All language subtitles for Battles BC s01e04 Ceasar Super Siege

It's a bloody rebellion.

Thousands butchered.

Countrysides torched.

It's hell on earth.

The rebels, an ethnically mixed tribal
people known as Gaul.

Their champion is the first general to
unite the tribes, Vercingetorix.

His nemesis is one of the most famous
and ruthless generals in ancient

Julius Caesar.

For a hundred years, the Romans have
brutally oppressed the Gauls.

Now it's payback time.

The stage is set for one of the greatest
military confrontations in history.

A battle of technological wonder that
tests the cunning and resourcefulness of

the two generals, shapes the face of
Europe for centuries to come,

and guarantees the future of an empire.

In 52 BC, for six years, Julius Caesar
has been conducting a brutal campaign.

His goal is to conquer the land called
Gaul and turn it into a Roman province.

By the time Caesar is given command in
Gaul in 58 BC, the Roman Republic had

already expanded into North Africa,
Greece, Sicily.

Corsica, Cydonia, and Spain.

But Rome could never entirely subdue its
neighbor to the north, Gaul.

It had always been a little tentative
about northward expansion because the

Gauls and the Romans had a long history,
300 -year history, of mutual slaughter

and antagonism. I mean, these people in
the north, when they went on invasions,

were...

you know, pretty brutal people.

And they sacked Rome in the 3rd century
BC as well. So a lot of bad blood.

But the Roman Republic grows stronger
every day.

Now, leading more than 50 ,000 Roman
soldiers, Julius Caesar fights his way

across Gaul with stunning cruelty.

Caesar was sent to Gaul by the Roman
Senate as a proconsul, that is to say,

conquer the area and turn it into a
province of Rome.

The interesting thing about this great
general is he had never been in the

military and had absolutely no
experience in combat or command at all.

So why then do we regard him as a great
general is a fair question to ask. And

the answer is he was the first Roman
general to leave not only his memoirs,

a detailed account of all his campaigns,
which of course point to his brilliance

and nothing else.

These are rights enough about the six
-year Gallic War to fill seven books.

While he regards himself as the military
genius, his successes may be explained

by the quality of his army. By the time
of the campaigns in Gaul, the Roman army

was almost thoroughly professionalized.

Prior to 100 BC, it had always been a
militia army, so you had to raise new

troops every year, train them, and then
put them in control of political

generals, and that created problems.

But military reform, instituted 50 years
before Caesar comes to power, creates a

disciplined army of professional
soldiers.

You might have had a, quote, amateur in
charge of this thing, but there were 10

legions of professional soldiers.

That's one point which accounts for
Caesar's success.

The other point, I think, is that you
can always be a great general if you're

not fighting against anyone.

And in the case of the armies of Gaul,
they really weren't significant armies.

Gaul is not a unified nation with a
national army. It's a conglomeration of

individual tribal armies who lack
discipline and cohesion.

The fundamental problem with Gaul is
that it was essentially an area of 15 to

million people.

Lots of different ethnic groups.

They fought with one another for
generations, and they never developed a

sophisticated military capability.

Still, conquering Gaul is more difficult
than Caesar anticipates.

You couldn't just defeat one army, win a
battle, and Gaul was yours. You had to

defeat hundreds of little arms.

Caesar faces each new Gallic army with
growing ruthlessness.

Caesar carried out some horrendous
orders.

That's a typical Roman brutality of
making the case that, you know, it's

Roman friendship or Roman terror.

Caesar's really was a reign of terror.

He destroyed entire villages, killed
everyone in them, and then he went on to

the next one. Absolutely brutal.

And inevitably, over a period of six
years, what happened was basically Roman

control in Gaul was pretty much
established.

But underneath it all was a simmering
spirit of hatred for the Romans and

of revolt, just looking for a leader to
spark it.

Enter Vercingetorix, a charismatic
Gallic general.

Like Caesar, he's also on a mission to
finally unite the hundreds of tribes of

his homeland against Caesar.

Vercingetorix is a worthy adversary to
Caesar. As a younger man, he trained

and fought alongside the Roman legion.

Vercingetorix was actually a cavalryman
in Caesar's army early in the Gallic

Wars.

So he knows how the Roman army worked.
He knows its strengths.

He knows its weaknesses.

