Читать книгу The Great Hollenberg Saga - Heinz Niederste-Hollenberg - Страница 34

A few years would pass before Germanicus ordered around 14-16 AD another Roman army to the former battle field. He ordered 6 legions (twice the size of the Varus force) into the area to restore Roman military honour, to pursue the Germanic tribes still under the leadership of Arminius, and to bury the human remains of the earlier battle.

However, the whole campaign did not give him the upper hand over his enemies.

Germanicus was no match for the agile tactics of his opponent Arminius in any of the numerous skirmishes.

After several bloody clashes, he decided to withdraw to the Rhine-Valley.

Towards the end of 16 AD, the new Emperor Tiberius recalled Germanicus. The fortifications of the “Limes” along the Rhine-Valley were to be the northern points of Roman military activities.

This all resulted in abdicating the plans of the Empire to conquer German territory, and instead created a milita-rized buffer zone, the “Limes”, between the Germanic and Latin cultures that lasted for about 2000 years. (fig.:#9)

The tremendous burden on the Treasury and the bloodshed on the northern frontier had been too much for the Empire.

The defeat was so catastrophic that it threatened the survival of Rome itself, halted the Empire’s conquest of Germany and set the course of history for Central Europe.

Just imagine the alternative: If the Romans had won, the Anglo-Saxons, being subdued, would have learned Latin and might not have gone to England a few hundred years later??

And imagine even further that descendents of those Anglo-Saxons turned up in 1607 AD in Jamestown to lay down the foundations for man’s most modern civilization.