The Dramatic Roman Invasion Of Ancient Britain | The Roman Invasions With Ray Mears

It is the year 55 BC. Britain is an Irish nation, a mysterious country off the edge of the map and it doesn't know what is about to hit it. Everything is about to change with a threat that comes directly from that direction. Rome has its sights set on Britain. A massive

invasion

force is on the way led by one of the greatest military leaders of all time, Julius Caesar, but he will face the challenge of his life. This is the story of the Roman

invasion

s. The island of Great Britain has been occupied by humans for almost a million years during that time, our ancestors went from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to farmers who lived in settled communities and were capable of building vast structures like this Infernal Force. .

In the 1st century BC. C. Britain was at the height of its Iron Age, the country was a mosaic of different tribal kingdoms they waged wars against each other they formed complex political alliances cross-Channel trade links to Europe had been established and Britain was developing an enviable reputation for its mineral wealth meanwhile an ambitious Republic one of the most powerful powers the world had yet seen had taken control of much of Europe. This was Rome and one of the sons of Rome was approaching in Gul, largely what we call France today. Julius Caesar was subduing the GAC tribes.

He was becoming very confident in his ability to deal with the insurrection within the tribes. Gore communities, only when he starts to reach Northern Gold, this mysterious land across the ocean that was beyond the edge of the known world starts to fall into his compass, he thinks maybe he could go there, people are trading with this strange island. He begins to find out everything he can about it and eventually hatches a plan to come and take a look for himself. Now it is difficult to understand what a bold idea this was for the Romans. Britain was as remote as you could get at the same time. edge of the known world, so before leaving, Caesar sent a scout across the English Channel to search for possible landing sites.

He also gathered as many merchants as he could to try to find out about Britain. It was this mysterious land on the other side of this expanse of water. We call the canal, but to the Romans this was Ocean, a terrifying piece of water and even today the currents are strong and quite unpredictable. It was interesting that the merchants said practically nothing to him and the feeling we are left with is that this was deliberate because they wanted to shelter and protect Britain from Roman influence. Caesar begins to gather a small fleet of ships off the French coast and sends an envoy ahead.

Commus, the leader of a Belgian tribe friendly to the Romans. Caesar hoped that Kus could convince as many tribes as he could. It is possible to submit to Rome without a fight, but almost immediately his plan begins to go awry when Caesar leaves. G. You have a problem. His Cavalry set up from a different landing point and miss the tide, so they fail to meet him in the channel. However, he presses on and when he reaches where I believe he assumed he would land, he looks up at the cliffs and finds hostile tribesmen who give him a very clear indication that they intend to fight.

This is not what he expected, in fact, his agent commus of him. he has been captured and taken prisoner Britain is in no mood to welcome him to CA. The fact that Caesar thought this cliff-lined coast was a good landing point shows how poor his information was, so things were not going as planned. I think this is By the time you start to see Caesar at his best in some respects, he must have looked over the railing of his galley for his cavalry. There is no sign of them on the coast. Hostile forces. He talks to his subordinate commanders and they arrive at a meeting.

They plan to go for it, they begin to advance along the coast looking for a place where they can land. We don't know the exact point where Caesar invaded, but evidence points to somewhere along this coast, just to the north. Okay in Kent, what we do know is that the British are already there waiting for them to find out what happened next. I will meet the Roman expert Simon Elliot, this in many ways, actually in 55 BC. C. Caesar, for the Romans, the most important invasion of Britain because it is against the defended coast, you have Britain defending the coast as far as the eye can see, so the nobles in their chariots go up and down shouting insults, throwing javelins, the warriors on foot with spears, the shields also throwing insults, all ready for the r.

From his description it would seem that the British warriors are doing the same as me, they marry the water and are ready to receive good, they are very much part of a martial culture, so this is a kind of machismo . because for the British warriors, especially the nobility with all their servants behind them, they have to prove that they are the main men, they are the ones who are going to push back the Romans and there comes a time when the assault stops. There is a moment when things can turn in one direction or another. I think we should go to Caesar now because he gives us this incredible description of what happened.

