Boudica's Defeat - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By Zagadka
#13604077
Pretty basic question I have... in Boudica's defeat, why didn't they apply a form of siege? I know they were an unorganized rabble, but Suetonius pretty much pinned himself in. No reinforcements were coming, there was no supply route, and no chance to charge the Iceni/etc ranks.

Were they just one feather short of a duck? Their tactic was just running at them screaming.
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By Oxymoron
#13604088
Were they just one feather short of a duck? Their tactic was just running at them screaming.


Worked for braveheart.
By Smilin' Dave
#13604092
Without knowing much about the period I would suggest:
- That the forces involved might have been too fractious to maintain for a siege of any length.
- Maybe there was a political need for a big battle.
- Poor communication/discipline might have made it hard to maintain a proper siege ring around the opposition.

Worked for braveheart.

I'm pretty sure the Scots relied heavily on their defensive shiltrons as well as 'running around screaming'. And Feudal Britain is not Imperial Rome.
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By J Oswald
#13604111
The Britons lacked anything that we could recognizably call siege weaponry, or at least we haven't found any examples of pre-Roman British siege weaponry yet, so a siege was next to impossible. Hemming himself in was actually a very good strategy, since the heavier Roman armor would give them an advantage against the Celtic weaponry, while the fact that the army was protected from flanking attacks allowed him to concentrate all his men on the front.
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By Thunderhawk
#13604268
After several successes against Roman towns and their garrisons, those who took part as part of the poorly/unorganized head long screaming mass of people may have viewed that style as effective. I doubt they would have considered thousands of armoured Roman soldiers to be as ineffective as the town defenders, but given their rapid successes they may have still underestimated the Romans. My thought however is that even if they didn't underestimate the Roman soldier in general they may have underestimated their tactical ability and that of Suetonius specifically.
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By Potemkin
#13604277
The Britons lacked anything that we could recognizably call siege weaponry, or at least we haven't found any examples of pre-Roman British siege weaponry yet, so a siege was next to impossible. Hemming himself in was actually a very good strategy, since the heavier Roman armor would give them an advantage against the Celtic weaponry, while the fact that the army was protected from flanking attacks allowed him to concentrate all his men on the front.

^ This. The Britons outnumbered the Roman army by a factor of 10 to 1 or more - Boudicca must have been confident that she must win through sheer weight of numbers. After all, it had worked before, repeatedly. Basically, she underestimated Suetonius' abilities as a military commander. He chose the time and the place of his encounter with Boudicca's army perfectly, and his positioning of his army was masterful. After that, all he had to do was rely on the discipline and training of the Roman legionaries. Boudicca, while she had vast hordes of warriors, was basically leading an undisciplined rabble. All she could manage in the way of 'manoeuvres' was to simply throw her army at Suetonius. It was like throwing them into a meat-grinder. :hmm:
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By Corporatios
#13615503
She had enough army to cycle them, or to semi-cycle them. Or she could have used some fire, like these 'fire-rolls' to loosen their tight defence.
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By Potemkin
#13615594
She had enough army to cycle them, or to semi-cycle them.

'Cycle' them? If you mean circle them, then this wouldn't have done any good. Suetonius had chosen his position very carefully so that his army could not be flanked or encircled. If Boudicca had attempted such a manoeuvre, most of her army would merely have become spectators at the battle. To fight Suetonius, she had to close with him, and she could only do this from the front.

Or she could have used some fire, like these 'fire-rolls' to loosen their tight defence.

Not enough is known about the battle to be able to say definitively, but if the ground was level, then the fire rolls wouldn't have worked. They need a slope in order to roll. And presumably, simply bombarding the Romans with projectile weapons wasn't an option either, since the Icenii primarily used melee weapons such as swords or axes rather than projectile weapons such as spears or arrows.
By Smilin' Dave
#13616317
Potemkin wrote:'Cycle' them? If you mean circle them, then this wouldn't have done any good. Suetonius had chosen his position very carefully so that his army could not be flanked or encircled. If Boudicca had attempted such a manoeuvre, most of her army would merely have become spectators at the battle. To fight Suetonius, she had to close with him, and she could only do this from the front.

