Original subtitles

Heroic music

This is one of the greatest battles of Antiquity.

A clash of rare violence between two civilizations.

Teutoburg was not a battle, but a massacre.

In the 1st century AD,

Augustus' Roman legions dominated Europe.

They are professional, highly trained soldiers .

Their thirst for conquest takes them beyond the Rhine,

in Germany.

But at the heart of this hostile territory,

A formidable people will make their lives a living hell.

These Germanic peoples

continue to rise up.

We're talking about ambushes, the method of modern commandos.

A battle symbolizes this unprecedented disaster.

That of Teutoburg.

Related in ancient tales and shrouded in mystery,

She sees the German Arminius as her opponent...

Someone impressive,

charming, intelligent.

...and the Roman general, Varus,

sent by Emperor Augustus to conquer Germania.

It will lead to one of Rome's most crushing defeats.

This is the true story of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.

Adventure music

...

It is here, in the Lower Saxony region,

near the village of Kalkriese,

archaeological research has been focused on this for the last 30 years.

The bloody clash between the Germanic peoples

and the Roman legions in the 1st century AD

is about to reveal its secrets.

Secrets 2000 years old

which date back to the time of the conquest of Germania

is Rome's new objective.

After subjugating the peoples of the Mediterranean basin,

The Roman armies are turning north.

A vast, unknown territory, named Germania,

which arouses as much fantasy as fear.

According to ancient texts,

These fears will turn into rout

at the end of an epic battle.

Its existence was long doubted .

because these accounts were vague and his location impossible.

For centuries, historians have thought

that it had taken place hundreds of kilometers from here

to the east in the Teutoburg Forest.

Today, there is no longer any room for doubt.

and hundreds of square meters were thoroughly searched.

This tool

Its function is to detect any metal object.

It's iron, it's too big

and too noisy to be antique metal.

Beep sound

Two Pfennigs dating from 1876.

These pieces date from the 19th century.

but the field is full of older objects

and designates Kalkriese

like the scene of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.

Most of the finds

that we have done and that we are doing,

are coins of the Roman Republic

and the Augustan period.

But also elements of military equipment

Roman legions.

These excavations confirm what was previously only a hypothesis.

The legions of Emperor Augustus passed through here

2000 years ago.

Augustus is depicted on this coin.

He has this face shape.

She was struck while she was still alive, which allows us to date it.

This coin was distributed to the soldiers.

Their microscopic analysis provides crucial information.

These legions were those of the Roman general Varus.

These countermarks can be analyzed .

In particular, that of Varus. His stamp is recognizable.

He was a general and commander of the Army of the Rhine.

This stamp is his.

As you can see, there's the V, the A,

then the R. VAR which means Varus.

Varus is one of the key men in the battle and strategy

of Emperor Augustus in Germania.

It is from

from 20 BC

that Emperor Augustus conceives the possibility

to acquire this part of the right bank of the Rhine.

Incomprehensible remarks

The Romans led a succession

campaigns up until 9 BC.

They began to found cities

which were to serve as the capital of the different cities.

There was a desire to assert his control.

It was also a province

that could be exploited. It was found in shipwrecks

in the Mediterranean, stamped lead ingots

which came from mines in that province of Germania.

And then Germany,

it was the protection of this prosperous Gaul

which one could sense was threatened

by the raids of the Germanic tribes.

War cries

...

This border must be protected.

and ensure the advance of the legions into enemy territory.

The Romans began by establishing the LIMES,

a line of temporary marching camps

along the Rhine and its tributaries.

Some of them become small towns.

On the banks of the Lippe River, in North Rhine-Westphalia,

The Aliso camp was one of the most important.

Its area is approximately 20 hectares.

which is equivalent to the size of 25 football pitches.

This camp occupied a gigantic area.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 legionnaires live inside

and women are not allowed to enter.

Incomprehensible remarks

The soldiers undergo intensive training.

Weapons handling, training exercises,

but also long walking exercises.

This segment of the camp's fortifications

is reconstituted in the exact proportions

and with the same materials as the original building.

2000 years ago,

The Romans dug their trenches at this spot.

Their goal is to surround the fortification with two trenches.

which measure a little over 2m deep

and approximately 5m wide.

These trenches

They are not filled with water, they are empty and dried out.