He is the right guy at the right time to
take on Caesar.

took it into his head that perhaps this
was the right time, that the Gauls had

probably finally had it, not this tribe
or that tribe, but everyone, and that if

he could provoke a spark with an attack
on the Romans that was successful, what

might happen is for the first time all
of the main tribes of Gaul would

together and resist Roman rule, defeat
Caesar, and drive the Romans out. That's

what he had in mind.

His plan to provoke Caesar succeeds.

Vercingetorix marches more than 70 ,000
soldiers into the Roman town of Orleans

and gives Caesar a taste of his own
medicine.

And he fell upon it like a lion upon a
rabbit and burnt the town and massacred

and murdered everybody.

The Gauls slaughter more than 5 ,000
men, women, and children.

Vercingetorix delivers a clear message
to Caesar.

The Gauls will no longer stand for the
Roman general's brutality.

This was the spark of revolt.

There was some signal event that would
galvanize all of Gaul against the Rome,

and that's what he tried to do. He was a
fairly good strategic thinker, and it

worked.

There is no turning back for
Vercingetorix now.

The revolution has begun, and he and
Caesar are on a collision course.

But Vercingetorix has the momentum.

Vercingetorix is scoring more victories.
He has a massive army

behind him, and he's using it well.

Suddenly this guy is unstoppable.

Despite outnumbering the Romans,
Vercingetorix knows that his large but

disorganized force will lose a direct,
all -out battle against Caesar's highly

trained professional army.

So his strategy is to strike at Caesar's
forces in small bursts of guerrilla

-style combat until he inflicts so much
damage the Romans are forced to retreat

to Italy.

Vercingetorix has a policy just to keep
harassing the Romans, keeping them away

from food, generally giving Caesar a
headache.

To further keep the Roman troops off the
balance, Vercingetorix does something

that will reverberate through all of
military history.

He convinces the Gauls to torch their
own towns, crops, and countryside.

It's a strategy now known as scorched
earth.

Burn everything.

Burn the towns, burn the hamlets, burn
the fields.

Everything. In other words, leave
nothing upon which the Roman army can

In August of 52 BC, after implementing
his scorched earth policy, Vercingetorix

leads a small Gallic ambush force
against the Romans near modern -day

The Gauls' favorite weapon is the
broadsword.

Made of iron, these heavy blades are
designed to smash down with brute force.

The Roman soldier wields the gladius, 26
inches long, 2 1⁄2 inches wide.

The gladius is made of razor -sharp
steel and is used as a stabbing weapon.

After fighting for several hours at
Dijon, Vercingetorix, in true hit -and

style, retreats and pulls his force
back.

The Gaul's strategy appears to be
successful.

From Dijon, Caesar begins moving toward
the Italian border.

Vercingetorix chases with his army,
trying to prevent Caesar from reaching

and replenishing his forces.

He moves his army down to block Caesar's
goal of going to Italy.

OK, he really arrives too late. Caesar
is already south of where he comes.

So he's behind Caesar.

He's not in front of him. And he tries
to go into the attack. The Romans turn

around. There's a skirmish there.
There's a skirmish there and the Romans

it off.

And at that point, what Vercingetorix
does is he says, you know, it's getting

tough to feed the army out here. I'm
going to withdraw back into my main

base. All right. And hopefully, you
know, Caesar.

We're done for the season. Caesar will
go south and we'll finish this next

This proves to be a colossal mistake.

Calculating that Caesar will retreat to
Rome, Vercingetorix begins to march his

army back to its base at Alesia, a
fortified hilltop city.

But Caesar isn't going home.

He's going after Vercingetorix.

And what Caesar does is instead of
running faithfully, he whirls around on

Kills his rear guard and begins to chase
him back to Alesia.

As Caesar attacks the Gallic rear guard,
Vercingetorix and the rest of the Gauls

escape to their small -walled city of
Alesia.

Within days, all of Caesar's 50 ,000
reinforcements surround the city.

I mean, they just kept coming and
coming.

A total of 10 Roman legions suddenly
surrounded Vercingetorix.

He must have said to himself, what the
hell have I gotten myself into here?

Vercingetorix had great success leading
his guerrilla war against Caesar, but

now he's trapped.

And the small advantage the Gauls held
has completely evaporated.

