GAUL
Cæsar’s object in Gaul was not merely to protect Roman interests. He needed war to further his schemes of centralization. On reaching the Province, as was called the territory at that time held by Rome in Gaul (B.C. 58), he encountered an armed migration of the Helvetii, moving from the Alps, by way of Geneva, towards the fertile lowlands. This was a dangerous threat to the Province, and, moreover, to attack this tribe would serve as initiation to Cæsar and his men. He commanded the Helvetii to return to their homes, which being refused, he first outwitted them in negotiations, until he assembled troops, followed, surprised, and attacked them while crossing the Arar, and annihilated a third of their force. Then following them up with a cautious inexperience, but, though making mistakes, with extraordinary foresight and skill, he finally, in the battle of Bibracte, after grave danger and against heroic resistance, utterly worsted them, and obliged the relics of the tribe to obey his mandate. Of the entire body, numbering three hundred and sixty-eight thousand souls, but one hundred and ten thousand lived to return home. Thus began what will always be a blot on Cæsar’s fame as a soldier,—his disregard for human life, however brave his enemies, however unnecessary its sacrifice. Alexander, on several occasions, devastated provinces. But in his case the military necessity was less doubtful; and the number of Alexander’s victims never rises to the awful sum of Cæsar’s, nor was the law of nations as definite in his day as it had become fifty years before the Christian era.
Cæsar next moved against Ariovistus, a German chief who was bringing numbers of his countrymen across the Rhine to seize the lands of the friendly Gauls. Cæsar saw that to conquer Gaul he must eliminate this migratory element from the problem; for the Germans would be pouring in on his flank during any advance he might make into the heart of the country. Moreover, Cæsar’s actions always sought to forward Cæsar’s plans; only as a second consideration to protect the Roman territory. To place Cæsar at the head of the Roman state would best serve the Commonwealth. War he must have, and anything would serve as casus belli. But, though far from faultless as a statesman, Cæsar grew to be all but faultless as a soldier, and his present military object, the conquest of Gaul, he carried out in the most brilliant and methodical manner.
Cæsar ordered Ariovistus to return across the Rhine. Ariovistus declined. Cæsar moved by forced marches against him. After a useless conference, Ariovistus, who was a man of marked native ability, made a handsome manœuvre around Cæsar’s flank, which the latter was not quick enough to check, and deliberately sat down on his line of communications. Cæsar was thunderstruck. He endeavored to lure Ariovistus to battle, as an outlet to the dilemma, for he was compromised. But Ariovistus was well satisfied with his position, to hold which would soon starve the Romans out. Cæsar, not unwilling to learn from even a barbarian, resorted, after these failures, to a similar manœuvre around Ariovistus’ flank, which he made with consummate skill, and regained his line of retreat. Then, having learned that the German soothsayers had presaged defeat, if Ariovistus should fight before the new moon, he forced a battle on the Germans, and, after a terrible contest, defeated them, destroyed substantially the whole tribe, and drove the few survivors across the Rhine.
Cæsar had shown the decision, activity, courage, and quickness of apprehension which were his birthright. But underlying these was a caution bred of lack of that self-reliance which in after years grew so marked. He made blunders which in later campaigns he would not have made, nor was he opposed to such forces as he later encountered. Ariovistus had no great preponderance over Cæsar’s fifty thousand men. One rather admires in this year’s campaigns the Helvetii and the Germans for their noble gallantry in facing Roman discipline and so nearly succeeding in their struggle.
Next year (B.C. 57) Cæsar conducted a campaign against the Belgæ, whose joint tribes had raised a force of three hundred and fifty thousand men. By prompt action and concessions he seduced one tribe from the coalition, and by a well-timed diversion into the land of another, weakened the aggressiveness of the latter. He had won a number of Gallic allies. Curiously enough, all his cavalry throughout the war was native, the Roman cavalry being neither numerous nor good. All told, he had some seventy thousand men.
The Belgæ attacked him at the River Axona, but by dexterous management Cæsar held his own, inflicted enormous losses on them, and finally, from lack of rations, they dispersed, thus enabling Cæsar to handle them in detail. Many gave in their submission; others were reduced by force; disunited they were weak.
The Nervii, however, surprised Cæsar at the River Sabis, from ambush, and came near to annihilating his army. He had forgotten Hannibal’s lesson of Lake Trasymene. Nothing but stubborn courage and admirable discipline—the knowledge, too, that defeat meant massacre—saved the day. Cæsar headed his legionaries with superb personal gallantry, and his narrow escape made him thereafter much more cautious on the march. Out of sixty thousand Nervii, barely five hundred were left when the battle ended. Their fighting had been heroic beyond words. Their defeat and the capture of a number of cities induced many tribes to submit to the inevitable.
The best praise of this splendid campaign is its own success. The energy, rapidity, clear-sightedness, and skill with which Cæsar divided, attacked in detail, and overcame the Belgian tribes with their enormous numbers, is a model for study. But he still committed serious errors, of which the careless march without proper scouting, which led to the surprise by the Nervii, was a notable example. He was not yet master of his art.