LAST ROMAN WARLORDS IN THE WILD NORTH (INSULARIS DRACO - LATE ROMAN\DARK AGE MOD IN GAUL AND BRITISH ISLES)
NORTHERN GAUL...
SPRING 451 AD
Our story begin much earlier than the infamous clash with those the germanic laeti of gaul call "the piss of the devil", the huns of Attila.
In 403 ad, 50 years before, emperor Honorius and Stilicho his general was dealing with a gothic foederati mutiny in Italy and Illyricum, and called back many garrisons from Britannia, and Gaul to Italy, leaving a vital section of the limes (a frontier, not in the sense of a modern border, but an area where move and garrison troops, colonists, absorbe tribes, i know that could seem bold, but it was something like the wild west for the americans, with us cavalry forts even in indian territory, with roman citizens living even among the barbarians by years, as servants or outlaws, at the time of julian the apostatae the sources mention even some bounty killer among the roman commanders, and barbarians , romanized often living among the romans by generations, it wasn't a border in modern sense.... a line on a map. But it was THE FRONTIER) undefended, this caused the disaster, in the night of dec. 31 407 ad, the most baleful, deadly new year's eve of the western history three or four germanic peoples crossed the iced rhine, and overwelhm Gaul, the only troops left to defend the river was the Salian franks foederati, they did their best, stopping even the invaders for sometime, but without the help of the roman garrison it couldn't last too long, and at the end they passed, harassing the whole province, and arriving until Iberia later.
Emperor Honorius wrote a letter in Britannia, saying more or less "provide yourselves to your defense".
Most of the troops was retired, in gaul and italy by now, but many soldiers, magistrates, municipal authorities, bishops, and others remained, because they was native of the island or had family there, the surviving central authority in britannia was organized in Londinium in what was called the "CONCILIUM BRITANNIAE", governed by a paramount ruler, Vitalinus (Vortigern in the celtic sources), a rich romano british landowner, he implemented the anglish, saxon and jutes foederati settlements on the coast to counter the pictish and scottish and gaelic raids in north and west, and organized the local troops with the various local warlords (by now every romano british noble, officer, landowner etc etc had a small private army claiming a small territory) , and implementing the contacts with the romano british peoples emigrated in Armorica (a lawless land in gaul, home of the bacaudae revolt, gallic farmers, roman deserters, barbarians, ruined by the central administration, turned into brigands and bandits ravaging the land and harassing small municipalities..).
Meanwhile in gaul, the barbarian horde (vandals, alans, suebi, and alamanni) passed mostly heading for spain, and later north africa (the vandals) leaving only three foederati kingdoms in the province, the franks, loyal sentinels on the rhine delta, established there by 200 years by now), the visigoths of aquitania, and the alans of Goar and Sangibans in Aurelianum, aside the Burgundi east.
The roman magister militum Aetius, in last 30 years fought with the help of his hunnic allieds, against these germanic peoples (fleeing from the huns, and scared by them) from time to time, putting one tribe against the other, but in last years a new hunnic great king, Attila, reunited the tribes in a big coalition, threatening the eastern empire.
In 449 AD taking the Honoria quarrel as a casus belli, Attila invaded the west, trying to establish his peoples (a huge coalition of huns, germanic, iranic and slavic peoples, every peoples conquered by the huns was there with his own chiefs) in Gaul, and the Generalissimo Aetius found himself without his precious hunnic allieds..... (Only a few was with us at the catalaunian fields.... those loyal to Bleda, the brother of Attila, killed when he tooked the throne, the nobles friend of bleda escaped west fighting for Rome, we used these guys, speaking the hunnic dialect, to infiltrate Attila camp and achieve intelligence during his chevauxeee in Gaul, as the salian franks infiltrated the ripuarian camps, allieds of attila, for the same reason).