This is Caesar's kind of battle, and
he's about to conduct one of the most

fantastic siege operations the ancient
world has ever seen.

52 BC, the city of Alesia.

The Roman military commander Julius
Caesar and more than 50 ,000 Roman

have trapped 70 ,000 Gauls and their
revolutionary leader Vercingetorix

the city.

Alesia is so important because it's a
big final cataclysm. It's the last shot

militarily at stopping the Roman control
of all of Gaul.

Elysia is the modern -day city of Elyse
St. Reign, located in what is now

France.

The city is about five miles in
circumference, likely surrounded by a

about six feet high.

Home to about 10 ,000 men, women, and
children,

Elysia sits on a small hill some 1 ,500
feet above a valley.

Through the valley run two small rivers.

A ring of hills surround the city.

It's well protected, giving the Gauls a
strong defensive position.

Nonetheless, Caesar decides to lay siege
to Alesia, a military campaign unlike

any other in history.

The siege works created by Caesar are
just ingenious. And

I can't find anyone or any source to say
that his siege techniques that he used

there had been used before.

Caesar's army possesses the most
sophisticated siege technology of the

They are equipped with a catapult called
an onager, known as the wild ass for

its kick. It's capable of launching a
100 -pound projectile 400 yards.

The Romans also used the ballista.

Latin for stone thrower, the ballista
fires lead shot nearly 100 yards.

Each Roman legion is equipped with 30 of
these.

But siege means more than just attacking
with powerful, high -tech weapons.

And Caesar knows that the right tactical
move at Alesia isn't an all -out

barrage. Instead, Caesar believes that
to win this battle, he shouldn't try to

drive the Gauls out. He should starve
them in.

Caesar decides to build a ten -mile
-long wall around Alesia to imprison the

Gauls within their own city.

What Vercingetorix thought would be a
safe haven turns out to be a death trap.

First, Caesar's soldiers dig a trench 20
feet deep and 20 feet wide.

Next, they dig another trench, 15 feet
wide, 8 feet deep, that can be flooded

with water.

Then, another dry pit.

And finally, work begins on a wall 12
feet high.

complete with watchtowers every 80
yards.

They call it circumvallation. You put up
a wall around the city. It's

essentially putting tens of thousands of
people in prison.

The purpose of that was, of course, to
make sure that no one in the city could

break out.

They could get outside their own walls,
but only to be trapped in a killing

ground between the Roman wooden wall and
their wall. That's the first thing.

This is not the first time Caesar has
shown himself to be a master of

technology.

Three years earlier, in 55 BC, 400 ,000
Germans were looking for a new homeland

and crossed the Rhine River to settle in
Gaul.

Caesar immediately delivered a brutal
message.

He sent 50 ,000 of his troops to the
Rhine River with orders to slaughter the

Germans.

What he does next was both horrific,

Technologically astounding.

Caesar foreshadowed his engineering
prowess they will eventually show at

Alessia. He built a 400 -foot long, 40
-foot wide suspension bridge over the

Rhine River so that he could chase them
back to Germany and hunt them down.

Once across the river, Caesar brutally
and mercilessly ravaged the countryside.

430 ,000 people, men, women, children,
no survivors, in a

deliberately calculated act of political
butchery designed to send a clear

message to another people.

Brutality aside, Caesar's spanning of
the Rhine stands as a remarkable

engineering achievement of the ancient
world. He built the entire bridge in 10

days.

It was incredible.

I mean, he built it with posts and beams
and cabling. And the reason he built it

was to say to the Germans, look, the
Rhine isn't a barrier. We can come and

you any time we want.

After the butchery, Caesar headed back
to Gaul and immediately destroyed the

bridge.

At Alesia, Caesar uses the same Roman
technological superiority to trap the

Gauls inside the city.

The Gallic general Vercingetorix watches
as Caesar's wall rises up around him.

The 12 -foot -high wall is built
partially from the earth dug out of the

trenches. The walls are topped with
wooden ramparts, and wooden towers rise

every 80 yards.

On top of all that, they put sharpened
sticks, kind of like an early version of

barbed wire, just in case someone tries
to scale the thing. And except for a

couple of areas, like places with
natural barriers, this wall goes

around the city.

It's a race against time.

