Читать книгу Men and Deeds - John Buchan - Страница 15

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The trouble began during the winter of 54, and, as was to be expected, among the Belgae. That winter Caesar tarried in the north, for the harvest had been bad and supplies were difficult, and he was compelled to distribute his army over a wide extent of country. His own headquarters were at Amiens; one legion, under Fabius, was among the Morini north of the Scheldt, one under Quintus Cicero among the Nervii at Charleroi, and one under Labienus among the Treveri near Sedan. One, consisting of Gallic recruits but strengthened by five veteran cohorts, was among the Eburones at Aduatuca, in the neighbourhood of Liège. Around him in the Amiens and Beauvais district he had three under Trebonius, Plancus, and the quaestor Marcus Crassus, whose younger brother Publius had now gone to Syria with his father.

The winter had scarcely begun and Caesar was still at Amiens when the plot which had been maturing during his absence in Britain revealed itself at Aduatuca. In command there were two officers, Sabinus and Aurunculeius Cotta, of whom the former was the senior. Ambiorix, the chief of the Eburones, attacked the entrenched camp, and, being beaten off, asked for a parley. Protesting that he had been driven against his desire into hostilities, he told a circumstantial tale of how all Gaul, with German support, was rising against the Romans, and urged the commanders to join hands at once with Caesar and Labienus, guaranteeing that they would not be attacked on the road. Caesar was a hundred and fifty miles off, and the nearest legion, Quintus Cicero’s at Charleroi, was forty-five miles away. Sabinus, with only 6000 men, most of them half-trained, fell into the trap. He set out at dawn, and found himself surrounded by the enemy. He and Cotta were slain, and a mere handful escaped to Labienus.

Ambiorix, swollen with victory, now persuaded the Nervii to attack Quintus Cicero. Cicero was in bad health, and the attack came as a complete surprise to him, but he was of different metal from Sabinus. He sent messengers to Caesar to report the situation, beat off the assault, and, in response to Ambiorix’s overtures, declared that Romans made no terms with an enemy in arms. Then began a desperate siege. All the stores and baggage were burned by the enemy’s fireballs, and presently nine men out of ten of the little force were dead or wounded. Meantime no word came from Caesar, and it was doubtful if any had reached him, for messenger after messenger was caught by the enemy and tortured to death under the Romans’ eyes.

But one got through. At last a javelin was found stuck in one of the towers, with a message in Greek, ‘Be of good courage, help is at hand’; it had been flung by one of Caesar’s Gallic horsemen. Very soon the besieged saw clouds of smoke on the horizon, and knew that the Nervii villages were burning, and that Caesar was near. When the solitary messenger from Cicero reached Amiens, Caesar at once sent word to Crassus to come and take his place, to Fabius to join him on the road, and to Labienus to move to Cicero’s aid if he could. Then by forced marches he covered the eighty miles to Charleroi. He had only two legions, for Labienus was himself in straits and could not join him. Ambiorix, with his 60,000 men, advanced to crush the 8000 of the relieving force, but Caesar refused to be drawn into a precipitate battle. He entrenched a small camp which was an invitation to the enemy’s attack; the attack duly came, the Gauls were admitted almost inside the ramparts, and then like a thunder-clap came the unexpected counter-stroke, and Ambiorix’s horde was driven panic-stricken into the marshes. Caesar did not pursue them, but marched on to Charleroi without the loss of a single man. There he congratulated Cicero and his gallant remnant on their new Thermopylae, and there he heard the tragic tale of Aduatuca. The news of the relief spread like wild-fire, and Labienus was freed from the threats of Indutiomarus and the Treveri.

Caesar spent an anxious winter among his troops, with the legions of Quintus Cicero and Crassus concentrated round Amiens. He had many conferences with the Gallic chiefs, and from these it was clear that a new and dangerous spirit was abroad. The slaughter of the cohorts at Aduatuca had inflamed racial pride, and everywhere in the province there was a muttering of unrest. Labienus, indeed, held his own among the Treveri, and Indutiomarus was slain, but though the flame died down the ashes smouldered. Caesar raised two new legions in Cisalpine Gaul, and borrowed a third from Pompey, who had no need of troops, since he refused to go near his province of Spain. When the campaigning season opened in 53 he led punitive expeditions against malcontent tribes like the Nervii and the Menapii; crossed the Rhine again to overawe the Suebi, and made an example of the Eburones, though Ambiorix succeeded in escaping into the fastnesses of the Ardennes. In the autumn he quartered most of his legions further south in the neighbourhood of Sens and Langres, and returned to Cisalpine Gaul to keep an eye upon Rome.