I think he actually means more along the lines of maintaining the siege by cycling units so they didn't get worn out. Like WWI with troops being cycled out of the front line trenches on a regular basis. I don't know that such an approach would avoid the primary problems previously noted, like the lack of discipline among the Britons or the not entirely unreasonable believe that numbers and screaming hordes would carry the day again.
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By Potemkin
#13616636
I think he actually means more along the lines of maintaining the siege by cycling units so they didn't get worn out. Like WWI with troops being cycled out of the front line trenches on a regular basis.

But in a sense, her troops were being cycled - as the front ranks were mown down by the Roman troops, the second line would take their place, and so on, until they were all dead. The only way that cycling (or rotating) her troops would have been of any benefit would have been if they had been bombarding the Romans from a distance with spears or other projectile weapons. The fact that they didn't do so suggests that either they didn't have projectile weapons in any significant quantities, or that Boudicca was an incompetent military commander.

I don't know that such an approach would avoid the primary problems previously noted, like the lack of discipline among the Britons or the not entirely unreasonable believe that numbers and screaming hordes would carry the day again.

Indeed. The point is that Suetonius had positioned himself so that Boudicca was forced to funnel her troops towards the Roman front line. The cramped space negated her advantage in numbers, and the Icenii troops would have died relatively quickly when faced with a solid line of Roman legionnaries, so rotating her troops when the front rank became exhausted wouldn't work - they would be dead long before they became exhausted.
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By Igor Antunov
#13622301
There is a very interesting bbc documentary regarding this battle. Basically the romans choose good ground, formed disciplined ranks, and used a very simple tactic suited for the situation at hand.

Boudicas rable were largely peasants that charged blindly at the roman legion. When they got close there was an inevitable clash, problem was, there were so many of boudicas men that the ones behind kept pushing the ones ahead into the roman lines. What occured then was obvious from any roman commanders point of view.

Boudicas men at the very front had no way to swing their weapons due to the crush from behind, but the romans, forming a wall with their shields in wedge formation, simply held the crushed men at bay and stabbed between the shields with their short swords as they funneled into the wedges. So you had tens of thousands of men being squeezed onto a wedged wall of stabbing blades. Couple this with a steady roman advance forward and you have an advancing meatgrinder.

In short there was nothing particularly brilliant about the roman defense. It was just a dumb undisciplined mob skewering itself on their blades.

There is no deep context for discussion here.

Boudica could have won if she had an actual army. But she didn't. She had a peasant horde.

It's really sad that all these men brought their families along, so that behind them sat tens of thousands of wives, children and elderly, all who were in the end slaughtered like little piglets alongside their fleeing men.
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By Thunderhawk
#13622409
In short there was nothing particularly brilliant about the roman defense. It was just a dumb undisciplined mob skewering itself on their blades.

The brilliance of the defense was picking the spot for a very effective formation at mowing down an infantry horde and allowing the Britons to come to them. Having a large horde of soldiers pushing on had been a mainstay of military formations from the Greeks and their phalanx to the Brethren of the Sword and their cavalry push.
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By AlexHarrison
#13689414
Actually! Historians believe the Celts used a certain technique in the film "Troy." They rolled hay into camps/villages and set them alight which would cause mass panic (the whole women & children crying, soldiers dropping their swords bonanza) and not even the Celts were that stupid enough to take advantage.
By Xbow
#14059421
Zagadka wrote:Pretty basic question I have... in Boudica's defeat, why didn't they apply a form of siege? I know they were an unorganized rabble, but Suetonius pretty much pinned himself in. No reinforcements were coming, there was no supply route, and no chance to charge the Iceni/etc ranks.

Were they just one feather short of a duck? Their tactic was just running at them screaming.
I'd say two feathers short of a duck!

As a military commander Boudicca was as incompetent as they come. She was just a big ugly broad with no military experience that was pissed because she got a raw deal from the Romans. Before the death of her husband Prasutagus she was apparently content to live the good life while the Romans did as they pleased with her people. Boudicca and her family suffered no more than many Roman aristocrats were suffering in Rome under Nero. As you may recall Nero was having aristocrats killed and arrested so he could inherit or seize their property and lands. Boudicca had grown used to the perks of being the wife of a rich guy that was benefiting from his collaboration with the Romans.