Once Caesar completes the wall, nearly
10 miles in circumference, it will be

impenetrable, trapping the entire
population of the city of Alesia, some

men, women, and children, as well as the
new tenants, the 70 ,000 -strong Gallic

fighting force.

Vercingetorix does have some beef and
corn stored up at Alessia, but it's not

going to last forever.

Caesar's men could go and try to steal
some or buy some supplies, but that's

easier said than done.

Don't forget, Vercingetorix had burnt a
lot of it during the Scorched Earth

campaign.

Vercingetorix knows that the winner of
this battle will be the one who is able

to stave off starvation.

So he decides his only hope is to try to
stop construction of the wall and stop

the Romans from gathering food.

If he can outlast Caesar in the city,

sooner or later the Roman army would
find it very hard to gather supplies,

it too would wither on the vine.

What he had to do is he had to keep
attacking the Roman army to prevent it

foraging from supplies.

So Vercingetorix resorts to his old
tactics, hit and run.

He sends several thousand of his cavalry
to harass Caesar's construction workers

and foragers.

Vercingetorix gets away with it a few
times. But finally, during one of these

attacks, Caesar launches a
counterattack.

We're not exactly sure how many cavalry
Caesar had, but I would imagine about 5

,000 or 6 ,000 Roman cavalry and 3 ,000
to 4 ,000 mercenary cavalry.

A skirmish breaks out between Caesar's
wall and Alesia.

The Roman cavalry gain the advantage and
the Gauls retreat.

But Vercingetorix orders Elysia's gates
closed to protect the Gauls already

inside.

Very, very heavy Gallic losses.

Guys off their horses trying to
basically claw their way back into the

Vercingetorix has sentenced his men to
death.

52 BC, the siege of Elysia sees its
first bloodshed.

A cavalry skirmish has a deadly end for
the Gauls.

Despite winning the civil skirmish,
Caesar decides to up the ante in terms

the siege works.

He orders more trenches to be dug, anti
-personnel devices to be installed, and

death traps to be built.

Booby traps with huge, sharpened wooden
spikes called chippy are planted at the

bottom of the trenches.

Iron barbs called stimuli are spread out
in front of the walls to puncture

soldiers' feet and horse hooves.

Flooded moats were there.

Trees knocked down to create obstacles.

And covering it all would be whatever
field guns they had and arrows, archer

fire, slinger fire, missiles. They could
literally sheath fire into an impact

zone.

After only five weeks, the 10 -mile wall
equipped with pitfalls, obstacles, and

anti -personnel devices is nearly
complete.

The Gallic general, Vercingetorix, is
forced to take a bold gamble.

He sends his entire 15 ,000 -strong
cavalry force to ride across Gaul and

recruit help from other Gallic tribes.

While this seems to be a smart move,
think about this for a minute.

He had pretty good success just snipping
at Caesar, harassing him, not

letting him get anywhere.

not allowing him to gather food.

But he's giving all of that up, and he
says, no pun intended, send in the

cavalry.

Vercingetorix changes his tactical
design and allows the Romans, in

build the siege works and feed their
own.

The decision to go for help rather than
continuing to try to disrupt the

foragers and construction workers is a
critical military decision.

If the cavalry is caught and the other
tribes don't respond, Vercingetorix and

his army are doomed.

Now, without his cavalry to send forth
to harass the Roman army, they can build

the siege works at their leisure, which
they do. More important than that is

they now can forage freely.

And what Caesar understands is clearly,
what does he say? He orders his

commissariat to make sure you collect a
30 -day supply of grain.

Still, Caesar knows that if the Gallic
cavalry does come back with

reinforcements, it can spell defeat for
the Romans.

To defend against this, Caesar decides
to build another wall about 400 yards

away from the first.

Caesar's first wall keeps Vercingetorix
in.

His second wall will keep the
reinforcement armies out.

But it will also contain 50 ,000 Roman
soldiers.

who must camp in between the two walls.

Outside this wall of circumvallation,
you construct a second wall called

contravallation, Latin contra, against.

And this wall ran 20 miles.

So you have a wall inside a wall and a
city in the middle, kind of like looking

at from the top down, kind of looking at
a layer cake.

Now, with no cavalry to harass them, the
Romans have no difficulty building the

second wall.

The wall is seamless except for a small
section at the base of Mount Rhea, near

where two small rivers run through the
valley.

