In consequence of this Caesar set out with his army, now increased to eight legions, in the spring of 697 against the Belgic cantons. Mindful of the brave and successful resistance which fifty years before they had with united strength presented to the Cimbri on the borders of their land,(38) and stimulated by the patriots who had fled to them in numbers from central Gaul, the confederacy of the Belgae sent their whole first levy--300,000 armed men under the leadership of Galba the king of the Suessiones--to their southern frontier to receive Caesar there. A single canton alone, that of the powerful Remi (about Rheims) discerned in this invasion of the foreigners an opportunity to shake off the rule which their neighbours the Suessiones exercised over them, and prepared to take up in the north the part which the Haedui had played in central Gaul. The Roman and the Belgic armies arrived in their territory almost at the same time.

Conflicts On The Aisne Submission Of The Western Cantons

Caesar did not venture to give battle to the brave enemy six times as strong; to the north of the Aisne, not far from the modern Pontavert between Rheims and Laon, he pitched his camp on a plateau rendered almost unassailable on all sides partly by the river and by morasses, partly by fosses and redoubts, and contented himself with thwarting by defensive measures the attempts of the Belgae to cross the Aisne and thereby to cut him off from his communications. When he counted on the likelihood that the coalition would speedily collapse under its own weight, he had reckoned rightly. King Galba was an honest man, held in universal respect; but he was not equal to the management of an army of 300,000 men on hostile soil. No progress was made, and provisions began to fail; discontent and dissension began to insinuate themselves into the camp of the confederates. The Bellovaci in particular, equal to the Suessiones in power, and already dissatisfied that the supreme command of the confederate army had not fallen to them, could no longer be detained after news had arrived that the Haedui as allies of the Romans were making preparations to enter the Bellovacic territory. They determined to break up and go home; though for honour's sake all the cantons at the same time bound themselves to hasten with their united strength to the help of the one first attacked, the miserable dispersion of the confederacy was but miserably palliated by such impracticable stipulations. It was a catastrophe which vividly reminds us of that which occurred almost on the same spot in 1792; and, just as with the campaign in Champagne, the defeat was all the more severe that it took place without a battle. The bad leadership of the retreating army allowed the Roman general to pursue it as if it were beaten, and to destroy a portion of the contingents that had remained to the last. But the consequences of the victory were not confined to this. As Caesar advanced into the western cantons of the Belgae, one after another gave themselves up as lost almost without resistance; the powerful Suessiones (about Soissons), as well as their rivals, the Bellovaci (about Beauvais) and the Ambiani (about Amiens). The towns opened their gates when they saw the strange besieging machines, the towers rolling up to their walls; those who would not submit to the foreign masters sought a refuge beyond the sea in Britain.

The Conflict With the Nervii

But in the eastern cantons the national feeling was more energetically roused. The Viromandui (about Arras), the Atrebates (about St. Quentin), the German Aduatuci (about Namur), but above all the Nervii (in Hainault) with their not inconsiderable body of clients, little inferior in number to the Suessiones and Bellovaci, far superior to them in valour and vigorous patriotic spirit, concluded a second and closer league, and assembled their forces on the upper Sambre. Celtic spies informed them most accurately of the movements of the Roman army; their own local knowledge, and the high tree-barricades which were formed everywhere in these districts to obstruct the bands of mounted robbers who often visited them, allowed the allies to conceal their own operations for the most part from the view of the Romans. When these arrived on the Sambre not far from Bavay, and the legions were occupied in pitching their camp on the crest of the left bank, while the cavalry and light infantry were exploring the opposite heights, the latter were all at once assailed by the whole mass of the enemy's forces and driven down the hill into the river. In a moment the enemy had crossed this also, and stormed the heights of the left bank with a determination that braved death. Scarcely was there time left for the entrenching legionaries to exchange the mattock for the sword; the soldiers, many without helmets, had to fight just as they stood, without line of battle, without plan, without proper command; for, owing to the suddenness of the attack and the intersection of the ground by tall hedges, the several divisions had wholly lost their communications. Instead of a battle there arose a number of unconnected conflicts. Labienus with the left wing overthrew the Atrebates and pursued them even across the river. The Roman central division forced the Viromandui down the declivity. But the right wing, where the general himself was present, was outflanked by the far more numerous Nervii the more easily, as the central division carried away by its own success had evacuated the ground alongside of it, and even the half-ready camp was occupied by the Nervii; the two legions, each separately rolled together into a dense mass and assailed in front and on both flanks, deprived of most of their officers and their best soldiers, appeared on the point of being broken and cut to pieces. The Roman camp-followers and the allied troops were already fleeing in all directions; of the Celtic cavalry whole divisions, like the contingent of the Treveri, galloped off at full speed, that from the battle-field itself they might announce at home the welcome news of the defeat which had been sustained.

Italian Books
Theodor Mommsen
Classic Literature Library

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