The Battle of Alesia - Caesars Greatest Victory
Was Caesar’s victory in the battle of Alesia due to his skill and strategy as a leader with the odds against him or pure luck? Did his opponents misjudge the situation leading to their downfall? Would Caesar have won this war if the Gallic tribes had not chosen to remain settled in the town of Alesia where they were trapped? Although Caesar was well known for his strategic thinking, he was also known as a very lucky man, they called it Caesar’s Luck.
War is a matter of strategy and power, power being numbers and combat experience and strategy a matter of planning ahead to find your enemy’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities. To go to war there are leaders that make decisions and planning is a major factor in their success due to the winning strategies to overpower the enemy but sometimes luck sways the outcome and some leaders just depend on numbers and bravery of their soldiers to win a war.
During the rule of Julius Caesar, the city of Rome was in the same place as it is today, but the area the Roman Republic controlled was much greater. The Roman rule reached along the Mediterranean all the way into Europe. Julius Caesar was the man largely responsible for conquering these territories. In 58 B.C, the country you know as France was known as Gaul. The Gallic people were organised into warring tribes, and by Roman standards were considered barbaric. For seven years, Julius Caesar worked tirelessly to bring the Gaul’s under Roman control, and eventually he succeeded, thanks to a very important victory at the battle of Alesia.
At the beginning of 52 B.C., Caesar completely misread the situation in Gaul, failing to see that even most of his allies were uniting against him. That political failure led to a military crisis. Caesar overcame this through his own talent as a commander and the bravery and skill of his army, combined—as he was always the first to admit—with a good deal of luck. It was a very close thing and could easily have ended with his defeat, and quite possibly his death. Gallic tribes had gathered to discuss their situation, Caesar and his Roman thugs had to go, but how would they make this happen? Their plan was simple; put aside tribal differences, present a united front against Caesar’s army, follow the leadership of a man name Vercingetorix and attach and kill as many Romans as possible across Gaul. Under Vercingetorix, the Gaul’s began to rebel and wreak havoc against Roman bases across the territory. When the rebellion started Caesar was enjoying time in the Alps skiing, so he and his forces were forced to trek through the snow to deal with the Gaul problem. Caesar quickly devised a strategy. He split his forces into nine legions. Four legions would follow a man named Titus Labienus and five legions would go with Caesar to pursue Vercingetorix.
Early on, Caesar suffered a few small losses and had to regroup. Vercingetorix and his troops had made a cosy home for themselves in the town of Alesia. It was the perfect spot: it had a giant wall for protection and sat on a hill that was perfect for defence. Caesar had two options to deal with Vercingetorix. He could either attack the town directly or he could create a siege by surrounding the town and cutting them off from the outside world. Without supplies moving in and out of Alesia, Vercingetorix and the people inside the walls would starve.
Caesar used two strategies to do this. The first was creating a defensive wall, his Roman troops dug ditches and built walls and watch towers in huge circles around the town. The troops would then watch Alesia to make sure Vercingetorix and his troops didn’t try and fight their way out.
The second strategy was to build a series of works confronting the walls to isolate the defender. Caesar’s troops faced the opposite direction to watch for armies that came to relieve Vercingetorix and his army. Vercingetorix banished those who were unable to fight against the romans the old, sick, women and children, as they were beginning to starve. Caesar didn’t let them out as this would’ve given the Gaul’s more food for themselves rather than worrying about their women and children.
They were left to starve in between the walls of Alesia and Caesar’s inner walls surrounding Alesia. Caesar’s decision may have seemed harsh but from a strategic point of view it was the best option.
Caesar and his troops held off all attacks from Vercingetorix’s allies outside the wall, there was a point where they attacked from all sides splitting the roman legions within the walls, Caesar took a legion outside the wall and attacked the largest group from behind forcing Vercingetorix’s reinforcements/allies to retreat due to their heavy losses. As this was happening Vercingetorix and his Gaul’s tried breaching the weakest points from within the wall, as Vercingetorix finally managed to cross the trenches, the battle on the outside was over and the Roman troops began to fall back to the inner wall to defend. Although a lot of romans were lost in the battle of Alesia, Caesars siege worked perfectly. Vercingetorix and the people were trapped inside Alesia, and they quickly ran out of supplies and began to starve. The Gaul’s were untrained soldiers with no military equipment or armour protecting them, whereas the metal armour combined with skilled combat training made the Roman soldiers into tanks verses the Gallic warriors. In addition, one cannot understate the tactical genius of Caesar. The Gaul’s would’ve been weakened because of their limited food resources, so it brought the war to a pretty even playing field just as Caesar had planned. We do know that the Gaul’s had the numbers, fierce and respected fighters with no proper training, reinforcements on both sides but their disadvantages were that they were trapped, starving, with loss of communication to reinforcements, but on home territory. The Romans advantages were strategy, armour, combat training, high ground/walls, and good food supply, but their disadvantages are that they were outnumbered and in enemy territory. As reported by Caesar in the book De Bello Gallico, Vercingetorix’s decision to send away all of his cavalry is certainly questionable. Caesar had 10–11 legions (30,000–50,000 legionaries) 10,000 auxiliaries 60–75,000 approximately total Romans and allies, 12,800 were killed and wounded. Vercingetorix had 80,000 besieged and 248,000 relief forces (Julius Caesar) 300,000 (Plutarch) 400,000 (Strabo), 70,000–100,000 (modern est.) 250,000 were killed and 40,000 captured. Caesar, in his book De Bello Gallico, refers to a Gallic relief force of a quarter of a million, probably an exaggeration to enhance his victory. Unfortunately, the only records of the events are Roman and therefore presumably biased. Modern historians usually believe that a number between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand men is more credible. Caesar’s book was a propaganda piece, it was for political use to win over the people and glorify his image, therefore we cannot truly know the limitless truths to the story of Alesia. The book De Bello Gallico is the only piece of historical evidence other than the site itself to tell the story.