With the wall construction coming to an
end, everyone starts realizing that the

thing that's going to win or lose this
thing is food.

Caesar knows that once the rest of the
Gauls show up, he won't be able to send

his guys foraging anymore.

Meanwhile, inside the city,
Vercingetorix personally takes control

and corn rations.

Around seven weeks into the siege,

Supplies inside the city are low.

They are subsisting on whatever food had
been stored before the siege.

Water for close to 100 ,000 women,
children, and Gallic soldiers likely

from the small rivers or wells.

There's a story about one of
Vercingetorix's tribesmen saying to him,

eat the dead soldiers and the citizens
of the town.

We could live a long time like that.

This wouldn't have been the first
example of cannibalism, and it won't be

last. Think of the Donner Party in our
own history.

You know, the old history books always
called the Gauls barbarians.

But they obviously had some humanity.

Vercingetorix didn't allow this.

Vercingetorix knows there are too many
hungry mouths to feed.

He devises a plan that he hopes will
save the lives of some of the women and

children.

sent them off to the Roman wall,
essentially saying, look, let these

there's no point to this, or actually
take them in as slaves.

Caesar rejects the offer. His own men
are on the brink of starvation because

land around Alesia has been left barren
by Vercingetorix's scorched earth

strategy.

He has little sympathy for the desperate
Gallic women and children who must

return to Alesia.

But Vercingetorix doesn't want them back
either.

Having gotten rid of this large number
of people that he no longer had to feed,

that Vercingetorix himself refused to
allow them back in the city walls so

the women and children, large numbers of
women and children, were trapped

between the outer city wall and the
inner Roman wall where they were allowed

simply to die of starvation.

Some 3 ,000 women and children are
trapped inside the no -man's land.

pawns in the struggle of wills between
Vercingetorix and Caesar.

All these pathetic souls just
languishing in this kind of limbo.

literally caught in the middle of this
fight. No one wants them.

But in this horrible test of wills,
Vercingetorix weakens first.

Finally, the gate to Alesia open, and
the townspeople re -enter.

Caesar wins the Battle of Wills.

Now the Gallic leader, Vercingetorix,
doesn't get to transform his headache

Caesar's. And Caesar gets to remind
people of just what kind of man they're

dealing with.

The outlook for the Gauls is bleak.

But then, three days later, on the
horizon, a Gallic relief army, some 60

strong, appears.

They are led by Commodus, an old
acquaintance of Caesar's.

Commodus had been an ally to Caesar
early on in the Gallic Wars.

Vercingetorix had actually fought for
Caesar also.

So it was a real betrayal for Caesar to
have these guys coming against him.

Commodus wastes no time letting Caesar
know he has arrived.

For the first time at the siege of
Alesia, Caesar looks like he might be in

trouble. 60 ,000 Gallic soldiers, led by
a man named Cominus, have come to the

rescue.

They're here to help Vercingetorix, who
is trapped inside the city with tens of

thousands of civilians and soldiers.

Cominus immediately goes on the
offensive.

He leads his infantry and attacks the
Roman soldiers stationed on the outside.

The Gauls were amazingly organized for a
bunch of tribes that hadn't fought

together until recently.

They had infantry mixed in with the
cavalry and covered the whole thing with

archers and slingers.

Caesar had no choice but to launch 5
,000 cavalry to defend the wall, but

ride into a hail of arrows.

Just when it seems the Roman defenses
will collapse, Caesar sends in

reinforcements.

His timing is perfect, and the fresh
troops push the Gauls back.

Despite the incredible difference in
numbers, Caesar pushes the Gauls back

the way to the hill, just massacring the
archers who had been supporting the

Gallic cavalry.

The fight rages from noon until sunset.

The Romans emerge victorious.

The Gauls' first assault ends in
disgrace.

The battle was nearly theirs. They had
four times the number of soldiers and

still could not defeat Caesar.

This does not bode well.

But Vercingetorix is not about to give
up the fight.

Somehow, he manages to coordinate with
Commodus to launch a nighttime, multi

-pronged attack against the Roman
positions.

We don't know a lot about how much
Communists and Vercingetorix could

communicate with each other.

Maybe they had spies who could sneak
through, but in battle, I doubt they

communicate at all. It's just chaos.

