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5 Ancient Battle that Change the World - Battle Of Alesia
Coming to this battle report, I will bring you to 5 Ancient Battle that help shape the today world, it can be said these 5 battle both directly and indirectly affect or alter the course of history. If the result of these battle were different, and there are highly probable that we will see a totally different world.
The First battle of this series is from the famous Roman General/Consul Gaius Julius Caesar, this is one of his earlier famous battle
Background
59 BC, Caesar secure himself the Roman Pro-consulship on the region of Gaul, today's France upon the Alps. After an extensive campaign, Caesar have been able to conquer much of the Gaul and have the other tribe subjugated by Caesar forces.
As the Triumvirate failed after Carssus death and the failing relationship between Caesar and Pompey, Eburones, an North-eastern Gaul tribe started a revoke by decimating Caesar 14th Legion in an Ambush and long story short (Not in a mood of giving a History Lecture) Vercingetorix was elected leader of the United Gaul force from different tribe and the Gallic War begin.
With a whole legion down, and Caesar was sort of dangle to dry by Pompey, which refused to send reinforcement, which put Caesar into his back foot and prevent Caesar to launch any attack on pacifying the Gaul. However, even though Gaul outnumber roman about 3 to 1, Gaul tribe is not a professional army like the Roman legion, and if the Gaul was force into a set piece fight with the Roman, chances are the Gaul would be the one that get cut to piece.
Vercingetorix sees that and organise this Gallic force into a hit and run tactic and harass the Roman into retreating back to Rome so that they can buy time to train and reform and fight off the Roman Army once they are back from their reorganisation.
With the Gaul violence toward Roman stepped up, Caesar was put into a precarious situation and after a defeat by Vercingetorix at Battle of Gergovia, Caesar retreated and seemingly, Vercingetorix gets what he wanted in the summer of 52.
While pursuing the retreating roman army, the Gaul unsuccessfully cut off the Roman retreat and Vercingetorix decided to bug out and return to their stronghold of Alesia and ready for winter.
But this is not what it may seems, upon retreating toward Northern Italy, Caesar force redoubted and turn around and chase the Gaul back to Alesia, now Caesar attempted to force a set piece with Vercingetorix when almost all of his force are now in once place. Alesia.
Tactical Consideration
For the Roman, their tactical situation is that they are on the bottom end of the scale no matter how you see it, they are a smaller force, they are on the verge of starving as the Gaul uses the scotched earth policy and force the Roman to spend some of its force to forge and also once the other Gaul tribe got the words they will send reinforcement for Alesia.
So for the roman, they neither have time nor strength on their side, however, as they are the one that cornered the Gaul, the only thing the Roman have on their tactical advantage is that the battle is in their initiative, they are forcing Gaul hand to fight their kind of battle, at least, until the Gaul reinforcement came.
On the other hand, the Gaul in Alesia also did not have time on their side, they are being sieged and with 70,000 Gaul warrior plus civilian, food ran out fast, although the situation is not really as bad as the roman as the Roman's supply base is over Italy and forging them to look for food, feeding 70,000 soldiers plus civilian is not a easy task.
However, the Gaul have their number, they have their reinforcement and they also have a defendable position. And more importantly, manpower to man the defences.
The Battle
The Battle begin with some cavalry skirmishes around the real estate in Alesia, Caesar judge that a frontal assault in a well defended town with a numerical superior enemy is a lost clause, what Caesar opted instead is to siege the town into submission.
The first thing the Roman do is to build a wall to wall in the Population of Alesia so that even if the Gaul decided to break for it using their numerical superiority, they would not be succeed.
Building a wall, or a circumvallation would negate the numerical superiority for the Gaul and also building a wall to contain Alesia would means they could not be able to sustain the siege and by walling in the occupant of Alesia, the Roman hope to limit the chance that the Gaul can call for reinforcement.
The Battle started in the beginning of September when the Roman lay the first 4 meter wall of the 18 kilometre area. The battle begin with Roman laying the wall and Gaul forces uses their mobile cavalry to harass the Roman work on the wall, as well as the food party. This have create a problem within the Roman rank but was anticipated by Caesar, however, since Caesar's reinforcement are hard to come by, he have no choice but to brace the raiding party mounted by the Gaul.