He had no sooner crossed the Alps than revolution broke out, and a far more formidable enemy appeared than Ambiorix or Indutiomarus. The fiery cross was sent round, secret meetings were held everywhere, and a consciousness of nationality, a sense that now was the last chance for regaining their lost freedom, inspired many even of those Gauls who had appeared to be devotees of Rome. This popular movement for a time brought about unity among the fissiparous tribes, and it found its leader in Vercingetorix. He was a young Arvernian noble, whose father had once attempted to make himself king of Gaul. To ancestral prestige he added high military talent, and a character which both charmed and impressed all who met him. That winter he was busy among the villages of Auvergne, and his emissaries visited all the neighbouring tribes, till by the new year he had a vast mass of tinder waiting for the spark.

The spark came with an attack by the Cornutes upon the Roman commissaries at Orleans. Vercingetorix from his headquarters at Gergovia, the mountain town south-east of the Puy de Dôme, sent out his summons for revolt. He had a plan with which he believed he could conquer. He could dispose of great clouds of cavalry, and the Gallic horse, who had been the mounted arm of the Romans, had during the recent troubles melted away. He would never attack the unshakable legions, but he would cut off their supplies and with his cavalry shepherd them to starvation and disaster. Above all he would deprive them of Caesar’s leading. A belt of revolution would prevent their commander-in-chief from reaching them on the upper Seine, and he believed that he was the match of Quintus Cicero and Labienus.

The news reached Caesar in early February in Cisalpine Gaul. The situation was desperate. Affairs in Rome urgently demanded his attention, for his party there seemed to be crumbling, but in Gaul it looked as if the labour of seven years had come to naught. The trouble now was not in the north and east, but in the centre and the south, which he thought had been finally pacified. The very Province itself was in danger. Of all the tribes he could count only on the Remi, the Lingones, and the Aedui, and he did not know how long he could be sure of the Aedui. He crossed the Alps without drawing rein, and in the Province his difficulties began. How was he to rejoin his legions? If he sent for them they would have to cut their way south without their general; if he tried to reach them he ran an imminent risk of capture. All the rebel country lay between him and his army.

The one hope lay in boldness, and his boldness was like a flame. He arranged for the defence of the Province, and then in deep snow raced through the passes of the Cevennes, which no man before had travelled in winter. He was carrying fire and sword over the Auvergne plateau when the enemy still thought of him as south of the Alps. Vercingetorix hastened to meet him, which was what Caesar desired. He had drawn the rebel army on a false scent. Leaving Decimus Brutus to hold it, he returned to Vienne on the Rhone, picked up some waiting cavalry, galloped up the Saone valley through the doubtful Aedui, and early in March joined his legions at Langres. While Vercingetorix was still entangled with Decimus Brutus, Caesar had concentrated ten legions in his rear at Agedincum on the Yonne. He had won the first round.

The events of the months that followed, the most hazardous and the most brilliant in Caesar’s military career, must be briefly summarised. Vercingetorix was forced by public opinion to be false to his own wise strategic creed, and was compelled to defend the city of Avaricum (Bourges). He cut off Caesar’s supplies and reduced his army to scarecrows, but the Roman fortitude did not weaken. Avaricum was carried by assault after four weeks’ siege, and the fate of its people was a terrible warning. Then Vercingetorix flung himself into Gergovia with a large army, and Caesar sat down to a blockade—a difficult task, for Labienus was away on the Seine with four legions and the besiegers had only some 25,000 men. Moreover Caesar had to leave the siege to punish the Aedui, who were sending a large contingent to the enemy. He tried to take Gergovia by assault, and was repulsed with heavy loss—his first blunder and his first defeat. He could not induce Vercingetorix to give battle, and meantime his supplies were being systematically cut off by the Gallic horse. The Aedui were in open revolt, Labienus was in difficulties further north, and the Province was in dire danger. Caesar bowed to the compulsion of facts, raised the siege of Gergovia, and crossed the Loire into Aeduan territory. There he found supplies, effected a junction with Labienus, and received a contingent of German cavalry which he had sent for from the Ubii. He turned south-east into the country of the Sequani, his plan being apparently to secure there a base of operations which would enable him to defend the Province and keep open his communications with Italy, and from which he could begin again the conquest of Gaul.