All the roman diplomacy, and all the roman best roman diplomats of the time, and patience, like Romolus, friend of Aetius, was moved in Raetia to the Burgundi, in Aquitania to the Visigoths, to the Franks north, and even the Bagaude was asked to assist the army, (the roman regular troops was very few at the time, commander Majiorianus succeeded in bring from Italy a new enlisted comitatenses legions with local recruits, but they was inexperienced, the few good troops of the italian army, the presentalis troops, and the limitanei\navy troops of Venetia-Julia and Aquileia (Venetic\Histrian marines, Highlanders of Pannonia, illyrian sailors, all experienced troops with years of life at the frontier between Noricum and Pannonia) was kept there by Petronius, the rival of Aetius, to defend Italy in case of Attila was changing direction) to build a coalition of peoples, to reunite all the foederati and allieds of Rome in gaul and force them to respect their treaty, and field their forces to counter the invaders. ....
AFTER WE PURSUED THEM FOR WEEKS, WITH ONLY SKIRMISHES, THEY STOPPED AT THE CATALAUNIAN FIELDS.... IN THE LUGDUNENSIS I GUESS.
Aetius reunited the war council that night , stating that Sangiban and his alans would mantain the center, (rumours of treason was circulating on him, so he was put there to avoid desertion), the roman regular troops occupied a hill, to absorbe the main assault of Attila cavalry, while the frankish and the visigoths allieds was on the flanks....
In the morning when we realized the entity of the hunnic horde, we was astonished....
The officers ordered the troops to "DIE ON YOUR POSITION".
The hunnic and germanic steppe cavalry (ostrogoths, but also others joined later in germanic forests, like iutungi) was devastating, but the infantry obeyed, pratically diyng in position without broke and route, then the few roman cavalry, the alans of sangiban, and the anti-attila hunnic nobles assaulted on the flanks, killing soon one of the Attila best commanders, after 30 minutes of battle where Aetius risked several time to be killed (his bucellari personal retainer unit lost 80% of men!) the franks and the visigoths finally bite their back from the flanks, but many barbarian corps kept the position and was massacred there without retreat....
Even attila was wounded and was believed dead for the rest of the day.
At night the body of Theodoric, the king of the visigoths was found, he was dead, his son and heir Torismund wasntd revenge, to assault the hunnic encampment and finish off the enemy, but aetius convinced him to return in Aquitania to secure his throne (it was not a good idea to annihilate Attila....what could happen without the threat of the huns? the germanic foederati in gaul could discover they don't need rome's help anymore....).
After the battle, Aetius returned in Italy, leaving the governorship of the surviving Gallic territories under the direct control of Rome to Aegidius Syagrius, a good officer formed up under Aetius with Majorian, and others.
The king of the Alans of Aurelianum Sangiban died in the battle too.... It's been a bad lost.
The nomad cavalry is the best part of the roman army by now (in mid-late 5th century the army start to turn slowly into what you will see later with Justinian and Belisarius, where the elite and best part is the cavalry, both melee and missile in the same unit, and having few regular troops in the governorship of gaul, few money, i m building my forces in that way with a small elite of roman\nomadic regular troops, sided by foederati and allieds, playing with intelligence rather than force on the field, with hit and run attacks, sieges, guerrilla, and so on, like the early byzantine forces in 6th century and also 7th probably. Later i will do in the same mod, after this campaign, also a romano british 6th century campaign, and you will see the best of this tactic\strategy there against the saxons), the to loose an experienced commander like Sangiban is been a bad hit.
Luckily his army is not destroyed, returning to aurelianum to replenish and recruit new troops, constituting a column of alan cataphracts and horse archers enlisted regularly in the roman cavalry, with roman officers, insignia etc etc
While south in TURONE the visigoths are established as Laeti, but i don't know if they will be friendly for long.....(often the foederati did take other cities, illegally, then returning into the foedus, as roman allieds, enlarging so their dominions).
The objective is to create a reliable galloroman army, based on cavalry tactics, to reconduct slowly in a matters of several years one by one the foederati under roman rule, and create a roman rump state in gaul that have his weight even in britannia in support of the pro roman party, the concilium britanniae.
Also two roman fleets, one in Paris and the others on the channel, complete with ships, crews and equipment survive and are under our command in gaul.
In next episode i will post some map of the territory controlled by me.
From 451 ad is all for now!
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Originally Posted by Alwyn
