During the succeeding winter the Belgæ again banded together, and the Veneti seized some Roman officers seeking corn (B.C. 56). This act Cæsar considered in the light of a revolt, and determined summarily to punish. The Veneti were a maritime people, living in what is now Brittany, whose strongholds could only be reached by sea. Cæsar’s attempts to attack them by land proved abortive, but his admiral, with a fleet built for the occasion, worsted the Venetan squadron, and Cæsar, with needless cruelty and distinct bad policy, put the Senate to death and sold the tribe into slavery. Cæsar was personally humane. These acts of extermination are the less pardonable. His lieutenants, meanwhile, had subdued a part of Aquitania. All Gaul, save only the tribes opposite the British coast, had, after a fashion, been reduced. This third year in Gaul redounds to Cæsar’s credit for the general scheme; to his lieutenants for the detailed campaigns.
The fourth year (B.C. 55) was tarnished by, perhaps, the most gigantic piece of cruelty ever charged to the score of civilized man. Two German tribes, the Usipetes and Tencheteri, had been crowded across the Rhine by the Suevi, the stoutest nation on the eastern bank. These people Cæsar proposed to chase back across the river. He marched against them, and was met by a suit for peace. Cæsar alleges treachery, on their part, in the negotiations, but his own version in the Commentaries does not sustain him. During what the barbarians deemed an armistice, Cæsar, by a rapid and unexpected march, fell upon them, and utterly destroyed the tribes, men, women, and children, whose number himself states at four hundred and thirty thousand souls. A few thousands escaped across the river. So indignant were even many of the citizens of Rome,—his political opponents, to be sure,—that Cato openly proposed to send Cæsar’s head to the few survivors in expiation. It is impossible to overlook, in Cæsar’s military character, these acts of unnecessary extermination.
Cæsar next made a campaign across the Rhine, for which purpose he built his celebrated bridge. It was a mere reconnoissance in force, of no strategic value or result. And the same must be said of his first expedition to Britain, which shortly followed. This was conducted with so few precautions, and so little knowledge of what he was actually about, that Cæsar was indebted to simple fortune that he ever returned to Gaul.
The second British expedition (B.C. 54), in which he encountered Casivelaunus, was better prepared and more extensive. But though these invasions of Britain and Germany show wonderful enterprise, they were of doubtful wisdom and absolutely no general military utility. Apart from the fact that they were unwarranted by the laws of nations, they were not required for the protection of the Province. “Cæsar observed rather than conquered Britain.”
During the succeeding winter Cæsar quartered his troops unwisely far apart, from scarcity of corn, and relying on the supposed subjection of the Gauls. This led to an uprising, the destruction of one legion and the jeopardizing of several others. The error of thus dispersing his forces was, to an extent, offset by Cæsar’s prodigious activity and brilliant courage in retrieving his error and succoring his endangered legions.
In the sixth campaign (B.C. 53), Cæsar again crossed the Rhine, with no greater result than added fame, and definitely subdued the tribes along the western borders of this stream. The work of this year was admirable in every way. At its expiration Cæsar, as usual, returned to Rome.
During his absence the chiefs of the Gallic tribes determined to make one more universal uprising, surround the legions, and, cutting Cæsar off from return, to destroy them. The leader of the movement was Vercingetorix, a young chief of exceptional ability, to whose standard flocked numberless warriors (B.C. 52). Notified of this danger, Cæsar hurried to the Province. He found himself in reality cut off from his legions, and without troops to fight his way through. He must divert the attention of Vercingetorix to enable him to reach his army. Raising a small force in the Province, he headed an expedition across the Cebenna Mountains, which had never yet been crossed in winter, into the land of the Arverni, which he devastated. Vercingetorix, astounded at his daring, marched to the rescue. No sooner had he arrived than Cæsar, with a small escort of picked cavalry, started for his legions, and, by riding night and day, faster than even news could travel, kept ahead of danger and reached them safe and sound. He at once opened a winter campaign, drew together the nearest of his legions and attacked Vercingetorix’s allies in his rear, capturing and pillaging town after town. The whole opening was a splendid piece of daring skill and brilliantly conceived.
Vercingetorix was by far the most able of Cæsar’s opponents in Gaul. He saw that in the open he could not match the Romans, and began a policy of small war and defensive manœuvres similar to what Fabius had practised against Hannibal. This greatly hampered Cæsar’s movements by cutting off his supplies. Cæsar took Avaricum; but the siege of Gergovia, which place he reached by cleverly stealing a passage over the Elaver, was not fortunate. The Gauls ably defended the town, while Vercingetorix aptly interfered with the Roman work; and by rousing to insurrection Cæsar’s allies, the Ædui, in his rear, he compelled the Romans to raise the siege. This was Cæsar’s sole failure in the Gallic campaigns. He returned to quell the uprising of the Ædui, on whose granaries he relied for corn, and was joined by the rest of the legions.
Shortly after this the pressure of the over-eager barbarians on Vercingetorix forced him to give up his sensible policy of small war. He attacked Cæsar in the open field, in an effort to cut him off from the Province, on which Cæsar, having regained his legions, now proposed to base. As always in such cases, discipline prevailed, and the Gauls suffered defeat; but Vercingetorix managed to withdraw without the usual massacre. Cæsar then sat down before Alesia, a town on holding which the barbarians had placed their last stake. Vercingetorix occupied it with eighty thousand men. Cæsar had fifty thousand legionaries, ten thousand Gallic horse, and perhaps ten thousand allies.
This siege is one of the most wonderful of antiquity. It equals Alexander’s siege of Tyre or Demetrius’ siege of Rhodes. The works Cæsar erected were marvellous in their extent and intricacy. So strong were his lines that even an army of relief of a quarter of a million men added to the garrison, was unable to break them. Alesia fell. Vercingetorix was surrendered to Cæsar and kept for exhibition in his triumph. Gaul never again rose en masse. By alternate generosity and severity, Cæsar completely reduced it to the Roman yoke.