Caesar at Alesia: The ultimate victory. (Part II)

   Okay, so the Gallic tribes have realized they are being conquered through their own internecine bullshit. Caesar is riding their differences in captured gold all the way to high office. (He'd get JFK'd years later but he's riding high for now). The Gauls suddenly get their shit together and unite under a single leader. Vercingatorix, a man the French still cry onions over. He has mustered an army of 80,000 men with 15,000 auxiliary cavalry and forced Caesar to hurry back from Rome to Gaul to prevent his men (who are holed up in towns for winter) from being over run by this upstart. Vercingatorix has wisely cut off all means of forage and Caesar is naturally pissed off at this organized and effective resistance.

 

 

 

   Caesar meets up with his army. After a talk with his commanders he comes to the conclusion that it's time to rid the Roman world of the dangerous threat of Vercingatorix and his weapons of mass destruction ideological opposition to Rome owning all your shit. Caesar waits for summer, slowly consolidating an army of 40,000 Roman legionnaires, 5,000 Germanic cavalry, and another 15,000 auxiliary troops of one type or another cobbled from the surrounding countryside with promises of plundered shiny trinkets for all.

   It's time to march.

   Caesar's legions set out for Alesia, the hill fort town where Vercingatorix is known to be holed up.

   Roman armies marched. They did it well. That was their thing. It's one of the reasons they built so many roads. But we're still talking blisters and torn feet. True infantry. 50,000 men walking 20 miles a day carrying 90 pounds of kit. Still think your office job in a cubicle is shit? Yeah, it probably is, but marching 20 miles a day is no fun either. Baggage trains followed in the main army's wake, rolling up the siege equipment, provisions and the shitloads of minutiae it takes to keep a Yankee stadium amount of men alive in hostile territory in a time before Halliburton could overcharge you for it.

   To top this march off, each night the army would set up camp. That might sound like the time when you as a soldier get to crash out blissfully after your 20 mile march but no, there was still more work to be done. The Romans were pretty meticulous when it came to setting up camp in hostile territory. They had a system of fortifications they hauled around with them. Before crashing, the soldiers would first have to dig a 3 ft deep ditch all around the campsite and form a raised bank from the ditch outcast with a row of staves implanted on the top of the bank. This temporary fortification rectangled around the tents that were set up within a grid like pattern so everybody knew where everybody was in case of a night assault by the enemy. You gotta love the Roman military machine. That kind of hardcore war craft from two thousand years ago still brings a tear to the eye.

 

 

 

   Caesar marched on, capturing a few towns along the way, towns that Vercingtorix had taken from him in his popular revolt.

  By July, the hill fort of Alesia came into view of Caesar's legions. Finally it's time to settle this shit once and for all. Alesia is pretty much immune from direct assault. Sitting on top of a steep hill, it has decent wooden fortifications with parapets for archers and slingers. And, considering there are 80,000 angry Gauls inside, Caesar decides after a quick scan, that it's probably best to siege the town and starve Vercingatorix out. He wisely surmises that assaulting Alesia in a misguided dick waving attempt is probably not going to be Caesar's soundest policy at this juncture.

  

    Sieges have happened many times in military history. Medieval castle warfare and the Crusades have some fun examples of slow starvation and death by disease but nothing like Alesia. This was a war before its time. Before history books were written if you omit Thucydides and other Greeks. This is the stuff history is made of. Centuries later, around 800 AD, there were Saxons and Vikings and Franks digging up the remains of long buried Roman towns constructed after Alesia fell.

  What were they finding?

  Advanced technology like lead pipes, baths, hot running water, sanitation, aqueducts, stuff they didn't have in their own time or even understand the workings of. It'd be like us today digging up anti-grav technology in the Mohave desert and being told the Aztecs built it. That's how advanced the Romans were. The only example in human history where an archaeological dig can turn up artifacts more technologically advanced than those known to the diggers.

   So when Caesar decided to siege Alesia, it wasn't going to be just any siege, it was going to be the siege. No quarter would be given. Nobody would be allowed to cross those lines. And to ensure that nobody escaped his grip, Caesar pulled off one of the most amazing feats in military history and it all came down to a single word.

   "Circumvallation".

    Google it and notice how Alesia shows up.

   Caesar ordered his men to build fortifications around Alesia. But not just any fortifications. We're talking eleven fucking miles of fortifications. We're talking not just 15 ft high tree stump walls but also 15ft deep trenches dug out of the earth in front of these walls. We're talking watch towers built at regular intervals complete with Roman siege equipment. We're talking man traps in the trenches, pot holes with jutting sharpened stakes the ancient equivalent of barbed wire. Some of these trenches were even flooded with water diverted from the dual rivers on either side of Alesia. We're talking a feat of human engineering that people living today can't even comprefuckinghend.

