NFBs Decisive Battles Of The World: Adrianople

Back to the ancient world today and the beginning of the end for possibly the most well-known state in history.

Name: The Battle of Adrianople, sometimes called the Battle of Hadrianopolis
The War: The Gothic War
When: 9 August 378
Where: Just outside the city of Adrianople, modern-day Edirne, Thrace
Type: Land
Forces/Commanders: Somewhere  between 15’000 and 60’000 Eastern Roman Empire troops under the Emperor Valens against 10’000 to 15’000 Gothic under Fritigern. The disparity in numbers is discussed below.

Quote:

“Nor, except the battle of Cannae, is so destructive a slaughter recorded in our annals; though, even in the times of their prosperity, the Romans have more than once had to deplore the uncertainty of war, and have for a time succumbed to evil Fortune; while the well-known dirges of the Greeks have bewailed many disastrous battles.”
–Ammianus Marcellinus

“…a disaster and disgrace that need not have occurred.”
–J.B. Bury

What Happened:

 

In 378, the Roman Empire(s) was a far cry from its Augustan roots. Split in two, between the west and the east, the old Empire was fractured and in the process of a long retreat in the face of “barbarian” incursions.

One of these groups was the Goths. Originating from the Baltic, then the Black Sea, this group of migrating tribesmen had been knocking on the Roman border for over a century, staying mostly along the course of the Dniester River.

In 376, following disputes and displacement because of the Huns, a rival tribe, a large group of Goths under the leadership of Alavivus and Fritigern sought permission from the Eastern Emperor, Valens, to settle inside Roman territory. With the stigma against barbarians vanishing in the face of under-population and general weakness, Valens was happy to allow them to become “foederati”, a term given to those outsiders who were given land inside the Roman border to settle it, in exchange for providing fighting men when the need arose.

Things starting unravelling soon after though, as a result of poor treatment of the Goths from provincial governors. Facing many hardships on the land where they had settled, somewhere past the Danube, they eventually revolted.

Valens, suddenly faced with an unruly population inside his borders, reacted by sending for help from the Western Emperor, Gratian. For the next two years, the combined armies of the two Empires had a series of small-scale, indecisive engagements with the Goths with no actual victory seeming possible.

In 378, Valens, frustrated at the lack of progress against the rebellion, choose to take personal command of the armed forces, adding new troops from Syria and Gaul. Gratian’s army was delayed due to frontier attacks from tribes on the Rhine, but his victory over them in the summer of 378 provided encouragement to Valens to make his own move.

Moving out from Constantinople in August, Valens assembled his forces and sought an engagement. Upon hearing that a Gothic army of 10’000 was marching against the city of Adrianople, he moved to meet them. Valens rejected the suggestion that he wait for Gratian’s army to link up with his force, wanting to engage and defeat the Goths himself. He was further buoyed by his scouts reporting of the small size of the Gothic army and their lack of cavalry.

But the Goths did have cavalry, it has simply left the main army, just to the north of the city, to forage. Not knowing this, Valens left his camp at the city, and moved towards the Gothic force.

The actual composition and numbers of both armies is a major bone of contention for historians. Estimates from contemporary observes and subsequent analysis vary wildly from anywhere between 10’000 to 60’000 for each side. More likely the numbers were smaller, but it is probable that the Romans had an advantage in men though how much of an advantage is unclear. In my opinion, the sheer shock of the result and the way it was recorded indicates the unexpected defeat of a massive army.

Valens’ army marched for seven hours to reach where the Goths had been encamped. Reports indicate the men were thus tired, hungry and dehydrated before the battle which may go some way to explain their poor performance.

The Romans arrived in disorder and the Goths, still waiting for their cavalry to arrive, did whatever they could to delay an engagement. Nearby fields were torched to provide a distraction and phony hostage negotiations were started.

The Goths were positioned in their classic wagon circle formation at the base of a hill, with their families and possessions surronded by a ring of troops. The Roman infantry formed up in front, with cavalry to either side.

Frustrated by the lack of battle, and perhaps eager to revenge previous failures, some Roman commanders took the initiative and attacked. This was the Roman left flank, cavalry and shield-archers and they reached the Goth lines and began fighting. At the same time, the Roman right moved up to protect its formation while the centre remained unmoved.

