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In the year 9 d. C., almost twenty-five thousand Romans were massacred by Germanic tribes in a battle after being tricked into a dagger. Those who did not die immediately were sacrificed to Germanic deities amid bloody religious rituals. The loss of the troops was a great loss for the empire, Rome was shocked by the humiliating defeat, not so by the Germans, who had long been a battle for one of their symbols of independence. Then, in the 19th century, a great cult developed around the victor of Teutoburg, from which the French could not stay out, even if they were not there.
Photo: UniversalImagesGroup / Getty
After that, however, they were really there, and Germany became their main opponent in Europe, a kind of mummy nation that must always be feared. It is no coincidence that the Maginot Line on the Franco-German border, which was almost useless from a defense point of view, was built later.
However, the story does not start here, but a good few centuries earlier, when the Roman Empire was still very bloated and wanted to conquer areas beyond the Rhine, all the way to the Elbe. But there were thousands of potholes, because there were many Germanic tribes settled between the two mighty rivers. Although there were attempts at conquest, the Roman insignia were also removed from the Germanic territories, but a great massacre, known in historical science as the Varus disaster, stopped everything.
The impact was huge on Rome, and Emperor Augustus was so eager to get rid of the surrounding Germans that he even disbanded his bodyguard called the custodis corporis, as the body consisted mainly of Germans.
They defeat the legions who thought they were invincible.
In Germany, an area strewn with dense forests and swamps, and difficult to rule precisely on these grounds, the Roman legions were defeated to such an extent that for many years no trace of battle was found. The Roman figures of the three legions defeated there (XVII, XVIII, XIX) were definitively removed to remember forever the tragic events from the Roman point of view. Only six years after the battle the remains of the dead were discovered in what is now Germany. Germanicus, the son of Tiberius, led an expedition at this time, and only then were the bones of the dead buried. According to the descriptions, the forest was covered with bones everywhere and the skulls nailed in the trees indicated horrific events.
However, what happened on those fateful days?
Publius Quinctilius Varus led armies to Germany in a series of August-era campaigns to ease the escalation of the warfare situation on the frontier and to annex new territories to the empire. The blinks began as the Germanic tribes began to slowly scroll across the map from the direction of the Baltic. Initially, the Romans used the previously successful principle of “divide and conquer” to restrain tribes that were in conflict with each other. They favored one and the other, depending on whom to support to maintain balance.
Civil wars thus came to the end of the empire for a long time, with little investment in energy, and they were able to maintain peace on the borders at the cost of few Roman sacrifices. Then, from one moment to the next, the policy that had been successfully woven up to then went bankrupt. In addition, something came to say that a Roman had just put an end to the series of successes.
The winner, who was also Roman, but mostly not
The Herussian leader Arminius (German: Hermann) received a Roman education as a child, which was accompanied by military training and citizenship. He was a good soldier, he knew the tactics of the Romans, but unfortunately for the empire, his heart and desire for power attracted him more to his own tribe.
However, it was not only this knowledge and grounding that benefited Arminius from defeat.
According to contemporary descriptions, Varus despised the Germanic tribes, unprepared for such an oily joint action from them, but historians also consider Augustus to blame for the defeat, claiming that he sent ill-equipped legions to the area.
Meanwhile, Arminius recites a tale and Varus trusted a soldier who had been faithful to Rome.
Arminius seemed to be calling the Roman legions to the German-inhabited area to use their help to quell resistance even to its very core and to deal a final blow to the tribes preparing for war against the empire. The Herus, however, was more rubbed than this and shuffled the cards much better than the Romans out of habit thought. Because he himself moved to Germany, and he himself incited the Germanic tribes against Rome.
Marching through difficult terrain, the legionnaires, penetrating the dense forest, found it difficult to move in heavy equipment, while the Germans constantly crushed them and, zigzagging rapidly between them, weary them. The Romans could only move slowly, constantly watching the attacks from all sides. Due to the environmental conditions, it was unlikely that they would be able to do open-helmet fighting in accordance with the Roman fighting style. It would have been difficult, because the Germans had built barricades along the road long before the battle, and the Romans had been constantly guided to do so.
