TEUTOBURGER WALD, BATTLE OF (9 A.D.). At the opening of the Christian era the country between the Rhine and the Vistula was covered by dense forests, and occupied by numerous Germanic tribes. As Julius Caesar had conquered Gaul, so in his turn did Augustus Caesar determine to conquer this region. To it he sent Drusus and Tiberius, both able generals, and by 15 B.c. the Roman frontier was pushed out to the Danube. Be tween 12 and 9 B.C. Drusus advanced as far as Aliso (probably near Paderborn) on the Lippe, built there a strong fortress, and moved on to the Elbe. Drusus dying at the early age of 3o, Tibe rius succeeded him in command, and having completed the sub jugation of the tribes, in 6 A.D. he was replaced by Quintilius Varus, a man of luxurious habits and disturbed by no cares. He at once began to uproot the old German customs, and by so doing consolidated the tribes against him.
Varus had under his command some 50,000 men. He had ad ministered his province for about a year, when a contingent of Cheruscan (one of the Germanic tribes) troops under the leader ship of Arminius returned to their country. Arminius was then in his twenty-fifth year, and had been educated, in Rome. He bore the Romans no until his return, when his indignation was roused by the behaviour of Varus towards his countrymen. See ing that he was powerless to strike at the Romans covered by their entrenchments, by flattery he gained over Varus, and then in order to draw him away from the Rhenish fortresses persuaded him to move his headquarters to the Weser. This he succeeded in doing.
In the summer of 9 A.D., Varus set out with the XVII., XVIII. and XIX. legions, some cavalry and auxiliaries, in all some 27,00o men to repress a local rising arranged by Arminius. He was warned of the danger, and was urged to secure Arminius and the other Cheruscan chiefs who with their men formed the rear-guard of his column. Refusing to listen to these warnings, from near Minden he entered the forests, followed by an immense train, and headed for Aliso. When the head of the column had become en tangled in the brushwood near the hill of Teut, now called Groten burg, Arminius quitted the rear and followed by his comrades, by means of fire and horn signals roused the tribesmen from the Ems to the Main. As the Romans reached the slopes of the Teutoburg,
the German hordes broke in on them from all sides. So trusting and blind was Varus that at first he thought it but rough horse play. Soon, however, he was disillusioned, and was only able to beat back the incessant assaults by moving towards an open plateau. Here he entrenched.
During Sept. 9, he burnt the impedimenta to lighten the column. On the loth it was again attacked. Though Varus showed great personal bravery he gave no orders, and his troops lost confidence in him. With difficulty they reached the entrance of the Dom pass but a few miles from Aliso. Here Arminius had determined on his decisive attack. Blocking the further exit he fell upon the flanks of the disheartened column, which broke and was slaughtered. Varus fell upon his own sword as his father had done at Philippi.
The loss of the three Roman legions was more than a staggering blow to Augustus, for it marked a great turning point in European history. It showed that Rome was not invincible. It sent the frontier of the Empire back from the Weser to the Rhine, and so prevented the latinization of what to-day constitutes a large part of modern Germany. It denied to the barbarians of the North a high culture, and it encouraged them to sweep South with a low culture and barbarize western Europe. Tactically this battle is of small account, a Marius or a Caesar would have soon finished with Arminius, but its repercussions, not only on the history of war but on that of civilization, cannot be exaggerated, for they are felt to-day in the age-long quarrel between France and Germany— the Latin and the Teutonic outlooks.