For what ?

Imagine, in the event of a siege, a Germanic warrior

rushing towards the camp.

He must cross the ditches,

This takes some time. Often,

a legionnaire stationed above him

He already neutralized it from the watchtower.

Sometimes, the attacker can even get shot.

from the fortifications.

Aliso will host the 18th Legion,

one of the three participants in the battle.

If this camp is designed as an impregnable fortress,

The conquest of Germania is difficult.

In a recurring, latent, endemic way,

These Germanic peoples are constantly rising up.

The Romans had difficulty finding reliable allies there.

This border is poorly accepted

by the inhabitants who live on both banks of the Rhine.

There are constant conflicts around this border.

Little by little, the military campaigns and raids

Germanic warriors become more frequent.

The strategy of the Roman Empire

to subdue this province and its recalcitrant people

rests on the shoulders of a man.

In the year 7 AD,

Augustus sent one of his trusted generals to Germany.

A close relative with a brilliant military career.

One of the most influential figures in Rome.

The imperial legate Publius Quinctilius Varus.

Varus is one of the members of the highest Roman aristocracy,

of this senatorial order

who rules the Roman world, that is to say, the world.

Publius Quinctilius Varus

belongs to the Emperor's extended family.

He had been legate of the province of Syria

which is one of the most important in the East.

He is an experienced man.

That is why he is sent to Germany.

He accepts this challenge.

because his goal is to climb the ranks of the hierarchy

and become the governor of a province.

Among the officers of his staff,

Varus is counting particularly on one man.

Arminius.

Roman authors like Tacitus

They say he is impressive.

Charming and very intelligent.

He has a lot of charisma.

He is an outstanding soldier and a leader of men.

Arminius came from the Cheruscan nobility,

one of the tribes on the right bank of the Rhine.

Like other Germanic peoples,

They collaborate with the occupier and place themselves at his service.

An attitude that affords them the protection of the Empire,

always seeking allies in its conquest.

The posture of the clan

has a major influence on Arminius's fate.

Like other young boys,

He was taken from his family at a young age.

and sent to Rome to be educated.

He is a prince.

He spent a large part of his youth in Rome

where he served as guarantor,

as a guarantee of the alliance between Rome and the Cherusci.

He acquired Roman citizenship.

He fought in the service of Rome.

He becomes the leader of a cohort of auxiliaries

and he participated in several important military campaigns.

Arminius obtained the dignity of a Roman knight.

In this capacity, he is prefect of the Cherusci cohort

who accompany the Roman army.

Arminius is in command of the auxiliary troops composed of warriors

descended from conquered peoples.

They act as intermediaries with the population

and swell the ranks of the Roman army

even more dominant.

And Kalkriese,

These legions left behind military equipment

one of which is of inestimable historical value.

There are no other masks

dating from the 1st century AD.

This shows how important this archaeological site is.

is crucial in Roman history.

We're all wondering who the owner of this mask could be.

We believe he belonged to a member of the Roman cavalry.

An ordinary soldier could not have afforded it.

unlike higher-ranking officers ,

even the highest-ranking officers.

The hypothesis that this mask belonged to Arminius

is entirely plausible.

The mask is custom-made.

This is not a mass-produced item.

It is suitable

to the shape of its owner's face.

Moreover,

the specific characteristics of this mask,

It is designed for use in combat.

It must have been very impressive.

to find yourself face to face with this soldier approaching you

masked, sparkling in the light.

You must have felt like you were facing a supernatural being

or a superhuman creature.

Augustus reorganized the Roman army,

which became a professional army.

Composed of several hundred thousand men,

It distinguishes itself through its discipline and military techniques.

It is therefore an elite army that Varus commands in Germania.

The Roman army is the most powerful in the world.

Soldiers...

Cris d'encouragement

It is the result of a long evolution.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Neither did the Roman army.

Incomprehensible remarks

What we should remember about the Legion is its discipline.

the fact that they are professional soldiers,

soldiers who are trained, even overtrained.

It's an exercise. We can imagine that the opponent is facing

to the legion, so we're going to change lines.

Whistle

The idea is that the soldiers

they are not packed in like sardines.

It's pointless. If an enemy

If he tried to slip between the ranks, he would be killed.