The individual squads were continuously separated, and then the remnants of the legions were completely fenced off to kill them almost to the last man. The brutality is well demonstrated by the fact that archaeologists have also found helmets at the site that have been deformed almost to the point of being recognized.
Varus, the leader of the Imperial armies, saw the outcome of the battle and committed suicide, and Arminius sent his severed head to the Markomanns. In the great work of the Roman historian Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars, he describes the event in such a way that the Emperor Augustus, after learning of the events, shouted with his head:
Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!
The news of the defeat affected Augustus greatly, the pain was so great that, from then on, every year a dark day of mourning was celebrated to commemorate the tragic events.
The meaning of victory
Although historians share the assessment of the battle, several point out that Arminius cannot be called a great unifier, as he managed to amass only five tribes in unity to the point of a battle, and was later assassinated by his political opponents as that his power grew. Also, the Romans won battles in the area a few years after the battle. Hermann’s figure is further elevated by German romanticism, seen in the 19th century as the center of study for the first attempt at unification of fragmented Germany. It was not yet known at the time that Germany would have such a great career and would become one of the strongest states in Europe at the time of national awakenings. Perhaps that is why it is placed, a little more than its historical significance, in the center of attention on the pages of history books. This is the event by which the early history of Germany can be put into context.
On the other hand, it is an undeniable fact that the right bank of the Rhine was never annexed to the Roman Empire, and the Germanic tribes were able to live more freely than other peoples, even if other factors played a role in this besides the Teutoburg victory. Defeat, on the other hand, contributed to the development of Augustus’ policy, recognizing that expansion was not infinite and that certain limits were needed for future conquests.
A German national hero who threatens the former enemy towards France.
Due to Hermann’s unifying image, the memory of the battle has survived in almost every branch of art and is still evoked in ever newer ways – most recently in the Netflix series The Barbarians, for example. It also inspired video game makers; the Total war series Within the framework of it we can also experience the images of the incursion and massacre, in addition, here we can even defeat the Germanic tribes. Unlike Varus, within the game we have the opportunity to advance the game time indefinitely, and we can even see from above from which directions the barbarians are attacking us.
A 17-18. In the sixteenth century countless novels and plays were born, centered on Hermann, who was capable of what no one had done until then: he had united the Germans. Then only Hitler will have a problem with the national hero’s legacy due to the betrayal of the empire, as he himself stubbornly built a great empire like that of Rome. But he didn’t want to kill him, they preferred to listen to him.
However, there is no doubt that one of the most spectacular works in the long line that raised the battle to a pedestal is the so-called Hermann Monument, which was built between 1838 and 1875 in an area close to the battle in Germany.
The history of the monument’s construction is permeated with concentrated nationalism and is also densely woven into the history of the 19th century, especially the idea of German unity. The basic idea also came to light when the form of the unification of the German principalities and kingdoms was constantly on the agenda. Two great powers, the Prussians and the Habsburgs, joined the leadership of the future German Empire. Ultimately, the Kingdom of Prussia triumphed, defeating those who stood in the way of unity, a union created to the liking of the Prussians, in three great battles.
Photo: Winter view of the Hermann monument
First, in a war also known as the Trianon of the Danes, the kingdom’s borders were pushed north, a humiliating defeat was inflicted on the Habsburg Empire at Königgrätz, followed by the unit’s greatest opponent, France. German armies advanced to Paris and then proclaimed a unified German Empire at Versailles.
Construction of the monument began when they were still daydreaming of a united Germany, to at least spiritually merge the separate German principalities with their greatness and symbolism. When he finished, he had already remembered the great victory he had won over the French. That is why Hermann’s sword threatens France.
(Top image: Victorious Germans returning home after the Battle of Teutoburg. Photo: Bildagentur-online / Universal Images Group via Getty)
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