The death of Amalric at 16
Playing as Germany, the early generation of generals that subdued Gaul, Britain, and northern Italy were settled down as aging governors to consolidate their gains, making the center of the family in the former lands of the Julii. Armies in the field were in the hands of a generation of dissolute youngsters, but for one noble son-in-law, Boiocalus the Conqueror, whose famous battles against the Brutii left a series of crossed swords on the map down through Dacia, until he perched himself precariously in the first city wrested from the Brutii, Bylazora, in the heart of hostile Macedonia. He was in his mid-thirties and a ten-star general. Sido the Angry, about the same age, and the best of a bad lot, followed him to Bylazora and took refuge. Both had been ravaged by a steady succession of massive Roman armies with advanced units and devastating artillery. The road north was soon closed by roaming bands of rebels and Scythians. The armies on the north Illyrian coast, though, were holding. A small troop of reinforcements led by a teen-aged general was sneaking eastward across the mountains.
This was the situation when Amalric, the first son of Boiocalus, came of age and appeared in Bylazora. He was groomed for battle right away. Boiocalus gave him a share of his command retinue and sent him out on sorties to gain experience and hire mercenaries with the meager funds available. Then, in a bold push southward, Sido struck one full Roman army, Amalric a second, and they joined with a much reduced force to besiege Thessalonica. The newly arrived reinforcements were interposed weakly just east of Bylazora against a third Roman army to prevent its interference. When attacked, the young general retreated into the city and Boiocalus took charge to claw out another famous victory. At Thessalonica, the Brutii were severely weakened, but managed to respond with three small armies of about 200 each, attacking the German army of about 400 axemen, hoplites, archers, two generals, and wardogs. The numbers were not reassuring against the tough varieties of legionary cohorts.
Normally the split enemy forces could be faced and destroyed in succession, but with weaker units and no cavalry, Sido determined to avoid a fluid battlefield and rely on the archers. He planted the army on the edge of a flat plain next to a steep downward slope to protect the flank and keep an eye on the valley without moving any troops. The position proved not so favorable when the smallest of the Roman armies with a cohort and onagers approached from the valley and its artillery found the right range at a surprising distance; while the two other Roman armies combined from the front. With the only available cavalry force, Amalric was already racing down the hillside before the onagers fired, but two volleys struck before he reached them, killing archers and part of Sido’s bodyguard. The Roman cohort accompanying the artillery had climbed halfway up the hill and could not protect them. On the plain above, the wardogs were sent against other approaching artillery units, unsuccessfully, but their attack distracted a few cohorts and prevented them from reaching the front line all at once. With the clash of the first rush imminent, Amalric raced uphill to rejoin the force. Possibly he saved the day. On the way uphill, though trying to avoid it, he was entangled in the legionary cohort, and incredibly, managed to destroy it completely with little harm to his unit. By the time he reached the top of the hill, another cohort was smashing through the axemen, and without hesitation, feeling invincible, Amalric charged their flank at close quarters. There was not much choice, perhaps, but the cohort did not disintegrate and Amalric fell. Eventually, Sido had to charge the center - with better prudence and timing - and he managed to pull out a victory and occupy Thessalonica; while Amalric, the first light of a most famous father and future pride of the German nation, was buried.
The sympathetic sense one gets with the characters is one reason I love RTW. A few other tragic ends have caused me to jot down names and details for a possible memorial, but only the death of Amalric remains vivid and poignant enough to tell. The youthful sense of vitality and invulnerability, combined with the pressing challenge for valor and glory to match his father, reminds me of a description in a story by Arthur Conan Doyle of young soldiers charging fearlessly and fatally into the face of Napoleon’s artillery, whereas older veterans cautiously crept forward and overcame the same position with hardly a casualty. So it goes with many young men through numerous wars, and the reason they are called in Rome the “hastati.” The same brash fearlessness is evident in hazardous occupations, such as construction or logging, and in recreation and macho confrontations among one another, youth charging headlong into danger as if armored at birth, like Amalric - dead at 16.
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