This allows you to go back up the corridors.

and to change everything while keeping the first line

facing an opponent who will tire himself out

and which will collapse.

The front line is constantly being supplied.

at the moment of engaging in hand-to-hand combat.

The first line

They have the shield on the right. They are protecting themselves against the opponent.

The second one has its shield horizontal.

He can strike any opponent who comes near his colleague.

The opponent has two soldiers facing him.

Before the battle, the legion must deploy.

Incomprehensible remarks

War cry

The approach to the battlefield is made in several columns.

But the army adapts to the terrain.

Even in the damp and hilly landscapes of Germany.

There is a training course

which is very well-known and popular when we talk about the Roman legion,

It's the turtle.

Incomprehensible remarks

...

It can be used

before the head-on collision. There's a whole barrage of projectiles.

on the legionnaires. Arrows, sling bullets.

Therefore, it is important that we can all protect ourselves together.

and then be able to move forward.

Incomprehensible remarks

There's no guarantee they didn't use it.

in small groups at Teutoburg Forest.

Another distinctive feature of the Roman army,

It is composed of ordinary people.

They are a people who originated in the countryside. They are rustic.

They have a lot of expertise.

They can take advantage of their environment,

to take advantage of the woods,

Stones. With these, they will build

war machines that they don't have to transport.

They can also produce galleys or siege towers.

This is one of the secrets of the Roman army.

A major discovery by the archaeologists of Kalkriese

completes this extraordinary arsenal.

The remains of a legionary's armor,

embedded in the rock for over 2000 years .

Thanks to photogrammetry,

the researchers created a 3D reconstruction

as it was found during its excavation.

Withdrawn into itself, it required hours of work

to isolate the different pieces that make it up.

The plates of Roman armor are made of iron.

This iron has undergone significant corrosion.

This machine sends out pulsed air

and cleans the iron of all traces

of oxidation.

It's an interesting technology; it allows

to avoid the use of chemical products.

The mechanical cleaning is refined under a microscope.

Clean plates provide valuable clues

to researchers on Roman military engineering

and its formidable capacity for adaptation.

This is one of the first suits of armor from the Roman era.

The plaques allow us to establish a date.

which dates back to the reign of Augustus.

It is in fact the oldest one that has been found.

We're going to reconstruct it , and that will allow us to understand

how it was constructed and carried.

The armor had a weakness at the shoulders,

gaps.

This weakness would later be corrected by the Romans.

This pursuit of perfection has its disadvantages.

who will play a decisive role in the battle.

The legionnaires were heavily laden.

There was the armor, but also the helmets,

their shields, their multiple weapons and their baggage.

It was a cumbersome piece of equipment.

Facing this colossus who doubts nothing,

Most peoples have bowed down.

In this unfriendly land,

Varus has hit a snag.

The Germanic warriors, as terrifying as they are mysterious.

What we know about them,

that's what they say about them

their adversaries, the Romans.

The word Germanic does not refer to a people,

It is a generic term that encompasses several peoples.

They are authentic Celts. They have not been touched.

through Mediterranean civilization ,

They remained in a state of freedom.

In short, for Rome, they were Barbarians.

feared since Caesar's first incursions decades earlier.

In particular, because among the Germanic peoples,

War is a principle of social cohesion.

These are warlike societies.

Which is why the war

is an integral part of their society.

The German is 15 years old, he is becoming an adult.

It's a rite of passage.

During this passage,

He is given a shield

And...

a frame, that is to say a small spear.

This is typical weaponry

of the German.

We have other weapons. The famous swords.

A kind of short sword.

Next, we have the axe.

We do not wear armor , chainmail, or helmets.

That's not our fighting technique at all.

Lightweight and mobile,

The Germanic warriors developed their mastery

of the art of war.

We're going to talk about ambushes,

very quick actions

to the method of modern commandos.

They are preparing their attack, they are sowing terror,

We're not necessarily trying to kill.

That's not the goal. The goal is to neutralize your opponent.

and then disappear

and start again in another place.

In individual combat,

on a Roman soldier who is much heavier,

They have the advantage.

To manufacture their weapons, however rudimentary,

The Germanic peoples use tools from everyday life

adapted to the circumstances.

In this case, small forges.

We extract a little soil, we wet it.

Once you have the soil, the fire is up in 10 minutes.

