Roman Expansion in Ancient France & Germania

Julius Caesar invoked the threat of Germanic attacks as one justification for his annexation of Gaul ( modern France ) to Rome.

As Rome expanded to the Rhine and Danube rivers, it incorporated many Celtic societies into the Empire.

The Germanic tribal homelands to the north and east emerged collectively in the records as Germania. The peoples of the Germania were sometimes at war with Rome, but also engaged in complex and long-term Alps relations, military alliances, and cultural exchanges with Rome as well.

The initial purpose of the Roman campaigns was to protect Trans-Alpine Gaul by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe.

In 58 B.C. Julius Caesar, governor of the Roman province of Southern Gaul, conquered the remainder of Gaul, which had been free until then: Thus, for the first time, the powerful Roman Empire moved into immediate vicinity to Germania, and further expansion and colonization on part of the Germanic tribes were blocked.

Caesar defeated Germanic warlord Ariovist, who had tried to conquer Gaul himself, and pushed back the Germanic Tencterians, who had crossed the Rhine from Upper Hesse. He had a 400-meter bridge built over the Rhine in 10 days, marched to the Germanic right bank of the Rhine, showed off the power of his army, won over the Germanic Ubians as allies and forced some other tribes into peace agreements.

In 38 B.C. Augustus' general Agrippa resettled the Germanic Ubians, allied with Rome, in a new town at the left bank of the Rhine in order to protect Roman Gaul from raids by uncontrolled Germania. This was the founding of Colonia Agrippinensis, today's City of Cologne.

The wealthy country of Gaul seemed firmly and safely in the hands of the Romans. Even before the Roman conquest, the Gauls had already lived in towns, and they started to get used to living under Roman rule. But in 16 B.C. Gaul was raided by the Germanic Sugambrians, Usipians, and Tencterians. They severely defeated Roman governor Lollius and freely looted the wealthy country and then returned to their homeland with heavy booty.

Emperor Augustus had led many wars, but this was the heaviest defeat his forces had suffered so far. Though Gaul was only looted, these attacks made Rome afraid that one day it could lose Gaul, a country that by then was yielding more taxes and crop than the fabulously wealthy Egypt.

In order to avoid this danger in the long run, Germania had to be conquered - though the country itself neither offered cities, nor treasures, nor a food surplus.

Augustus moved to the Rhine border and prepared the big offensive in person. First, all the territory between the Alps and the Danube was to be conquered, and then Germania was to be attacked simultaneously from the Rhine, the Danube, and from the North Sea coast with a fleet.

As a starting point, the Romans established 50 legion camps along the Rhine and connected them by army routes (these camps turned into modern cities Xanten, Bonn and Mainz).

Along the left bank of the Rhine, a considerable Roman fleet was being built. Emperor Augustus appointed his adoptive son Drusus governor of Gaul and made him commander-in-chief of the Rhine troops - probably 5 to 6 legions, or about 50,000 men, expected to conquer Germania.

While the Romans were preparing the war against Germania from their province of Gaul, the Gauls were embittered over the Roman tax collection: Apparently several Gaullic tribes were ready to risk an uprising against the Roman rule. But Drusus fell with his horse, broke his thigh, and died of wound-fever after one month, being only 29 years old.
He had been successful, and popular with Romans, and favoured by the Emperor: It is likely he would have become Augustus' successor - instead of his uncanny brother Tiberius.

After the death of the victorious general Drusus, 33 years-old Tiberius assumed continuation of the war. In the spring of 8 B.C., he once again crossed the Rhine with a large army.

The Germanic tribes were too weakened from the continuous warfare of the last years to put up any resistance: For four years, they had been attacked every year by superior Roman armies, their settlements had been regularly burnt down, and their fields devastated. In the countless bloody battles and skirmishes during these four years, probably all tribes had lost a significant proportion of their men.

Already in the previous year, the allied tribes had been unable to prevent Drusus' army from marching through their territories. This year promised to be equally unsuccessful. It seemed better to capitulate now - and not to wait until one would be totally defeated and defenseless. Probably out of these considerations, all Germanic tribes sent envoys to the Romans, asking for peace.

