Revenge for Varus

 

As soon as he had overcome the first numbing shock, Augustus reacted quickly: He doubled the size of the Rhine Army, which now consisted of 8 legions with large auxiliary contingents from seven different tribal groupings. This indicates how seriously Augustus took the victory of Arminius.

 

Immediately after the Varus disaster, Tiberius had been ordered from Pannonia to the Rhine, partly to relieve the ailing Augustus and partly to strengthen the Rhine border against any possible Germanic invasions. Except for the usual demonstrations of power, he initiated no warlike actions. On the other hand, he established three large army camps on the Rhine in order the secure the Middle Rhine region. In addition to these, there were at least 13 fortified camps to protect the border in the East.

 

In order to gain an idea of the Roman military power concentrated along the Rhine frontier, let us consider a typical legion camp, Novaesium (Neuß). It was originally occupied by the XIX Legion, one of Varus’ three.

 

This staging point camp had been designated by Tiberius as Rome’s “most modern fortified camp.” Thanks to its strategic location on the Erft, where it empties into the Rhine, this camp served as protective outpost and bridgehead for the planned campaign of conquest in the interior of Germania.

 

With a quadrangle shaped area of 450 by 650 meters (27 hektars), such a camp, which was half fortress and half caserne, quartered around 11,000 men and 3,270 animals.

 

It had gates with double towers on all four sides, with a main street leading through the middle of the camp. The houses of the military tribunes (staff officers) were on one side of this street.

 

There were also shoe shops, tailor shops and smithies plus an armory, clothing storerooms and a food warehouse with mess halls – facilities that are still found in a modern caserne or fortress. The house of the Praetorium (commandant) lay in the middle of the camp. Next to this were camp headquarters, a military courtroom and the chapel where the legion’s sacred standards and insignia were kept.

 

The camp personnel consisted of 6,000 infantry, 120 cavalry and 2,000 additional foot soldiers in addition to 700 mounted auxiliaries (from all over the Empire) and around 2400 administrators. In addition to these, the camp would normally contain around 2,450 horses and draft animals for the baggage train. Thus the camp had a population density of around 500 persons and 100 animals per hektar. If the barracks were completely filled, each individual soldier had only two and a half square meters of space. In such cramped quarters, communal life was possible only through tough training, extreme order and hard discipline.

 

A military hospital with sickrooms and operating rooms provided medical care, while baths and taverns provided for hygiene and entertainment.

 

A legion of this size required no less that 1500 tons of grain annually, the equivalent of 94 modern railroad cars containing 16 tons each. This had to be transported long distances, as did fodder and straw for the mounted units. This meant that large supply convoys were always underway. Supplying the troops was a problem even in peacetime, and it became a much greater problem during wartime. When the legions were operating in enemy country they were constantly at risk of having their supply lines cut.

 

Thousands of sheep and cattle were grazing outside the camp, so there would also have been a slaughterhouse nearby. Adjacent to the camp there was also a settlement of 400 to 500 retired and invalid military personnel. There was a storage area for construction materials and implements as well as a separate area for bridge engineers with their special equipment. In addition, the legion had its own brick ractory and pottery shop. The legion even produced its own slingshot munitions, as is proven by cast lead shot bearing the legion’s name and number. All in all, the camp was a masterful example of minutely organized Roman military life.

 

Rome was preoccupied with planning its grand offensive for the coming years against the parts of Germania that were still free. Germanicus would be the one charged with carrying them out.

 

All over the Empire, young men were being conscripted and auxiliaries recruited; even riffraff from the streets was being called to the colors. Huge horse transports from Gaul and Spain were on the march. Mountains of weapons and armor of all kinds were being produced and supply depots constructed. New roads were being built and old roads were being improved. The entire Roman war industry was operating at full capacity.

 

Like his uncle Tiberius, the young commander tended to every detail. He was extremely proud to have been chosen to erase the shame of the Varus debacle that burned in every Roman heart. He, Germanicus! Nomen est Omen (his name was a good omen)! He would impart new shine to the Roman eagles and gain eternal fame and glory for them and for himself! In his overweening ambition he wanted to measure up to his successful father Drusus. He still had to learn that a great deal had changed since his father’s time:

The Germans were now fighting in larger confederations of tribal bands.