It says here while our soldiers hesitated, which is a rare criticism of soldiers by Caesar, mainly because The sea was so deep that the man carrying the eagle of the Tenth Legion appealed to the gods, jump soldiers, unless want to betray our Eagle to the enemy. At least I will have done my duty to the Republic and to my commander, he shouted. These loud words he then threw himself away from the ship and began to carry the eagle towards the enemy, then our men urged each other to avoid such misfortune and all together they jumped off the ship and the battle began, it's interesting, remember. the eagle has a religious meaning to the legion, there is only one, the aquiller eagle, think Rosemary Suli and the night eagle, it's a big deal, so the ulifer is the highest ranking Barett in the legion, It's a big deal and also this is the 10est Caesar's legio.

Legion Caesar's leg special legion so it's really very important so this is Caesar telling us how dangerous this whole invasion was and yet the bravery of the Roman soldiers led by Caesar don't forget Caesar is also a great warrior and a general um, this is Caesar and the Romans have to effectively deploy the same weapon to win a very, very difficult fight and it is a very difficult, very difficult fight. I mean, the Romans aren't good at telling you where they made mistakes, but we know that this was an all-out fight to get to the coast and what happened well, one of the interesting things that we can deduce from the primary sources is that the Romans They took advantage of their strengths, so they would have deployed some of their gys on both sides. from the beach here and here and line up the British behind us with ballistas with slings and with bows and arrows and then the legionaries had to literally fight their way to the shore and the British tried to cut off some of them and try to overwhelm them, but Roman discipline finally shined through finally at the end of the day it took the end all day the Romans won Caesar had done it his troops were on British soil he said this is the only successful contested landing in British history so how did the Romans handle it Romans? these soldiers who had achieved such an extraordinary Victory found out.

I will meet with David Richardson, a Roman expert and re-enactor. Good morning David, good morning Caesar has crossed the English Channel, a piece of water with a fearsome reputation, yes, he has landed on the ground at the edge of the known world, yes, and instead of being welcomed, he receives a hostile reception. What weapons did he have with him? That made him feel safe to come ashore and confront all comers. Let's take a look, in fact, at the R. weapon of a legionary of that period, mainly the stabbing sword was a fearsome weapon when fighting someone who used a long and cutting sword, you had to raise and lower a long and cutting sword , exposing the torso and in that short brief time, a very quick movement from a short stabbing sword will do the job and from behind the shield the shield itself is like a small fence, I mean, it's a big shield, perfect coverage, perfect cover and the sword just licks up from behind the shield and does all the damage the Romans were taught to do. to face the body and by doing that in turn, pull, wow, I mean look at you when you put that shield up, it's a pretty formidable barrier, I mean, it's a physical barrier and if they come forward with that, you know it's like a moving wall.

This is not the case, and trying to get past those shields, some Iron Age warriors with enormous bravery threw themselves on the shields to try to knock them down. We have accounts of them wasting their lives just to get past those shields. found practically an impenetrable wall, but Pro, before reaching that stage, the peum, the javelin did a lot of damage, it doesn't matter how much armor you have if you are in a row and you literally have hundreds of thousands of people running towards you screaming like crazy waving Their swords and shields if they run into you are literally going to knock people down and they are among them to stop that charge and stop it. down the javelin, the peum was thrown in volleys simply to stop that great avalanche, bring the first rows, the second rows down and those behind would stumble and fall and everything would start to slow down and the Romans just didn't wait, they just didn't . standing there during a battle, they actually advanced and approached very quickly, um, in the last few meters in a hurry, which reduces the thinking time of their opponent, yes, but you have the man in front with a boom.

The man behind him with one, yes, he did. He handed it to the front to throw. You can go back three rows. You can get three. um correctly, so that three men can throw. Three three men can throw. you have, you need NE, potentially, you know multiple volleys, yes, yes, and like I say, even if you don't hit anyone, if they are stuck on the ground, you will fall on them, it will cause chaos for everyone. fall trampling on people and that's the idea that was well, that's happened, let's see, I mean, if you're trying to hold up that shield, I see your point, it's getting stuck, it's falling and it doesn't want to.

