I often wonder why the Romans bothered to invade Britain.
I think the real reason was to provide a defensive buffer against attacks upon, or colaborration with, the Celts in
Gaul.
If that were the case, the Roman presence in only Britain would have made sense.
The Roman Army would have had no problem to conquering either Ireland or Scotland. Both areas were inhabited by disunited tribes and although individually they were fearsome warriors, Roman organization and discipline would have triumphed in the end. Besides, by the time of the invasion of Britain, a lot of legionnaries themselves were Celts from Gaul or mixed Celtic-Roman peoples
The problem would have come AFTER conquering those areas.
The Romans, despite their excellant road system and effective troop movements, had simply exceeded the technological capacity of the time to control and administrate such a vast area. I think that was why Genghis Khan’s empire collapsed. Poor comunications and travel led to localized control and loss of central administrative power.
You don’t think it was a simple mistake? The name of the game back then was to grab as much territory as possible before death. Could you be giving them too much credit as to the situation of the populace in England at the time?
That's my belief. Britain was so close to Gaul geographically and ethnically it would have been a natural base from which to organize rebellions against Roman rule.
In a historical fiction series I read Britain is portrayed as cold, damp and remote - no place any Roman would want to end up. Obviously before Cool Britannia.
There was a very interesting program on the History Channel recently detailing the defeat of Boadicea's forces by the Romans around the first century a.d. The Romans were vastly outnumbered by Boadiceas forces by about ten to one, but discipline and better weapons and equipment won out in the end. At the onset of the final battle it looked like curtains for the Romans due to the immense size of the Celtic hordes. And the Celts had the Romans on the run after achieving a few victories over them.
But the Roman fighting machine attacked Boadicea's men and slaughtered them. The program showed how the Roman army lit into the Celtic horde like a buzzsaw. Using disciplined techniques and superior protection and weapons (especially put to good use in close quarter fighting was the Roman short sword) the Romans were able to cut a large swathe in the Celts.
In the end only a very small number of Roman soldiers were killed while the Celtic horde were almost totally slaughtered. Boadicea was forced to commit suicide rather than being taken prisoner. The battle proved that superior discipline, training, and strategy can enable small forces to defeat much larger opponents.