Also, when thinking about the cavalry in Book VII, it must be remembered that Caesar supplemented the Roman citizen cavalry with Germanic mercenaries, who were much better horsemen than the Romans. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the man who ordered the charge that saved the battle for the Romans was the commander of the Germanic cavalry, and was not even a Roman. If this is the case, we can understand how and why Caesar was able to take all of the credit for this decisive manoeuvre and not receive any backlash in 42 Rome.
De Bello Gallico, also Bellum Gallium, is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative, it gives a good insight into the battle of Alesia. The book De Bello Gallico was published in 58–49 BC in Rome, the book was written for the people of Rome, in order to give them an understanding of the threats that Caesar and his troops faced, making him look better from a political perspective. This makes it hard to use the source as evidence as it’s not the most reliable piece of evidence as it was published by romans and written by Julius Caesar himself meaning it is more than likely bias and one sided. As it is the only documentation of the Battle of Alesia, we can use other than the site itself to give us a better perception of what actually happened. Alesia is located in Mont Auxois above the present-day village of Alise-Sainte-Reine in the department of Cote d’Or, France. Historical reports say that Julius Caesar had forty thousand Romans by his side, and in Alesia there were over three hundred thousand. Modern day historians agree that it was more likely fifty thousand against one hundred thousand, still one on two odds but they believe that Julius Caesar exaggerated like most of the stories he had written to glorify himself.
In the end, it appears either a legate (possibly Marcus Antonius) or cavalry commander who could have been a German mercenary ordered the charge if Caesar took part in the battle. Between these two options of Caesar either remaining at his headquarters and ordering the charge, or rushing into the fight and leaving a second-in-command at the headquarters who could have ordered the charge. Granted that great generals were often more aware of their surroundings than others and that charisma played a major part in the depiction of his (in our case, Caesar’s) battlefield mobility. Furthermore, it certainly seems that Caesar was opening himself up to criticism back in Rome. Many of the elites in Roman society would have had their fair share of battlefield experience and it is likely they would have realized the contradiction Caesar had stepped into. Although we may never be able to fully know what exactly happened in this instance, the realities of the terrain conflict with Caesar’s account, which would place him both in the battle directly and commanding it from a strategic perspective. This suggests that Caesar was willing to use very broad strokes when painting his depiction of the Siege of Alesia.
In summary the battle of Alesia began roughly September 52BC. It was the beginning of a rebellion against the Roman leader Julius Caesar. Caesar was outnumbered according to his records. The Gaul’s made the mistake of making themselves a fort on the hill of a town known as Alesia. They thought they would remain safe in their fortress and would be able to outnumber the Roman soldiers.
Evidence surrounding the battle is conflicting. There is some evidence that Caesar was a strategic leader and that he had won the battle of Alesia with his careful planning and ability to keep the Gaul’s surrounded which resulted starving many of them to their deaths. The book Caesar wrote describes the almost impossible task of defeating the Gaul’s as he was outnumbered. The book V11 suggests that it was not Caesar’s strategy that won the war instead it was the cavalry commanders in charge of his army and he just took the credit for the victory.
In theory Julius Caesar had planned ahead, he was determined to win the battle and took big risks at calculated measures, and his plan worked. The battle of Alesia was won using Strategy as Caesar and his troops were clearly outnumbered, using strategic planning he managed to divide and starve the Gaul’s leading to the Victory of Alesia. Whether the strategy was from Caesar himself or his commanders in charge whom made the decisions, Caesar ultimately took the credit for the Battle. Julius Caesar did take big risks with his decisions as they could have gone horribly wrong, and that being said luck definitely had a part to play in the battle of Alesia. The Gaul’s could have held their position and played smarter rather than acting out of pure anger because they felt trapped, it could have gone both ways really. The Gaul’s could have come up with a better strategy somehow and used their numbers to find a way to bring down the walls, if it wasn’t impossible which it wasn’t it comes down to luck, they didn’t manage to come up with a strategy/plan which eventually lead to their misfortune and the Julius Caesar’s Victory.