Come out, it's really harder to get out than I thought, it would be too late, you're dead, yeah, because the advancing shield wall is coming towards you, that's really interesting, can I try it? Yes, please, wow, you wouldn't. I want to be on the receiving end of that, not a volley from them, certainly not, that was well done thanks to the team and The bravery of the Roman soldiers won their first battle against the British, I mean, it was an amazing achievement for Caesar to reaching the coast, I mean, making his way on the coast, winning a battle with such a disadvantage was surprising, but from then on things were not going to get better for him, for starters, he had no cavalry, his cavalry had been lost. tide.

They joined him and never reached the coast due to bad weather, which was a critical weakness because he had cavalry for two important purposes: one to know the location of the enemy, they were his scouting troops, but secondly, and equally important , they were collectors that I had. mounted gatherers who went and brought food from the local villages that was not available to him and he did not bring rations with him, here they came light with the aim of living off the land while he was here, send some of his troops. They set out to explore the land, but are soon attacked by Britain.

Caesar realizes that the game is over and he decides to return to Gaul. His invasion is a failure, but I still admire him even though everything went wrong. He keeps a clear head. He keeps the Presence of mind about him, he takes the time to look around here and look at this coast and I'm sure that before he left British soil he knew that he would return next year and he knew where he was going to return to. BC Caesar leaves G at dusk the currents take him a little by surprise when the sun rises and he discovers that he has gone further into the channel than he anticipated he looks back over his left shoulder and there is Great Britain, he tells his men that pull the OES and he takes his invasion fleet to the beaches, ships specially built for that purpose, landing craft, if you like British tribes, well, they are there and they look out, but what they see is too big for them because he brought it with him. 800 ships, while his first invasion force consisted of two legions, this time he brought five and cavalry.

This will be a completely different campaign. The large Roman fleet can land unopposed and once they are sure they have camped, until recently we had no archaeological evidence. for this invasion, but that's all changed, Simon. I am very excited to be here because this is the site of one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent years. Well, you are literally standing in the middle of one of the marching camps that were built. During the campaignHad it not been for the vast majority of Britons, Caesar's invasion would have made no difference to their lives and, in fact, things would continue this way for almost 100 years before Rome arrived in Britain with the intention of conquering this hallway below.

Once Emperor Claudius mounted an even more daring invasion with the goal of truly subjugating Britain and changing our history forever, in the latest episode we discover how Julius Caesar managed to unite Britain by defeating the tribes on his second attempt. Caesar had definitely put Britain in the hands of the Romans. On the map, it was now within the sphere of its influence and trade had begun at Earnest across the Channel, but Britain was still beyond the official borders of the Roman Empire paying only a symbolic tribute to Rome and that would remain the case for almost 100 years.

It was not until Claudius became emperor that there was a serious threat to Britain again. Claudius arrives as Emperor with a big question mark over his ability to be Emperor. He needs to prove his worth when he took power in 41 AD. Claudio was fragile and inexperienced, he thought. that a military triumph was what he needed to cement his position and that was the incentive that would provoke the invasion of Great Britain and that it was a great step, everyone knew that Caesar had gone through difficult times in Great Britain and Caesar did not. It was a lightweight.

Claudius looked at Britain, saw the warehouses stocked in Gaul, and thought this is my decisive chance to prove myself. He turns to his superior general Alis Plautius and launches the most professional maritime invasion force of the time. In many ways we won. I didn't see anything like this invasion until the Normandy Landings in 1944. One of the things that really interests me about these Roman

invasions

is the channel crossing. You know, the Romans feared the canal, they called it Oceanus and it's an incredibly dangerous waterway the tidal current here is very very strong it's a narrow waterway and of course the weather is very fickle when Caesar set out to come to Britain, his men simply got on the boats and left.

I think his Legion would have followed him to the teeth of a volcano. They had so much faith in him when the cloud invasion was preparing to cross the channel that they hesitated and it was only when Narcissus, a former slave who was freed, tried to address them in the name of Plautius. and Claudius that the legionaries turned indignantly and said, don't talk to us, and then indignantly boarded the ships and came to Britain with the soldiers finally on board. Claus left for Britain when Caesar first landed in Britain on this stretch of the Kent coast.