   All this was done in a Roman three week building orgy.

   Seriously.

   You jelly modern world? Truth is, we're so fucking soft in the industrialized world today that we've lost all touch with true human effort.

A recent reconstruction of Caesars defense works. A difficult pole vault at best.

   

   So three weeks pass. Alesia is surrounded now by Caesar's 11 mile long rampart and wall. Sometimes I wonder why Vercingetorix didn't just make a break for it with his entire force while he still had the chance. He did send out cavalry forays to disrupt the Roman wall building but met with only intermittent success. He probably convinced himself that Caesar's wall around his town was part of his own greater plan. He had Caesar where he wanted him Monty Python style. He could be forgiven for thinking Caesar was digging his own grave for what was to come later. Who wouldn't think they could handle a siege for long enough until the Gallic relief army arrived?

   Caesar writes in his Conquest of Gaul of how a few weeks into the siege the women and children were chucked out of Alesia so food could be saved for the warriors. In search of food they approached the Roman fortifications looking for mercy and safe passage to the outside. Caesar ordered his men to reject any claim no matter how tragic. He was seriously pissed off now. Alesia was to be the example to all future enemies that everyone gets to die without mercy when you don't do what Rome says. This was pretty hardcore because soon the ground outside Alesia and within Caesar's circumvallation started filling up with starving people and the child corpses began stacking, smelling like death and getting picked apart by birds. None of this can have been very good for Gallic morale.

   Caesar was feeling pretty good though and liking his chances of victory by this stage.

   During construction however, a few detachments of Vercingatorix's cavalry did manage to break through unfinished sections of the wall and make an escape to the hills. Something in Caesar noted these otherwise minor escapes. And I suppose that's what makes Caesar the military genius of the first century BC.  He knew those guys were off to tell all their friends that major shit was going down. Sure it was obvious. But in the heat of battle and the boredom of a siege sometimes it takes insight of a great commander to act on what you know. You err on the side of caution even if it's a major pain in the ass.

   So Caesar came up with a new idea sure to piss off any of his men who were hoping to chill for a while.

   "Contravallation". Google that too and you'll find Alesia all over again.

   Basically, it means building a whole new fucking wall, this time 15 miles long around the siege wall you just built that was 11 miles long. Caesar shits you not! He's so wary of that escaped cavalry and knowing the size of the potential army the Gauls could muster if they got their shit together, he decides it's the best plan. If that isn't one of the most daring actions in military history then I don't know what is. If shit is to go down, no matter how it pans out, Caesars army is safe in the middle. Right?

   Do the siegers become the sieged?

   Yes they do. Caesars hunch was spot on. A few weeks after that initial Gallic cavalry escape, just as Caesar's legions completed the second wall, a relief army of 250,000 angry Gauls appeared on the horizon. You read that right, two fifty not twenty five. From any rational point of view 60 thousand Romans are trapped between 80,000 Gauls in Alesia on one side and a 250,000 Gallic relief force on the other. Sure the numbers are probably skewed to hell by the time they make their way through the history books but one thing is for sure; Caesar was outnumbered big time!

   The first thing the relief army did was set up camp a mile or so away and assess the situation. Obviously, an attack was called for. Preferably a dual pronged attack, one emanating from Alesia itself and attacking the inner wall while a simultaneous attack on the outer wall was initiated by the relief force thus splitting the Roman Army. In early September this was tried with a cousin of Vercingetorix leading the relief army attack.

   The Gauls must have been a pretty fearsome sight charging the outer wall. They came equipped with ladders and sandbags, the latter to attempt to fill the trenches before the contravallation. However they were unsuccessful and after a day of fighting neither wall was breached by sundown. Still, Roman morale wasn't exactly high either. Food was being rationed by now among the legions and there were definite concerns as to how long this could go on. Personally, I'd be shitting myself and wishing I'd been born 2000 years in the future and reading about the siege on the Internet.

   The Gauls had another go the following day but this time at night. That would make the Roman artillery less of a factor since it's that much harder to accurately pick off men you can't see. The Romans were pressed hard. Caesar was forced to abandon some sections of the outer wall and it was only the quick action of the auxiliary cavalry that prevented shitloads of angry Gauls wreaking havoc inside the Roman camp. Meanwhile, Vercingetorix's men were held up trying to fill in the trenches before the inner wall, allowing Caesar to divert men to the more serious areas.

   The following day the relief force tried again, this time attacking a section of the wall that was particularly weak. This proved to be the Gauls last and best chance. Even Caesar's own writings convey the fact that he nearly shat himself. With Gauls poring through and pushing the Romans back, Caesar himself had to get his hands dirty. Seeing his men wavering he donned his bright red cloak and dived into the battle slashing like a lunatic (by his own account). Patton idolized him for this, a general who was willing to hack and slash alongside his own men.

