they were on the efge of the world. Wierd animals. Monsters. All kinds of things that they weren't used to. So what was the mental state of the average legionair? And it was raining, and with rain usually comes thunder. So maybe there were some people scared stiff?
2. In theory, Varus did send out scouts. The Germans. Arminius was the cause of the route taken, and Arminius was the leader of the recon team, and Arminius knew every weakness in the army. So if/when a legionair cought sight of a German in the woods, or even some coming down to the main body, it would be no big deal. Just the scouts reporting in. The first strike by the Germans could very easily have been from the people standing next to you. And scouts don't report to privates. They report to officers, especially high-ranking non-coms and low ranking commissioned officers. SO, they would be the first to go. Varus and his generals were still alive, but how do they communicate to the troops? If the sargents, leutenants, and captains are dead, no communication is possible. Discipline only works when orders are given AND receeived, and passd down the line. No line, no discipline, for practical purposes.
3. Sure, the Romans had other legions, but they also had a lot of geography to cover with them. If they could put a lot of troops into Germania quickly, they might have been able to make a roman province out of it. But they couldn't, and didn't, and so Germania remained barbarian. And still is, some say. The effects of the battle of Teutoburger Wald are still with us.

Comments, anyone?

Happy Hippy

[LvpvsRomanvs]

Discipline only works when orders are given AND receeived, and passd down the line. No line, no discipline, for practical purposes.
Happy Hippy

Hi, and welcome to RAT (remember to put your real name in your signature, it's a forum rule.).

I do get most of what your saying, but I disagree with the above point. Roman legionaries were trained killers and were drilled constantly to the point where certain tactics became second nature, they would not have been simply dumbfounded with the loss of their leader. The death of a centurion couldn't have been something tragic for the century's cohesion, otherwise the Roman army could not have won so many battles - centurions were always a primary target for an enemy facing a Roman army, that's why there was such a large casualty figure amongst them - along with the fact that they were always in the thick of the fighting and leading by example.

There is indeed a question that needs to be addressed: what happens if the centurion is killed? I'm sure if this happened, either the signifer or optio would have taken command. But even in the absence of these officers, legionaries would have been able to remain disciplined as it was drilled into their heads as soon as they joined the legions. They would have known what to do. Of course, if we are talking about a whole cohort with most of its centurions dead, things would have been difficult. How does one go abount controlling that amount of men (That leads on to another topic though, so I won't go further into that)? But I think no matter who died, there was someone who was going to take their place in command of the century.

[Crispvs]

I would suggest that when under the pressure of warfare in unfamiliar surroundings, especially when you are no longer sure who you can trust, given that soldiers in your own army turned out without warning to be the enemy, morale would have at least as much effect on discipline as maintenance of the chain of command would. It is clear from the record of other battles that Roman soldiers with a good level of morale could overcome losing their centurions and still acquit themselves well in battle. Morale, then, is likely to have been the decisive factor. I would think that an enemy armed mainly with clubs and pointed sticks would be no match for a well equipped and trained professional army with a high level of morale.

Crispvs

[Quintius Clavus]

There is an example of a Roman army fighting its way out of a tough situation when many of their officers had been killed or otherwise put out of action. And, it is just a couple years before the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest - during the Pannonian rebellion (AD 6 to AD 9) and thus during Augustus' time. The legions were attacked, many of the senior officers were killed; I believe also heavy losses to centurions. They were nearly surrounded, but the soldiers, shouting encouragement to one another, held together and fought their way out of the trap.

Both Velleius Paterculus and Cassius Dio blame Varus for the massacre of AD 9. Paterculus was a contemporary - and may have personally known the key men. He provides individual names of certain men - Numonius Vala, the two camp prefects - Eggius and Ceionius (spelling may be a little off), a soldier of unknown rank who kills himself after being captured (Caldus Caelius) and the Camp Prefect at Aliso (whose name escapes me right now). Cassius Dio also blames the elements - weather, terrain, etc. - though some of that maybe hyperbole, as well as poor march discipline. Even veteran troops can get stale or lax if their superiors don't set the proper tone.

[LvpvsRomanvs]

Also, but I'll have to check some of the sources on this, when Germanicus found the bones of the legions killed at Teutoburg, the bodies, that had fallen where the men died, were closely bunched together - a sign that they remained in formation and stood till the very end.

[fiatjustitia]

This battle reminds me of the battle of lexington in the American revolution. The british ( much more professional, experienced and highly trained than the american militia) was beaten because it was strung out along a narrow road where the americans using paths could concentrate their forces at leisure to overcome small groups of British soldiers. A blocking force would cause the british column to halt again and again while segments of the army were attacked. The british were "worried" to death over several days.
vincent

[Quintius Clavus]

Cassius Dio is our only actual narrative of the progress of the Battle itself, and he was writing a good 200 years after the events. His description of the final part is cut off at the point where the Roman troops are being cut down on the third or fourth day. Tacitus, who wrote some 90-100 years after the events, does describe Germanicus finding the dead after visiting at least one or possibly two other sites marking the route of Varus' army. He found the bones in an area, some of them in piles, where they had stood and fought, but others scattered indicating flight or soldiers caught and killed before they could join into larger groups. Tacitus' narrative is compressed leading up to the episode where Germanicus and his four legions find the bones. Then Tacitus spends some narrative time describing what they found and what they did while there.

I own a novel, written in the 1950's, Gregory Solon's The Three Legions, which uses both Cassius Dio and Tacitus as sources for its narrative of the battle. In the novel, only a remnant of the army manages to fight its way out of the depths of the forest, and their final camp is just a sketchy pile of brush, with a very shallow ditch, to form a perimeter. Those few, about 2,000 in the novel, then stand and fight but the end is a foregone conclusion - they know they will die. The battle narrative in the forest is mostly, though not entirely, small unit actions, in which the Germans assault parts of the strung-out column, tear it apart, kill, then disappear back into the forest.

[Matthew Amt]

This battle reminds me of the battle of lexington in the American revolution. The british ( much more professional, experienced and highly trained than the american militia) was beaten because it was strung out along a narrow road where the americans using paths could concentrate their forces at leisure to overcome small groups of British soldiers. A blocking force would cause the british column to halt again and again while segments of the army were attacked. The british were "worried" to death over several days.
vincent

The British force was not actually "beaten", since the mission had been to go out, sieze militia stores, and return to Boston. The march back was indeed attacked and harried throughout the afternoon, but the attacks were made by numerous militia units and seldom coordinated. The British flankers tended to get a little crazy, looting and burning the houses along the road, but the main column kept together all the way back. There don't seem to have been any instances in which the route was actually blocked (once they started back towards Boston, that is). This was one of the very few battles in which the Americans "hid behind rocks and trees" to fire at British troops in formation, and it has been estimated that about one in every 300 American shots actually hit a Brit!

There's a good article in the July 2010 issue of Military History magazine. Hmm, doesn't seem to list casualties overall--I seem to recall that they were pretty heavy, but it was far from a massacre! And the whole operation took only a day, with the force being safe in Boston by nightfall.

Sorry, off-topic!

Matthew