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The text and editor ✎ said in history
Caesar was a famous statesman and military strategist at the end of the Roman Republic. He led the Roman army in the Gallic War in 58 BC, which lasted for 8 years and eventually conquered the entire northern Gaul region.
The Gallic Wars were an important turning point in Caesar's political career and an important military conquest in Roman history.
Before the start of the Gallic Wars, there was internal struggle between the various tribes of Gaul and an invasion of Rome.
Caesar took advantage of these internal and external war situations to wage the Gallic War under the pretext of attacking the tribes that posed a threat to Rome.
Caesar conquered the tribes of northern Gaul and brought the region under the rule of the Roman Empire.
One of the important events of the Gallic Wars was the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC. In this battle, Caesar defeated Vergina, who led a confederation of Gallic tribes, and completely suppressed the resistance in Gaul.
Caesar then spent a year quelling sporadic rebellions and eventually conquered all of Gaul.
Victory in the Gallic Wars laid the foundation for Caesar's political enterprise. Caesar demonstrated great military skill and leadership in the war, increasing his influence and prestige on the Roman political scene.
After that, he gradually expanded his power and eventually became the dictator of the Roman Empire.
Caesar's dictatorship had an important impact on the evolution of the Roman Empire. His dictatorship paved the way for Augustus to establish the system of statehood that began with it, laying an important step in the transition of the Roman Empire from a republic to an imperial system.
Rely on the supply of allied towns
Alliances were an important means for the nations of the ancient world to maintain their strength and develop and grow. The Romans adopted a strategy of alliances in the course of development and achieved great success.
The French political philosopher Montesquieu analyzed Rome's various allies and concluded that Rome grew stronger and stronger precisely because of the help of these allies.
"Every nation conquered by Rome was used by them to subdue others," he said. "In northern Gaul, some towns had long been allied with Rome. In 121 BC, the Aduis of Gaul allied with Rome.
In the Roman general Caesar's Gallic Wars, he mentions the fact that the Aduis provided food and grass for the Roman army during the war.
Especially at the beginning of the war, the Roman army relied mainly on the various allied towns for food and grass, for example, when fighting against the Elvi, the Aduis provided food and grass for the Roman army.
Caesar also mentions that Dunolex among the Aduis played tricks on the delivery of grain and deliberately delayed, causing the Roman army to face a lack of food and grass.
To solve the problem of food supply, Caesar quickly turned to the largest and most well-stocked town of Eduibon, Bibrakde, to supply the army.
Before the battle of the Germanic prince Ario Vestus, the Roman army prepared food and other supplies at Visonchia, the largest municipality of the Seguangnians.
At that time, the Germanic people were tall and brave, which caused widespread panic among the Roman army. In his morale-boosting speech, Caesar confessed: "We have grain from the Seguangians, the Lycians, and the Lynnes, and the crops in the fields are ripe." ”
In 57 BC , when Caesar offered to suppress the Bir and other tribes , the Remi of the Bier were the first to surrender to Caesar , willing him to enter their own town and provide him with food and other supplies.
The deeper the war, the more these allied towns continued to send food and strategic supplies to Caesar. To sum up, Rome's development and strength could not be separated from cooperation with various allies.
Forced submission to the town
After Caesar's many successful military campaigns, his influence in Gaul grew. Many Gallic towns, oppressed by Roman forces by force, did not resist and recognized Roman hegemony.
When Caesar accepted the surrender of these towns, he not only took hostages and weapons, but also forced them to pay grain and collect it from them at any time.
For example, in 56 B.C., Caesar explained the reason for waging war against several tribes of the Venne: "Because of the lack of grain in that area, Crassus the Younger sent some cavalry commanders and legionary commanders to the neighboring tribes to collect grain and provisions. ”
In exchange for the release of the messenger sent by Crassus the Younger to collect food and grass, several people detained the messenger, which led to the outbreak of war.
In addition, when Caesar accepted the surrender of the Trino-Poddes, he demanded 40 hostages and food for the legions, and repatriated Mendubrajus (a Trino-Podes) home.
The Trino-Podes quickly carried out his order and handed over the hostages and food as required. These examples illustrate that when the Roman legions were running low in battle, they could collect food from the towns that had yielded to cope with their predicament.
In addition to collecting grain from towns in wartime, Roman legions relied on these towns to provide food and daily necessities that were not needed in wartime. In the winter of 54 BC, a drought occurred in Gaul, which led to food shortages.
Caesar dispersed his legions and sent them to different places for the winter, which allowed the supply of the army to be distributed among many towns and avoided the problem of food shortages caused by the concentration of troops in one place.
However , Caesar suffered a major defeat in Gaul , when a semi-legion led by his adjutant generals Sabine and Cauda was besieged by the Eblonites and completely destroyed.