About 2 weeks in the walling phase, after Caesar gather enough cavalry of his own, Caesar ambush the Gaul cavalry and drove them back to the City, however, since the door of Alesia were shut until a time to be determined to ward off the Roman, the Gaul cavalry beats a retreat only to find the door shut close in front of them. And the whole cavalry party were slaughtered.
Seeing this, the Gaul decided change tactics, instead of sending put cavalry to harass the Roman wall building and food gathering effort, they now bet on the cavalry to punch thru the investment and call for cavalry literally, and hope that the Gaul reinforcement would be arrive in time and beat off the Roman and lift the siege.
Some Gaul cavalry did got thru the defence and headed out, seeing this, the Roman then proceed to build another wall outside of the original wall to wall the Roman in, the new wall, called Contravallation would effectively seal in the Roman sieging the Gaul, so it would have a Gaul Sieging Roman Sieging Gaul situation developed.
This time, before the reinforcement eventually came, the Roman had already build the Outer wall, along with ditches laden with anti-personnel trap and water filled drench to the inner wall, also accomplished is for the Roman to gather 30 days ration unopposed before the Gaul reinforcement came.
The commander that led the reinforcement is Commius, an ex-brother in arms with Caesar earlier in the Gallic war. A brief engagement broke out with the Roman scourging party still outside the wall and slaughter the Roman still gathering food. At the same time the Gaul inside Alesia decided to break out from the inner wall and engage with a series battle with Roman.
The battle does not last long and did not swing into Gaul favour, partly because of the Roman was a more disciplined force and basically both side of the Gaul is trying to break in to the Roman defence and the wall that Roman erected means it would be harder for the Gaul to go over.
The next day, the Gaul from the outside launch a night attacks, it met with some degree of success but as the Roman have the upper ground and the Siege machine the Roman brought with provide a better vision than the Gaul facing down, the Roman beats the attack with the help of the Cavalry.
The final showdown happened on the next day, the Gaul had discover the weak point of the outer wall the Roman trying to hide and decided to push 60,000 men into the gap and with Vercingetorix personally lead the remaining Gaul inside Alesia and try to link up with the reinforcement.
Now the Gaul are about 2 :1 outnumbering the Roman, and both side broke into the area where the Roman was, now the Epic battle and the Set Piece Caesar looking for is now happening, and now, the undisciplined Gaul trying to attack a Packed Roman formation in a confined space. Which is a battle that favour heavily the Roman.
Now that the Roman are being compacted and the earlier defence works starting to pays off, the ditch and the drench delay Vercingetorix long enough so the Roman are mostly fighting with just one side of the Gaul blunts.
Now, with a third Gaul Force appear on the NE of the wall, Caesar now face a 3 front Gaul attack, Commius from the West, piling in by the gap, Vercingetorix from the inside and a new Gaul force hacking down the wall on the North East. Now Caesar have to commit the last of his reserves, which is him and 3600 last 13 cohorts of man and cavalry.
Normally it would be too much to take for any force to face a 3 way fight with a superior army that outnumber at least 3 : 1 to you, but since the Gaul were jamming 20,000 men in the tiny gap between the wall on the 2 shallow river. That bottleneck effect essentially eliminate the numerical superiority by feeding the Gaul force into Roman by piecemeal. The force inside Alesia are now too became a spent force from all the fighting and starving. And for that, the Roman successfully push off the Commius reinforcement and beginning chasing the relief force back to their own camps.
Now, Vercingetorix sees the defeat of the relief, and the morale enter an all time low, there are nothing better to do but surrender.
Post Mortem
While the epic battle ends the way in favour of Caesar and become one of the most memorable battle of all time, but it can actually swing either way, so what has done wrong by the Vercingetorix?
