Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "What was Varus thinking? - The "Fool" of Teutoburg" video.

  1. Usually the commander's scouts work for the commander and not the enemy. Without that - and without knowing about it - Varus was pretty helpless, as soon as he committed his forces to that march. Not knowing your scouts have thrown in with the enemy is a huge failure, though. Arminius is one of the greatest moles. ever, and that might be the main lesson to be taken from this story. Intel and counter-intel can trump everything.
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  2. The spoken word was a lot more reliable, back when the written word was just getting started. Even if he only had the descendants of major and minor players, he could probably piece together quite a lot just by talking to the locals and especially the local bards and storytellers, who set a higher standard for repeating the same tale in the absence of the written word.
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  3. I never heard the bit about how Varus was trying to govern through the law rather than by force. Clearly he was out of touch with the loyalties of those on whom he was depending for his scouting. That would seem to be a cardinal sin of command. Those need to be some of your best, most trusted people out there as your "antennae." It stands to reason he'd trust Arminius, and think that gave him an edge. But to have no awareness that things were sour is an abject failure. It's sad that the perfect Manchurian Candidate, Arminius, lacked the subtlety in dealing with his own people that he used with such great success against the Romans. Would that he had given more thought to winning the hearts and minds of his own people, rather than seeing the mere defeat of the Romans as his "happily ever after." He could've been real good for the German people if he'd remained at or near the top, in a leadership role. They kind of fragmented back to normal not long after Teutoburg.
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