The Battle Of Teutoburg Forest

 

Most definately.

Caesar built the trestle-bridge in just 10 days (near modern Coblenz). Sorry if I'm being choppy with all this information. Caesar had refused aid from the people to the south, the Ubii, in order to impress the locals of Roman ingenuity and engineereing capacity, showing he wouldn't need boats. The impression worked, but all the tribal people did was abandon their towns and seek refuge in the forests, and assemble the warriors at a central point to get ready for Caesar. In the forested territory of the Suebi, they were resolved to resist him. He refused, knowing his army was not suited to forest warfare, dismantled the bridge, and returned to Gaul.

Now, bridges such as this would have needed to be constructed on strategic points along the Rhine and possibly the Danube for a serious conquest of Germania. I seriously doubt briganding raiders would have not furiously attempted to sabotage them, even after solid completion.   

Further to the north, west near Emmerich, the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, numbering about 430,000 people, had settled west of the Rhine. This number should be treated with with critical caution, as we should Caesar's claim of the numbers comprising the Gallic relief force at Alesia. But no doubt the Germanic tribes were plentiful with warriors. He massacred them before building the bridge, and part of his reason for venturing across the Rhine was to follow up the escaping cavalry. The Sugambri refused, or were unable, to surrender the fugitives.  

I realize I am mentioning events 4-5 decades before the backdrop we are discussing, but the conditions were not substantially different, and Caesar had other priorities. But he seemed to realize the handicap Roman legionaires would face if opposed by the Germanic tribes on a scale of determined resistence. He certainly would have considered conquest in these lands if he deemed it possible. He was planning to invade Parthia, certainly a formidable task, before his death.       

The disparagement of Varus, most notably form the historian Velleius, is unjust.vVarus' handling of the disturbances in Judaea was quite thorough. He was simply the wrong guy in the wrong place when he was destroyed. Some events are simply circumstantial. There was no reason for him to be untrustworthy of Arminius, who had led his people in the service of Rome, being granted both Roman citizenship and equestrian status. He even learnt Latin. His fidelity to Rome was genuine before he changed his view of Roman domination in his homeland. I think Varus did ignore warnings of Arminius' intentions, though.

The peace Tiberius achieved with one Maroboduus of the Marcomani (do I have this tribal name correct, somebody?) was soon nullified when he was driven out by his rival Catualda, who didn't favor friendship with Rome (I'm not 100% certain about this). This type of internicine would have probably been exploited by the Romans to their benefit. But would Germanic tribes conform? It's just very hard to say for sure.

OK, for Aemilianus' question concerning Teutoburger Wald - that of a Roman victory. 2 things are certain: Augustus' whole German policy would not have been shattered at the time, and the territory east of the Rhine would not have not been immediately lost. But it would need to be a decisive victory for Varus; a tactical withdrawal, stalemate, or even Pyrrhic victory would have lost the Roman holdings in the region. To reiterate, Roman culture was based on cities (ie, colonization), and the Germanic peoples on the fringe of the Empire were comparitively civilized, but the bulk of the Germanic peoples, in the east and north, were not. The Celts throughout Iberia, Gaul, and Britain were somewhat urbanized. The restless German tribes of the northern and eastern regions of Germania, the 'bulk' I just mentioned, were not.     

The bulk of Germania not already incorporated into the Empire would probably never been absorbed by Rome, no matter what happened at the Teutoburger Wald. With Varus' victory, Roman hegemony, at best, would have furthered towards the Elbe and Weser from the districts they had already subdued, but not much, and a massacre would have, in all likelihood, occured upon a Roman army on the march if they attempted the conquest too far east and north. The forests provided both cover and viable launching points for harrassing raids etc. Germania was too big, too forested, the warriors too tough, and the lands did not offer what was important to sustain such a vast conquest. This is what the British faced with the American colonies; as long as resistence was imminent, the vast land could not be contained militarily. Of course, Germania wasn't quite that big. Now, back to the point of economization; draining the imperial treasury for a dubious conquest was simply not worth the risk. Doing so would have compromised the solidarity of the other frontiers, if money and troops were poured into Germany.

An important question is whether the Germanic peoples beyond Roman suzerainty would have cooperated with each other to put up the resistence necessary to thwart Roman armies. They certainly could have beaten back the legionaires, provided they avoided conventional engagements in open terrain. But only in relative conjunction with each other. Germanicus narrowly avoided disaster when he faced such a predicament after defeating Arminius in open battle. Interestingly, that very cooperation did indeed occcur in the 5th century, which saw the downfall of the Western Roman Empire from these very people from Germania (for the most part). But it certainly didn't endure, as chiefs began killing each other.

This is all hindsight though; in the recent years before the Teutoburger Wald, the territory between the Rhine and the Weser was considered to be prettty much subdued, though not totally conquered. With the exception of a defeat at the hands of the Sugambri in 16 B.C., the Romans had bettered all Germanic forces since Caesar's first incursions over the Rhine. The Romans were wary of the potential for trouble from the Germanics, but they were not considered a formidable enemy by any means.

It is certainly a tough hypothesis to pinpoint. Much depends on the attitude of the Germanic peoples, which may or may not have been significantly disparate. Rome's major talent was absorbing peoples into their realm. If a confederated German resistence was applied, then no way - Rome would not have been able to conquer the lands, even the regions west of the Elbe. If, contrarily, they came across many Friends, which was the case in many regions just beyond the Rhine and Danube, than much of Germany could have been pacified. But if they had, concern and vigilance would have sprouted from the Hunnic peoples to the east of Germania.

Thanks, Spartan
    
    

 

Sorry my friends but ever since I read about this battle I have never been able to comprehend its significance. All the Germanic tribes became part of Rome and affected by it one way or another. Only 3 legions were lost from 50 Rome had and Germanicus lead a successful punitive action that regained Roman honour and if I am mistaken, the Romans took the same lands Arminius was defending later on, so could some one please explain why it so so significant?

 

Al-Jassas