Is it true that the Celts and Germans mindlessly charged the Roman lines in the hope of overwhelming with number or did they have any decent tactics or equipment to rival the Romans?
Barbarian Warfare
Kayden Jackson
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William Johnson
No it is patently untrue and more likely formed by Hollywood influence, or the idea that all Celts fought like in the battle of Watling street, where indeed there they were a disorganized army.
Celts, and especially the Gauls fought with battle tactics and gave the Romans a run for their money a number of times like in the battle for Gergovia. The prevalence of cavalry also influenced the Romans to use Auxilia cavalry units. The Picts of Scotland and the Celtiberians of northern spain also used guerilla tactics that incurred extremely high losses for the Romans.
Caesar himself knew that they way he won in Gaul was through "Divide et impera", the Romans during the first years fight one Gaulish tribe at a time and used Gallic allies to divide the rest. When faced with a confederation like that of Vercingetorix, things were very different, and the stakes much higher.
Parker Smith
Also to add to this about equipment, the average and tactics Gallic soldier did not have a uniformal equipment standard like the Roman citizen professional legionary. I would expect that the Gallic peasant levies fought in spear shield walls , while the nobility and the soldier caste had equipment nearly identical with the roman, and would have fought in phalanx formations, and would also have used Javelins.
Gallic swords and armour of the nobility especially were perhaps of greater quality than of the Romans, due to the better quality of steel and smithing the Gauls had.
Isaiah Phillips
But the Celts and the Gauls never really defeated the Romans in a war did they? I mean, sure they won stuff like the Battle of Teutoberg Forest, but such isolated victories were followed by extremely harsh, even genocidal, Roman retribution
Ethan Evans
maybe for the gauls, but im p sure the germans just did snownig tactics and guerilla warfare
Andrew King
en.wikipedia.org
Gauls was not like germany. Celts were more civilised with big city and road and far less forst than germany. So it was a more difficult thing to defend themself against rome.
Xavier Nelson
Read De Bello Gallico my man or watch this excellent "Caesar in Gaul youtube videos on it:
youtube.com
Yes they never won major victories because by the time of vercingetorix the Romans already had supply trains, legions stationed in Gallic territory and Gallic allies supporting them. It wasn't only battle tactics which won the day for Caesar , these were less important because the Roman army at the time with superior discipline, engineering technology and skills, was like a well oiled war machine and even had an officers corps that could direct a fight independently of a general. It is the overall strategy of the Romans and Caesar (who arguably was a by the book general) that enabled them to conquer vast swathes of lands.
I don't know much about Germanic fighting tactics, but it seems to me that at least before the migration period era they were kind of unsophisticated though they did take great advantage of the forested environment and using raids on Roman settlements to disrupt Roman lines. The Germans used both guerilla tactics and fast attacks undefended Roman positions to do as much damage as possible, they rarely defeated the Romans in pitched battles, and that was mostly due Roman incompetence or civil strife.
Blake Richardson
>Yes they never won major victories because by the time of vercingetorix the Romans already had supply trains, legions stationed in Gallic territory and Gallic allies supporting them. It wasn't only battle tactics which won the day for Caesar , these were less important because the Roman army at the time with superior discipline, engineering technology and skills, was like a well oiled war machine and even had an officers corps that could direct a fight independently of a general. It is the overall strategy of the Romans and Caesar (who arguably was a by the book general) that enabled them to conquer vast swathes of lands.
Appreciate the detailed answer, but doesn't this just prove OP's point that the tribes didn't have much in the way of tactics, strategy and logistics? Could you give some examples in case you disagree?
Wyatt Clark
hes referring to the strategic aspect of warfare, logistics, transporting things vast distances and such, OP is talking more on a tactical scale
Andrew Russell
>youtube.com
This is fucking awesome, you got any more awesome youtube channels to share? I'm particularly looking for history of Japan, Berbers, Mezoamerica, Central Asia, Iran, and ancient Europe.