Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. Today in Western Europe, there is a line that divides speakers of Germanic languages and speakers of romance languages. While that line is shifted over time, its existence can be traced back to a battle that took place over 2,000 years ago. That battle rocked the Roman Empire to its core and finally set limits for how big the empire could grow. Learn more about the Battle of Tudaburg Forest and how its impact can still be seen today. On this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong?

Starting point is 00:00:50 ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. One of the common themes that keeps popping up in various episodes of the show is how the modern world is still influenced by things that happened in the distant past. It's only through the lens of time that we can figure out what events were big and what events were both big and significant.

Starting point is 00:01:27 A good example would be the Battle of Canney that I previously did an episode on. Hannibal and the Carthaginians wiped out an enormous Roman army in a battle that caused Rome to suffer an existential crisis. In the big scheme of things, however, even though that battle is still studied by military commanders today, it did not end up deciding the war. It was big, but it wasn't significant. The Battle of Tudorburg Forest is another very important moment in Roman history. As with the Battle of Caney, it was a big moment. But unlike Canny, it also had a lasting impact. To understand how the Battle of Tudaberg Forest came about, we first have to understand how Rome got to this point.

Starting point is 00:02:04 By the time Augustus became the first emperor, Rome controlled everything around the Mediterranean, save for parts of North Africa around modern-day Algeria and Morocco. In Europe, they controlled almost all the Iberian Peninsula, save for the north, all of Gaul and Greece. There were, and forever would be, two areas that Rome couldn't conquer, Parthia in the east and Germany in the north. While conquering Parthia was a Roman dream, it was far away. Germany was not far from Rome, and they shared a very long border with it. Germany was not a unified country. It was just a collection of tribes that more often than not quarreled with each other. The Romans had been fighting with the Germans for about a century,

Starting point is 00:02:44 but things really picked up at about the year 16 BC. The de facto border between the Roman Empire and the German lands was the Rhine River. Most of the Roman campaigns during this period were in what is today Western Germany east of the Rhine. The Romans were able to control the tribes near the border. They would tax them and they would hold the children of tribal leaders as hostages. And by hostage, this means that they were taken to Rome, raised by a Roman family, and given a Roman education. And this is where the first character enters the story, a German by the name, of Arminius, or as he's known in German, Herman. Yes, his name is Herman the German. Arminius was the

Starting point is 00:03:22 son of Sigimarus, who was the chief of the Cherusi tribe. His father had to give him up as a tribute to Rome, and Arminius was sent to Rome to be raised. From all external appearances, Arminius was an excellent Roman. He learned Latin, became a Roman citizen, received a military education, joined the army, and was named an Equis, which was the Roman equivalent of being a knight. He knew the Roman military system inside and out, but he never forgot that he was in fact German. Nor did the Romans forget this fact. In the year four, he was given command of a unit made up of his fellow Cherisi tribesmen that fought in the Balkans. In the year seven, he was sent to Germany to serve under the commander and governor for the region, Publius Quintilius Varus.

Starting point is 00:04:03 Varus had a pretty accomplished career up to this point. He had been the governor of both Africa and Syria. He gained notoriety for ruthlessly quashing a rebellion in Judea, where he famously crucified 2,000 Jewish rebels. When the future Emperor Tiberius declared the lands to the east of the Rhine pacified, Augustus declared it the new Roman province of Germania. And in the year seven, Augustus appointed Varus the first governor of Germania. Just as Varus was taking over in Germania, and Arminius was sent to serve under him,

Starting point is 00:04:33 eight legions were sent from Germania down to the Balkans, where it was felt they were more needed, suppressing what was known as the Great Illyrian Revolt. In fact, about half of all the Roman legions in the world were sent to Illyria. This left Varus with just three legions in Germania, the 17th, the 18th, and the 19th, which consisted of a total of around 15,000 to 20,000 men. Arminius's job under Varus was to serve as a representative to the German tribes. Because Arminius knew their language and customs, and was also a Roman soldier, it was felt that he could serve as the perfect go-between. However, Arminius wasn't just serving as a Roman representative. While he was visiting the various tribes, he was actually creating an alliance. All the while he was doing that, he became one of Varus's top advisors on German affairs. He was earning the trust of Varus while he was organizing all the Germanic tribes to work together to fight Rome.