In an unpopular manner that was typical to Emperor Augustus, he simply arrested all the men, and had them brought to several Roman cities as hostages and they evaded this imprisonment by resorting to suicide. Now the Romans succeeded peace treaties with most of the Germanic tribes. They accepted Roman rule, and started to pay tribute and provide troops for the Romans.

German Memories - Roman Rule in Germania

During the year 7 B.C., the Romans had to put down only smaller unrest in some places and they didn't need to engage in any major combat operations, since the exhausted Germanic tribes mostly respected the peace and recognized the Roman rule.
The newly-conquered area was secured with army routes and camps. In the winter, the Roman army retreated into the camps along the left bank of the Rhine. But during the entire summer, all strategically important parts of Germania were occupied by Roman soldier camps.

Apart from this military presence, the Romans also set up numerous markets and founded trading posts: Slowly an extensive peaceful exchange of goods began between the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes, who formerly had to purchase all Roman products indirectly over Gaul. These trading posts probably contributed much to make Germanic people familiar with the Roman way of life, language, laws and customs.

Besides, countless Germanic men served in Roman auxiliary troops. In return, they received generous payment and valuable weapons. Apart from Roman military know-how, they inevitably learned the Roman language, Roman customs, and often even got to know other countries of the Roman world empire: Many Germanic noblemen came to Rome; some even acquired Roman citizenship. A loyal and brave squad of Germanic warriors served at the Emperor's palace in Rome as bodyguards. Other Germanic warriors came as far as Palestine, where they served as bodyguards for the tetrarch Herodes, whom the Romans had installed as king of the Jews.

A few years later, probably many Germanic men had to fight for the Romans in Pannonia (today's southern Hungary), when an uprising against the Roman rule broke out there. All of these men inevitably acquired the Roman way of life and mentality, and after their return to their tribes, they passed some of that on to their families and friends.

The Roman commander-in-chief still marched through the tribal areas of Germania with his army every summer - not with the purpose of conquering anymore, but rather to speak Roman law, mediate in tribal disputes, and to remind the allies and subdued tribes of the lasting power of Rome.

In Rome, Emperor Augustus contented himself with the title 'first citizen', but in the provinces he let himself be worshipped as a god. He was indeed mighty like a god, whose every wish was law for over a third of the world's population, and who could order hundreds of thousands of soldiers to crush every resistance to his will.

A temple was dedicated to him in Germania too - in the newly founded Roman City of Cologne, where the Ubians had been settled. Some of the Germanic aristocrats became priests of the divine emperor.

There were uprisings but they had remained regionally confined - no other tribes had dared to join the rebels. Roman rule seemed to be generally secure, and now, after the last resistance had been broken, Germania could be declared a province of the Roman Empire. Its center probably was what later became the City of Cologne; or perhaps the administrative and trading city which was recently discovered close to Waldgirmes near the river Lahn.

After the soldiers came the officials: A Roman governor had a staff of approximately thousands of men, hundreds of officials, countless assistants, and a mounted guard of several hundreds of men. This province administration was supposed to raise taxes and draft men as soldiers, depending on whether a tribe was subdued or an ally, or liable to military service, or exempt from dues.

Only the Germanic Marcomanians could have become dangerous for the Romans: Some years earlier (9 B.C.) they had fled from the army of Drusus, and now they were residing on the other side of the Elbe and Danube rivers, as neighbors of the Roman-controlled Germania. Their king Marbod had set up an enormous army of allegedly 70,000 men and had subdued several neighboring tribes. He kept peace with the Romans, but to them his kingdom appeared as a continuous threat.

Therefore, in 6 A.D., Rome set out up to 100,000 legionaries in order to conquer and break up Maroboduus's empire. But the attack had to be aborted. The reason was that the peoples of today's South Hungary and Yugoslavia rose against the Roman rule: Up to 200,000 enemies of the Romans were under arms - an enormous danger even for Italy and the capital Rome itself. Augustus ordered a hasty peace with Maroboduus and sent all available legions into the rebellious provinces, where it took several years to strike down the rebellion.