Siege Suetonius? Impossible. The Iceni had a more serious logistic problem than The Romans with over a 100,000 old men old women and children in her combat trains and 80,000 warriors. At the minimum that means that her mob was consuming 200 tons of food and twenty 9000gallon tanker trucks of water per day. Suetonius's crew was probably expending 18 tons of grain and one 9000 gallon tanker truck of water/day. The Roman supply trains could carry enough dry rations for a month when on the move. And the Iceni were already hungry and some say starving.

I really have to say that Celts in Britain seem to be an order of magnitude dumber than the Celts of Vercingetorix's army a hundred years earlier in Gaul. And Vercingetorix unlike Boudicca knew how to plan a campaign and maneuver an Army. Boudicca was not a warrior she led her troops from a heavy chariot at the rear of the mob. She was a cheer leader that knew how to say, "go get um boys".
#14221993
Xbow very neatly sums it up. Boudica's insurgency worked great, when it was mobs rioting in Roman-installed villages. As soon as the Romans gathered to quel the rebellion, she made horrible stragic blunders. Her big loss came because she saw her forces outnumbered the Romans greatly, yet didn't at all consider their superior arms, formation, or position. So, she told a bunch of guys with sheilds and axes to charge into a funnel and crash against a well-formed legion that she couldn't flank. If she had chosen better ground or drilled her men on formations, then she might have stood a chance.
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By ThirdTerm
#14222013
The Roman Empire enjoyed global military supremacy in the first century and the Roman army was better equipped to crush any rebellion at will from Judea to Britannia. It was not until the third century when it faced serious challenges from the Goths, an East Germanic tribe, and the burden of raising the troops and the funds to defend the Empire brought about its collapse.

Image
Legions and auxiliaries waited in the shelter of the narrow valley until Boudica's troops came within range. Then they hurled their javelins at the Britons and ran forward in wedge formation, supported by the cavalry with their lances. The Roman infantrymen protected themselves with their capacious shields and used their short swords to strike at close range, driving the points into the Britons' bellies, then stepping across the dead to reach the next rank. The Britons, who fought with long swords designed for slashing rather than stabbing, needed room to swing their blades and could not fight effectively at such close range. Furthermore, the light chariots that gave them an advantage when fighting on a wide plain were similarly ineffective, with the Romans emerging from a narrow, protected valley that prevented the chariots from reaching their flanks.
http://www.historynet.com/boudica-celtic-war-queen-who-challenged-rome.htm
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By fuser
#14222041
at Watling street, Boudica didn't enjoyed 1 to 10 superiority or even near to it. The number comes from Roman Historian Tactius and is vastly exaggerated as it was common habit of the time.

Neither Romans enjoyed any global military supremacy, they stood out from rest in the region because of their ability to win "wars", other than that battllefields defeat weren't uncommon for Rome.
#14222054
I read somewhere recently that it has been long suspected (but never proven) that Boudica may not have been playing to win.

The Roman historians all say that she had this righteous fury stemming from Romans going too far. Which is all well and good, but very much also in the Roman historian's handbook of how to explain an event.

It has been said that she was either related to the druids or a druid herself. This, of course, would not be atypical in any way at all for her people there at the time.

But Paulinus was leading his final attack against the most holy place for the highest druids, Anglesey in 60AD. Which, incidentally, is the same time she started her revolt against the Romans in Britain.

Paulinus had to stop his attack into Anglesey and move to crush Boudica, the remaining high druid saved.

We know that the movement of Paulinus and the time of the attacks are accurate. We just can't say for cetain that she attacked with the specific reason to pull the Romans off of Anglesey—which they did.

I would suggest, as many have, that this is quite probable. If it is, then she probably didn't care all that much if she lived or died. All she had to do was keep the Romans there for long enough for the remaining druids to escape, and to keep them occupied and more worried about present England instead of present Wales. All of this, she accomplished—if that was her goal.
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