Ariovistus Triumphant! - Gallic War Campaign, 54BCE.

54 BCE:

Caesar persuaded the Atrobates to abandon Ariovistus, but in his turn, Ariovistus was able to bring the Cardurci back onto his side.  Caesar then ordered his XI and XII Legions, accompanied by the Aedui, to attack the Mandubi.  The Mandubi attempted to defend Alesia, but after a short if bloody siege, the stronghold fell to the Romans and their allies.  Ariovistus concentrated on further diplomacy, persuading the Andes to join him.  

Increasingly desperate to try and make some real progress, Caesar led the IX and X Legions to join the Averni, whilst the VIII Legion moved to join the Allobroges.  Ariovistus continued his run of diplomatic successes by getting the Tolosates onto his side.

A Gallo-Roman force (the Arverni, VII Legion and the Roman Cavalry) attacked the Cardurci in their fortress of Uxellodonum.  Although victorious, the siege was incredibly bloody, with the Cardurci and Arverni being reduced to mere remnants, and the Roman units combined only numbering around 2000 men.  Caesar meanwhile defeated the Santones at the Garumna, although losing quite heavily in the process; his pursuit did manage to eliminate all the resisting Santones, however.

 Ariovistus' diplomacy finally failed him, when he failed to persuade the Britons to throw their lot in with him; whilst Caesar persuaded the Treveri to join him (again)!  However Ariovistus quickly moved and eliminated these rebels.*

 At this point, Caesar called off the campaign.  Hoping that his string of battlefield successes would cover for the ultimately unsuccessful prosecution of the campaign, which he was hoping to recast as a punitive raid, he, with some trepidation, returned to Rome...

Position at the End of the Campaign:

Game Notes: Well, it was good fun while it lasted, but it fizzled out somewhat when I realized that Caesar couldn't win!  My strategic play as the Romans had been so bad that Caesar basically had no chance; with the major Gallic rebellion still to come it was inconceivable at this point in the game that Caesar could conquer enough territories to win.  So, my fault, basically.

 

Why was this so?  Again, my fault: in the test games of Caesar's Gallic War, I had done a reasonable job in teaching myself mechanically how the game worked, but because the optimal strategies for both sides are so different, I hadn't really appreciated until too late the real nature of what both sides had to do to win.  More by good luck than good management, my Ariovistus decisions really helped his cause whilst I was doing terribly and not even realizing it as Caesar.  I allowed too many tribes to go be in a position to go back to Ariovistus (who was admittedly a little lucky overall with the success of his diplomacy) rather than taking more risk to hold ground.  So by late 54 BCE, Caesar had so many territories to conquer that there just seemed to be no chance to pull it off, so he conceded.  I am looking forward to trying this one again at some point, but I need to play the boardgame a few more times to better grasp the nuances of how the mechanics and the VP-system interact, rather than just generating battles.  I will definitely be learning from this for future boardgame-driven campaigns.

The Gallic War 56-55 BC

 A campaign journal covering two years here, since I thought I had written one for 56BC but it turned out later that I hadn't...

56 BCE:

56BC began with Caesar ordering the XIII Legion and the Treveri to subdue the Menapi (which they did easily) and the Allobroges and Helvetii to invade the territory of the Sequani.  After besieging the Sequani's key fortress, the area was subdued and only a small rump of the Sequani escaped.  Ariovistus tried to persuade the Allobroges to desert Caesar, but this failed.  Caesar then continued operations with his Gallic allies, as the Mandubi and Helvetii again invaded the territory of the Leuci, to subdue it and them, and defeat their German allies.  The Leuci retreated, but then re-invaded with the help of some German allies.  In the resulting battle , the Germans were victorious.

His military plans having temporarily failed, Caesar turned to dilpomacy, bringing the Arverni to his side.  Ariovistus was less successful, being unable to bring the Santones to his banner.