Despite the favorable opportunity for a rebellion on their own, the weakened Germanic tribes kept quiet. The Roman rule between the Rhine and Elbe continued to exist undisturbed. Also the neighboring Marcomanian kingdom of Maroboduus continued to keep peace. Germania really seemed on its way to develop into a peaceful Roman province like Gaul.

German Memories - Germanic Victory Over Roman Forces

Arminius (Hermann) was a 28-year old Germanic aristocrat from the Cheruscans tribe. As a leader of Germanic auxiliary forces he had been serving Rome for a long time, and had even obtained Roman citizenship and the title of a Roman knight. Arminius had learned enough of the Roman art of warfare in order to know that he and his warriors would definitely fail in an open battle against the disciplined and well-equipped legionaries.

Therefore, in 9 A.D, he told Varus of an alleged rebellion and then made guides available to him. The guides were his loyal men to lure Varus into a trap.

As usual, Varus and his entire army were about to move to their winter camps. Along the way they intended to quickly strike down the rebellion. Though having been warned of betrayal by one of Arminius' relatives, he trusted his Germanic guides. So with three legions and an enormous baggage, totaling more than 20,000 men, he moved through a swampy, complex and unfamiliar forest area (probably north of today's German city of Osnabruck).

The soldiers were marching in comfortably free order with their helmets off and shields on their back, when they were suddenly ambushed by the men of Arminius who were Germanic and had formerly served in Roman auxiliary troops. Arminius' men had been equipped by the Roman arms and turned against their former allies and masters.

The fights stretched over more than three days. As for the legionaries, continuously strong rain affected visibility, silted up the ground and - along with cold weather - started to waste away their endurance. The slowly moving baggage prevented them from a fast withdrawal out of this adverse setting.

Above all, they were not able to carry out effective resistance because after each attack the Germanic units pulled back into the protective forest. While at first the Roman army had withdrawn in an orderly fashion, soon a general panic set in where everyone was only trying to save their own life.

What followed was a terrible slaughter: Some Romans would not even show resistance anymore, others would kill themselves, and most of them, disoriented and weakened, fractured into small groups - would be slain one by one by Arminius' warriors.

There were virtually no Roman survivors. Three of the best legions were not just defeated, but annihilated. One sixth of the entire armed forces of the Roman Empire was destroyed.

For 30 years the Romans had been arduously exploring the Germania. They had won over Germanic tribes as allies or had subdued them, they had built roads, they had established a province administration, they had founded cities. Over 50,000 men had been employed for three decades in an effort to civilize Germania and to make it part of the Roman empire, and had been paid for their work, equipped, accommodated and provisioned by the Roman state.

But ultimately more than 20,000 of their men had been killed within a few days. Now Germania was a province no more, but a free and hostile country.

Arminius had sent to Marbod Varus's head as a call to join the war against Rome, but he was satisfied with his own empire. He didn't want to take part in a risky war; so he sent Varus's head back to Emperor Augustus in Rome.

To the Romans' surprise and joy, the rebellious and victorious Germanic tribes did not attack Gaul or Italy. They seemed content with having regained their old way of living and their independence, and leading numerous small wars against each other. Actually, they were in no position to attack the Roman Empire.

The Germanic tribes in the north were still allied with Rome. In the west and south there were the legions of Roman Gaul and Rhetia, and in the east the Germanic kingdom of the Marcomanians was holding out, showing ominous neutrality. The Rhine river remained the border between Roman Gaul and the free Germania.

Arminius would not become king of a united Germania. Rather, he was murdered by his relatives, and his wife and son were captured and handed over to the Romans by Arminius' father-in-law. The outcome of the battle established the Rhine as the boundary of the Roman Empire for the next few hundred years, until the decline of the Roman influence in the West. The Roman Empire never was able to conquer Germania, although many attempts were made thereafter.

The battle had a lasting setback on the Roman attempt of taking over Germania which seriously started in 14 BC and had long term historical consequences as it set the boundary between Romance languages and Germanic languages.