Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul (89 page)

It was about three days after the two traitors left that the most catastrophic news to date reached the army. What one must realize is that, despite the best intentions of the officers, there are no secrets in an army. It matters not what size it is, there is no way that any piece of intelligence, orders, or especially gossip, the more salacious the better, will not be common knowledge by the lowest
Gregarii
less than a day later. Therefore, when word that Noviodunum was taken and sacked, the garrison of auxiliaries massacred, and all of our grain either carried off or destroyed, something close to a panic whipped through the army. Our situation had never been so grim, and we all knew it. Even men like me with the utmost faith in Caesar held serious doubts that he would be able to get us out of the dire straits in which we found ourselves. All around us, Gallic cavalry patrols were scouring the countryside, locating any supplies and either taking them or destroying them. Behind us to the south were the Arverni and the main army of Vercingetorix, still at Gergovia, at least as far as we knew. We were heading to cross the Liger River in order to reunite with Labienus and his four Legions, but the mountain snows were exceptionally heavy, making the river a torrent so that crossing it was an exercise that would take more time than we could afford. To our west, the Bituriges were thirsting for revenge for Avaricum while the Aedui, now in full revolt, had as their object pinning us between the Liger and the Elaver, then starving us into submission. Our choices were extremely limited, to put it mildly. If we were to try retreating south back to the Province, not only would it be a dangerous move because of crossing the snow-covered mountains that serve as the boundary between the Province and Gaul, we would also be essentially leaving Labienus and the four other Legions alone, cut off and surrounded by a massively numerically superior enemy. But then, Caesar received a piece of intelligence, and in that one bit of information, saw a way not only out of our present predicament, but also a way to turn the tables on the enemy once more.

As part of Vercingetorix’s grand strategy, he gave orders that every tribe must destroy their own supplies of food, both in grain and cattle. He understood that the key to beating us was only by weakening us and the best way to do so was by starvation. Personally, I think it is something to be admired about him that he was able to convince such a fractious people as the tribes of Gaul to obey, and they all did as he commanded, despite it meaning a long, hard winter for them. All but one tribe, however, and it was this piece of news that Caesar seized upon, that the Aedui, so confident of success now that they were with Vercingetorix, saw no need to starve themselves. And as usual, he wasted no time; we were ordered to break camp within the watch that he received the news, despite the fact that it was shortly after dark and we just finished building the camp in the first place. However, we all knew that our fates were hanging in the balance, so there was no complaining at the order. Not more than a third of a watch after it was given we began to march. This was another of the very few times marching with Caesar where we did not destroy the camp, as I believe that he did not want to give the Gallic cavalry assigned to watch us any idea that something was happening. Marching through the night, we stopped for a rest only lasting two parts of the watch shortly after dawn, before picking back up and resuming our movement. Pressing on the next day, we stopped once again in the afternoon to rest, making it just around sunset when we reached the banks of the Liger, a few miles south of what remained of Noviodunum, the smoke from the town visible for the last full watch of our approach. There was no time to build a bridge, so Caesar sent his cavalry to look for a fordable part of the river, and they found one, if it could be called a ford. The only way we could get across was by the cavalry moving upstream to block the flow of water, with another line of cavalrymen downstream serving to stop any man who lost his footing from being swept away. The water was neck deep for most of the men, forcing them to hold their shield in one hand above their head, along with their pack and javelins in the other. Although I was not immersed as deeply, I was just as subject to the frigid temperature of the water, courtesy of the melted snow. Because we were one of the first Legions across, we were forced to stand, shivering and waiting for the rest of the army to cross before we resumed the march.

The Aedui were caught so completely by surprise that they made no attempt to either try to contest our crossing, nor try to stop us from raiding their granaries and rounding up their cattle. Spending two days restocking our supply wagons, every man was issued marching rations of almost two weeks, which we had to divide between ourselves and our section’s mule. It is amazing how something as simple as knowing that there will be food to eat can so completely restore an army’s morale, and we were in a much better frame of mind when we turned to the next task, going to the aid of Labienus. He had been sent to subdue the Parisii, a tribe mainly congregated in the island town of Lutetia, yet like our part of the army, the fever of rebellion fired the ardor not just of the Parisii, but the imaginations of the non-warrior class of Gauls, and it was usually these people on whom we relied for information. So it was not a surprise when we later learned that the peasants told Labienus not only of the defeat at Gergovia, but that Caesar’s army had tried to cross the Liger and failed, so for want of supplies was now marching back to the Province, leaving Labienus and his army to worry about their own fate. Additionally, the word of Gergovia emboldened the Bellovaci, living to the northeast of Lutetia, to rise in rebellion as well, so that now Labienus had an enemy at his front and his rear. His only hope, as he saw it with the information that he possessed, was to somehow make it back to Agedincum, where there were two Legions and his supply base. However, he was on the wrong side of the river. Seeing that no matter where he tried to cross, there would be an enemy force opposing him, he decided that he might as well cross right then and there. Since I was not present at this battle, I cannot provide much detail, and Caesar has described it in his Commentaries, but it is sufficient to say that Labienus was victorious, his army fighting its way out of the trap. They marched to Agedincum, resupplied and picked up the other two Legions, then began heading south in our direction because Labienus learned the truth about Caesar and his army at Agedincum. Our two armies linked up about two days’ march south of Agedincum, where we made camp, with the word being that we would be staying put for a bit.