In late summer, Caesar felt strong enough militarily to resume his stalled offensive, ordering a major tribal force stiffened with XIV Legion to conquer the Leuci and rid the area of the Germans - this was successful, with the Leuci being destroyed in small actions and the Germans retreating across the Rhine.  Ariovistus countered this by persuading the Aedui to join his side.  Then turning his attention to Southwest Gaul, away from the Rhine frontier, Caesar led a big expedition of the X and XI Legions, supported by the Arverni, to crush the Cardurci, which they duly did.  Ariovistus retaliated by persuading the Aedui to attack the weakened Mandubi tribe, which they successfully did, taking Alesia.

So the year ended with Caesar having made some small gains in the Northeast and and Southwest, but Ariovistus continually able to undermine these gains by persuading Gaulish tribes to defect.

At the end of the year, urgent political and family matters forced Caesar to return to Rome.  He would have to direct his campaign by letter and messenger for the next 12 months. 

55 BCE:

The year began with Ariovistus persuading the newly-subdued Sequani to immediately revolt and rejoin him.  Caesar in turn got the Bellovaci to join with him.  Ariovistus continued his diplomacy, but the Menapi were unmoved by this.  

Caesar was pleased to be able to send his armies some much needed logistical support from Rome, to ease their supply difficulties somewhat.  However, Ariovistus had the bit between his teeth: he persuaded the Sequani to subdue the Leuci, which they did easily.  He himself led a combined attack on the Treveri, forcing a battle which resulted in their army's defeat and their surviving warrior retreated to the succor of their fellow Roman allies, the Menapi.

Caesar tried to stabilize the situation in the North by persuading the Bellovaci to attack the Atrobates, and thus indirectly support the Menapi and Treveri.  However, the Bellovaci were defeated by inferior numbers of Atrobates in a series of skirmishes, upon which their host disintegrated!  Ariovistus quickly exploited the situation by throwing a much superior force against the Menapi and the rump of the Treveri, eliminating both as effective resistance and consolidating his control over the Gallic bank of the Rhine up to the Channel.  Realizing that his 'Allies-First' strategy had unraveled, Caesar ordered his legions to move into Gaul, Legions XI, XII, XIII, XIV going into Allobroges territory;
Legions VII, VIII, IX and the Roman cavalry going into Boii territory.  Ariovistus suddenly switched to diplomacy however, persuading the Helvetii to revolt again!

Furious with the disastrous results of this campaign season, Caesar ordered some all-out attacks: Legions XIII and XIV and the Allobroges attacked and vanquished the Sequani (again).  Meanwhile, Legions XI and XII attacked the Aedui; in the resultant battle, the Romans slaughtered the Aedui.

Despite this, the situation was greatly improved for Ariovistus by the end of 55BC, and a good deal worse for Caesar on his return from the Saturnalia festivities in Rome.

The Gallic War: 57BC

57BC began with Ariovistus planning a combined attack on the Treveri.  Unfortunately, his attack badly miscarried, when his flanking attack failed to materialize at The Battle of the Five Hills.  Ariovistus led the majority of his Germans back into the lands of the Leuci, although his cavalry were forced to retreat across the Rhine instead.

Caesar used the opportunity presented by this rather fortunate victory to re-organize his forces: the XIII & XIV Legions forced march to bolster the Aedui; X, XI, XII Legions and the cavalry moveed to support the Boii; and VII & VIII Legions move to Narbo.

His attempt to win on the battlefield foiled, Ariovistus resorted to diplomacy and skulduggery...which worked fine, inducing the Treveri to revolt against their Roman allies!  Yet again however, Roman pugilism remedied what Roman strategy had lost, beating off the Treveri turncoats. XIII & XIV Legions then force marched to support IX Legion in Treveri territory; meanwhile the Aedui marched to join the Mandubii.  

Realizing his position had become very exposed, Ariovistus called  further reinforcements across the Rhine to join him.  Caesar meanwhile moved his armies further forwards, the X Legion & Roman Cavalry force marching to support the Mandubii; XI Legion, XII Legion & the Boii moving to Aedui territory

Again turning to the pen (and the coin), Ariovistus used diplomacy to bring the Arverni to the Germanic side.  Not to be dissuaded, Caesar attacked Ariovistus in the land of the Leuci, hoping to destroy the revolt at source.  However, Caesar's use of Gallic allies rather than Roman legionaries, as well as Ariovistus use of a strong defensive position, meant that Caesar's attack miscarried with very heavy losses amongst the Gauls.