Vercingetorix leads a force attempting
to break through the inside wall.

Communists and his men attempt to scale
the outside wall.

A third Gallic force.

also on the outside, tries to break
through the outer wall on the far side

the city.

The Gauls are learning, trying different
tactics.

This time they've got the cover of
darkness on their side, and they've got

ladders and wall hooks to scale the
walls.

Unfortunately for the Gauls, Caesar
still has the upper hand. Up in the

tower, he can easily see exactly what
the Gauls are doing.

With the high ground, Caesar's men
easily repel the Gauls below.

There are launching arrows, but also
just this huge supply of stones and

sticks. Nothing sophisticated, but I
wouldn't want someone standing 12 feet

me throwing stones at my head.

You're trying to fill in these ditches
and moats, and the whole time people are

throwing deadly debris at you.

In between the walls, Vercingetorix is
getting pummeled.

On the other side of the city, Caesar's
siege works are doing their job.

The little presence that Caesar planted,
the anti -personnel devices, are really

paying off here.

These guys can't take a step without
falling 10 feet onto a huge spike or

getting a hook cut in their legs.

Caesar's brilliantly planned siege of
the city is proving too much for the

Gauls.

Cominus is being beaten on the outside.

Vercingetorix is being beaten on the
inside.

The anti -personnel devices are killing
Gauls right and left.

And they both have this constant rain of
Roman throwing spears and arrows coming

down on them.

By daybreak, all the Gallic forces, both
inside and outside the walls, are

forced to retreat.

Once again, Caesar is successful.

It's got to be driving Cominus and Driss
and Cedric crazy.

They have three times the army.

Yet they're spending most of their time
filling up ditches and dying at the

hands of the Romans.

Caesar's like a master chess player. By
imprisoning Alessia, then building the

second wall to repel the Gauls from the
outside, he's neutralized the numbers

advantage the Gauls have.

Absolute genius.

Five more days' path.

Starvation is taking its toll on the
Gauls.

Desperately, the Gauls try to figure out
how to stop the Roman.

They were already beaten back twice, but
they had to do something.

The people inside were beyond being out
of food.

Finally, the Gauls discover the weak
spot in the Roman outer wall near the

of Mount Rhea.

Because of the Ose River, Caesar
couldn't completely connect his outer

It's a gap commonest hopes to exploit.

So what they do is they sneak under
cover of Nye to that weak spot tucked

between the two hills, and they stay
hidden in the woods.

At noon the next day, they attack.

Commodus' men flood through the opening
in the wall and ravage the Roman

infantry.

At another part of the wall, A second
Gallic force attempts to break in.

The second Gallic force begins to
overwhelm the wall.

The Romans are simply running out of
stuff to throw at them.

At the same time, Vercingetorix attacks
from the inside.

Caesar watches this three -pronged
Gallic attack from his siege tower.

Historians like to debate whether Caesar
was really such a great tactician. But

what he did at that final battle, it was
like conducting an orchestra.

Caesar decides to commit 3 ,600
reinforcements to his defenses at the

wall.

He ordered reinforcement cavalry to come
around from the northeast side to help

protect the weak spot.

But at the same time, the Gauls send
another 20 ,000 troops into the gap in

wall.

But you see, 20 ,000 men isn't going to
do you a lot of good when you're trying

to funnel them through essentially a
narrow gap between two rivers while

being opposed on both sides by legion
camps and in the front by a ditch and a

wall.

Caesar watches as the Gauls switch
tactics.

If they can't go through the wall, They
will tear it down.

By now, they're at the wall.

And they're just tearing at these with
these mural hooks.

They're iron hooks designed for tearing
down the walls of a besieged town.

Everything's kind of backwards because
of Caesar's Wall. Usually it's the

conquering force that's using mural
hooks, not the defenders.

The battle rages on all fronts.

Beezer finally takes matters into his
own hands. He personally leads 2 ,400

men into battle.

He takes command of four cohorts of
infantry himself, puts on his famous red

cloak. He always thought it important
that troops should see their commander

battle, and leads these four cohorts
right into the fray.

The Roman line was ready to break until
Caesar arrived at the last minute with

the reinforcements.

And there he is, hacking a call for the
gladius, absolutely butchering them.