Vercingetorix knows from ground up that his force is not as hardly trained and disciplined as the Roman force, and hence he made into a great deal to avoid fighting a head on fight with the Roman, and instead using the mobility of the cavalry culture to engage the Roman in order to disrupt their efforts.
But when we look at the battle as it unfolded, we can see the Gaul was sucked into fighting a set piece head on engagement with the Roman.
Initially, Gaul gain a good deal of time, time that both side do not have by harassing the Roman forging party, and by the time it Caesar force was weakened by the constant harassment, Vercingetorix do a 180 and instead going on with the stuff that works for him. He opted to let the Cavalry, his best troop, to go for help.
In hind sight, this could be and would be a winning move, but once Caesar realise what Vercingetorix were up to, he raise another wall to wall themselves in, effectively negate the effect of the reinforcement.
What's more, with the best troop to perform hit and runs is gone, there are virtually nothing Gaul have in Alesia to actually contest the Roman for their wall building and forging.
By doing this, Vercingetorix essentially forgot one simple principle for any siege warfare, and that is the attacker have to be able to seal off the defender to conduct a siege, by letting the cavalry goes and not to contest the Roman effort to siege Alesia, effectively Vercingetorix himself allow the siege to happen in the first place.
That set of a chain reaction that allowing the Roman to gain upper hand by both finishing off the defence/siege works and food forging. And in the end, Vercingetorix's own action have put the Gaul from an advantage position, into their back foot.
However, the legacy of this battle did not end there. Now with Vercingetorix gone, the United Gaul front have collapse and Caesar are now in a position that process the most power within the Republic, and had Caesar loses this battle, which is pretty much Pompey intend to do so by purposing hanging Caesar to dry, he would not be in the position to challenge Pompey and would not be able to cross the rubicon with his legion and start the Roman Civil which resulting Caesar declare the Empire of Roman Empire for all Eternality
.
The battle strategy itself also replicated several time during the course of history, commander cannot see the distant goal and focus on the short term objective had again and again brought disaster result to battle time and time again, a better example would be the Battle of Britain where the German again have numerical superiority and was winning by bombing and harassing the RAF, but throw it all out with some feud with City Bombing.
Coming to this battle report, I will bring you to 5 Ancient Battle that help shape the today world, it can be said these 5 battle both directly and indirectly affect or alter the course of history. If the result of these battle were different, and there are highly probable that we will see a totally different world.
The First battle of this series is from the famous Roman General/Consul Gaius Julius Caesar, this is one of his earlier famous battle
Background
59 BC, Caesar secure himself the Roman Pro-consulship on the region of Gaul, today's France upon the Alps. After an extensive campaign, Caesar have been able to conquer much of the Gaul and have the other tribe subjugated by Caesar forces.
As the Triumvirate failed after Carssus death and the failing relationship between Caesar and Pompey, Eburones, an North-eastern Gaul tribe started a revoke by decimating Caesar 14th Legion in an Ambush and long story short (Not in a mood of giving a History Lecture) Vercingetorix was elected leader of the United Gaul force from different tribe and the Gallic War begin.
With a whole legion down, and Caesar was sort of dangle to dry by Pompey, which refused to send reinforcement, which put Caesar into his back foot and prevent Caesar to launch any attack on pacifying the Gaul. However, even though Gaul outnumber roman about 3 to 1, Gaul tribe is not a professional army like the Roman legion, and if the Gaul was force into a set piece fight with the Roman, chances are the Gaul would be the one that get cut to piece.
Vercingetorix sees that and organise this Gallic force into a hit and run tactic and harass the Roman into retreating back to Rome so that they can buy time to train and reform and fight off the Roman Army once they are back from their reorganisation.
With the Gaul violence toward Roman stepped up, Caesar was put into a precarious situation and after a defeat by Vercingetorix at Battle of Gergovia, Caesar retreated and seemingly, Vercingetorix gets what he wanted in the summer of 52.
While pursuing the retreating roman army, the Gaul unsuccessfully cut off the Roman retreat and Vercingetorix decided to bug out and return to their stronghold of Alesia and ready for winter.