It is worth mentioning that before the attack of the Eblenians, they sent grain to the Roman barracks.
In addition, in Gaul, Caesar set up officials responsible for collecting the grain supplied by these towns.
During the massacre of the Romans by Chinnaboom, the Roman knight Caeus Fufius Chetan, who was in charge of food supplies, was killed. Caesar also used the war to accumulate large quantities of grain and other supplies.
In the Aduites' town of Novio Tonham, Caesar gathered all the Gaul hostages, food, public funds, and his luggage and that of the soldiers.
The Aduis betrayed Caesar during the Great Gallo Revolt in 52 BC, and when Caesar captured the town, he found a large amount of grain and other supplies.
They loaded all the supplies that could be transported immediately onto the boat, while the rest were thrown into the river or set on fire. It can be seen that obtaining food from the subjugated towns was also an important way for Caesar to obtain military food.
Temporary collection of food and provisions
The Roman legions threatened force in front of their allies in the towns of Gaul, forcing them to supply the legions with food and other provisions.
However, even the most loyal ally, the Aduis, deliberately delayed the supply of food to the Roman legions, not to mention the towns that were forced to submit.
Therefore, on the battlefield, Caesar often resorted to other means to temporarily collect food. The greatest feature of these methods was direct plunder, which Caesar considered to be the most effective and frequent use in times of scarcity.
Demanding grain in this way, while aggressive, was a practical means for Caesar to solve the supply problem when he faced food shortages.
Caesar mentions this method of grain harvesting several times in the third and subsequent chapters of the Gallic Wars.
He often sent soldiers to villages and towns of rival tribes to grab food directly, targeting civilians and Roman enemies. The Romans also often looted the enemy's crops as their own stockpiles.
For example, when Caesar first crossed the Rhine into the territory of the Sugangbri, he burned all the villages and houses and harvested grain before marching into the territory of the Upi.
These descriptions reveal Caesar's tactics of using plundering in military operations to solve the problem of food supply.
He believed that this method of direct plunder was the most effective because it could quickly provide the army with the necessary food and other supplies and weaken the strength of rival tribes.
Caesar deliberately used this tactic to make his enemies feel threatened by his military and at the same time provide adequate supplies for his army. This act of plunder demonstrated Caesar's military ability and strategic tactics during the Gaul conquest.
During the Battle of Britain, Caesar also sent troops to harvest grain and transport it to his camp.
In 52 BC, a large-scale uprising broke out in Gaul, and the young patriarchs Vechin and Torex of the central Avrni tribe united with other tribes to resist Roman aggression and tyranny.
They implemented a scorched-earth policy, which was to burn towns and villages whose fortifications were insufficient to ensure their own security, in order to cut off Caesar's direct access to grain and prevent the Romans from obtaining food and supplies from these places.
The scorched earth policy did cause great trouble for the Roman army, plunging its food supply into crisis.
This incident proves that Caesar implemented a policy of grain robbery in Gaul. During the siege of Avan Ligum, Caesar's army faced severe food shortages precisely because of this policy.
"Caesar stayed in this place for a while, rested his army and replenished other supplies, enriching them, but also causing attrition".
During the Gallic war, the supply of food for the army was an important issue. Before each battle, Caesar would prepare enough food supplies before leading the convoy into battle.
During the war, he also collected food in various ways to ensure the supply of the army. When food was in short supply, he preferred to give up favorable combat opportunities.
As mentioned earlier, when food supplies were insufficient, Caesar preferred to abandon the pursuit of the Elvi people and instead solve the problem of food supplies.
During the siege of Avanlegum, the Roman army faced severe food difficulties, and the soldiers had no food for many days and had to survive on livestock driven from afar.
Caesar, seeing the hunger and weakness of the soldiers, decided to stop the siege of Avanlegum, and only continued at the request of the soldiers.
Caesar attached great importance to the food supply of the army and adopted the strategy of taking food on the spot to solve the problem of food and grass.
Although he also encountered a shortage of food and grass on the battlefields of Gaul, on the whole, he succeeded in securing the food supply of the Roman army and did not affect the course of the war much.
The policy of taking food locally was an important economic strategy of Caesar in the Gallic wars.
He encouraged the army to look for local food resources in the course of the conquest and try to avoid relying entirely on logistics supply lines, so as to reduce dependence on food and grass transportation and solve the supply problem.
This strategy effectively ensured the food supply of the army, allowing them to continue fighting and avoid affecting the course of the war due to the lack of food.
Caesar's strategy of taking food locally and supporting war with war laid a solid material foundation for the eventual victory in the Gallic War.
By effectively solving the problem of food supply, he ensured the continued combat capability of the army while reducing the pressure on logistical supplies, allowing the army to act more autonomously.
The successful implementation of this economic strategy played an important role in the outcome of the entire war.
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