Customer Reviews

Rome's Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found Adrian Murdoch's book to be pretty well researched and well written on the events that took place in and around Teutoburg Forest that resulted in the destruction of three Roman Legions and their support units. The author definitely didn't waste any pages relating to the events at hand and his background material prior to the massacre proves quite useful and interesting. I found this to be an interesting contrast to the previous book I read on this subject by Peter Wells. Unlike Wells who claims that the entire battle was over within a hour, Murdoch accurately traced a battle that took over several days. His take on the commander, Varus, proves to be insightful since it gave a good reasoning why Augustus may have choosen him as governor of Germany when he did.

I believed the author used all the material available on this campaign to make this a readable and understandable book. His background material prior to the campaign proves to be useful and his efforts to explain what happened after the massacre and its consequences to Rome as well as toward European history also proves to be insightful and interesting. There is also a considerable effort by the author to explained the effect Arminius had on German history through out history to modern period.

Its also nice that the author did give Major Tony Clunn his due credit for basically discovering and opening up the main area where the Romans met their doom. Most of the other authors only give lip service if any to Clunn and his efforts.

On the down side, I thought as some of the previous reviewers thought, there should have more useful maps to this book and more photographs. Both were definitely lacking as visual aids in both would have enchance the reader's understanding. And I too, believed that the author's comparison of Rome and United States' effort in Iraq went beyond the scrope of the book and lent to the only part of the book (only one paragraph) where I thought the author inserted his personal biased of current events to affect what he wrote.

But I can still recommended this book along with the book written by Tony Clunn (Search for the Lost Roman Legions) as two best books on the subject written on the subject matter as for now. I think it would be best if you read both books back to back.

When I was a child I remember reading about "Herman the German" and his victory over the evil Romans at Teutoburg Forest and I had hoped that I could someday become an Indiana Jones and find the actual battle site. Well, an intrepid English officer armed with a metal detector beat me to it before I even had the chance to start looking. I then figured I could find some talent and write a definitive book on the subject because so little had been written about this momentous battle. Guess what? Too late again. A book has been written that covers the battle so well that I won't even bother looking for that muse.

Adrian Murdoch's book is simply wonderful. He reveals so many details and facts that I have never seen in print anywhere else. I gained a healthy respect for the Roman Varus because of Murdoch's lengthy history of the man's unknown career. History has not been kind to Varus but Murdoch gives a plausible explaination for Augustus's decision to let Varus command in the North. Augustus was no fool and he would not have risked 3 of his legions and his northern frontier with just anyone.

Murdoch does a fine job of telling the story from start to finish and gives a nice ending to the mystery with much detail on recent excavations and finds. I found only a few minor mistakes-maybe typos? The battle of Cannae took place in 216BC not 218BC and the cover of the book could have been better- a shot from "Gladiator"? How about a photo of the battle sites? I was also suprised to see the author use the "BC" & "AD" with his dates. I applaud this. I will never accept the more politically correct "BCE" and "CE". I guess I just don't like changing what I grew up with.

The only faults I can find with this book are minor. I wish that the book would have been a bit thicker- more photos, histories of the legions lost? I also did not like his comparison of Imperial Rome and the modern day United States. Rome was a brutal conqueror with a record of genocidal policies and culture destruction that even today is matched by none. I do not see the same course currently being followed by the US. Maybe the author is not too keen on the current situationin Iraq?

I now have one accurate book with all the facts on the battle of Teutoburg Forest and about 50 books that got all/most of it wrong. Hindsight is indeed 20/20. Buy this book and learn how to rewrite history!

Hannibal

This book does a good job of providing a perspective of what happened to the Roman legions in the Teutoburg forest in 9AD. Using different sources which the author does a good job of laying out in the first chapter, and some logical evaluation of the people and events, the author provides what happened leading up to the battle, what happened during the battle and what occurred afterwards. Some new ideas that I hadn't known before: the days of the battle were stormy, lots of rain and mud caused the Roman legions to get bogged down, Arminius was with the Romans until the first attack and then turned sides and that there were some survivors. The events that transpired after the battle were especially interesting, including the retreat of a Roman unit in the middle of Germany and the campaigns of Germanicus. This would be an excellent book except that at the end the author reaches to making an analogy between Rome in 9AD and the US in 2006 in Iraq. That attempt is feable without logic and may leave the reader with a bad last impression of a good book. However, all in all this is a good book and well worth the read for any Roman history buff.