But this is not what it may seems, upon retreating toward Northern Italy, Caesar force redoubted and turn around and chase the Gaul back to Alesia, now Caesar attempted to force a set piece with Vercingetorix when almost all of his force are now in once place. Alesia.
Tactical Consideration
For the Roman, their tactical situation is that they are on the bottom end of the scale no matter how you see it, they are a smaller force, they are on the verge of starving as the Gaul uses the scotched earth policy and force the Roman to spend some of its force to forge and also once the other Gaul tribe got the words they will send reinforcement for Alesia.
So for the roman, they neither have time nor strength on their side, however, as they are the one that cornered the Gaul, the only thing the Roman have on their tactical advantage is that the battle is in their initiative, they are forcing Gaul hand to fight their kind of battle, at least, until the Gaul reinforcement came.
On the other hand, the Gaul in Alesia also did not have time on their side, they are being sieged and with 70,000 Gaul warrior plus civilian, food ran out fast, although the situation is not really as bad as the roman as the Roman's supply base is over Italy and forging them to look for food, feeding 70,000 soldiers plus civilian is not a easy task.
However, the Gaul have their number, they have their reinforcement and they also have a defendable position. And more importantly, manpower to man the defences.
The Battle
The Battle begin with some cavalry skirmishes around the real estate in Alesia, Caesar judge that a frontal assault in a well defended town with a numerical superior enemy is a lost clause, what Caesar opted instead is to siege the town into submission.
The first thing the Roman do is to build a wall to wall in the Population of Alesia so that even if the Gaul decided to break for it using their numerical superiority, they would not be succeed.
Building a wall, or a circumvallation would negate the numerical superiority for the Gaul and also building a wall to contain Alesia would means they could not be able to sustain the siege and by walling in the occupant of Alesia, the Roman hope to limit the chance that the Gaul can call for reinforcement.
The Battle started in the beginning of September when the Roman lay the first 4 meter wall of the 18 kilometre area. The battle begin with Roman laying the wall and Gaul forces uses their mobile cavalry to harass the Roman work on the wall, as well as the food party. This have create a problem within the Roman rank but was anticipated by Caesar, however, since Caesar's reinforcement are hard to come by, he have no choice but to brace the raiding party mounted by the Gaul.
About 2 weeks in the walling phase, after Caesar gather enough cavalry of his own, Caesar ambush the Gaul cavalry and drove them back to the City, however, since the door of Alesia were shut until a time to be determined to ward off the Roman, the Gaul cavalry beats a retreat only to find the door shut close in front of them. And the whole cavalry party were slaughtered.
Seeing this, the Gaul decided change tactics, instead of sending put cavalry to harass the Roman wall building and food gathering effort, they now bet on the cavalry to punch thru the investment and call for cavalry literally, and hope that the Gaul reinforcement would be arrive in time and beat off the Roman and lift the siege.
Some Gaul cavalry did got thru the defence and headed out, seeing this, the Roman then proceed to build another wall outside of the original wall to wall the Roman in, the new wall, called Contravallation would effectively seal in the Roman sieging the Gaul, so it would have a Gaul Sieging Roman Sieging Gaul situation developed.
This time, before the reinforcement eventually came, the Roman had already build the Outer wall, along with ditches laden with anti-personnel trap and water filled drench to the inner wall, also accomplished is for the Roman to gather 30 days ration unopposed before the Gaul reinforcement came.
The commander that led the reinforcement is Commius, an ex-brother in arms with Caesar earlier in the Gallic war. A brief engagement broke out with the Roman scourging party still outside the wall and slaughter the Roman still gathering food. At the same time the Gaul inside Alesia decided to break out from the inner wall and engage with a series battle with Roman.
The battle does not last long and did not swing into Gaul favour, partly because of the Roman was a more disciplined force and basically both side of the Gaul is trying to break in to the Roman defence and the wall that Roman erected means it would be harder for the Gaul to go over.
The next day, the Gaul from the outside launch a night attacks, it met with some degree of success but as the Roman have the upper ground and the Siege machine the Roman brought with provide a better vision than the Gaul facing down, the Roman beats the attack with the help of the Cavalry.
