Julius Caesar was an excellent General, probably one of the best ever. He understood strategy (planning ahead) and tactics (how to move), and he could handle his rough and greedy Roman soldiers. His enemies feared his swiftness of action. He could also be very patient and was able to choose the best time and place for his battles. His soldiers were devoted (dedicated) to him because of his successes and his skills as a leader.

Julius Caesar spent seven years in Gaul and Britain. He made alliances with some tribes of Gauls in order to fight others.

Caesar learned that the Helvetii (a tribe of people in Switzerland) were planning to invade Rome's lands. He reacted swiftly and recruited two new legions (a total of about 7,200 men). Then he took the army north to meet the Helvetii. The small Roman army defeated the much larger Helvetii army. Then Caesar turned to the cause of the problems, the Germans. In a short battle he destroyed this German army, too.

After his victory against the Germans, Caesar realized that he could conquer all of Gaul. In the following year he put down the Belgic tribes in the north, while his lieutenant Publius Licinius Crassus pacified (stopped the fighting) in present day Normandy and Brittany in France. In just two years of campaigning, the whole of Gaul from the Rhine River to the Ocean had surrendered to Caesar, and to Rome. Caesar's letters to Rome telling of these great victories were greeted with great enthusiasm. The Senate voted him a fifteen-day thanksgiving holiday.

A marble statue entitled "The Dying Gaul" ( (Capitoline Museum, Rome, ca. 230 BCE) See more here.

But there were many problems in Rome. Citizens were rioting because of grain shortages . Mobs fought each other in several outbreaks of violence in 57 B.C..

Three men ruled together along with the senate in a triumvirate (three-man rule). Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey tried to rule together, but Julius Caesar was the most popular with the Romans because of his victories. The other leaders and the senators were jealous of his power.

In late 56, Caesar marched his army into Brittany, a peninsula in Gaul (France). The Veneti had revolted against the Romans. Caesar destroyed the Veneti and the next year conquered two other tribes of Gauls. Then he virtually (truthfully) exterminated (totally wiped out, destroyed completely) two German tribes who had crossed into Gaul to help the rebels. He then bridged the Rhine River and raided Germany before crossing the English Channel to punish the Britons, who had sent help to their relatives, the Gauls.

Caesar was again successful. The Roman senate this time voted him twenty days of public thanksgiving!

The reality was that things were getting out of hand. His expeditions to Germany and Britain had both been brief and Gaul was still far from pacified (made peaceful). His first expedition to Britain had failed to achieve any results. Never one to accept defeat, Caesar prepared to launch (start) a new expedition on Britain the next year. He gathered 800 ships and 5 legions (about 18,000 men). They sailed across the English Channel a second time

But the victories in Britain were not sweet. Plutarch, a Roman historian, tells us that the islanders were so miserably poor that they had nothing worth taking. "When he found himself unable to put such an end to the war as he wished, he was content to take hostages from the king, and to impose a tribute (like a yearly tax), and then quitted the island." - Plutarch, Life of Caesar

Caesar's return to Gaul from Britain was a period of deep personal crisis. In the letters waiting upon his return were the news of the deaths of two of the most important people in his life: his daughter Julia, and his mother Aurelia. He seems to have become careless in taking care of his armies for winter quarters. His sloppiness cost the lives of at least 10,000 men. He drowned his sorrow by fighting and taking the blood of the Gauls. He waged a war of extermination against the rebellious Eburones and bridged the Rhine for a second raid in 53. He treated the Gauls brutally during this year's campaigning. The leader of the rebellious Senones was flogged (whipped) to death. In the past, Caesar treated his conquered enemies with more kindness and respect.

The troubles in Rome kept Caesar in Gaul during early 52 B.C.. The Gauls were aware of these troubles. A young, ambitious prince named Vercingetorix, seized the opportunity to lead the peoples of Central Gaul in revolt. He had himself crowned King of the Gauls.

Caesar was cut off from his troops in Northern Gaul. His career on the line. Caesar reentered Gaul with only a small force. He headed straight into the heart of Gaul, digging his way through snowdrifts in the Alps Mountains and rejoined his army.

Then the Romans surrounded Vercingetorix in Gergovia, but they were unable to take over the fort. Caesar's army suffered heavy losses -- the first defeat that Caesar had suffered in Gaul. He retreated (moved back) and while his army was on the march, the Gauls attacked again. Then Caesar challenged Vercingetorix in Alesia, a strongly fortified town. This site was too high to be attacked, so Caesar had to starve his enemies, who had lots of food. The Romans decided that they could wait. They built enormous fortifications. First, they build one line to keep in 80,000 Gauls. Then they built a second line to defend the Romans against 240,000 warriors of Gauls who came to the rescue of Vercingetorix in Alesia. Terrible things happened. The Gauls sent their wives and children out from the fort, but the Romans refused to let them pass their lines. They were starved to death. In the end, Roman fortifications proved superior to Gauls' numbers. Vercingetorix surrendered. This time the Senate voted a public thanksgiving of twenty days, the third time such an honor had been given Caesar.

Roman siegeworks (from Westpoint Museum, USA. Photograph and enlarged image link © Michael Akinde, 2000

The rebellion was by no means over with the defeat of Vercingetorix. Caesar had to fight against several other tribes. Caesar's approach in these years was a mixture of reconciliation and terror. The time of his command in Gaul was running out, and he desperately needed to complete his pacification of Gaul. The final scene of Gallic resistance was at a city called Uxellodunum, where Caesar had the hands of every man who had carried arms cut off. Whatever one may feel of his methods, the policy was effective and gave him the peace needed to concentrate on events in Rome. The province (territory, state) of Gaul remained peaceful, even during the following decades of civil war in Rome.

Vercingetorix Throws Down His Arms at the Feet of Caesar; painting by L. Royer, 1899 Also see a statue of Vercintetorix by Millet

The whole of Gaul was now conquered. According to one historian, six million people had been living in Gaul before Caesar arrived in 58; one million had been killed and one million had been sold as slaves when he left in 50. Caesar himself wrote in his Commentaries on the War in Gaul that peace had been brought to the whole of Gaul. However, this was the peace of a graveyard.

[Adapted from a biograpy of Julius Caesar in Twelve Parts, by Jona Lendering.]

Map of Gaul