CHAPTER VI
CAESAR’S FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN
Caesar obliged to secure his rear before invading Britain.
Before Caesar could venture to undertake so difficult an enterprise as the invasion of Britain, it was necessary for him to secure the country in his rear. His first two campaigns had been directed against enemies who were as dangerous to Gaul as to Rome. Cavalry levied from friendly Gallic tribes fought side by side with the Roman legions against the Helvetii and against Ariovistus: after the defeat of the Helvetii envoys came from all the tribes of Central and Eastern Gaul to congratulate the victor; and after the defeat of Ariovistus the legions took up their quarters for the winter in Gallic territory without resistance. There was probably not a single tribe in which Caesar had not opponents: but the prestige of Rome and of his own victories, the factious spirit and the intertribal jealousies of the Gauls, and above all the sagacity with which he played off party against party, and selected the chiefs who, for their own purposes, were able and willing to serve him, prevented open opposition. Thus, although the seeds of future troubles were even then germinating, he could safely use Celtican Gaul as his base of operations when he crossed the Marne in the following year to encounter the Belgae. The series of victories which he gained in this campaign intimidated his opponents for the time and increased his renown, but had little effect upon the remote maritime tribe of the Morini, on whose coast was the harbour from which he must sail.
He contemplated invasion as early as 56 B.C.
Caesar’s first mention of Britain occurs in the chapter that follows his narrative of the operations by which he destroyed the invading hordes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, crossed the Rhine, and chastised the tribe which had given an asylum to their fugitives:—‘Only a small part of the summer remained; and in these parts, the whole of Gaul having a northerly trend, winter sets in early: nevertheless 56 B.C. Caesar made active preparations for an expedition to Britain; for he knew that in almost all the operations in Gaul our enemies had been reinforced from that country.’[1279] But even if we had not Strabo’s explicit statement, it would be unnecessary to argue that Caesar could not have undertaken so momentous an enterprise upon the spur of the moment. Strabo says that the Veneti, who in 56 B.C. formed a coalition of the maritime tribes of North-Western and Northern Gaul against Caesar, made war upon him because they were determined to prevent him from invading Britain, the trade with which was in their hands.[1280] The statement is intrinsically probable, and is supported by facts for which we have the authority of Caesar himself. The alliance which the Veneti headed included almost all the maritime tribes between the Loire and the Rhine; and auxiliaries actually came from Britain to join them. It is not credible that the Britons would have crossed the widest part of the Channel, or that the Morini, whose country lay between the Somme and the Scheldt, and the Menapii, whose seaboard reached the Rhine, would have supported the remote Veneti, if they had not had reason to believe that their own interests were imperilled. Moreover, Caesar tells us that among the ships which he assembled for the invasion of Britain were galleys which he had used in the naval action with the Veneti. This action took place off the coast of the Morbihan, the nearest harbour to which was in the estuary of the Loire;[1281] and it is needless to argue that the galleys were not there when Caesar sent for them. If only ‘a small part of the summer’ remained when he began to prepare for the invasion, there was no time for his messengers to travel from the neighbourhood of Coblenz, where he had crossed and recrossed the Rhine, to the mouth of the Loire, or for the galleys to make the voyage of six hundred miles from the Loire to the north-eastern coast of Gaul. When Caesar’s messengers set out, the galleys must have been within a short distance of the port from which he set sail,—probably in the mouth Campaign against the Veneti necessary in order to secure command of the Channel. of the Seine or of the Somme. The war which he waged against the Veneti was a necessary prelude to the invasion of Britain. For he could not safely embark his army unless he had command of the Channel; and at the time when he planned the invasion the masters of the Channel were the Veneti. They had a powerful fleet of large vessels, the model of which had, we may suppose, been originally borrowed from that of the merchantmen of the Carthaginians, whose commerce in the Atlantic and in British waters they had inherited. This fleet enabled them to close the ports not only of their own territory in Western Brittany, but also of the western seaboard at least of Northern Gaul; and no one was permitted to use those ports except on condition of paying them toll.
57 B.C.
But Caesar attempted to gain his object without fighting. After his campaign against the Belgae he sent the 7th legion under Publius Crassus, the younger son of the wealthy triumvir, to winter in the valley of the lower Loire; and all the tribes of Brittany submitted to him and gave him hostages. It was probably about this time that Crassus made his celebrated voyage to the tin-producing districts of Cornwall;[1282] and it seems not unreasonable to conjecture that it was the news of his mission which gave the alarm to the Veneti. They arrested two officers whom he had sent to make a requisition of corn: the other maritime tribes of Brittany and Normandy threw in their lot with them; and an embassy was sent to Crassus to demand the restoration of the hostages. Messengers were promptly dispatched to inform Caesar, who had gone to Illyricum. He sent orders to Crassus to have a fleet of war-galleys built in the estuary 56 B.C. of the Loire, to summon oarsmen from the Roman Province of Southern Gaul, and to impress seamen and pilots. Meanwhile the Veneti were engaging fresh allies, and reinforcements were hastening from Britain to join them. The allied fleet was speedily assembled on the coast of the Morbihan. Caesar hurried back to join his army, and on his arrival made all the necessary dispositions for preventing the spread of the insurrectionary movement. Crassus was dispatched southward into the country of the Aquitani, from whom, it is true, little danger was to be expected: another general, Titurius Sabinus, was sent northward into the peninsula of the Cotentin, to prevent the tribes of Northern Brittany and Western Normandy from joining the Veneti; and Labienus, Caesar’s most capable lieutenant, marched eastward through the heart of Gaul to the neighbourhood of Treves, with orders to watch the Belgae and repel the German tribes, who were believed to be in communication with the Gauls, in case they attempted to cross the Rhine. Labienus appears to have had little trouble; but Crassus and Sabinus encountered and defeated their respective enemies. Caesar himself invaded Venetia, and entrusted Decimus Brutus with the command of his fleet. During a great part of the summer Brutus was detained in the mouth of the Loire by stormy weather; and Caesar spent the time in endeavouring to reduce the strongholds on the Venetian coast. These operations were fruitless; but on the first fine day the struggle was brought to an issue. The decisive battle was fought in Quiberon Bay.[1283] The allied fleet numbered two hundred and twenty sail, while the Roman galleys were reinforced by ships lent by friendly tribes who inhabited the maritime districts south of the Loire. The ships of the Veneti and their allies were so heavy and so stoutly built that it would have been useless for the galleys to attempt to ram them; and they stood so high out of the water that the legionaries were unable to throw missiles with effect. But the Roman engineers came to the rescue as they had done in the First Punic War. Long poles had been prepared, armed at one end with sharp-edged hooks. The galleys swifter and more mobile than the Gallic ships, which had no oars.[1284] When the fleets approached each other, two or more galleys ran alongside one of the enemy’s ships; and the halyards were seized by the hooks. Instantly the rowers pulled away: the halyards snapped, and yards and sails fell down, leaving the helpless hulk to be boarded by the legionaries. ‘Thenceforward,’ wrote Caesar, ‘the fight turned upon valour, in which our soldiers easily had the advantage.’[1285] When several ships had been captured, the Veneti abandoned the fight and made haste to escape. But their ships had hardly been put before the wind when they were becalmed; and the galleys, running swiftly in and out among them, captured them one after another, all but a few which contrived to reach land when darkness fell.