The final showdown happened on the next day, the Gaul had discover the weak point of the outer wall the Roman trying to hide and decided to push 60,000 men into the gap and with Vercingetorix personally lead the remaining Gaul inside Alesia and try to link up with the reinforcement.
Now the Gaul are about 2 :1 outnumbering the Roman, and both side broke into the area where the Roman was, now the Epic battle and the Set Piece Caesar looking for is now happening, and now, the undisciplined Gaul trying to attack a Packed Roman formation in a confined space. Which is a battle that favour heavily the Roman.
Now that the Roman are being compacted and the earlier defence works starting to pays off, the ditch and the drench delay Vercingetorix long enough so the Roman are mostly fighting with just one side of the Gaul blunts.
Now, with a third Gaul Force appear on the NE of the wall, Caesar now face a 3 front Gaul attack, Commius from the West, piling in by the gap, Vercingetorix from the inside and a new Gaul force hacking down the wall on the North East. Now Caesar have to commit the last of his reserves, which is him and 3600 last 13 cohorts of man and cavalry.
Normally it would be too much to take for any force to face a 3 way fight with a superior army that outnumber at least 3 : 1 to you, but since the Gaul were jamming 20,000 men in the tiny gap between the wall on the 2 shallow river. That bottleneck effect essentially eliminate the numerical superiority by feeding the Gaul force into Roman by piecemeal. The force inside Alesia are now too became a spent force from all the fighting and starving. And for that, the Roman successfully push off the Commius reinforcement and beginning chasing the relief force back to their own camps.
Now, Vercingetorix sees the defeat of the relief, and the morale enter an all time low, there are nothing better to do but surrender.
Post Mortem
While the epic battle ends the way in favour of Caesar and become one of the most memorable battle of all time, but it can actually swing either way, so what has done wrong by the Vercingetorix?
Vercingetorix knows from ground up that his force is not as hardly trained and disciplined as the Roman force, and hence he made into a great deal to avoid fighting a head on fight with the Roman, and instead using the mobility of the cavalry culture to engage the Roman in order to disrupt their efforts.
But when we look at the battle as it unfolded, we can see the Gaul was sucked into fighting a set piece head on engagement with the Roman.
Initially, Gaul gain a good deal of time, time that both side do not have by harassing the Roman forging party, and by the time it Caesar force was weakened by the constant harassment, Vercingetorix do a 180 and instead going on with the stuff that works for him. He opted to let the Cavalry, his best troop, to go for help.
In hind sight, this could be and would be a winning move, but once Caesar realise what Vercingetorix were up to, he raise another wall to wall themselves in, effectively negate the effect of the reinforcement.
What's more, with the best troop to perform hit and runs is gone, there are virtually nothing Gaul have in Alesia to actually contest the Roman for their wall building and forging.
By doing this, Vercingetorix essentially forgot one simple principle for any siege warfare, and that is the attacker have to be able to seal off the defender to conduct a siege, by letting the cavalry goes and not to contest the Roman effort to siege Alesia, effectively Vercingetorix himself allow the siege to happen in the first place.
That set of a chain reaction that allowing the Roman to gain upper hand by both finishing off the defence/siege works and food forging. And in the end, Vercingetorix's own action have put the Gaul from an advantage position, into their back foot.
However, the legacy of this battle did not end there. Now with Vercingetorix gone, the United Gaul front have collapse and Caesar are now in a position that process the most power within the Republic, and had Caesar loses this battle, which is pretty much Pompey intend to do so by purposing hanging Caesar to dry, he would not be in the position to challenge Pompey and would not be able to cross the rubicon with his legion and start the Roman Civil which resulting Caesar declare the Empire of Roman Empire for all Eternality
.
The battle strategy itself also replicated several time during the course of history, commander cannot see the distant goal and focus on the short term objective had again and again brought disaster result to battle time and time again, a better example would be the Battle of Britain where the German again have numerical superiority and was winning by bombing and harassing the RAF, but throw it all out with some feud with City Bombing.