So, very simple.

The iron is extracted from the peat bogs, then placed in the fire.

The forge hearth that will operate

thanks to a blower. There are 2 bellows.

In the hot part, it might be 800 degrees.

If I ventilate properly and for long enough,

I'm going to exceed the melting point.

I will be able to burn iron.

because my iron won't melt, it will burn.

I can reach over 1350 degrees.

All we have to do is pull it to the ground and place it on an anvil.

which is almost at ground level.

The anvil is placed on a wooden block.

to cushion the impact of the hammer on the iron.

This is where hammering is used to deform the original piece.

After that, it will be a matter of polishing to strip the paint.

to have a metallic appearance.

After 3 hours of work, the Germanic warrior can hold a spear.

These are two worlds, two civilizations facing each other.

Very quickly, the supposed Roman superiority crystallized the anger.

Varus did not sufficiently follow Germanic customs

and wanted, in an abrupt, authoritarian manner,

to apply a Roman way of administering justice

which provoked the anger of the Germans.

He was criticized for a certain brutality.

and a certain naivety.

He was criticized for having overestimated the submission of the Germanic peoples.

Varus, no doubt,

didn't mince words.

Why Varus, despite being seasoned in hostile territories,

Does he make these mistakes?

What role did Arminius play when he was supposed to act as a link?

between his superior and his blood brothers?

Arminius, as an officer, surrounded Varus

like an officer participating in a general staff

around a Roman governor.

Their relationship was based on authority.

There was a hierarchy,

and also of relations of hospitality and perhaps of amicitia,

the essential Roman value of strong friendship

that unites two individuals.

They must have met in Rome

since they both lived there .

They moved in the same military circles.

Behind this facade of complicity,

Arminius has been conspiring for weeks.

The right-hand man is not as loyal as he seems.

and patiently weaves its web.

He continued, outwardly, to be part of

of these Germanic warrior officers

having entered the service of Rome,

but he gradually realized

that he could lead the Germans who were dissatisfied with the authority of Rome

and rebel against the Romans.

His idea was to try and carve out a kingdom for himself in Germany.

rather than being a relay

of Roman imperial power.

If he wants to establish himself in a grand fashion,

He needs the help of the people who live there.

He managed to gain support

of the other Germanic tribes.

In the year 9 AD, at the end of summer,

as Varus and his three legions return to their winter quarters,

Arminius lays his trap.

He advises the legate to change his route

to quell a small revolt a few kilometers away.

Arminius said: "It's nothing,

Let me handle this. I'll take care of everything. Follow me.

Varus is not suspicious.

He takes a path he doesn't know

and leads his 20,000 men into a trap,

in the heart of the humid and dense Kalkriese forest.

We are here, around this yellow dot.

If we look ahead, there are hills.

Behind us is an area of ​​large marshes.

2000 years ago,

It is likely that this place was difficult to access.

especially between September and April.

The ground was covered with leaves.

The weather was foggy.

and make progress in this kind of terrain

It was really complicated.

We had to be careful.

It's a perfect place to set up an ambush.

This terrain proved to be a true ally for the Germanic tribes.

and rather an enemy

for the Roman soldiers.

At the foot of Kalkriese hill, the track narrows.

The strip of land is so narrow that Varus' legions,

that is, about 15,000 men, stretched out over nearly 12 km.

They couldn't walk the way they were used to.

in large formations across the forest.

It's a long column,

heavily equipped,

who is not on his guard.

Now is the time.

Arminius, who is riding alongside the officers,

He left the column under the pretext of a scouting mission.

He joins his allies, who are camouflaged in the forest.

That's the signal.

At that moment, the German commandos charged the enemy column.

War cries

Written sources mention the brutality of the Germanic warriors.

Historians have found skulls in Kalkriese

which attest to the violence of the fighting.

Traces of injuries are visible.

The skull has been split open, you can see it on this flat surface.

There, we can see the impact

and an entire section of the skull that broke off.

The injuries were caused

by Germanic swords.

The Germanic peoples often fought with spears.

But this time they used swords.

Based on the evidence, these are the skulls of Roman soldiers.

We know this based on the age and solidity of the skeletons.

These are clearly victims of a battle.

Arminius had served sufficiently in the Roman army

to anticipate any action by the legionnaires.

