Editor says, what if Varus had won the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the December 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.

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Editor says, in this article we explore an original idea on the Total War Forums and repurpose significant amounts of content from the Wikipedia web site which concludes ~ "Despite numerous successful campaigns and raids by the Roman army over the Rhine in the years after the battle, the Romans were to make no more concerted attempts to conquer and permanently hold Germania beyond the river".

Christopher Lee commented on 2011-12-26 22:22:18 ~ I think that in many ways this would make many real differences. Firstly I doubt that anyone would attach any significance to the event now, it would be totally insignificant, some jumped up German tried an ambush. It is only important now because it did succeed and the consequences it caused. Firstly the Romans had some control over Germany by this time, they were putting in place the infrastructure of rule, client kings, etc. What held them back was the terrain, the forested territory was the least effective theatre for Roman troops. They needed time to clear this forest and found sufficient cities, roads, etc to get Germany under control. The Varus disaster occured as this process was in its infancy and therefore strangled Roman rule at birth. The loss of the legions was not only a huge loss of about 10% of the entire Roman legionary establishment, but also shattered the idea of Roman invincibility built up over decades of Roman victories in Gaul and Germany. The Germans learned that they could beat the Romans in wooded terrain and thus the Romans became unlikely to ever conquer Germany. With no disaster in 9AD the Romans would likely have time to develop their control. With Arminius dead a powerful message would be sent to turncoats that they could not simply abandon Roman service and live. Other potential rebels might flee or decide to cast their lot in with Rome. The time gained would allow the Romans to really get into the Rhineland and establish a Romanised zone of sufficient depth and size to influence the whole of Germany. Land clearance would turn this region into something not unlike Gaul and the message could go out to Germans that Roman rule had significant advantages in material terms. The Romans would probably have been able to extend their rule east to the enxt significant line, the Elbe, or even to the Oder or Vistula. Of course as things got further east the same issues would appear again. The Romans showed their ability to realise when they had overextended themselves and set sensible borders. They could do so at the Elbe and greatly shorten their own internal lines and create a far easier and more manageable border in eastern Europe. The Rhine, whilst a large river proved no obstacle to the barbarians once they decided to breach it in the 3rd century. This shorter border would allow the Roman military to stretch further, with a shorter line to defend. They could possibly conquer all of Britain and Ireland, which they should have been able to do anyway but did not do. The extra availability of forces would make this more possible and the conquest of Germany would give them added confidence in far-flung barbarian regions. Once achieved this conquest would require few troops to maintain as long as the natives were Romanised. Another benefit would be that the Germans would be split and weakened, the great tribal confederations of later centuries would be impossible as so many Germans would be under German rule. There would be no great linguistic bloc to cause a thorn to Rome in the east. The steppe people to the east would be too spread out and the Scandinavians too few in number and also subsumed to some extent by the ROman conquest of Germany. Later movements of Huns, Avars, etc would not have a large populace to displace into Roman lands and would be easier to oppose. All in all I think a successful Roman conquest of Germany would have resulted in a stronger and more durable Roman empire that might have achieved what the Chinese empire did and become more or less a permanent fixture.

Allen W. McDonnell commented on 2011-12-27 10:32:35 ~ In general I agree with Christopher Lee, the loss of the legions was a major blow to Roman prestige and social order, before then they appeared to be unstoppable. With a win at the ambush there is no way that they would have retreated from Germany as they did OTL, if anything extra forces would have been deployed to subjugate the territory up to the Rhine completely for a generation, clear what forests needed to be cleared for intensive Roman style agriculture and build the infrastructure needed to lock Germania into the Empire for good. Once they proved out the methods on how to add dense forestland to the Empire nothing would stop further expansion eastward except for the climate change which takes place from Maritime to Continental climate. Roman crops and techniques from the Mediterranean region work well enough in Gaul and Britain and even in Denmark because the sea moderates thew northern climate a great deal. Once you get as far as the Oder river the maritime effect grows weak and further east it ceases completely. The climate zone differences would hamper expansion further eastward from the Oder until such time as the Romans developed other crops and techniques for their agricultural system.

Scott Palter commented on 2011-12-27 13:14:20 ~ Respectfully you folk missed a few key pieces. Absent Varus's defeat Tiberius does not squeeze as hard in Pannonia. Absent that you do not get the Pannonian Revolt, . Absent that Tiberius finishes off the conquests and takes what is now the Czech Republic, completing the line of the Elbe. With Roman power firmly planted along the north bank of the Danube Trajan's Dacian War will likely see Roman power extend the full length of the Carpathians instead of just a Dacian salient. This in turn will probably see Roman power extended in stages to first the Oder and then the Vistula. Romanized Europe will advance up to what is the narrowest geography front, roughly Konigsberg-Odessa. When the Empire decays central and eastern Europe will still be part of the Latin world.

Eric Oppen commented on 2011-12-27 18:35:59 ~ Would the Romans really have wanted to conquer Germania even if Arminius' ambush hadn't worked so very well? There was no gold there.

Jeff Provine commented on 2011-12-27 20:36:29 ~ According to at least two of my Classics profs, Augustus would go around banging his head and saying, "Varus, give me back my legions!" So many military headaches could have been solved with these legions able. I concur on the idea of a much longer lasting Empire. While Germany didn't have much in natural wealth at the time, the Romans would do well with a buffer-state. The question on the other side, however, is how much influence of German culture would come into Rome?

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