He faced fierce fighting to reach the coast, so this time the Romans took no chances. This was a masterpiece in military planning. There had been a lot of preparation for this. There were more ships. The Invasion Fleet, perhaps 800 ships that the British had heard about. a buildup in Gaul and military activity, but it never seemed to come and the season grew later and later and finally they thought that, as had happened on previous occasions, the Roman army changed its mind and so the British warriors dispersed, but Of course they hadn't. They didn't change their mind imagine this scene maybe 800 ships full of top class legionaries with auxiliaries with cavalry with supplies and enough food to stay here for several months.

This was a new type of invasion. This was an invasion intended to conquer, of course, Britain. I had faced the Romans before, but that was almost a century ago. Roman technology had since advanced to discover how welding equipment differed from a claan. I met with a group of actors from Reen lio2 austa well, here we have a shining example of how things changed in those 100 years in the form of armor. No more chain mail and we have the silver lorica segmentata, but the Romans called it Cass. The sword is a short, stabbing sword shorter than the first ones.

This is a m pattern sheet. It's a little worn along the straight edge and has a longer, thinner tip than the Pompeii-style sword I have here. Both were in common use at the time, so I suspect this is much simpler to make and seems less fragile. Yes this is a slightly older version slightly older version around the waist we have a patterned belt with belt plates hundreds and hundreds of different styles of belt plates have been found some have patterns some are plain some have colors in fact there are so many different types possibly each Roman soldier had his own design below, we have the apron, the military kingdom, uh, with very decorative pendants on the end, certainly no sneaking up on anyone on the belt, it was another weapon , the Roman pugio, a dagger again with that big very small entrance that widens very quickly, so if your sword breaks, they fall out of your hand and you can still, you can still push with it, but I guess it was a final offering , It was not easy?

Both weapons of this type are designed. to cause massive bleeding, um and just 2 in the right place, the Roman writers tell us that was enough, but just going back to the armor for a moment you'll see that its design is to protect the person much more from a cutting weapon than of a sharp weapon. um once again the Iron Age tribes have not adapted after facing Caesar's troops and the idea is that he receives a blow on the shoulder and deflects harmlessly and the helmet is typical of the time the eyebrows are not there to do it. they look nice, they are actually there to strengthen the metal at the front of the helmet again against a cutting attack, like with that visor, yes the forehead band is there now the

roman

s liked people's ears because many Romans believe that when you were born, your soul entered through your ear and when you died it came out through the other ear, which is why we usually find very good ear protectors in Roman helmets so that you don't lose part or all of one of those lovely ears, but interestingly their It was designed not to hinder your hearing, so obviously there was everything you know, we know that orders were being given and you had to be able to hear them.

A wide guard on the back would protect the man from a sharp weapon and overall this is a heavy armored infantryman yes what weighs 60 in total? Wow, with all Javelin shield helmet armor these were the soldiers who were now on British soil and this is where we believe those soldiers spent their first night in Rich in Kent here I will meet a Roman historian Simon Elliot to find out more about the Clarian Invasion Force. For me, this is literally the most important site in Roman Britain because it is the beginning and the end of the Roman occupation of Britain.

I think this is where you think Alice Plaus had her marching camp. It is and a real fact, archeology proves it because we find the ditches of the invasion march camp that the Romans built here, it is worth remembering that when the Roman military campaigned anywhere in enemy territory at any time in history At the end of each day of march or The day of the fight, they do not stop, they prepare the tea and put up the tents. They spend three hours manually physically building a marching camp that is a temporary fort and they do it quickly.

I mean, these camps are absolutely stunning things and the scale here. It is surprising, it is like an invasion of Beach Head effectively because we have discovered around 600 MERS alone from the eastern wall which is just behind the later Saxon wall of Fort Sha, the walls that we can see here were built later around the 3rd century AD, but these ditches are believed to be part of that initial marching camp. It is surprising to think that these earthworks may have been excavated by the Roman invasion force on their first day in Britain. Now we can imagine the troops who did not sleep the night before.

They have crossed Oceanus, the canal that we know the Romans feared and is a fearsome piece of water, and they have landed. What do they do next? The first thing I would say, Ray, is remember that they've had a very long day because basically, as you say, they probably didn't sleep the night before. This is a terrifying prospect, so they find themselves hoping the opposition doesn't arrive, but even then they are now in enemy territory. It's been a long time since the Romans got here, so the first thing they do is send out their scouts to make sure that the place where they're landing along the coast, by the way, is pretty protected and they're not going. to be attacked while they are landing, once they are sure of that, then they will begin to build the marching camp for the night.

