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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Nathan wrote:
 
Anyway, I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on this. It's a very nice looking site, I think, even considering the problems. I still think it far more likely that Paulinus pulled back to St Albans, and fought his battle at Newground, but looking at alternative options is never a bad idea.
 
I agree that it is a nice looking site but then so is the Dorking Gap (and in its way, similar) but there are various questions that need answering.
 
Certainly the westward route out of London through Staines then Silchester towards Speen and then Cirencester would be equally valid as going on the Northern route to Cirencester St. Albans through Alchester to Cirencester.
 
St Albans was a Roman town and the inhabitants of Silchester certainly were close allies (recent archeaology shows that the town was laid out very early on based on a grid pattern) so there were parallels for using both routes, perhaps to protect Roman citizens.
 
If SP was hoping to meet up with reinforcements he would have had to go towards where his forces were and the ones that he could use were in the West.
 
I favour the Northern route as Verulamium (St Albans) was made a roman municipium in AD50 and therefore its inhabitants were Roman Citizens, therefore had to be protected, especially as the Roman Citizens of Colchester had been slaughtered on SP's watch.
 
Secondly although the distance between London and Tring (37 miles) and the distance between London and Burghclere (55 miles) is not that much, the distance between Burghclere and Bury St Edmunds, in the heart of the Iceni territory, is around 120 miles whereas from Tring to Bury St Edmunds it is 66 miles.
 
The Brythons were travelling as an army however loosely, it was not a migration, they were fighting to take back their land not move off it. The women were, like in most armies in history, camp followers or necessary back up to support their menfolk many of whom would have been farmers and land labourers.
 
Tacitus mentions that much of the decimation of the tribes was not only SPs actions in rooting out the rebels and slaughtering, not even enslaving them, as an example no doubt,  but that there was starvation amongst the tribes.
 
From what we can estimate of the timescales it would appear that the final battle would have been late Summer and the tribes had harvested this years grain but had yet to plant next year’s harvest.
 
We know that it was late in the fighting season because the re-inforcements from Germany and the army from “Wales” was rejoined but spent their winter under canvass .
 
The Brythons  had to get back in time to do the planting and the further away they moved the later it got in the season and the less chance that the wheat could be sown successfully. Tacitus again mentions that the Brythons were relying on capturing Roman grain, and interestingly the wheat found in the burnt layers was sourced from abroad.
 
Having said this and there maybe a kernel of truth in this thought but the tribes would not have relied on this, they were too numerous; the provisions for 40,000 men would simply not have been enough to feed their tribes.
 
So the farmers would have wanted to return to plant their crops which was their forte so every day that they marched away from their land was another day to march back.
 
As it happened there were so many killed (and possibly a huge amount of women, a major part of the workforce) when the baggage train was overrun that there simply weren’t enough people to sow the seed.
 
There has been surprise over how the leaders of the Brythons managed to keep them together for so long and this has been the case for every non professional army throughout history which of course did not apply to the Roman forces.
 
So I would agree with Nathan that this is an excellent site but that doesn’t mean it is THE site, although I don’t think that the lack of immediate water would have been a problem if there was time to prepare. Much could have been stored in barrels for the immediate timeframe of the battle. SP was used to mountain warfare and would have been prepared for shortages. Also the position could be turned to face the enemy whichever way they came.
 
It is simply that past Silchester is probably a step too far.
Deryk
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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
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - by Theoderic - 01-19-2018, 06:16 PM

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