Celtic overpowered!

[Watchman]

3. I dont see how you can say that Rome didnt have the same problems as the Celts in man power. Rome had wars within Italy, Greece, North Africa etc. Romans also had civil wars (Caesar/Pompey and others).The Celts had plenty of people and with their type of culture, training of warriors as with the Germans began at a young age.

Quite incorrect AFAIK. Among the Celts warfare was the virtual monopoly of a distinct warrior class, with the common farmers and craftsmen and such normally only becoming involved in emergencies as rather low-quality tribal levies. I understand this warrior class was all things considered fairly large - a testament to the material wealth of the Celts and the agricultural productivity of their lands, as it takes a major surplus to support such a class in large numbers - and very influental in the society, in essence forming the ruling elite (or in any case providing most of the members of the ruling elite).

As Psycho already explained the making of a Caltic warrior was a very do-it-yourself business and took a long time to bear good fruit (presumably due to fierce competitiveness, ie. relatively little instruction from your peers, and in the absence of true standardized training institutions), although the final product could be quite formidable indeed and Roman sources readily ascribe to them an ability to work passably as large units.

In essence, the Celtic warrior system was a mechanism for creating heroes, elite warriors.

The Romans and Germans had quite different approaches, namely full militia service. Republican Roman citizen-soldier system should not need to be further examined here, save for reminding it gave the state a near-unlimited pool of decently equipped militia soldiers who, once they got used to operating as cohesive units after being mustered, could be a quite formidable and above all a very stubborn opponent on the battlefield. One notes from Psycho's short list of pre-Marian Celtic victories over Romans that most seem to involve at least some numerical superiority on the part of the Celts for example.

The post-Marian professionals were just scary in comparision, being as full-time soldiers much more readily "knit" to cohesive and effective combat formations from the start - and even more inexhaustible if not nearly as cheap as the earlier self-equipped reservists, as the urban and rural poor, all kinds of adventurers and drifters, subjects wanting to better their lot by earning citizenship under arms etc. provided a very ready supply of manpower that could be tapped by anyone with enough funds. Recall the way the Romans could keep on conjuring fully armed legions from Italy alone during the Spartacus mess.

By what I understand of it the Germanic version quite simply called for every freeman to also be a warrior, and indeed to be downright eager to be; one gets the impression they could actually surpass the Celtic warrior class in sheer bloody-mindedness. This would have been out of sheer necessity; being by far poorer than their Celtic neighbours there was no way the German peoples could have afforded a similar large class of dedicated warriors, so it duly fell to the great mass of common tribesmen (backed up by the better-equipped and trained nobles and their personal retainers, the rather less numerous analogy of the Celtic warrior aristocracy) to do the fighting and raiding.

In other words, while they were in top form the Celtic warrior class could take on either of the other two with at least a fair chance of success, all other things being equal. The Romans might be better equipped and organized, but on the other hand the Celtic warriors by and large held the edge in skill and gusto and seem to usually have enjoyed at least a marginal local superiority in numbers even if the Roman manpower base was actually rather larger. The Germans conversely were rather worse equipped and unlikely to be quite as good as the Celtic warriors in a major stand-up fight (given that their practical experience was more in small-scale raiding), with the obvious exception of the elites but then the Celts outnumbered those, but numerous and persistent.

The trouble came when the Celts started running out of dedicated warriors. A major flaw in their approach was the long incubation period of fresh replacements for fallen heroes, and the fact their backup levy was pretty poor. In Gaul as already mentioned the warrior class was decimated in the long internecine strife, in the eastern parts apparently by constant squabbling with assorted increasingly formidable barbarian neighbours (Illyrians, Dacians, the increasingly better armed and organized Germans) and Roman probes nevermind now incessant small raids from the German side of the border. And this on top of what "natural attrition" the compulsive pugnaciousness of the Celtic warrior class, the very mechanism through which it trained its better warriors, inflicted. Over time the Celts simply couldn't make good for their casualties fast enough, all the more so as their neighbours were only ever growing stronger in many cases directly on spoils looted from Celtic lands. The fact the Romans began co-opting Celtic tribes near their borders into their own political orbit and siphoned off parts of the warrior class into their own armies by the simple virtue of being able to offer good pay and looting prospects would not have helped one bit.

So when the other shoe dropped what the Celts could send against the formidable Legions and screaming hordes of ferocious German tribal warriors was all too few real warriors and far too many lousy militias, who simply weren't up to snuff. Moreover increasing numbers of the remaining warrior class could doubtless read the writing on the wall and unabashedly jumped ship to side with the winners; Caesar had no shortage of allied Gallic troops and I'd be very surprised if by that time enterprising Celtic border chieftains had not long ago aligned themselves with the more formidable among the Germanic confederations and kings to pull their butts out of the fire.