 

The Germans now had a brilliant strategist trained in the Roman school, who was intimately familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the Roman army. Arminius was able to employ his masterful command of tactics in guerilla warfare and the utilization of terrain (topographical features).

 

The Roman legions had now lost their nimbus of invincibility. Even large and elite units had been proven vulnerable.The Germanic tribes had all experienced the terror of Roman occupation, which united them in opposition to Rome and instilled a sense of solidarity they had not known before.

 

If we consider the directions of Germanicus’ attacks during the campaigns in Years 14, 15 and 16, we get the picture of a giant encircling or pincers movement. We see the strategy used by Moltke eighteen centuries later that anticipated the strategy of “march separately, strike together.”

 

In actuality, Germanicus’ campaigns were brutal wars of conquest and vengeance for the defeat of Varus.

 

Rome’s principal war aim, however, was simply to straighten its long and serpentine eastern frontier so that it could be maintained with fewer troops.

 

The desired frontier was supposed to follow the Elbe across Bohemia in a nearly straight line to the Danube. The first objective was of course to reach the Elbe. Unless the Romans controlled the Elbe, they could not hope to shorten their borders by at least 500 kilometers. The total length of the Roman border from the Atlantic to Syria and from the English Channel to Africa was around 13,000 kilometers.

 

These grandiose advances, accomplished with huge outlays of men and materiél, were like expeditions into Terra incognita and would not have been possible without knowledge of the geography of the area known as Germania transrhenana, deep into the interior of the continent. Working with traders, merchants, seafarers and indigenous collaborators, Roman geographers and researchers amassed amazing knowledge of the region. Thus the Roman general staff had relatively accurate maps at their disposal, the result of all the information the investigators had compiled. Unfortunately the reports of the authors and historians tend to be so general that it is very difficult today to precisely study the military actions. Here, nothing but coincidence or pick-and-shovel research can increase our historical knowledge of historical events.

 

The intermediate Roman objectives for the years 14 and 15 were to attack and weaken or annihilate all the Cheruscans’ neighboring tribes, such as the Marser, Brukterer and Chatten, so that they would no longer be able to support Arminius. The final goal would then be a final devastating blow against Arminius and his people after he had been deprived of his allies. Once the Romans controlled the Cheruscan lands, nothing would stand between them and the Elbe.

 

In order for these various attacks to succeed, they had to be kept secret until the very end. The Roman assaults had to have the advantage of surprise; they had to be lightning fast; and they had to penetrate deeply into enemy country. After that, the occupied territory had to be thoroughly combed in a wide front, the population decimated and the countryside laid waste. This meant burning down all the settlements and mercilessly slaughtering all the Germans who did not escape into the forests and marshes. It meant destroying all the livestock and foodstores insofar as they could not be consumed or transported.

 

Germanicus reckoned that after such a punitive action, the targeted tribes would be unable to resist the Romans for a very long time. Needless to say, the tribe would hardly become a friend of Rome; and this was to have long-term consequences.

 

Footnote: The mutiny was among the 5th and 21st Legions from Castra Vetera (Xanten), who had refused duty. They had formed two groups fighting each other in bloody rioting, in which their wrath was directed particularly toward the centurions.

 

When all preparations for the grand offensive had been made, a bloody mutiny broke out along the Rhine among the lowland Germanic legions on the Rhine, which threatened the entire undertaking. The Romans were paying the price for recruiting unreliable elements. In addition to constant demands for higher pay, fewer years of military service before retirement (20 years), and less harsh discipline and harassment, the soldiers demanded that Germanicus not acknowledge his uncle’s title of emperor (to which he refused to agree.)

 

He succeeded in putting down the revolt only by paying heavy bribes from his private treasury.

 

Tiberius ascended the throne in the year 14. Germanicus crossed the Rhine for the first time in the fall of that year, even before receiving orders to do so. He was thirsty for glory and revenge.

 

His forces consisted of four legions; 26 cohorts of auxiliaries (around 13,000 men) from seven different nations, and eight mounted squadrons (around 4,000 men.) Altogether he had around 40,000 men. He wanted to take advantage of the momentary inactivity among the Germans.