Now a marching camp is a fortified base that will protect you from any of my attacks, so what? What we're looking at is probably a double or triple ditch, probably about 5 meters wide and two to three meters deep, with an ankle breaker at the bottom to break the ankle of anyone who tries to walk through it if they don't place their foot. properly in the background with Stak from side to side and then the dirt from the ditches becomes a bank inside and then each of the legionnaires and auxiliaries carries a stake as part of their engineering equipment and each stake will do a stockade now.

The one here is huge and this is just one of probably many along the coast, this is probably the headquarters because it's a great place to land and we know here, at least from the wooden ditch to the east, that it's probably about 600 M or more. long and we have even found the fortified gate that they built the first night they landed in Britain. Because here? I can only assume that this must have been the headquarters of that Invasion Force. I think it remembers where you are, so everything around you is. it's going to be water so this was originally built on an iset so the fields behind here the fields here are all water it's the onome canal which is a really big waterway in the Roman period that isolated the island of Thanet over there and high above there, on the north coast of Kent, from here, basically, this location here was a perfect place to locate, as you say, the headquarters of the Roman

invasions

of Britain and, shortly after their arrival, They would have sent their reconnaissance troops on their explorations.

They would have sent out their foraging troops, all mounted to survey the terrain, discover where the enemy is, and raid local villages for absolutely essential food. However, it is also worth remembering that from the time Caesar invaded 90 years earlier, Britain was on the Roman Map to some extent and I personally believe they check the joints. I think I also exactly believe that the key thing that was missing in Caesar's invasions was reconnaissance and the Romans were very sophisticated in their reconnaissance and we barely know anything about their reconnaissance. The troops, as we wouldn't do today, were secret, but we do know that they had these troops called Speculator, who were the spies of the time.

That is absolutely true. The Romans had two things in abundance. They had courage to come back after losing and they learned. of their mistakes and they were also very good at adapting their opponents' weapons, technology, ideas and tactics and with the Speculator, it all comes together, so they learned all of Caesar's mistakes in 55 and 54 BC. C., when Plato arrived here. On behalf of the new Emperor Claudius, who was really desperate to make a name for himself, this was a big Hail Mary to the Romans. Let's be realistic. The specul would have been everywhere. This is a very well planned and executed invasion that we know very little about. the speculator the Roman spies who would have gathered information before the invasion, but one detail that is known is how they made fire, one of the methods they were taught was to use a sulfur match, it is not a match that can be lit, it was not A striking match would not appear until almost 2,000 years later, but this was a match that was used in association with a flint and steel.

You needed something that would take a spark and catch the light, but without the sulfur match you would have to take. This when it is a light and we put it in some fibrous material that is dry and we blow it into the flame when the weather is humid, that can be difficult, hence the sulfur match and the sulfur match is a simple wooden slat that It's been dipped on its end in molten sulfur, you see the yellow here at the end, so the way this works when you take the Tinder, you place it on top of the flint and now with the steel we throw a spark into the Tinder, which lights up. once, that's what has the advantage. of these troops was the sulfur match when you touch the tip that has sulfur to heat it, it will catch fire, so Tinder is not needed, which makes it faster and more efficient, especially in bad weather, and that was really advanced for his time.

Meanwhile that first night the soldiers would haveinstalled their tents, we do not know exactly how they were designed. There is very little archaeological evidence left but re-enactors can give us an idea of ​​what they would have looked like, but if you wish. To help with any of you waxing this, yes it's the only way we have to waterproof it and we assume you did the same. Right corners and two ready, okay, left, yeah, now back, let's say you went to lift, to pull, it's actually a pretty good space. although for eight people there is a lot of room here, you can imagine, this living space, it would not be as tight as you imagine because I think there would always be two people at work, so mostly you have six people here, there is a lot of room. a very strong smell coming out of the canvas is a quite pleasant wax smell and it gives life to everything it is tangible you can feel it, these men are well protected, they have good protection against the elements and that makes For an effective mobile Force, they have They have to be able to do it, they don't want to fight the elements or the enemy, and with this configuration it works fascinating.