Being a lover of ancient Germanic history, I had to get this book. It wasn't disappointing one bit. The title is a bit misleading though. The actual account of the Battle of Teutoberg Forest in this book is only about 10 pages long. The rest of the 200 pages are dedicated to a detailed description of Varus' political career, Arminius' life as a Roman officer, and the affects that the history of the battle had on later German nationalism. The amount of time and research spent on the archeological discoveries and the flow of the story-telling that Murdoch presents are what make this book well worth the read.

This is one of only a handful of books on the Teutobergerwald battle to appear since the discovery of the battlesite. While less detailed on the actual fighting compared with the book by Wells, to which those more interested in a blow-by-blow summary of the battle should turn, it gives a very good account of the background to the events of 9 AD, their significance and above all of how they have been exploited by German politicians and writers. Recommended for anyone interested in the subject. We still await a definitive book on the battle, which will probably have to wait till the archaeological work at Kalkriese is complete, but until then this is a good place to start.

I recently read Wells's book THE BATTLE THAT STOPPED ROME on the same subject and which Murdoch cites a few times. It was filled with information but a bit dry, whereas this present volume is much richer and more interesting on the ancient historical aspects and background to the 'Varusschlacht' (or 'Hermannschlact') and its immediate aftermath. The information on Germanicus's shadier side was new to me, although Murdoch doesn't mention his probable assassination by poison (according to Tacitus) but does discuss Drusus, Tiberius, and Augustus very well.

Whether this was Rome's greatest defeat or not, I seriously doubt, as the Cannae of an earlier period on the Italian peninsula, and the serious beating received by the Romans by the Parthians in the east, to mention just two battles, methinks were more serious defeats in numerous ways. Anyway, it =was= a serious event nonethless as losing three entire legions in just a couple of days is very bad news indeed at =any= period of Rome's history, republican or imperial.

Wells incidentally emphasizes the battle's effects on drawing fairly permanent social, political, linguistic, and cultural frontiers on or near the Rhine for the two thousand years after this battle, whereas Murdoch doesn't place quite as much emphasis on that, unfortunately.

A major flaw in this book, in my opinion, is the author's continual references to modern German nationalism and how bad, immoral, dangerous etc. it is - everybody else's is ok of course! - and his drawing the history or mythology of Arminius and what he did for Germany into that debate. What happened in AD 9 has little or no bearing on events in the 1933-45 period, but the paranoia on this carries on nonetheless.

I have to say though that Murdoch's detailed analysis of the usage and misusage of the Teutoburg battle in literature - plays, novels, poetry, etc. - films, mythology, even in opera, popular songs, and suchlike, is very good and very interesting. But always there is this endless harping and obsessive focus on the evils of German nationalism. Presumably Hermann/Arminius is supposed to wring his own hands in guilt in the grave over what others did two millenia later...

At any rate, the author repeatedly condemns the politicization of Hermann and the battle by later writers, politicians, the Nazis, et al, but seems totally oblivious to the just as bad ahistorical politicization of these events to browbeat and degrade German pride and identity - and which he himself indulges in quite a bit in this book. It seems to me that if one group misuses history this way while an opposing group does about the same, then =both= should be critiqued on it. I do get tired of trendy modern political correctness intruding into otherwise serious historical studies.

I had high expectations for this book because I am an enthusiastic reader of German history books, and my knowledge of German history before 800 AD is rather shady. I was very anxious to read a book that showed Germany defeating the Roman empire, and I expected a rather detailed account. Unfortunately, not very much is known about the battle, or the main personalities who the battle centered on. It is explained very well in the book how much is known about the battle, and how much is speculation. The book is rather short, at just under 200 pages. One chapter is dedicated to Varus, the Roman commander, and one to Arminius. A lot of time is spent showing the political, economic, and societal aspects of the Roman and German worlds at the time. This is completed half-way through the book. I was still expecting the last half to be dedicated to the battle. Unfortunately, only 26 pages are dedicated to the battle itself. I cannot complain, however, because there is simply not much known. We only know the general things that happened... such as the spot that the battle occurred on, the general tactics the Germans used, and that a lot of Romans were slaughtered. The last 75 pages or so are dedicated to how this battle has been interpreted in the last 2000 years, and how the progress is going these days on the archaeology side.

Overall, I cannot fault this book for being so short and lacking definitive facts, because this book tells basically everything that is currently known about the battle, and I am fairly sure it is the most accurate and detailed book available currently. I can only hope, however, that more finds are made, and a more accurate and descriptive history will be created some day. This book gets four stars, but not by any fault of the author. It would certainly get five stars if it were simply more informative, which is impossible at this time.

It is a good book that I certainly recommend to anyone interested in the battle, but please know about the short comings of this book.