   It must have been inspiring because Caesars men fought harder. Again though it was a rearguard cavalry action that saved the day for the Romans. After this most of the Gallic relief army said fuck this and went off home. Vercingetorix surrendered a few days later and was captured by the Romans. Caesar sent him to Rome in a cage, intending to parade him through the street at his triumph. This happened six years later. Must have been a rough stint in jail for those six years for Vercingetorix.

   Casualty figures are sketchy but the fact that the Gauls gave up means they were high. It is said that every Roman soldier got one Gallic slave as part of his booty. Centurions and commanders got more. So that's an impressive collection of prisoners to help you on that farm you get when you retire from the legion.

   After Vercingetorix's ignominious display as a trophy in Caesars triumphal parade in Rome he was executed in the customary way of captured leaders... tied to a pole and garroted by a twisting rope in front of a cheering crowd. One thing that's still true two thousand years later...

    Losing sucks.

    But it's how Caesar managed the win that blows my mind.

     

Caesar at Alesia: The ultimate Ancient Battle. (Part I)

   Someone asked me the other day:

  "What's your favorite ancient battle?"

    Nine times out of ten I'll say it's Caesar at Alesia. The sheer will Caesar displayed to pull off that victory blows my mind. It's like my war porn. It bypasses reason and goes straight to the reptilian brain and sets up camp there spitting out hormones and shit. Even the way that name rolls off the tongue makes me get all misty and secrete man tears. Kinda like Caesar himself when he wept staring at Alexander's statue in Spain. Caesar was 54 and cried because Alexander had captured all he had by 29. That's bad ass ambition right there. If that was the seminal moment that sparked Caesar's conquest of Gaul, in pursuit of the long dead but younger Alexander's military legacy, well he sure as shit bit off as much as he could possibly chew when he laid siege to the town and hill fort of Alesia in 52 BC.

   Alesia is the most awesome battle in military history. Certainly as far as ancient war goes anyway. I mean, usually I'm big on modern battles with tanks, air superiority, cool blitzkrieg moves and all that fun stuff. But since my dream war never actually happened, you know, that Fulda Gap NATO versus Warsaw Pact 80s slug fest on sap green European terrain; the three million tank rush into West Germany that never happened. And, I suppose, thank dog it never did happen because I wouldn't be here today writing about it if it had. I'd be too busy bashing in my neighbor's brain with my improvised club for his non irradiated water in that hypothetical 'sticks and stones WW IV' that Einstein warned about.

   Still, ancient war has a lot of cool things going for it. Especially Roman warfare. The 1st century BC Romans were a lot like 1941 era Germans; scary bastards with the best army on earth, novel tactics and loads of cool equipment. In the Roman case we're talking siege equipment that nobody else had, ballistas, scorpios and onagers. Caesar had a whole baggage train of this advanced tech with him by the time he rolled up on Alesia.

   The Romans themselves were shorter men than their Gallic enemies, squat and tan and decidedly Mediterranean on the cold damp foreign terrain of northern Europe. Kinda like Sylvester Stallone versus Brian Dennehy's men in First Blood. The Gauls were tribal Iron Age mad fucks with large Cro Magnon skulls, long hairs who wore bear skins and wielded battle axes and broadswords with their testicles hanging out. They were pretty fearsome but Roman discipline was key and their tight formations meant the Romans could defeat superior numbers of these lunatic alcohol frenzied Gauls who tended to charge in waving their dicks instead of using their brains. You know, the type of French dudes that might have been more useful in the Ardennes in 1940.

   Caesar was an interesting character himself. Thousands of history books will confirm that. But anyone who's read his memoir and his own account in his Conquest of Gaul will know that he refers to himself constantly in the third person in his own book. Ballsy style. "So what if I come off like a self righteous asshole," he seems to say to history. It's like he knew there'd be centuries of people jizzing on his badassery for years to come:

"he raised a rampart and wall twelve feet high; to this he added a parapet and battlements, with large stakes cut like stags' horns, projecting from the junction of the parapet and battlements, to prevent the enemy from scaling it, and surrounded the entire work with turrets, which were eighty feet distant from one another."

   That's Caesar talking about himself ordering his men to build the greatest logistical work of all time at Alesia. When you read about Alesia, it makes you realize that every Roman soldier was automatically a carpenter by default. Their ability to build was unparalleled. Antlike hive mind determination. It also makes you wonder why 10 years after 9/11 ground zero is still a construction site. If Caesar were running the US today those twin towers would have been rebuilt a year after they'd collapsed, ten stories higher than the tallest building on earth and with a 1000 square foot "fuck you" banner fluttering in high winds above New York City. That's just how Caesar rolled and an example of how badly modern leaders suck.