The enriched camp would have contained hundreds of tents throughout the camp. built in just a few hours and all the equipment they needed had to be transported by soldiers or on mules. We have a theory that each Roman soldier carried his own equipment on a pole and I have one here, so the mule carries all the items that are extremely heavy, the tent, the millstone and the soldiers carry their own personal equipment, they carry a shield, javelin, tied to this, and wear a helmet or hang it around their neck when they arrive. In the camp, if they remove all the elements of the impedimenta, they keep the pole.

Now there are eight of these eight men. Is this part of the store construction? Yeah, it makes you wonder, doesn't it? It's just a Theory I think it's a good theory after having established a base on British soil, it was time for Ploutis to head inland in search of Britain, we're not sure which path he took, he probably used multiple routes to bring his army on land, but there is this Ridgeway, the northern hills, the Pilgrim's way, an

ancient

path that you could follow and that runs along the crest of the Ridge and on both sides, it is a natural route on land and that would have taken him in this direction here towards the Gap on the Downs where the River Medway runs north towards the temperatures and it must have been somewhere very close to here on Bluebell Hill where his Scouts would have met him to look at what they discovered there In the distance, where those buildings are, that is where it is believed that there was a huge British army camped waiting for him.

Now Plaus was not like Caesar, he was not a man to just walk in, he liked to take his time and consider his actions. I imagine him making camp here, poring over those defenses and formulating his plan. There is a story that says. that when they observed the British camp it was unkempt and quite disorderly. I think any army compared to the regularity of a Roman army would look disheveled, but from here he has an idea of ​​what he is dealing with and he can see the enemy. equipped with chariots, you can see their number, Britain would probably have outnumbered the Romans, but if Plaus wanted to have any chance of conquering this island, he had to outnumber these warriors, this would be the first Great Battle of Britain, a defining moment in British history.

Unfortunately, there is much we don't know about this battle, including exactly where it took place, but it is thought to have most likely occurred here on the River Medway near Rochester. One thing we can do is look at this landscape from a military perspective, so he met with military expert Matias Strone, who served in the British and German armies. When you look at the terrain, you look at the terrain, you look at the sources of Spar that we have. It makes sense to place the battle in this particular area. The descriptions fit, they fit very well.

I, no, it's not this, it's not like trying to identify where Buddika was. He was here. The fit is very strong. Now we're not sure how the river has changed in the intervening 2,000 years, but from the people I see. I've talked about this, there doesn't seem to be any reason for the river here to have changed much, it's not affected in the same way, uh, hydrodynamically, as the temperature is um and if that's the case, we have an obvious weak point because the Western Bank, the British Bank of the Medway, forms this teardrop-shaped insular peninsula, which is an obvious point that the Romans can use to create a tow point on the Far Bank, absolutely when you look at the terrain and us. look over there, you have this and you can use it basically, it's a bit like a fortress, isn't it?

Once you have managed to cross, you will manage to take over this peninsula. All you need to do in the early stages is make sure. that the enemy cannot attack you from the open flank, the other end here and you can do that and then you can use it as a base to advance from here and then organize the Legion, organize your troops properly, take them to the The Romans fight against the organization because the Romans They know that if they manage to do it, if they manage to cross the river here in an organized way, they will win this battle because the way they fight the problem is the weak point and the weak point.

An operation like this is as long as the river is crossed and crossing a river is quite simple, but doing it in front of the enemy is a different matter and the British tanks can follow the army from the other side, so flanking is not an option. , but Plaus has a plan, the Romans now, according to the descriptions, have a real ace up their sleeve, they have the Pavian auxiliaries, now the Batavians come from a Rind region that is very watery. It's an interesting area, it's like an AC cross between Belgium and Holland, right? They were specialized marine troops, they were like the rookie marines of their time and the Batavians are deployed down the river to swim the Medway but not to attack the force directly.