As other reviews have stated, the book deals very little with the battle itself. Obviously, this is due to a lack of knowledge of the battle which is understandable. The author tries not to add too much commentary on the battle, but seems more than willing to do so at other times. The information on the following events was good to have, but with both the battle itself and following campaigns, maps and timelines would've been very helpful. Murdoch has a tendency to jump back and forth from characters, times, places and themes. One moment he is discussing Varus' family, and the next he is discussing the sociological impact on modern German thought. The first several chapters were at least focused on individuals, even if they went off on frequent and unannouced tangents. The last several chapters, I could not honestly tell you what the chapter was attempting to discuss. The author also discusses thought processes behind the individuals at times. The problem is that the author is clearly not a military man and he frequently misses the mark regarding the 'why' of both Arminius' and Varus' actions or inactions. Throw in the fact that the author compares the Roman's punitive expeditions to efforts in Iraq (which the author has clearly had no first hand experience with) and the commentary quickly shows its ignorance. The political bias shown not only in regards to modern events but also the bias shown to the Roman forces result in the reader having to sift through opinion to find the fact.

But, there is plenty of fact in the book which is why I gave it 3 stars. The book can be difficult to read due to the jumping back and forth and I found myself rolling my eyes frequently, but it still had its value. A note to the publishers in case they read this. The back jacket of the book is not the ideal place for such a blatent typo. Tacitus is cited with a date of 109 BC regarding the battle. The battle didn't take place until 9 AD, Tacitus was not born until 56 AD. Clearly, it should read 109 AD, but this is something that should have been caught.

Adrian Murdoch's compact, 200 page history has plenty to offer military, archaeological, and cultural history buffs. Precious little contemporaneous information exists about the famed defeat of Augustus' legions in the Teutoberg Forest by the previously unorganized Germanic tribes. The only surviving account by a contemporary of Varus and Arminius is that of Velleius Paterculus, which Murdoch puts to good use. The better known historical accounts of Tacitus and Cassius Dio were, of course, written after the fact, and despite the outcome of this singular battle, were among the earliest proofs of the adage that history is written by the winners. (This was apparent even to a high school Latin student studying Julius Caesar and Tacitus.) Not being a historian, I wondered at the outset whether such a history of this single battle could offer much more than a limited rehashing of those few authors and a lot of speculation. To my delight, it does offer a great deal more.

Murdoch brings to English-speaking students the benefit of centuries of study by German language scholars as well as updated archaeological finds. He examines the historical context, the state of the empire's border lands both before Varus' ill-fated drive to the Elbe, and in the following years, including Germanicus' campaigns to avenge the loss of Augustus' legions. He also examines the emergence of Arminius throughout later German culture, both high and low. Tacitus seems to write the history again, even a thousand years after his death, since Arminius' "birth" as a latter day founder of Germanic civilization commenced with the fifteenth century discovery of Tacitus' Germania. Murdoch follows this procession through art, drama, and music, through several stages of re-invention, culminating in the Nazi's embrace of Teutoberg as an allegory of German idealism and Arminius as national hero. I never really understood "Herman the German" until reading this book.

The archaeological evidence is perhaps the most interesting part, which places this book a rank above conventional "trade" history. Even amateur historians appreciate hard evidence, not just a review of other historians' opinions. The only self-inflicted wound in this book is on the last page, where Murdoch succumbs to an inexplicable urge to compare the "lessons" of Teutoberg with American military presence in Iraq in 2005, apparently suggesting that the American empire is (was?) overstepping its bounds. Whatever one's opinions about the US presence and objectives in Iraq, Murdoch has offered nothing in his 200 pages of otherwise informative and entertaining narrative to set up this hypothesis. My suggestion to readers: Just skip page 194. The rest is great.

A major improvement over previous books on this subject in every area surrounding the antecedents, aftermath, and cultural inheritance of the battle of the Teutoburg Forest. There are number of interesting details that I have not read elsewhere. By contrast, the author's proposed reconstruction of the battle itself is irritatingly glib and I do not feel that it could stand up successfully to any serious critical analysis as currently written. Keep in my mind that all proposed reconstructions of the battle are largely hypothetical but are usually, and sometimes thoroughly, explained and supported by the authors. This one is not. I am happy I purchased this book, however, as it is useful in areas where other books and some publications have been lacking.
But do not expect any new detailed ideas as to how the fights in and around the Teutoburg Forest developed. For better supported ideas, check out Tony Clunn's "Quest For the Lost Roman Legions". You will have to endure his interweaved fictional re-creation (complete with imagined dialogue) in order to get to the very intersting factual account of his research. This book is available at Amazon. Also, there is a series of excellent articles available on nearly every aspect of this battle including a intriguing proposed reconstuction of the battle itself by Jona Lendering.