Despite his victory, Ariovistus army was not really in any position to take the military offensive, so he resumed his diplomatic offensive and recruited the Veneti to his cause; Caesar's military might was temporarily dissipated too however, and he instead used his powers of persuasion to end the revolt of the Averni.

 

 Game Notes: It was all going so well for Caesar until Ariovistus somewhat unlikely victory.  This has gained the German leader some respite to rebuild his forces, although it is very likely that Caesar will next look to seal off the Rhine frontier and make any further attacks by Ariovistus risky in the extreme.  Ariovistus had some diplomatic successes, although not perhaps large enough to counteract the Romans's military advances.

The Gallic War: 58BC

The Gallic War - 58BC:

The Gallic War starts with Caesar's Legions in position in Transalpine Gaul, ready to attack.  The Allobroges & Volcae have already allied with him, but he is opposed by the Helvetii in Switzerland.  Ariovistus and his large force of German warriors, his implacable opponents, lie across the Rhine...

 

 

The campaign began with Caesar attacking the Helvetii with four legions.  Ariovistus meanwhile persuased the Treveri just across the Rhine to ally with his cause.  Caesar's attack with c.16000 soldiers led to the Battle of Octodorum and the crushing of the Helvetii's 9000.  For the loss of nearly 1000 of his men, Caesar's victory and subsequent operations led to the control of the Helvetii's tribal areas.  He then moved two legions west to support the Allobroges, following this up with a campaign against the Boii, who were overwhelmed without much of a battle.  Lacking a force in a position to directly oppose the Romans, Ariovistus encouraged his Gallic supporters to concentrate on partisan warfare, attacking convoys and local Roman supporters.  Annoying though this was, Caesar concentrated on using force to bring the Gauls to heel, turning his attention to the Aedui, which followed a similar pattern to that of the Boii, although the Aedui resisted with much greater ferocity, the Romans losing 4000 men in two months of intense if localized warfare. In the end however, the resistance of the Aedui collapsed too.

 

In the North-East meanwhile, the Treveri attacked their neutral neighbours, the Leuci, breaking their resistance and forcing them into alliance, although not without suffering in the local skirmishes and raiding.

This was followed by a break in the fighting as both sides tried to recruit new strength. Caesar persuaded the Treveri's south-western neighbours, the Mandubii, to join him, whilst secret emmisaries from Ariovistus travelled to South-West Gaul and persuaded the Cardurci to fall in with the Germans and against their neighbours, the Volcae.

Caesar then ordered a combined Roman and Mandubii force to invade the lands of the Treveri; the Treveri quickly returned from the lands of the Leuci to defend it, whilst being joined by Ariovistus and six thousand German warriors.  A very hard fought battle occurred (the Battle of Porta Silva Carbonaria) which resulted in the Germans and the Treveri being forced to retreat.  The Romans and the Mandubii lost c.2000 men, whilst Ariovistus and his allies lost roughly double that and were forced to retreat into the territory of the vanquished Leuci.

The harvest this year was fair.  All the tribes returned to their homes, with the Leuci joining the Germans, the Boii, Helvetii and Aedui joining the Romans.  All the Romans returned home, except IX Legion which remained in the Treveri's territory in order to protect it from a sudden attack by the Germans in the spring.  Ariovistus and one o fhis contingents remaineed in the Leuci's area, the remainder returned across the Rhine.  The Romans and Germans were able to reinforce all their legions and contingents back to full strength - in addition, Caesar received an additional legion (the XIIIth).

 

Game Notes: Going smoothly so far...the Romans have definitely had the best of the year, a combination of aggression and luck paying off and leading them to controlling a good chunk of central and eastern Gaul.  Ariovistus' position is by no means hopeless but his gains have been relatively minor so far.

 

(n.b. The boardgame Caesar's Gallic War is being used as the engine for this campaign).