Starting point is 00:05:25 He was working on a plan which would once and for all get the Romans out of Germany. On September of the year 9, Varus was going to be moving his legions from their summer headquarters, to their winter camp near the Rhine River. In the middle of the march to their winter camp, Arminius came to Varus with news of an emergency that required his attention. He said that there was a rebellion amongst the German tribes. Varus decided to reroute all three of his legions to get to the rebellious area as soon as possible. That route took him and his three legions through an area that the Romans weren't familiar with, a place called the Tudoburg Forest. One of the leaders of the Cherusi, a man by the name of Segestes, warned Varus about Arminius,

Starting point is 00:06:05 his plan before they set out, and suggested that he arrest Arminius and all the other tribal chiefs. However, Varus simply didn't believe that such a thing was possible, so he ignored the advice of suggesties. Arminius from his training knew that Romans were not equipped to fight in wooded terrain. A Roman legion was designed to fight as a unit in open spaces where they could maneuver and fight as a cohesive unit. It was standard Roman tactics not to fight in forests. Inside the forest, the Germans were waiting for them, ready to spring their trap. The Romans were not marching in formation, and they were interspersed with camp followers who would usually walk behind the soldiers. Varus had also not sent any reconnaissance ahead, so they had no

Starting point is 00:06:46 clue what they were walking into. The path was narrow and muddy, so the Romans couldn't organize to fight as a unit even if they wanted to, and on top of all that, it was raining. The Germans were still numbered, but they had the element of surprise, and were able to master forces to pick off the Romans who were stretched out along the trail. The battle lasted, for three days, and the Germans had the high ground for almost all of the fight. The Germans had also built fortifications at key points along the route, where they knew the Romans might be able to reassemble to a mount a counter-attack. Even when some Roman units were able to escape, most of them were cut down by other German

Starting point is 00:07:22 tribes waiting outside the forest. On the third day, Publius Quintilius Varus killed himself, taking the honorable Roman death and defeat. When word spread amongst the remaining Romans, morale collapsed. Those that weren't killed in battle were sacrificed in German pagan ceremonies or were enslaved. The end result was the complete annihilation of three Roman legions, the entirety of Rome's military presence in Germany. Estimates placed the number of Roman deaths between 15 to 20,000. It was the equivalent of 10% of the entire Roman military. After the battle, the Germans went on a rampage destroying every vestige of Rome that they could find, including all the forts and cities. The Romans that were left, all fled to a position across the Rhine River.

Starting point is 00:08:06 The news hit Rome like a ton of bricks. Rome hadn't suffered a defeat of this magnitude in over 200 years. All of the fighting over the last several decades to establish a presence in Germany had been completely undone in three days. Augustus himself was haunted by the loss of his legions for the rest of his life. The historian Suttonius reported that Augustus walked around his palace hitting his head against the wall, shouting, Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!

Starting point is 00:08:32 The 17th, 18th, and 19th legions were never reconstituted again in Roman history because of the shame brought from their defeat. After Augustus died just a few years later, the new emperor Tiberius sent his nephew Germanicus back to exact revenge. He did manage to secure several major victories and actually recovered two of the three lost eagle standards from the legions. Six years after the battle, when the first Romans returned to the site, they found a horror show of bones and barbarian altars where the survivors were killed. heads were nailed to trees. Germanicus ordered all of the Roman remains to be buried. However, once the Roman got their eagles back and felt honor had been satisfied, they withdrew to the Rhine. It wasn't seen as being worth the cost to try to conquer Germany anymore.

Starting point is 00:09:18 The third eagle, by the way, was recovered 30 years later during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. The Romans put the blame for the defeat squarely on the shoulders of Varus. Arminius, despite his betrayal, was actually thought of highly by the Romans. He was respected as an enemy who managed to defeat three legions and fought for his people. Eventually, the Romans just accepted the Rhine and Danube Rivers as the limits of their empire, at least to the north. They built a series of defensive fortifications called Limes, which served as their border with Germany. This isn't to say that the Romans never crossed into Germany or didn't raise the idea of trying to conquer it again,

Starting point is 00:09:52 but it was never seriously attempted as it was during the reign of Augustus. This border resulted in a very hard boundary between the Roman world and the German world, Germanic world, a division that can still be seen in the language boundary in Europe today. There is a line that runs through Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, where you predominantly see speakers of German languages such as Dutch or German on one side, and speakers of Romance languages on the other. After 2,000 years of history, this line has obviously moved as countries and kingdoms rose and fell, but in general that division still exists. Arminius became a symbol of German nationalism starting in the 16th century with Martin Luther,

Starting point is 00:10:29 who saw Arminius' fight against the Romans as similar to his fight against Roman Catholicism. Arminius rose to further prominence during German unification in the 19th century, and of course it became a big symbol under Nazi rule as well. Despite the importance of the battle, over time the exact location of the Tudorburg Forest was lost to history. After two millennia, forests can come and go and eventually nobody was sure exactly where the battle took place. The site was finally rediscovered in 1987 by a British amateur archaeologist with a the metal detector who was searching for coins on his day off while stationed in Germany in the military. He found coins dating back no later than the reign of Augustus.

Starting point is 00:11:08 A team of professional archaeologists began searching that year. What they found was an amazing collection of Roman items along a corridor that was 24 kilometers long and 1.6 kilometers wide. Today, the site can be found near the village of Kalkreza in the state of Lower Saxony, and there's a museum with artifacts found at the dig site. The Battle of Tudaberg Forest was one of the most important battles in European history. Its impact shaped not only the ancient map of Europe, but its echoes can still be seen in the modern world as well. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel.

Starting point is 00:11:45 The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where everything everywhere is. where Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (Encore)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.