Could the Celts have won?

[Zeke]

Vercengetorix the great Gallic commander of a Celtic Uprising in Gaul during 54 B.C. Let me give you a breif history for over 5 years the Romans had counqerd and held control over most of Gaul. Julis Ceaser was un-beatable and had even done an invasion of Britian! But out of the center of Gaul came a young Aladuibulani nobel (that tribe name is a little off) Vercengetroix. With amazing skill he wielded together a strong army of Celtic Warriors from almost every major tribe in Gaul. With Iron disiplen within about three months he had 80,000 Warriors. Ceaser heard of the uprising and came back into Gaul uniting his scattered Legions and attacking one rebelliong Celtic town after anthor, Vercengetorix although a poor tacitian and stragest was a strong leader who issued a scorach earth policy nothing was left to feed the Roman horeses and slowly the Romans began to starve. However most Celtic towns fell....still Vercengetorix was an inspring leader and repulsed Ceaser's assult on his capital city of Gergovia. He made a foolsih mistake however he sent a group of Calvary which attack a Roman collum the Romans beat it so bad that it forced thousands of Celts to retreat back to the great fortress of Alesia. Vercengetrix was trapped with 80,000 mouths to feed. He first sent the horeses then the citizens of the town out while Ceaser built his fortfications. Ceaser surrounded the fortress and began a long 7 month seige. Just before Ceaser had closed up his fotifications however Vercengetorix had sent out riders to ger more help from other tribes. The Celts united and came back with over 250,000 men! That was Ceaser's estiment in reality there were only about 50,000 to 100,000 Celts at the max plus an additional 80,000 in Alesia. VS Ceaser's 45,000 men with around 5,000 German Mercenary Calvary. If Vercengetroix had waited and not attacked he could have in turned starved Ceaster now surround by Celts on the outside. The Celts however attacked in foul rainy weather in un cordinated and random out bursts of attack. After several desprate un strategic attacks the Celts made one final massive assult on all sides in my view if they had made on cordinated attack on just one area they could have acheived a break through and would have gotten supplies to Vercngetorix dooming Ceaser and the Roman world.

 

Sadly however that big assult failed and Vercengetorix surrender two days latter. He was latter strangled in Rome after being led through the streets in chains.

 

So here is my question to you......

 

Could Vercengetorix could have won if he had better cercomstances like not raining and muddy ground? Could he have won if he had better wheapons and food

could he have one if the Celts pulled off some stregy and beat Ceaser at his own game

or would Ceaser have won anyway because he was un beatable???

Log you answear then say what you think of the great seige of Alesia

[Zeke]

sorry just choose on of the poll questions when it comes to stradgy the top one I made a mistake I said the Stragy choice two times

Zele

[Primus Pilus]

Edited poll, removing the repeated question, hehe.

 

And yes, I'm partial to the abilities of Caesar

[Viggen]

The question remains, if the Celts had a chance, what would it imply?

 

A surprise upraising in the east by the germanics, or even further in the east "Middle East" that would have caused to abandoned his campaign?

[Demson]

I wonder - where those 180,000 Celts warriors real fighters or just farmers with weapons? If the latter is true - the Roman legionaires would probably have won anyway. Remember that they were battle-hardened veterans who knew how to deal with the tension of combat. If you haven't ever fought with weapons before, you have a serious disdvantage. Especially at the scale of Alesia.

 

At 180 AD - the heyday of the Celts were over. The Celtic traditinal society was stumbling when the conflict with the Romans arose. I'm not sure how the Celts would have ended up even if they weren't conquered by the Roman legions.

 

That said - although allot of credit can be given to Caeser... He also ran into a lot of luck. It wasn't just his capabilities.

 

If Vercengetorix was more strategically and tactically minded, the Celts would have had a better chance.

 

If it wasn't for Caesar - I don't think the Romans could have made it that far.

 

But that's easy to say now, isn't it? I mean - dimensional martians could have popped up and blown everybody to oblivian. It was a possibility, right?

