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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Quote:Any takers for that idea then? :-)
Not me, I'm afraid. I simply do not understand why Paulinus would go there. The area might have been more thoroughly Romanized than other parts of the province, so he need not fear hostility from local tribes but, otherwise, so what? He might pick up a few more auxiliaries but there were no legions there to augment his force. He could call on troops from the Continent but they would take weeks to arrive and, in the meantime, the rebels would have a free hand. He might not have anticipated that the rebels would follow him (I am not sure that I understand that, either) but, in any case, he would be isolating himself from the rest of his army, which was scattered in separate parts of the province and would be, in effect, leaderless. I am sorry to go on about this reinforcement business but I think that the need to increase his numbers to a level at which he could feel confident in confronting the rebels was absolutely crucial to his actions. Of course, in the event, he was able to defeat them without substantial reinforcements but that, I suggest, was because, by good generalship or good luck, he was able to find a battlesite that ideally compensated for his lack of numbers. To get back to the reinforcement point, all the other withdrawal routes that have been suggested provide him, to a greater or lesser extent, with the opportunity to augment his force; this one does not. (I am assuming in all this that his reason for going south was not to do a Catus Decianus and bunk off to Gaul!)
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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Messages In This Thread
Re: Calling all armchair generals! - by Ensifer - 03-11-2010, 03:13 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-18-2012, 06:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 12:02 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 02:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 05:40 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 11:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 09:42 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 10:10 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:25 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 08:36 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-26-2012, 02:57 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-27-2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012, 02:24 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-07-2014, 02:18 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-08-2014, 01:50 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-11-2014, 02:03 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-20-2014, 02:37 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-25-2014, 08:29 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Renatus - 11-10-2012, 04:04 AM

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