There
has been much conflicting debate around the site of the ‘Ford’ across the
river Thames where Caesar crossed in 54 BC, during his second invasion of Britain. Westminster, Chelsea, Kingston,
Wharton Bridges and Brentford have all been proposed but in my opinion,
Brentford is still the favourite. There was a long-established ferry service across
the river from Putney/Fulham during the iron-age and there must have been an
established village or a small town around this vital business, along both banks. Although 'LudsDun' has never been found, there was a fortress on the Thames estuary in
this late iron-age period, thought to have been built on a gravel promontory
thrusting out into the river at Woolwich (underneath the old arsenal). Modern
day archaeologists think however, that this ancient fortress had gone out of
use by 80 BC, and so had been abandoned for whatever reason for over 30 years by the time Caesar arrives in 54 BC.
Crossing the mined ford.
Excerpt from; Iron Blood & Sacrifice (Return of the Yellow Dog)
Excerpt from; Iron Blood & Sacrifice (Return of the Yellow Dog)
The
Prittans appeared among the trees a little after midday and their numbers
continued to build as the Romans continued to rest and wait. Even as they
emerged from the forest to set-up an opposing force on the opposite bank, the
Romans remained sanguine and just drank their posca, watching closely as their enemy assembled roughly fifty
yards short of the river bank. Ignoring the indecipherable insults and
challenges the barbarians shouted at them from across the river, the legionaries
laughed at them from their comfortable seats on the lush grass and continued
with their games and amusements, as they
knew what was coming.
The
water level had fallen dramatically as the tide receded and the deadly festooned ford was finally revealed in
the glutinous mud, in all its stark and terrible detail. It was as deadly as it
was complex, and it clearly ran the whole width of the river. The steel blades
fastened to the lattice-work of sharpened white staves emerged from the mud, looking
like a rising army from the underworld and the tip of each one glinted
malevolently now in the afternoon sun. Following a stunned silence in which all
these soldiers perceived the measure of doom their General had saved them from,
their relief and gratitude turned to feelings of vicious and vengeful hatred toward
their enemy across this river.
His
anger-motivated men then attempted to clear as much as possible from the
approach to the ford by hand, using long iron rods to lever up the nearest
stakes, before dragging them away with paired horses and long chains. However,
the main bulk of the obstacle remained pinned to the mud and was effectively
immovable to them and so Caesar told them to stand down again and continue to
wait. It was ‘hors sexta’ when the engineering immunes appeared from the south
and they were leading the very means of removing the remaining mat of fearsome
stakes and blades from the mud of this crossing point.
It
bellowed loudly as it broke the trees, making Caesar smile like a wolf. Even
from this distance, the shock on those barbarian’s faces was recompense enough
for all the effort it had taken to get this beast here and the Prittans were
clearly terrified by his little surprise, as they began rushing about wailing
and pulling at their hair in consternation. The Elephantus raised its enormous, serpent-like trunk and trumpeted
its outrage into the air with a deafening blast once more, as it lumbered into
the clearing and began to splash through the marshes toward the Roman camp and
their cheering was loud and savage in welcome. The animal was at least twenty
feet in height, made to look far more daunting by the timber castle-like
structure affixed to its great back and four men clung to this precarious and
swaying fort, brandishing their bows and slings and they joined in the
cheering. One diminutive man with coal black skin and yellow bandages wound
around his head, sat on the beast’s neck in front of the saddle-fort and this
man was the elephantus’ master and controller. All the tiny little foreign man
possessed to control this moving mountain of armoured flesh under him was a
small wooden baton, but it was sufficient, as the beast followed the little
man’s instructions obediently. It bellowed again in furious challenge, its
vibrating blast carrying clear across the water and terrifying the Prittans
even more, who were clearly beside themselves now in their fear-driven panic.
Two
enormous curving tusks sprang from each cheek of this staggeringly huge animal,
whose monstrous and bulging frame was weighed down with thick armour plates. Its
vast ears were like the billowing sails of a trading ship as it splashed
through the marshes, with its huge shield-like feet and tree-trunk legs making
the boggy ground under it tremble. The tips of its long pair of trunks which
swept the wet ground before it, had both been studded with sharp iron nails and
coupled to its enormous strength and the crushing weight of its armour, the
alien beast had some fearsome weaponry.
The
panic over the water was abating, as a few big and furious leaders could be seen
roaring at their men and women now, cajoling their warriors back into their
places and slowly but surely some kind of order was restored by the enemy. Rows
of archers could be seen assembling behind the long lines of round shields and
within moments, clouds of arrows blackened the sky and after so much waiting,
today’s battle had finally begun. To a series of loud wooden thumps, more than a
thousand tall, rectangular scutum snapped together in the front rank, a
fraction before the first volley of arrows fell into them like a hail storm of
sharp iron tips. Most were blocked by Roman leather and timber but inevitably a
horrifying number found gaps and the screaming too began this day.
