-Although the Britons of the local area where Caesar had landed sued for peace by surrendering, Caesar knew that the island was far from pacified.
-By arriving here, he knew that he had possibly stirred up a hornet's nest and that the entire island would have to be neutralized if they were going to stay out of his invasion of Gaul.
-To make matters worse, a violent storm was arriving, and it was seriously fucking up his fleet, so Caesar realized that he was in danger of getting trapped on the island because his fleet was so small, so after the storm Caesar decided to sail back to Gaul and regroup his forces.
-Because of the storm, it's also possible that the Romans believed they had displeased the god Oceanus by daring to cross his borders or whatever.
-Meanwhile, the Britons were realizing what a shitty situation the Romans were in, so a horde began amassing and surrounding his camp. Acting fast, Caesar ordered one legion to forage/raid for food and supplies and another legion to repair/build ships.
-This was risky because very little men were then available for defense.
-Of course, while wandering the countryside, the legion came under attack by a horde of Britons.
-The Britons' favorite method of attack was to plow their chariots straight into the Roman line and then the chariot warriors would jump off and attack the stunned Roman infantry before a chariot (the same one or a different one) would crash through the line again and pick up any survivors and take them back to safety. Rinse, repeat.
-As a response, Caesar was able to gather a reinforcement force to save the legion from complete slaughter, and they were able to then drive off the horde.
-Because of more storms along the coast, the hordes refrained from attacking, but used this time to gather their forces while Caesar's men feverishly worked to repair their fleet.
-The Romans were an efficient killing machine, but were still no match for the sheer number of brutal barbarians that were amassing to attack, and the Britons soon began mounting full-on assaults.
-This was a dumb strategy in the long run for the Britons because the Romans were already used to these kinds of attacks (due to fighting with the Gauls), so the Britons were unable to break the Roman defenses.
-They were just two completely different styles of warfare fighting against each other- the Romans were methodical, slow, and mechanical in their killing, whereas the Britons were a warrior people who believed in 1-1 combat and honor.
-The Romans, of course, were not about to break rank and fight the Britons individually, so the Britons were ultimately unsuccessful.
-Overall, the Britons failed to annihilate the Romans because they had a terrible strategy- they should have played it slow (e.g. guerrilla warfare, sabotage, starving them out, etc.).
-In response to the Briton assaults, Caesar ordered his legions to go out and slaughter the local population of farmers and villagers, something that most likely horrified the Britons as even they probably didn't do shit like this (these towns and farmers would have been valuable resources for local rulers!).
-In order to appease these foreign monsters, the Britons sent ambassadors to the Romans in order to once again sue for peace.
-Caesar accepted, took some Britons as hostages, and then left the island.
-Surprisingly, the Senate back in Rome declared that Caesar's expedition had been a success. Caesar had been extremely lucky. They even had a record-breaking 20-day supplicatio (public holiday of mass prayer held to either beg the gods for aid or give them thanks (in this case, the latter)).
-Before this 20-day supplicatio, the record had been 15 days (Caesar's victory over the Belgae), and before that, 10 days (Pompey's victory over Mithridates VI of Pontus).
-This wasn't the last 20-day supplicatio for Caesar, however. Roughly a decade later, Rome would throw another one for Caesar's victory over Vercingetorix (king of the Gauls) in 46 BC.
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