Platias has seen that the chariots are there and you are vulnerable, he sends Batavians to Comm, effectively commits a commando raid to reach the west coast of Medway and hamstrings the chariot horses, so the big fear for the Romans really is the tanks because this is the uh the trump card of the British side, so everything you can do to eliminate them is absolutely perfect and that is, as you say, Commander raate, it is a very daring, very daring raate, really and It's interesting that actually in the sources, if you just said they specifically mention that they don't really attack the people or the people fighting in the chariots or the horsemen, but they actually just go for the horses because they know that once they do we have done, the others recover basically sitting and Lame Ducks like the rest of the Infantry and are basic infantrymen, something very, very clever they do here and very well used.

One of the secrets of using any type of Commander force is that they have to have a Strategic Objective and that is it. exactly what is provided to you, don't worry about the others, take out those chariots, that's what we want with the disabled chariots and perhaps using the discovery of the damage as a distraction, a legion of the Roman army can cross upstream this army . now launches an attack on the British position on the peninsula, the fighting on the neck of this peninsula would have been fierce, it would have been absolutely fierce, very, very brutal hand-to-hand fighting, a lot of deaths were taking place in that very small area in particular. maybe if you have the British there desperately trying to escape the Romans trying to hold them in maybe indirect fire coming from the Roman side here too and if you think about it if you are now one of the British and turn around to fight the Romans when they get close to the water, you expose your back, of course, and then the Romans can fire their indirect fire, so to speak, their artillery into you and that would be a complete slaughter.

The British. on the peninsula they had no chance and once they were defeated the rest of the Roman forces were able to cross safely and once you crossed this um uh the river here you have the foothold, you have the bridge ahead that you then secure and a Once you have secured this bridgehead, you can form your troops, your formations and then fight the fight you really want to fight because, as we all know, the Roman arm is much more organized than the British. troops so do that and the Assumption on the Roman side will probably be once we've done that we've already won the battle for two days Britain fights with all it can but the Romans are victorious well my mind goes to the men who died here while fighting a brave and hard battle and the story revolved around this battle, the Romans now seem unstoppable after the battle of Medway.

Claus's men chased the British tribes northward, towards the time there seemed to have been some skirmishes in Britain. They knew the swamps well, the Romans made no futile efforts to stop their inevitable advance and in the process one of the great kings, Tood Dumus, was killed when Plautius reached the moment when he crossed it. Now people are hypothesizing where he may have crossed it. Some suggest. that he did not follow the British across the marshes north of Tilbury, but took his time and went inland and crossed at Westminster, but accounts suggest it was Tilbury, they say it happened where the temperature opens up to a lake as a structure that would be right here if he used boats if he went to the river we will never know what we do know is that indeed his work was done ahead of him only minor battles nothing on the scale of the battle of Medway once he crossed the temperatures The Romans made camulodunum the home of the Catalone tribe, in what is now Colchester.

The Catalone controlled much of the southeast, so their defeat was vital. This is the Goc archaeological park. It is a peaceful pastoral landscape. Skylars sing and people walk dogs, ride bikes and run, and even 2,000 years ago. This may have been one of the most important places in British history because many people believe that this is where the British tribe surrendered to Emperor Claudius. 11 of the British tribes, including the Valone cat, realized that the Romans were unbeatable and sent emissaries here to sue for peace, the EMP Claudius had been warned of the impending victory and it was vitally important to his political life that It was he to whom the tribe surrendered.

He headed to Bin and shortly after the Roman army crossed the word of the storm. He came to him now is the time and with his entourage including some impressive elephants he came to Britain to this place on the edge of ctist and the British tribe surrendered it was a critical moment in British history at that time Britain ceased to be Great Britain and became Britannia. part of the Roman Empire but of course the story was not all told at that time Claudius was only here for just over two weeks he returned to Rome his political victory ensured that he would never return to Britain his general was still tasked with subduing the The country they owned at the time was in control of the southeast corner and the British King Katus did not surrender and headed to the hills to form a new army with the intention of waging a gorilla war, but that, as they say, is a new story.

The Romans would go on to create cities like York Bath and London, build amazing feats of engineering like Hadrian's War, and introduce weapons technology and social changes that would transform Britain. Between them, these two men spent only a few weeks on British soil, but their influence remains to this day. Thanks for watching this video on the YouTube history channel, you can subscribe right here to make sure you don't miss any of our great upcoming films or if you're a real history fan check out our dedicated History special of the Chanel. hit. you're going to love television