At that point, the Gothic cavalry arrived from the north and the day turned to disaster for the Romans. Both the left and right flank cavalry were turned away and forced to flee the field, an extraordinary turnaround considering the Gothic horses were hardly more numerous or had better trained riders. With the Roman flanks suddenly exposed, the Goths piled on, with infantry attacking the front and the right and left being enveloped by the cavalry.

The Romans, dismayed by the failure of the first assault, unable to manoeuvre effectively in their packed ranks, tired, hungry, thirsty, held only for a short time before a panicked retreat began that soon became a rout. In the bloody stampede to escape, Valens himself was struck down though conflicting accounts exist as to how, some heroic, some not so positive. By nightfall, most of the Roman army was dead or captured and the Goths had won a victory of enormous importance.

Why It’s Decisive – Effect On That War

A huge portion of the Eastern Roman Empire’s military strength was destroyed and the Emperor was dead. The Goths wasted little lime in sacking Adrianople and would remain an ever present threat to Rome for the next four years, plundering and looting at will in Thrace and Dacia. The Eastern Empire suffered a major crisis of confidence, with a lack of manpower evident and crippling morale issues undermining anything they did.

Eventually, the Goths split into two armies, unable to keep their one large force supplied effectively. After a few years of indecisive combat with the Western Empire, peace was made by Valens’ successor who once again made the Goths allies. But large parts of Roman territory in the Balkans had been lost and would never be recovered.

Tactical/Technological Innovations

Little, though the Goths were able to make use of many clever and ingenious tactics to harry and weaken their Roman adversaries before battle was even joined – the fires, the false negotiations, etc. In terms of tactics, Adrianople really is a battle where the whole thing turned on the location of the Gothic cavalry, illustrating their importance. Some commentators have argued that Adrianople set the precedent for the rise in power of the mounted officer, soon to be called “knights” as the main force of the battlefield, but this is probably overstating the case somewhat.

Adrianople, like so many battles and wars up to the present day, illustrates the importance of effective intelligence gathering capability. Valens marched his army into a tactically inferior position because he believed that the Gothic army was smaller than it was and that it was bereft of cavalry. Both assumptions were false and he payed for it with his life and the lives of most of his soldiers.

Macro-Historical Importance

Big. The two Roman Empires were already wobbling before Adrianople, having to deal with internal unrest, falls in population, plagues, civil wars and barbarians outside and within. After Adrianople, they’d lost a huge part of their military muscle.

From that point onward, things started to unravel in a huge way, moreso for the Western Empire. The Romans were forced to make peace with a barbarian force inside their borders: this became the norm from now on, with outsiders increasingly becoming part and parcel with Roman life. They began to swell its citizenship, its armies.

And all the while, Roman territory and identity dwindled. Within a century Rome itself, no longer the capital of the Empire, would be sacked by a barbarian army.

If the result had been reversed at Adrianople it is difficult to surmise what would have transpired. The Gothic rebellion would have ended right then and there, with any survivors expelled to the borders. Roman military strength would have remained at a high level so the upcoming barbarian incursions could have been more ably confronted.

Perhaps more importantly, the Roman spirit would not have had to deal with the immense blow that the loss to the barbarians and the death of Valens was. Certainly, it would be fair to say that Rome, east and west, would have lasted longer then it did but how much longer is open for debate. It may have been just a few years or decades. Or maybe the Dark Ages might never have happened.

In National Consciousness

Little, as no nation exists that can claim it. The Eastern Roman Empire is long gone, swallowed up the Ottomans. The Western Empire has so many claimants to its legacy that it defies analysis – Italy, Russia, the Vatican, Germany, the list goes on and on. And the Goths, well, they split into pieces, established separate Kingdoms, but were, for all intents and purposes, gone by the 16th century, the last remnant being found around the Crimea, though some nations, like Spain and Sweden have claimed ancestry from the group.

Valens is largely remembered solely for his role at Adrianople, and has little else to distinguish him, bar an impressive aqueduct that bears his name in Istanbul.

Fritigern is given a place in the Walhalla temple, a structure dedicated to famous Germans, though, as is typical of the German appropriation of figures who were far removed from what we consider German today, they have “germanised” his name into Frediger.

Adrianople has more place in the consciousness of classical historians, who, by and large, view it as a turning point in the period, the beginning of the end as it were. The mighty Empires which layed the foundation for so much of European culture and society began its descent at the crest of a hill, just north of that city.

For more of NFBs Decisive Battles check out the index here.