Vercingetorix played into his hand. In a great assembly at Bibracte he had been made high chief of all Gaul, and his elevation seems to have weakened his caution. He attacked Caesar on the march, and was so roughly handled that he decided that he could not face the Romans in the field, so he flung himself into the mountain citadel of Alesia (Mont Auxois) above the little river Brenne, where he hoped to repeat the success of Gergovia. Around the hill Caesar drew elaborate siege-works and beat off all the sallies of the besieged. The messengers of Vercingetorix summoned aid from every corner of Gaul, the national spirit burned fiercely, and a relieving force of no less than a quarter of a million infantry and 8000 horse assembled. Caesar with his 50,000 foot and his German cavalry was now enclosed between Vercingetorix and the hordes of his new auxiliaries; the besieger had become also the besieged. The full tale of that miraculous long-drawn fight—the greatest of Caesar’s battles and one of the greatest in history—must be read in Caesar’s own narrative. In the end the relieving force was decisively beaten, Alesia surrendered, and the Gallic revolt was over.

Vercingetorix in defeat rose to heroic stature. He offered his life for his countrymen, for, as he said, he had been fighting for Gaul and not for himself; splendidly accoutred he appeared before Caesar, stripped off his arms, and laid them silently at his feet. The victor for reasons of policy showed mercy to the broken Aedui and Arverni, but he had none for Vercingetorix. He was sent to Rome as a prisoner, six years later he adorned his conqueror’s triumph, and then he was put to death in a dungeon of the Capitol. No Roman, not even Caesar, knew the meaning of chivalry. Of Vercingetorix we may say that he was the first, and not the least, of that succession of Celtic paladins to whom the freedom of their people has been a burning faith. He was, after Pompey, the greatest soldier that Caesar ever faced in the field, and no lost cause could boast a nobler or more tragical hero.

At last Gaul was not only conquered but pacified, and never again did she seriously threaten Rome. Indeed she was destined to remain the last repository of the Roman tradition, and its mellow afterglow had not wholly gone from her skies when it was replaced by the dawn of the Renaissance. At this point in his chronicle Caesar lays down his pen. He wintered among the Aedui, and next year was engaged in small operations to consolidate his power. His main task now was to organise the new province, and, though it was probably not formally annexed to Rome till his dictatorship, he was already organising its government and assessing its tribute. He was also winning his way into the hearts of many of the leading Gauls, so that in the later crisis of his fortunes they stood unflinchingly by his side.

The campaigns in Gaul are Caesar’s chief title to what has never been denied him, a place in the inner circle of the world’s captains. He was in the first place a superb trainer of troops. He raised at least five new legions, and he so handled them that they soon ranked as veterans. Again, he was a great leader of men, having that rare gift of so diffusing his personality that every soldier felt himself under his watchful eye and a sharer in his friendship. Strategically he had an infallible eye for country, a geographical instinct as sure as Napoleon’s. He had that power of simplification which belongs only to genius, and he never wasted his strength in divergent operations, but struck unerringly at the vital point. A desperate crisis only increased his coolness and the precision of his thought. He understood the minds of men, and played unerringly on the psychology of both his own soldiers and the enemy’s; indeed he made the enemy do half his work for him; and he had a kind of boyish gusto which infected his troops with his own daring and speed. He had able marshals, like Labienus and Quintus Cicero and Publius Crassus, but he was always the controlling spirit. He was essentially humane—‘mitis clemensque natura,’ Cicero wrote—but he was implacable when policy required it. Nor must it be forgotten that in his generalship, as in that of all great captains, there was a profound statesmanship. He never forgot that success in the field was only a means to an end, and that his purpose was not to defeat an army but to conquer and placate a nation.