Even with the joining of our armies, the situation was still extremely serious. I cannot help but think that if it were not for that flaw of character I spoke about at the fire those weeks before, we still may have been well and truly fucked. All of Gaul was now in rebellion; every tribe threw their support behind Vercingetorix, although much to our great fortune some of those tribes’ support consisted of gold and not men. All the hostages that Caesar had gathered were at Noviodunum when it fell, so we did not even have that hold on them anymore, but true to their nature, the Gauls experienced just as much trouble dealing with prosperity as they did adversity. It was through the actions of our friends the Aedui that the trouble began. The Aedui and Arverni had been rivals for a long time, much longer than they held any animosity towards Rome, or even knew of our existence for that matter. And now the Aedui sought to reassert what they saw as their true place of dominance among the Gauls, making the claim that now they were involved, the leadership of the army should go to a man of the Aedui. This caused a huge uproar, to the point where an assembly of all the tribes of Gaul was called at Bibracte. According to our spies, every tribe in Gaul sent representatives, with the exception of the Remi, Lingones and Treveri, the latter because they were dealing with incursions from the Germans from across the Rhenus. The former two tribes chose to remain aloof because they both had firsthand knowledge of Roman power, and were gambling that Caesar would be successful. This assembly must have been quite a sight, lasting several days, yet when the matter was finally brought to a vote, not one Gaul voted against Vercingetorix. He alone, they cried, had brought them victory against the Romans, and he alone would be their leader. The Aedui were outraged at what they perceived to be a slight and I often wondered if at that point they experienced second thoughts about turning on us, except they could not risk open disagreement in front of every other tribe. I can imagine it was with great reluctance that their representatives, none other than those two rats Eporedorix and Viridomarus, swore allegiance to Vercingetorix. As far as Vercingetorix was concerned, he was committed to continuing the strategy of attrition, using the error made by the Aedui as an example of why it was important to destroy their own supplies. Despite having more than 120,000 men at his disposal, Vercingetorix knew that it would be impossible to feed such a large host, their very size meaning that his greatest asset, his maneuverability, would be compromised. To help correct this problem, he sent 40,000 home, keeping a host of 80,000 men on foot, and 15,000 cavalry. This was the force that he would use to destroy Caesar, and us.

Vercingetorix had other plans as well, which he quickly put into motion. As a sop to Eporedorix and Viridomarus, he gave them an independent command of 10,000 Aedui, bidding them to march south to the territory of the Allobroges. He authorized them to offer bribes to the Allobroges to throw in with the rest of the Gauls, the army that was with them to take the territory by force if necessary. The land of the Allobroges constituted the northernmost part of the Province, technically making them Roman subjects, but I will say that the last governors before Caesar treated them ill, so it took no stretch of the imagination to believe that they would play us false and join the rest of the tribes in revolt. Fortunately, Caesar had treated them well, saving them from the Helvetii those years ago, while conferring honors upon their leaders. As a result of Caesar’s policies, they were now satisfied with Roman rule. A kinsman of Caesar, Lucius was his name, upon receiving word from Caesar, raised 10,000 men, with forts erected at all the likely crossing points of the Rhodanus, which marked their boundary, to resist any attempt at forcing a crossing. There was one attempt made to cross the river, repulsed with heavy losses, so for the time being our rear was safe from the Gauls but it was only a temporary reprieve. One thing that concerned all of us was the number of cavalry that Vercingetorix had at his disposal; indeed, it was this force that saw the most use implementing his strategy of attrition. Roaming around the countryside in search of any rumored caches of food, our own much smaller force raced to beat them and return to our camp with those supplies, if they in fact existed. But while our force of German cavalry had proven themselves, and did so to the point that starting in this campaign that was all Caesar ever used for his personal bodyguard, they were still far less than the 400 he originally levied, whittled down in the countless skirmishes to a number a little more than two hundred. Sending across the Rhenus, Caesar requisitioned more mounted troops, but despite their fighting ability, the one weakness of the German cavalry when going against their Gallic enemies was in the quality of the horseflesh they rode. Therefore, Caesar ordered that all Tribunes, still six to a Legion, and members of the Evocati, the group of retired Centurions and Legionaries that Caesar deemed to be valuable additions to the army, and who as a signal of their status were given mounts, relinquish them to the Germans who joined the army. There was a lot of complaining about that order, I can promise you; I just think that the fine young men were born that way while the Evocati had grown soft and too accustomed to the comfort of riding. Whatever the case, we increased and augmented our cavalry in this way, along with adding some German auxiliaries of foot of questionable value. It was with this force that Caesar now turned his attention back to the Province.