There's a big difference between a
commander saying, charge, and one

follow me, boy.

Patton wore a red cloak just because of
Caesar.

Now that Caesar's there, the Roman
legions put down all these pilum and

and things that they were throwing from
a distance, and they pick up their

swords, and they just charge the Gauls.

Caesar has the momentum, and he's going
in for the kill.

More than two months into the siege of
Alesia, Julius Caesar, wearing his

red cloak, leads his men into battle
against the Gauls.

And the texts say that what was
happening is that the Roman line was

break until Caesar arrived at the last
minute with these four cohorts with the

reinforcements. And at the same time,
you know, increasing Roman morale

they saw their commander fighting with
them with the red cloak.

By evening, Caesar had the momentum. He
chases the Gauls to their camp, cuts

them down like animals.

The defeat.

sends the message of kind of despair to
the other tribes in the coalition.

And after a day or two, one by one, as
they had done so many times in the past,

they then wander back to their own
tribal lands.

And even Vercingetorix understands that
the game is over.

And he's the one who takes the
initiative and opens negotiations with

Romans.

Caesar had made a name for himself by
wiping out entire tribes.

But uncharacteristically, after this
battle, he decides to spare the Gallic

warriors.

Caesar was pretty lenient.

Way out of character for the guy who is
famous for annihilating whole tribes.

Maybe he sensed that in order to keep
insurgents down, he had to change

Maybe he even acquired a newfound
respect.

for the way they had performed in
battle.

But of course, Vercingetorix had darted
this.

He had to be made an example.

October 2nd, 52 BC.

After almost two months of bloodshed,
Vercingetorix finally surrenders.

Vercingetorix puts his best armor on and
marches through the gate.

Coming right up to Caesar.

And tens of thousands of Romans behind
him.

You can imagine the scene. Here's this
guy who had dared to challenge Caesar,

coming face to face with him.

A valiant warrior.

but one who has committed a basic
tactical error.

He had a plan not to take Caesar head
on, but to skirmish, cut his

communication, cut his supply lines,
just harass him at every turn. He held

to that at times when he could have
tried to go in for the kill, but he

disciplined. Then he suddenly scrapped
the whole idea. He sends his best

fighters to go get help, help that
didn't end up doing much good.

It's fascinating. He had hung to the
original strategy right to the point

it was succeeding, and then, for
whatever reason, changes the strategy,

cost him dearly.

While many of the Gauls are freed,
Vercingetorix is brought to Rome and

executed.

And as the story goes, for which there's
probably not much evidence, that during

one of Caesar's triumphs, he was
strangled.

in full public view, more likely he was
simply executed in a Roman dungeon.

The Romans were not, I mean, they had no
problems with public execution.

But in this case, they were just well to
be rid of what was called the firebrand

of the Gauls, the men who were afraid
that would light Gaul on fire.

Caesar spends the winter extinguishing
the dying embers of the rebellion.

Rome will not have to fight the Gauls
for another 400 years.

One can compare Caesar, to William
Tecumseh Sherman of the March Through

fame.

In 1867, he was given the job of
breaking the resistance of the Indians

West.

He used the exact same tactics, scorched
earth, massacre, removal, starvation,

against the Amerindian tribes that
Caesar had against the Gallic tribes,

with the same results.

He won.

The Amerindians were settled on
reservations.

and became American.

Alesia was a great personal victory for
Julius Caesar, who at times was the

besieged as well as the besieger.

But the outcome of this battle is more
than just dramatic material for Caesar's

own writings.

The Battle of Alesia in the long run was
one of the most beneficial things that

happened to all of Europe because what
it did is it allowed the thorough

Romanization

of an enormous area from the Rhine all
the way to the Pyrenees, what today we

would call Western Europe, was civilized
and organized as a province of Rome and

then became, under the empire,
essentially Italy and Rome itself.

It got to a point where the Gauls never
thought of themselves as anything except

Romans.

Some say that Caesar's campaign was
really a reign of terror.

But Adalisia, He used brilliant tactics
to defeat a large Gallic army that

attacked from two directions.

The result was that Caesar not only
destroyed the Gauls, he united the land

would become a significant part of
Western Europe.

And it all was made possible,
ultimately, by the brilliance of a

and the defeat of Vercingetorix at the
Battle and Siege of Alessia.