   But let's set the scene for this historical battle.

   Caesar invaded Gaul when the Romans only owned the Italian peninsula, Greece and a chunk of Spain. Caesar was a hungry general. He was the kind of guy you could get behind if you were a young man in 55 BC. Joining his army if you were a plebeian who could handle himself in a scrap was a seriously cool career choice for a young man. It seriously beats working in some grey cubicle in some call center or fast food job today. Caesar was successful because all of his soldiers stood to make some serious bank if they could deliver victory. Incentive. Unity of purpose. Comradery. Shit you just don't get in the modern office environment.

   And lets face it, marching into enemy territory as part of a large unified group of your peers with a high possibility of significant reward and a secured retirement of land in Italy when you retire after 20 years of service is a pretty good deal. Sure, you might die, but hell it's better than the paltry college education the US military doles out to kids today. Degrees these days are about as valuable as 'yes I can do the jerb" written on a piece of toilet paper. I'll take that spoil money from Gaul and a farm when I'm forty any day over a scribble that says I can push pencils.

   As he invaded Gaul, Caesar would grab territory by force if necessary but by diplomacy preferably. You see we're dealing here with a world before nation states. Kinda like the native American tribes in the 18th century. Gaul was ripe for the taking by the Roman legions just the way the New World was by the Europeans and the money to be made in the process was legendary.

   The usual practice was to war in the spring and summer and then as winter closed in fortify your army in a stronghold (having made sure you'd secured adequate grain supply for winter). Caesar would then head back to Rome and start greasing palms with all that newly acquired bank, buying public support via exposure, subsidies and sponsored games. Kinda like a one man Fox News of the ancient world.

   Alesia proved different.

   The Roman encroachment of Gaul had been going on for years by now and the Gauls were beginning to realize that Caesar's divide and conquer tactics and their own failure to unify as a single entity of Gauls against the Romans was their collective downfall. What they needed was to coalesce behind a charismatic and unifying leader. The Gauls needed someone to step up to the plate who the various Gallic tribes could agree to get behind.

  And then Vercingetorix appeared on deck.

  The modern French still get as misty eyed over this guy as if you'd airdropped a million onions into the room. He's the French hero of antiquity, he who stood up to the tyranny of the Roman invasion. It'd be analogous to how the native Americans would have worshipped Geronimo if they'd ever had the hypothetical independent states they might have owned if they hadn't been overwhelmed by greedy invaders and reduced today to harvesting the stupidity of people who think they can walk away from a casino with a net profit.

   The French love Vercingetorix. He was the charismatic leader of the Averni tribe and once the Gaulish tribes were united behind his leadership, they could field some serious infantry. We are talking hundreds of thousands of seriously pissed off angry drunk guys united under a single banner. The Roman legions under Caesar were at most a forty thousand strong force.

  Vercingetorix noticed how Caesar would leave every winter for Rome with his army holed up in a stronghold. He decided on a new tactic in 52 BC. It was going to be a scorched earth campaign. Vercingetorix might me the first recorded commander in history to realize that time proven valid military tactic that has lasted all the way to modernity. Burn those fields behind you as you retreat! The Russians knew this very well in 1812 and 1942. Destroy that grain supply behind you as you run like a bitch.

   Suddenly, Caesar had to interrupt his political intrigues in Rome. Shit had suddenly got real in Gaul. A challenger had arrived. Caesar raced back to his legions, using multiple horses like Maximus in Gladiator. When a challenger appears, you need to get on that shit fast lest the idea spread too far and all that gold and land your army has acquired begins to crumble.

   That's the beauty and terror of warfare and human conflict.

   A single action can be so decisive. A single victory on a single day due to multiple random circumstances and incorporating shitloads of luck, can echo down across history for thousands of years. Wow, it's the thought that makes me fall into a philosophical reverie and makes me go out and look at the stars. The temporary nature of this existence. What men have done in the past and how cheaply they sacrificed their lives in search of an acre of land. Here's me, alone in the dark at my computer, wondering what it would have been like to be part of Caesar's army at Alesia as opposed to being a lazy armchair general munching pretzels and downing beer.

  Caesar is concerned but not intimidated. ( According to his own account obviously). Caesar knows that the hill town fort of Alesia is critical. He knows that the capture of this town is a simple route to breaking the Gauls. It's kind of like one of those battles in history where you always wonder what if? If Bastogne had fallen to the Germans in '44, would the Tigers and Panthers have made it to the Belgian coast and captured those oil reserves and ports like Hitler planned? If Vercingetorix had managed to wipe out Caesar's legions, would the Roman Empire have risen as it did to encompass most of Europe and North Africa?

    "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there".

     Alesia was the last stand the Gauls had to make.

     The greatest siege in history must now happen!

(Part II here)