← Back to the front page

The Worst Avoidable Disasters In World History

Khalid Elhassan March 15, 2023 33 min

Disaster - The wrecking of the White Ship — The wrecking of the White Ship. Normandy Then and Now

A Romanized German’s Split Loyalties

Statue of Arminius in the Teutoburg Forest. Pinterest

Arminius (circa 18 BC – 19 AD) was a German leader of the Cherusci tribe who committed one of history’s most momentous betrayals. It transformed him into a Roman villain, and a German national hero. His gigantic statue and memorial, the Hermannsdenkmal, stands today near Detmold in Westphalia, close to the site of his double cross. Arminius was a Romanized German who rose to command an auxiliary cohort. He won the admiration and confidence of the Romans, who granted him their citizenship and high social status, and enrolled him in the equestrian, or knightly, class.

The Romanized German was posted to the Rhine, where he served under Publius Quinctilius Varus, a Roman general related by marriage to Emperor Augustus. The emperor ordered Varus to complete the conquest of Germania up to the Elbe River. Varus was heavy handed however. On top of that, he imposed onerous taxes on the German tribes, which incited them to revolt. As seen below, that was when Arminius realized he was more loyal to his fellow Germans than to his Roman employers. The result was a major Roman disaster.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.