Despite the Allobroges being successful in turning back one attempt to invade their territory, the chances that they would hold out indefinitely were not such that Caesar was willing to risk it, so we left the camp we occupied for several weeks to begin marching south. During this period of time we were in camp, Vercingetorix had decided that his best base of operations was the town of Alesia, like Gergovia a fortified town sitting on the top of a plateau. Once we started to move, and once Vercingetorix determined our intent, he ordered his massive army to leave Alesia and march in a direction that would meet us before we were able to cross the Rhodanus into the Province. About four days into the march, scouts alerted us to the presence of the enemy nearby, just a few miles from our own camp. I do not know why, but the orders were given to proceed with the next day’s march as planned, and in the morning we left the ruin of the night’s camp behind, continuing our march south. Our orders were that each baggage train followed their Legion, which I must say was a grave error on our part. Vercingetorix’s attack consisted of cavalry only, and in this I believe he made his first huge mistake. His cavalry host was of sufficient size that he disposed of it in three columns, sending one to harass the vanguard Legion and advance party at the head of the column, with the other two attacking the main body from either side along the column. Because we were still in Lingones territory, who remained solidly in our camp, Caesar did not send out his usual far-ranging patrols and we paid for it. All along the column, the sounds of the
cornu
and the cries of the Centurions rang out, each section of the massive body of men spotting the attack of the Gallic cavalry at roughly the same time.

“Form square!”

The command echoed down the line, but we needed no extra instruction on where we were to form square, each Cohort from each Legion running quickly to their preassigned spots around their baggage train, forming a square around our most precious possessions. Despite the fact it takes a while for a single command to a column consisting of ten Legions to be passed along, we were experienced enough to know what needed to be done without waiting for orders, making the move more or less simultaneously all up and down the long column once the initial command was given. Standing in my spot, just behind the last rank in the Century, I used my height to survey the ground, trying to see through the dust that swirled around the hooves of the Gallic cavalrymen. Never before had I seen so many horsemen in one place, the dust they churned up soon obliterating my view of anything other than the few feet in front of the first rank. Suddenly out of the haze a number horsemen came bursting into view, riding directly towards our front line. Men immediately behind the front row grabbed onto the man in front to brace them for the impact, as the men in front, instead of throwing their javelin like they normally would, thrust them out as lances to spear the onrushing horses. The beasts, seeing what was in front of them, tried desperately to skid to a halt, yet between their own momentum and the savage whipping they were being given by their riders, the poor things had no chance. Screams of animals in agony rent the air as the impact of the combined weight of men and horses slammed into the Century, and I could feel the shudder through the very ground on which I stood. For a moment the men in front leaned backward, struggling under the weight pressed against them while the Gauls, still astride their mounts struggling to free themselves from the points imbedded in their flesh, whipped their long swords down onto the heads of the front men. The men in the second rank were using their javelin to stab upwards at the Gauls and it looked for the slightest time as if the force of the Gallic horsemen was going to overwhelm us. However, we all knew that any break in our formation meant death, not just to the men around the hole but to all of us, since the Gauls would whip their horses into the gap to exploit it. We had seen it happen enough to know what fate awaited us, so despite the intense pressure, we held. Finally our javelins hit their marks, stabbing the Gallic riders. In a matter of a few heartbeats from when they first appeared, there were several dead men at our feet, along with a horse that only managed to walk a few unsteady paces before collapsing. The other animals, less seriously wounded, went galloping away with blood streaming down their hides, driven by the mindless instinct to flee from what had hurt them. The remaining horsemen sheared away to disappear into the haze of dust. I always felt badly for the horses in war; they had no say in the matter and they suffered some of the most horrible deaths. It was something I never spoke of, because I would have been teased unmercifully, but it did bother me nonetheless.