What he did know was that the Romans were very strong.

when they can fight in formation.

What he wants to avoid,

that is, a commitment must occur

in open terrain.

Based on his experience,

Arminius opts for a guerrilla strategy.

His warriors launch lightning raids on the enemy,

disrupt the Roman column, splitting it into several groups,

then they go back into hiding when reinforcements arrive.

There was an element of surprise,

especially since we were in unfamiliar territory.

They realize too late that they are trapped.

That's what makes the trap perfect.

The harassment by the Germans is relentless and unpredictable.

This is one of the keys to the battle.

But how did the Romans protect themselves from it?

Archaeologists may have solved this enigma.

That of a Roman camp mentioned by Tacitus in his account

and whose role in the unfolding of events is crucial.

At the heart of the archaeological site,

Very old foundations have been unearthed.

This reconstruction was developed based on the initial excavations.

in the 1980s.

We thought it was a Germanic wall

which corresponds, in fact,

to the areas shown in blue on this diagram.

It was thought that this wall served as a fortification.

for an ambush.

The Germanic warriors were hidden behind.

Since the Romans were walking along the ridge,

Behind this parapet, the Germans could attack

without their opponents having any space to deploy.

Recent discoveries

force historians to revise this scenario.

It is possible that these foundations are those of a Roman camp.

A hypothesis supported by the historian Tacitus,

author of one of the rare accounts of the battle

and which mentions the existence of a legionary camp.

Since 2016, we have conducted new excavations.

and it is possible that a Roman camp was built here.

The ditches that were thought to be designed to drain rainwater

do not have this function.

They can be found in the east, west, and north.

If you connect them together, you get an area

where you can gather hundreds of men.

But these ditches

are typically Roman.

They all resemble the ditches dug by the legion,

let's say from the time of the Republic until Late Antiquity.

Roman soldiers often dug this type of trench.

New excavations and written sources converge.

On the evening of the first day,

Varus and his men are believed to have managed to reach safety.

One of the keys to the Romans' strength,

it's about being able

to lock oneself in a camp at night ,

protected by a ditch.

They are well-versed in this type of exercise. They do it in enemy territory.

This camp was built relatively quickly,

did not offer all the necessary safety guarantees.

To withstand a siege, you need supplies, and that was lacking.

The legionnaires are exhausted, they are not sleeping,

One must keep watch at night even behind the palisade of a camp.

Safely sheltered in a makeshift fort,

The Romans can only hold out for a short time against the enemies

now under the command of Arminius.

Varus knows this.

In the early morning,

He breaks camp and hopes to reach an open plain.

It's no use. The harassment will start again.

The enemy remains as elusive and numerous as ever.

They can hold out for a while, but they are overwhelmed by numbers.

They cannot get reinforcements.

while success breeds success,

when news of the ambush spreads ,

The Germans receive reinforcements.

The elements are joining in; it's raining. The wind is blowing.

The Roman army is floundering in the mud

And nothing improves in this scenario.

After 3 days and 3 nights,

They are now only a handful of survivors.

Publius Quinctilius Varus

understands that he has lost.

So, on the 4th day,

Varus decides to commit suicide.

Without knowing what fate awaits his corpse.

Suicide in such a disaster is an honorable death.

So, Varus's head is cut off from the corpse

and Arminius can seize it.

War cries

Ultimate dishonor.

The Germans seize the standards of the 3 legions

engulfed in this unprecedented disaster.

When the news reached Rome, it was a shock.

Auguste had almost gone mad.

He would wake up at night shouting, "Varus, give me back my legions!"

In the midst of the rout,

a few miraculously escaped

to the atrocities of the Germanic warriors.

Abandoning the bodies of their companions,

They join the fortified camp of Aliso.

They rejoined the garrison that had remained in the camp.

They couldn't last more than a few days

the siege that the Germanic warriors began.

Foghorn

Literary sources

recount the tricks that the Romans used

to save himself.

They had the idea of ​​sending a signal

with a trumpet making it seem as if a legion was arriving.

The Germans became frightened and left the site

thinking it was a lost cause.

That's how the legionnaires

and the survivors of the battle were able to escape

and reach the other side of the Rhine.

