The night the Rhine froze over

Barbarians crossing the frozen Rhine, by Zvonimir Grbasic, via Ancient History Encyclopedia

December 31st AD 406. The River Rhine tumbled through the snow-coated land, a great natural moat separating the Western Roman Empire from "wild" Germania. As light gave way to dusk, and the temperature plummeted further, the river's tumbling song continued eternal, endless… and then it stopped.

All that could be heard now was the crackle of ice, the hoot of owls… then the rumble of boots from the Germanian banks. A bearded Vandalic chieftain emerged from the treeline there. A Suebian nobleman and an Alanic horseman stepped out to flank him. All three gazed across the sparkling, frozen river. As they had forecast, the 'moat' had become a bridge. The Western Roman Empire and all its riches lay just a few hundred metres away.

When the Vandal chieftain called over his shoulder, one of his warriors emerged from the trees, and stepped gingerly out onto the ice. It cracked, groaned, popped… but it held. The three leaders eyed one another, then glanced behind them to the vast horde of their respective peoples, crouched and waiting in the undergrowth. They were primed, and the gates to the empire lay open. Only one thing held them back: the imposing fortress on the far side.

The Rhine gorge in the depths of winter.

It was just one of many stony redoubts studding the imperial banks. All three knew had in the past tried storming this Roman border - via boat, and even once before when the river had frozen just like this. Time and again, it had ended in bloody defeat - with silvery legionaries spewing from those fortresses to hack them away, archers rising at the parapets to shower them with arrows, artillery on the turrets launching great bolts that sunk their boats midriver.

Something was different this time, however. There were no lights visible at the fortress. Usually the braziers of the watchmen flickered all night long. The three leaders eyed each other again, this time with a new confidence in their eyes.

The Vandal chieftain drew his axe and held it aloft, then emitted a mighty cry as he chopped it forth, pointing towards the far banks. With a matching chorus of cries, the tens of thousands of Vandals, Alans and Sueves in the trees surged out and onto the ice, following their three leaders on into the undefended lands of Roman Gaul.

There, they would unleash hell.

"The once noble city of Moguntiacum (Mainz) has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of Vangionum (Worms) after standing a long siege have been extirpated. The powerful city of Remorum (Rheims), the Ambiani (Amiens), the Altrebatæ (Arras), the Morini (Thérouanne) on the skirts, Tornacum (Tournai), the Nemetæ (Speyer), and Argentoratus (Strasbourg) have fallen to Germania: while the provinces of Aquitaine and of Novempopulania, of Lugdunensis (Lyon) and Narbonensis (Narbonne) are, with the exception of a few cities, one universal scene of desolation. And those which the sword spares without, famine ravages within."

- Letter to Ageruchia, St Jerome

Reality

Sadly, it has to be said that the frozen Rhine theory - as evocative as it is - is just that. A theory, put forward by Edward Gibbon as an explanation for why the huge host of barbarians were able to cross the river in such great numbers without imperial resistance.

In his letters from the time, St. Jerome lists Mainz (the Roman river fortress-city of Mogontiacum) as the first place devastated by the incursion. Perhaps this was the site of the crossing? There was actually Roman stone pillar bridge across the Rhine - called the Pons Ingeniosa - at Mainz at that time. However, one would think that the legions would have been able to repel an invasion across a bridge with relative ease? Even cutting the bridge if things became desperate?

The fortress of Divitia at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) - the sort fo defences the barbarians would have expected to come up against to break into the empire.

That brings us to the absence of lights on the fortress in our semi-fictional opening. It seems that the Roman border forces were curiously absent at the time of the invasion. Why?

One theory is that Stilicho - the Western military supremo and effective regent - had drawn all the border troops back to Italy in the summer of 406, in order to contain and defeat the invasion of Radagaisus the Goth. It does seem rather remiss however to leave the borders unwatched over the winter.
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The Roman poet, Claudian, claims that Stilicho had in fact agreed a treaty with the Franks - living in the Rhine region - to watch the borders in the absence of the legions and to keep any aggressive tribes away from the river. And Gregory of Tours reports that - around the time of the crossing - there had been a war between the Franks and the Vandals, which the Vandals had lost. Was this the Franks repelling the Vandals from the empire, as Stilicho had commanded them to? From this, it can be posited that the Vandals sought out alliances with the Sueves and the Alani in order to strike back at the Franks. This time, it seems, the Franks could not stop them reaching the Rhine, where, of course, the forts lay empty.
Why was there such turmoil on the eastern side of the Rhine - so many wars and aggressive movements of peoples, all towards the empire? The answer is the Huns a supremely skilled nomadic horse archer people.

​Emerging from the Eurasian steppe and proving invincible on the battlefield, the Huns created a domino-effect on the erstwhile stable Germanic tribes, driving them all towards Roman lands.

​Radagaisus - a staunchly pagan Goth - invaded the empire and stormed Italy in AD406. His plan was to burn Rome to the ground and sacrifice the Christian Roman senators to the pagan gods!

Consequences of the Vandalic Invasion

The Vandal, Sueve and Alanic devastation of Gaul gave rise to panic in Britannia, where a separatist emperor, Marcus, was raised. This rebellion gathered strength, with many Gallic peoples supporting his cause - and the cause of the next two rebel emperors who would rise after him. All this - the rampaging barbarians, the rebel emperors, and the Roman legions' inaction - reflected very badly upon Stilicho, ultimately leading to a coup in AD 408 which he was toppled from his perch at the head of the Western Roman Army (and effectively as regent of the West) and executed.

Just two years later, the city of Rome would be sacked. The whole of the Western Empire was in chaos and riddled with invading tribes.

Most ominously, the shadow of the Huns - gathering in great masses at Europe's edges - began to loom darker over all of this.

Read all about this age of chaos in… THE EAGLE & THE WOLF

Gordon Doherty is the author of the AGE OF ATTILA series, set during the period about which you have just read.

Book 1 THE EAGLE & THE WOLF is available at all good bookstores!

Buy THE EAGLE & THE WOLF now!

References

The Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine
Letter 123 to Ageruchia, St Jerome
History of the Franks, Gregory of Tours
The Fall of the Roman Empire, Peter Heather
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon
 Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire, Walter Goffart