The Britons now had tested the strength and determination of the Romans, and had found them to be considerable. They decided therefore to play for time once again and the following day sent a deputation to Caesar offering apologies for their hostility. With the arrival of the British chieftains who swore loyalty to Caesar, the general once again began to hope that Britain would prove an easy conquest.

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The Celts’ goodwill, however, was soon seen to vanish when an unexpected but powerful ally came to their aid–the British weather. About a week after Caesar’s arrival, the ships carrying his cavalry appeared on the horizon, almost at once, a fierce storm blew up, tossing the ships about on the water, snapping their masts and tearing their sails to shreds. As the fury of the gale mounted, the ships were driven back towards France, and by the time darkness came, all had disappeared from sight. The bleak dawn that followed revealed a beach littered with the wreckage of Caesar’s transports. All that remained at anchor was a pitiful row of storm-battered hulks.

As the Romans surveyed the appalling scene, the morale of the Celts rose once more. The British chieftains began to slip away from the camp. Peasants were rounded up, war chariots made ready, arms burnished and sharpened. Now that the Romans seemed marooned on their unfriendly island, the Britons were once more preparing to fight them.

The Romans, however, were far from helpless. Roman legionaries were not only superb fighters, they were skilful engineers as well, and this would not be the first time they had repaired ships by using the wreckage of those more badly damaged. They were even able to forge the nails that held the timbers together. While the men of the X Legion began this repair work, their colleagues of the VII went foraging for food. From their dense oak forests the Britons watched the Romans begin to reap their barley fields, waited till the task absorbed them and then rushed out of the trees, yelling war cries and brandishing spears. Some distance away in the Roman camp, sentries saw a huge rising cloud of dust. Immediately Caesar himself and a handful of troops stormed out of the camp and ran towards the fields. At their approach the Britons fled back into the forest.

The next few days brought more heavy rain, but on this occasion the weather worked to the Romans’ advantage. It kept the Britons away long enough for them to finish repairing some of their ships and send them to Boulogne to fetch more materials. However, when the downpour at last abated, the Britons staged another lightning raid. The Romans drove them back to their forest hideouts, but by this time Caesar had lost patience with so capricious an enemy, The following evening he packed his troops into the remaining galleys and sailed back to France. He had spent less than three weeks in Britain.

Caesar did not record his feelings about the failure of his 55 BC invasion, but he was careful to send a report to the Senate in Rome painting a favourable picture of what had, in reality, been a near disaster. As a result, the Senate voted a 20-day period of thanksgiving for Caesar’s ‘exploit.’ To explain its lack of success, Caesar intimated that his expedition had been a mere dress rehearsal for a full-scale assault, planned for the following year. Convinced now that a new ‘province’ would soon be added to the Roman Empire, a motley group of opportunists, treasure-seekers, and adventurers joined Caesar’s second invasion force. This time he took with him five legions (25,000 men) and 2,000 cavalry. He also embarked an elephant–probably the first ever to be seen in Britain.

The Roman fleet of 800 ships arrived off the Kent coast in the summer of 54 BC to find the landing beach deserted. The newcomers, unaware of the events of the previous summer, supposed that the mere sight of the Roman galleys had frightened the Celts away. Caesar knew better. He guessed, correctly, that the Britons had decided to wage guerilla warfare on the Romans, a plan well suited to their inferior weapons and tactics. A pitched battle, which Caesar knew the Britons could not win, was what he now desired most.

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