What if Julius Caesar lost the Battle of Alesia?

hello everyone this is penguin how yall doin you can read the title so yall know whats goin on

[matiyev]

I can agree on the fact that if Caesar lost Alesia, he would have died there, because the romans were surrounded and the gauls would have killed them to a man, but the gauls uniting into one kingdom and the roman republic ultimately falling because of that...that looks far fetched to me. So if we're going to try to make an accurate prediction, we have to look at similar events, and what happened after, and fortunately for us (not so much for Varus), there's Teutoburg forest.

So after Teutoburg forest, did Arminius manage to unite the germans into one kingdom ? Well...not for the lack of trying, but no. After having expelled the romans from Germania, the germans went back to fighting each other, as they have done for thousands of years before, which I reckon is what would have most likely happened to the gauls also. As much respect as Vercingetorix could have commanded into the gauls, you can't make all these warlike and independent tribes (which the celts were more than any) serve only you and pay taxes to only you without a professional army with a chain of command. And then you can't make a "state" if you have no idea how a state works. At this Arminius actually had much better odds than Vercingetorix because Arminius, having served for Rome at least had a remote idea about how a professional army and a state worked, maybe he could even read latin og even some greek, which Vercingetorix...well, not that I knew him, maybe the guy was a genius and a visionary, but what contact could he have had with civilization, how could he have figured out such complex stuff? Hell, could any of us design a kingdom or an army? And that's having access to all the information. Sorry guys, but I have to go for the most likely alternative here.

This bring us to the second point: the alleged gaulish invasion, which I seriously doubt would have happened at all. I mean, once again, after Teutoburg, Arminius could have totally invaded Gaul, but he didn't, and i think that's because as said before, he couldn't unite all the barbarians into one army. But even if the invasion happened, I just don't see how a yolo charging mob could defeat the legions. This is no TW game, you can't just "move around" all these people with absolutely no strategical training, no chain of command, no nothing, you can't flank, you can't make feigned retreats, you can try to ambush, but that could only work if you knew the terrain, which by default you don't when you're the invader. Once more, looking at the evidence there have been some pretty nasty and big hordes either rebelling or invading the romans, we have Boudica's rebellion, we have the Cimbrian wars, but in the end, it all turns out the same, which is: they sack some minor cities, kill some civilians and then when the real deal army comes, they yolo charge them hoping than their thick heads are harder than a pilum, which they seldom are, and ultimately they either get barbecued or sober and go home.

Now, point nº3: Pompey becoming ELECTED emperor, I mean that's just...

Seriously, there was no greater sin in Rome than wanting to become "king" (absolute monarch, that is), they clearly had some traumatic experiences back when they were ruled by kings, which is why they became a republic and remained a republic up until Caesar had to go on a full blown civil freaking war in order to become emperor, and even though he won the war, his dictatorial whim ultimately ended up costing him his life. And now you have the audacity to state that the Senate and the People of Rome would have VOLUNTARILY ELECTED Pompey as their absolutely monarching Emperor ?

So after this assertive critique of mine I would like to share with you my own hipothesis on how I think it would have gone down:
1) Vercingetorix becomes chief of the Arverni, his tribe, if he actually is a little bit smart, he tries to prepare for the upcoming roman retaliation. He tries to keep the gauls united as much as he can, he marries some daughter of some other big shot chief and their alliance is engough to keep the other chiefs around in check, but nothing more.
2) In Rome Pompey, now consul, who actually was great friends with Caesar and even married Caesar's daughter is thirsty for revenge. He leads a punitive expedition into Gaul. Being a capable general as Pompey was, he wins some battles, gets back the roman eagles from Alesia and ultimately defeats Vercingetorix. But as cautious as he also was, really an antithesis for Caesar's impetuousness and drive, he doesn't try to annex the whole of Gaul, he establishes some client chiefs here and there as buffers. I don't think Rome would have dismissed the annexation completely as they did with Germania, after all, Gaul is pretty fertile, has some serious gold and iron mines, is closer and generally less muddy, rainy and "ambushy". But they deffinitely would have opted for a more gradual approach, similar to what happened in Britain. This could even lead to modern France speaking something more related to German/Gaelic than to Latin.
3) Speaking of Britain, it probably remains outside of the Empire. Which leads to no Constantine. The consequence of that could be that it takes some more time, maybe 10 or 20 years for Rome to become Christian, which it eventually does anyway.
4) Now whether Rome remains a republic and for how long is difficult to say. I mean, the gathering of the legions around their military leaders rather than the Senate would still have been a tendency quite difficult to counter. If not Caesar, then someone else would have started a civil war, and then the next one, and then the next. And it takes only one of these wars for the Senate to lose, for it to never regain it's power again, because the only way for the Senate to regain power is that an Emperor who wields that power decrees it so, and that can only happen in movies like Gladiator, but never IRL. IRL absolute power corrupts absolutely.
5) As for the Huns...yeah, that still happens and the western part of the Empire still falls, whether it's independent from the East or not. Once again, maybe sooner, maybe later by some years, but it most deffinitely falls. The reason the East survived is that their borders were much more defensible, something that can't be appllied to the West. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news, guys, please don't kill the messenger.

[bloominggarden]

Requesting the next video to be 'What if Spain was still Al-Andalus' 😌
It is considered to be one the biggest contributors to science and a lot of modern tech but what would it be like if it never became the modern Spain and was still the islamic Andalus???

[internetarchive]

What if julius caeser lost the battle of britain