The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

B.C. 58-50

NAPOLEON III

[Footnote 68: From Louis Napoleon's Julius Caesar, by permission of Harper & Brothers.]

In Caesar's military performances the Gallic war plays the most important part, as shown in his Commentaries, his sole extant literary work and almost the only authority for this part of Roman history.

Cisalpine Gaul—that portion lying on the southern or Italian side of the Alps—came partly under the dominion of Rome as early as B.C. 282, when a Roman colony was founded at Sena Gallica. This division of Gaul was wholly conquered by B.C. 191; and in B.C. 43, having been made a Roman province, it became a part of Italy.

Transalpine Gaul—that part lying north and northwest of the Alps from Rome—comprised in Caesar's day three divisions: Aquitaine to the southwest, Celtic Gaul in the middle, and Belgic Gaul to the northwest. The region was inhabited by various tribes having neither unity of race nor of customs whereby nationality becomes distinguished. Toward the close of the second century B.C. the Romans made their first settlements in Transalpine Gaul, in the southeastern part. At the time when Caesar became proconsul in Gaul, B.C. 58, the province was in a state of tranquillity, but Fortune seemed determined that he should have great opportunities for the display of his military genius, and, when Asia had been subdued by Pompey, "conferred what remained to be done in Europe upon Caesar." The attempt of the Helvetii to leave their homes in the Alps for new dwelling-places in Gaul served him as an occasion for war. As they were crossing the Arar (now Saone) he attacked and routed them, later defeated them again, and at last drove them back to their own country.

The story of the long war, with its various campaigns, has become familiar to the world's readers through the masterly account of Caesar himself, known to "every schoolboy" who advances to the dignity of classical studies. In the end the country between the Pyrenees and the Rhine was subjugated, and for several centuries it remained a Roman province.

At the time when the history is taken up in the following narrative by Napoleon III, the great rebellion, B.C. 52, had sustained a heavy blow in the surrender of Alesia, and the capture of the heroic chief and leader of the insurrection, Vercingetorix, whom Caesar exhibited in his triumph at Rome, B.C. 46, and then caused to be put to death.

The distinguished author of the article says he wrote "for the purpose of proving that when Providence raises up such men as Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon it is to trace out to peoples the path they ought to follow, to stamp with the seal of their genius a new era, and to accomplish in a few years the work of many centuries." The work was prepared [vide Manual of Historical Literature: Adams] with the utmost care—a care which extended in some instances to special surveys, to insure perfect accuracy in the descriptions, etc.

The capture of Alesia and that of Vercingetorix, in spite of the united efforts of all Gaul, naturally gave Caesar hopes of a general submission; and he therefore believed that he could leave his army during the winter to rest quietly in its quarters from the hard labors which had lasted without interruption during the whole of the past summer. But the spirit of insurrection was not extinct among the Gauls; and convinced by experience that whatever might be their number they could not in a body cope with troops inured to war, they resolved, by partial insurrections raised on all points at once, to divide the attention and the forces of the Romans as their only chance of resisting them with advantage.