 

While weakening Arminius he was hoping to simultaneously restore the discipline of his legionnaires that had been lost in mutiny. He hoped to achieve this by a non-risky invasion of Marser territory (the region of the Ruhr and Lippe). Germanicus hoped to restore the legionnaires’ martial fervor by giving them free hand to murder, rape and plunder: he considered homicidal frenzy an antidote to lost discipline!

 

The Marsers had been chosen as the first to be punished for their part in the Varus defeat. Since that battle was already five years in the past, they were not aware of the danger of a Roman expedition for revenge.

 

Germanicus chose to attack during the annual harvest festival dedicated to Tanfana.* Moving in forced marches, his troops surrounded and stormed their villages in night attacks, slaughtering as many villagers as possible in a merciless blood bath. Then he spread out his 40,000 mercenaries in a wide front, combing an area of around 75 kilometers wide and decimating it through arson and murder. Hardly any of the Merser escaped the raging mercenaries, who suffered very light losses. The Romans burned and completely levelled the sacred sanctuary of the goddess Tanfara. There was no real fighting in this campaign, just merciless slaughter and arson.**

 

Footnote: * Tanfana, the Germanic goddess of earth and family.

 

Footnote: ** Tacitus, Annales I, 51

 

As soon as the Marsers’ neighboring tribes – the Brukterers (between Lippe and Ems), Tubanten (on the upper Lippe) and Usipeter (from lower Rhine to Lippe and the Ruhr) - learned of the massacres, they became enraged. As the Romans were passing through a ravine-filled forest on their return march to the Rhine, the Germans mounted a ferocious attack against their rearguard. The attack caused great confusion and heavy losses. It is reported that Germanicus very nearly suffered the same fate as Varus, as the column was barely able to fight its way through to open land.

 

These counterproductive punitive actions aroused the anger of Tiberius, since Germanicus had attacked the Marsers on his own volition and for no good reason. Tiberius also disapproved of the destruction of Tanfara’s sacred sanctuary as an unneccessary provocation. Such defilings of holy places achieved nothing except increased hated of Rome, and they also strengthened solidarity among the Germanic tribes.

 

Geranicus crossed the Rhine for a second time in the spring of the year 15. He continued with his plan of eliminating the confederates of Arminius in order to more easily destroy him, and he attacked the lands of the Chatten tribe*** with his general Caecina, each commanding four legions and 7,000 auxiliaries. Parallell to these, Germanicus was making perparations for a punitive summer expedition against the Brukterer in what is now Münsterland and Sauerland. After rebuilding a destroyed fortress in Taunus, he surprised and overran the Chattens so quickly that they were cut down or captured on the spot. However, this apparently involved mostly elderly inhabitants rather than able-bodied warriors, since they were able to delay the Romans in crossing of the Eder river, thereby gaining time for the women and children to escape. In this way they were able to avoid the main assault and were soon able to fight again.

 

Footnote. *** The Chattens’ principal town or settlement was MATTIUM (Metze), north of Fritzlar on the Eder river near the oft-destroyed fortress of Altenburg.

 

Arminius had intended to come to the aid of the Chattens, but he was himself attacked by General Caecina. Germanicus’ reason for attacking the Chattens in the spring can only have been to so decimate them that they would not be able to assist the Brukterers, whom he intended to annihilate in the summer.

As was his usual practice, Germanicus burned down Mattium and laid waste the unprotected land. As he was preparing to march back to the Rhine, messengers of Segestes, the follower of Rome, came to him and requested his assistance.

 

Segestes had abducted his daughter Thusnelda from her husband Arminius, who was laying siege to him in his fortress. Arminius is determined to regain his wife, who is with child. Germanicus decides that it is worth the effort to rescue this tested friend of Rome, who had warned Varus that Arminius was leading him into a trap.

 

This brings about the fateful and consequential meeting between Germanicus and Segestes, in the course of which the Cheruskan ally of Rome is placed under protection of the Roman Empire. Germanicus magnanimously offers asylum to him and his followers on the left bank of the Rhine, while Thusnelda is sent to Italy as a hostage, which meant that she was treated less brutally than a prisoner or slave. After the return of the army, Tiberius bestows the title of “Imperator” upon Germanicus.