For the past 30 years, archaeologists have been reconstructing

the details of this battle,

It was a discovery that confirmed its existence.

Irrefutable proof of vital importance.

The gravestone of a soldier present at the battle.

His name can be read on this stele .

Calius. We also learn

that he belonged to the 18th legion of the Roman army.

It is stated that he loses his life

during the so-called Battle of Varus.

This is fundamental.

This is the only written document that proves the battle took place.

Found in a Roman city in the Rhine Valley,

This funerary monument was erected by Calius' brother.

without his remains having been found.

For the Romans, the funeral ritual was essential

on a social and spiritual level.

In Strasbourg, on the other side of the Rhine,

Many stelae from this period have been found.

They are all built on the same model.

We find quite frequently

the same organization

with the name of the deceased. Here, Comnisca

who died here in Strasbourg.

Next, son of Vedilius.

On the last line,

we find a mention

which appears automatically on funerary stelae.

Here, HER-es-ex-testamento-fecit.

That's to say

that the whole of this monument

was carried out according to the will left by the deceased.

For a Roman, this funeral ritual was indispensable.

These Roman citizens, these legionaries

Those who have fallen must be buried

according to Roman regulations.

With the funeral pyres that are now required,

with the creation of dedicated spaces,

burial enclosures where the remains of the deceased are placed.

Then, a monument.

a stele to mark the grave,

to preserve and commemorate the memory of the deceased.

It is unthinkable for Rome

to leave his soldiers fallen

in the hell of Germania without burial.

It is also a matter of honor and revenge.

After years of caution,

The new Emperor Tiberius launches reprisals.

Six years later,

The Romans return with more legions.

Their goal is to finally subdue

this province, conquer it and control it.

The man in charge of this mission is Germanicus.

For Germanicus, this was,

apart from the objective of reclaiming the province,

to repair the disaster

and to avenge the affront done to Rome by the Germans.

Accompanied by a handful of survivors,

Germanicus reaches the Kalkriese forest

to pay a final tribute to those who died in the Battle of Varus.

This is a unique sequence in all of history.

of this return to a battlefield

to give the dead a burial,

to realize what happened.

He discovers bones,

these remains of altars

where tribunes were allegedly sacrificed by the Germans.

They are also heads stuck on tree trunks

according to Germanic rites.

So, it's a terrifying scene.

The historian Tacitus describes the tears

survivors when they recount the battle.

This is where we fought.

This is where we lost our brothers in arms.

Their memories are still very vivid.

The bones found on the site

confirm the accounts of Roman historians.

If you look

this set, it doesn't look like

to the classic contents of a tomb.

It looks like someone dumped the bones in a hurry.

We didn't find a grave

properly Roman.

We therefore believe that these bones correspond to this scene.

We must keep in mind

that the Romans are in enemy territory,

They don't have much time. They fear an attack.

So they gather the bones and place them in a hole

dug quickly, they pronounce a prayer

And the ritual is complete.

Having fulfilled his Roman duty,

Germanicus faced off on several battlefields

the new strongman of Germany.

Arminius.

Arminius continues to fight

the Romans,

particularly during the campaigns of Germanicus.

Arminius allegedly attempted to form a coalition

less against Rome than for himself

become king.

He wanted to become king.

He had seen in Rome

what an Emperor like Augustus could accomplish.

His desire was to reign and consolidate his power.

Arminius offers a heroic resistance to Germanicus

and its 8 legions.

It shakes Rome's ambitions.

But in the year 21 AD,

that is, 12 years after his most resounding victory,

His desires for power come to an abrupt end.

Finally, Arminius is assassinated.

It is clear that he was not killed by his enemies.

but by people from his own side.

Jealousy or revenge?

His death remains a mystery.

His figure will long continue to embody resistance to the invader.

A resistance that eventually discouraged Roman ambitions.

Germany is a quagmire.

The defeat at Teutoburg left its mark

and the fighting spirit of the Germans eventually prevailed

of the Roman thirst for conquest.

At that moment, the Romans said to themselves, "OK, we give up.

We are withdrawing from this poor territory

And so we close the chapter on the conquest of Germania."

Arminius's audacious gamble has remained etched in history.

But the Kalkriese site has not revealed all its secrets.

The enigma of Teutoburg retains its air of mystery.

Subtitles: VDM