Great Moments in Stupidity IV: The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
As you might recall from previous discussions, Murphy’s First law of Combat states that:
If your attack is going exactly according to plan, then you have walked into an ambush
Although there are probably at least two dozen different battles that fit this situation, the one with the most long-standing historical implications has been the total humiliation and ass-kicking of a defeat suffered by the Roman General Varus at the hands, feet, spears, swords, and stone axes of the “barbarian” army under the command of Arminius.
Arminius was one of those individuals who started out at the bottom of the social ladder and attained his social standing as a result of his own willpower. Captured by the Roman army in Gaul as a youth, he was sent to Rome as a slave where he earned both his freedom and Roman citizenship by hard work and diligent study. As a citizen, he was trained as a cavalry officer and was reported to be generally admired for his leadership skills as well as his bravery. In fact, Arminius was one of the few non-Romans by birth that rose to what we would now call the middle ranks of the officer corps. But, in retrospect, it seems that Arminius had what he considered a good reason to succeed: he hated the Romans with a passion that bordered on an obsession and was carefully biding his time until he was in a position to extract his revenge.
The opportunity for revenge presented itself when Arminius was in his early 20’s, when he found himself assigned as an aide to the Roman General and military governor of Gaul, Publius Quinctilius Varus. Since Arminius spoke the local dialects and was an accomplished military scout, it was only natural that Varus sought his advice and considered it in his military decision-making.
In the summer of the year 9 CE Varus was moving his army between a series of summer camps that had previously been established along the western side of the Rhine River when he received word, through Arminius, that several of the Germanic tribes were massing for an assault deep inside Roman territory. According to Arminius, if Varus could move south with both sufficient speed and troops, he would have an excellent chance of defeating the tribes and thus set the stage for something that not even the great Julius Caesar had been able to do, which would be to secure a foothold in the Germanic-speaking territory east of the Rhine.
What was unknown to Varus was that while it was true that the Germanic tribes were preparing an attack, the attack was to be against Varus and his army of 3 legions and a total of 6 cohorts of cavalry and auxiliary forces, a force estimated to have been some 30,000 men. The attack was to be in the form of an ambush that was being orchestrated in secret by Arminius during his numerous “scouting” trips in the region.
In spite of the dramatic license taken by screenwriters, authors, poets and others with something of a romantic taste over the years, the Roman army was most successful when fighting on its own terms. This meant that the Romans fought best in wide open, uncluttered spaces of hard ground that was capable of supporting the huge supply trains of food, equipment, battle wares and other things that made them into the powerhouse that controlled most of western Europe and a fair part of the Middle East. When Varus asked Arminius if it would be possible to move his army southward in time to attack these tribes, Arminius told him that it was indeed possible to do so because he (Arminius) knew of a shortcut that would lead through what is now known as the TeutoburgForest. This is not the type of terrain that would be chosen by a Roman commander but Varus, confident of his ability as a commander and trusting the word of the young Arminius, ordered his army into the forest; which was what Arminius had hoped that he would do.
Within days the normally orderly and efficient Roman army was stretched into a tortuous column several miles long with units that normally fought together being separated from each other by hours if not days. According to the few survivors of the battle, the Germans attacked with deadly vigor about one week into Varus’ march.
About all that is known of the battle is that it lasted for 3 days, with the Germans making swift strikes against isolated groups of Romans before retreating into the thick cover provided by the forest and attacking again. By the third day of the battle, Varus had committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner and all but a handful of the Roman legionaries had been killed. It is reported by the Roman historian Suetonius that the Emperor Augustus said “Varus! Give me back my legions!” over and over when he was informed of the results of the battle.
The defeat of Varus meant that no Roman army would attempt an invasion of Germanic territory again and that Rome would be content to stay on the west side of the Rhine if the Germans would stay to the east. The net result of this unofficial “truce” was that what is now would develop its culture and language under Roman influence while the Germanic language and tribal customs developed independently.
The French and the Germans would spend the better part of the next two millennia fighting each other, long after Rome had ceased to be a military power.
Analysis
This case demonstrates the principle of what the author has named the Principle of Temporal Amplification of Stupidity. This principle, in its simplest form, states that the effects of a stupid action do not decrease over time but instead are made more obvious over the period of time that has elapsed since the original act of stupidity. In the case at hand, the Germans won both the battle and the war and then spent almost the entire time since their victory rebuilding their cities after they have been reduced to rubble as a result of a war which they started in the first place.
There are, of course, other lessons to be learned. One of the most important lessons is that you should never trust information that is “verified” by someone other than your own staff, particularly if the source has been an enemy of yours in the past. Another important point that should be clear by now is that if you have to fight, you must always fight your own battle plans and not those of your enemy.
And never, ever, under any circumstances forget Murphy’s First Law of Combat: If your attack is going exactly according to plan, you have walked into an ambush. Does the name “Custer” ring a bell?