 

Fact is - the Romans owned the Celts. Even if it was marginal

 

BTW - I'm going for 'a better strategy'. If the Celts had the better strategy, they of course would have won

[kama]

im possible to answer. there are an infinate amount of "what if's" for wars.

[Zeke]

So I guess Ceaser was a Geneius.....But that would be a good Alternative History book...........What if the Celts had won? What would the world be like today?

[Viggen]

I think that is impossible to say, but just for fun i would argue not much would have changed..

 

The germanics tribes would have done eventually what they did later one, dominate the area and become the leading force in Gallia...

 

cheers

viggen

[pompeius magnus]

To answer the question about if the celts could have won if the circumstances were different and I think no. Vercenitorix was too overconfident about his massive numbers and a lot of strategy was not used because of this. Caesar was a master strategist and created new means of siege warfar that were revolutionary. As a general Caesar was unbeatable, even though he did have some close calls and yes gnaeus pompeius magnus did manage a slight victory over caesar, but it was after a long march by caesars legions. Granted though Caesar did have the goddess Fortuna on his side, so he believes, and that, in the eyes of romans, was a major reason for Caesars success.

[dnewhous]

A defeat might have done Roman history a lot of good. Wasn't it Caesar's decision (as Governor of Gaul) to conquer Gaul? Didn't the senate kind of not like the idea? Only this is a time in history when going out and conquering people just because you can made you very popular with the masses, at least the masses in your home country.

 

Losing 45000 men might have set the Romans back for a long time in Europe but it wouldn't have devastated them. It wasn't like the waning years of the empire when losing 20000 men to the Goths left the empire defenseless.

[P.Clodius]

No. Vercingetorix did not understand the Roman way of war in that once he had descided to make a static defense as opposed to mobile he sealed his fate. He didn't appreciate the fact that the Romans were the undisputed masters of siege warfare. The Roman victories in the late republic/early empire could be attributed as much to the use of the shovel as the sword. See Sulla's campaigns in Greece, Mark Antony's of Mutina and Phillipi, and Titus' Jerusalem.

[Valens]

No. Vercingetorix did not understand the Roman way of war in that once he had descided to make a static defense as opposed to mobile he sealed his fate. He didn't appreciate the fact that the Romans were the undisputed masters of siege warfare. The Roman victories in the late republic/early empire could be attributed as much to the use of the shovel as the sword. See Sulla's campaigns in Greece, Mark Antony's of Mutina and Phillipi, and Titus' Jerusalem.

Or Scipio Aemilianus' in Spain.

[Legate of XVPrimigenia]

It was close but the true fact is even if the Helvetii and other tribes had joined i personally dont think that it was physically possible for Julius to lose this one.

[Felix Marcellus]

Vercingetorix was having great success against Caesar when he was using a Fabian strategy. Had he continued on that course he may very well have prolonged the fighting indefinitely. When he chose to go to Alesia he sealed his fate. Once there, he could've done nothing short of inventing 60mm mortars, M16's, Hand Grenades, Claymore Mines and Apache's in order to break out. And I don't think Vercingetorix was that much of a genius to invent that kind of military hardware.

[Tobias]

I wouldn't agree that Verciongetorix was having great success against Caesar. Basically all he managed to do was stop him taking Gergorvia. He underestimated far to much, and overestimated the advantage of numbers. The debarcle at Avaricum was proof of this. One of his chiefs reasoned that Avaricum couldn't fall, and thus it didn't have to follow Vercingetorix's scorched earth policy. What did Caesar do? He made a siege terrace, and took the city. Large amounts of food and supplies fell into Caesar's hands, and Vercingetorix was taken aback.

Another of Vercingetorix's policies was to not allow his men to be shut up in their oppida, and what did he do? He got himself trapped in Alesia, again assured that Caesar could not take it. And it was taken. Vercingetorix would have lost at any rate, if not at Alesia then somewhere else, if only because of his inexperience and underestimating.