As
the tide ebbed, the lowest rushing channel in the estuarine mud of the Tamesa
was finally revealed, as was the full length of the trap waiting for them but
the little Indian master of the Elephantus knew his business. He steered the
great animal directly toward the obstruction and gave the beast its orders,
where to another great trumpeting bellow which carried clear across the river,
the Elephant entered the ford and began to tear up the lattice-work with its
huge, iron-spiked tusks and powerful trunk. The engineer immunes were furious
around this animal’s great feet, levering and pulling at the stakes as the
elephant raised the wooden lattice with its great strength. As each section was
lifted from the sucking mud, the immunes would wade-in and attach their long
chains, so that their comrades could drag it out with the horses, but it was
dangerous work. Many fell from the Prittanic onslaught of arrows from the far
bank or were crushed by the feet of the great bellowing beast and left
screaming, pinned to the mud. As the Elephant and the frantic engineers forged
across and the convoluted mess of tangled stakes underfoot was dragged away in
sections, the Prittans despite their obvious fear at this monstrous and never-before
seen animal, bravely rushed forwards to defend their river.
The
arrows and sling-stones continued to fly into the Romans, as they struggled in
the sticky and glutinous mud to clear the obstruction and lay down cut bushes
and branches behind them. In this ponderous and perilous way, the elephant and
the armoured immunes crossed the most dangerous, lowest point of the river and
began to approach the far bank, but soldiers were falling to the stinking mud
continually. The roaring Centurions poured their best men after them, filling
the gaps and pushing their legionaries into the thick and slippery filth.
Inexorably their dour stubbornness paid off as they approached the far bank,
but under the most withering fire every clinging, sucking step of the way. It
was only the very best and most obdurate soldiers of each Legion, which could
withstand this fearsome onslaught and have the experience and sheer
bloody-mindedness to forge ahead through it. Caesar’s valiant vanguard
fulfilled this obligation unflinchingly today and it inspired the ranks of
their men clambering down the bank behind them.
The
opposing bank had also been festooned with sharpened stakes, set deeply into
the bankside and trained downwards toward the river, making it virtually
impossible for men or horses to clamber up from the slick, barnacle-encrusted rocks and the slippery mud. Behind this forest
of sharp white sticks was a timber bastion, built tight to the bankside and
behind this was assembled a host of Prittanic foot soldiers, with their tall
spears and round shields. Hundreds of colourful chariots charged about the
marshy ground behind them in support but their archers and slingers however accurate,
could not stop or even slow the progress of the elephantus, or the scutum
covered and heavily armoured pioneers following its perilous progress. With a
word from its little master, the elephant trumpeted loudly again and strode up
to the bank, as the massive armour plates over its shoulders were in the
perfect position and the ideal height to deal with the wooden stakes. They were
brushed aside like kindling and the enraged elephantus with its iron-studded
tusks, smashed apart the bankside defences which had been erected as a barrier
with ease, and then swept a dozen or more enemy warriors from the bank into the
river. Their screams were loud but short, as the beast took great pleasure in
stomping them to death into the mud.
The
castle-mounted Romans were furious with their weapons from the swaying back of
the elephant but were exposed by their lofty positions and were soon picked off
by enemy archers. They tumbled out of their precarious station one by one, but
one unfortunate archer was snagged on part of the great saddle-mount and never
made a splash. With several arrows sticking out of him, he was suspended upside
down on the elephant’s flank by his clothing and swung like a pendulum with
each giant step of the animal. His wounds were not immediately fatal, and his
screams were terrible as he bounced and swung but as the elephant smashed more
of the sharpened stakes away from the bank, the man’s screams were curtailed in
an instant as he was smeared against them.
The
Prittans bravely attacked again and again in waves, hurling their spears at the
beast but they were ineffective, and the armoured elephant moved along the
river, tight to the bank and it scattered them. A raw lump of bleeding and
swinging meat was suspended from its right side now and which was awash with a
great upturned fan of blood, mixing with the black filth of the estuary but the
elephant hardly felt it, as it had been goaded into a killing rage by its
little master and was virtually unstoppable. Now a long stretch of the bank had
been cleared and its bastion reduced to splinters, the heroic vanguard was able
to begin clambering up and out of the river. As their elephant went berserk
along the bank attacking any enemy it found, many Prittanic warriors were flung
high into the air by the immeasurable strength of this enraged beast if it caught
them. Then it would rush forwards at a terrifying speed for such a mountainous
creature and stamp on its victim, crushing him or her to a broken, bloody mess.
Then it would deliberately press them down into the thick mud where they would
vanish, before the beast would round on the next group of enemies. The Prittans
fell back from it, having no answer to its size, power and unbelievable
ferocity, as it clearly loved to do battle and it was no surprise that they ran
from it.
The
main body of the attacking force started forward to the sound of a distant horn,
but the cavalry went first, their horses having to struggle up to their
fetlocks in the clinging mud of the rushing central channel. The following
legionaries fared much worse in the deep and sucking filth however, which
reeked of its ancient decay and they were soon coated with the black and
stinking mud. On top of this, they were being constantly pelted with sling-stones
or pierced by Prittanic arrows and men fell with each foot of progress gained
across this murderous ford. Caesar was determined to cross however and sent
more soldiers across, with a large detachment of auxiliary archers and slingers
in support, who stopped just short of the central channel. There they swept the
far bank with their merciless shot, as their cavalry comrades dragged
themselves up from the mud and onto solid ground once more.
Abruptly,
the way across the Tamesa to Trinovanta was open to Rome and Caesar’s wolfish
smile returned.
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