…Germanicus orders his army back to their winter camps, with the fleet occasioning some damage by a storm in the North Sea.

Although only a small number of soldiers had died, it is still a bad ending for a brilliantly fought campaign.

The Cherusci, still led by Arminius, tenaciously hold their ground.

Although Germanicus has avenged the Teuteborg Forest defeat, the Romans neither consolidate their rule in most of Germany nor establish the Elbe as their outermost European frontier.

Germanicus in 16 falls back to a three hundred-mile (four hundred and eighty-kilometer) fortified border, called the limes, which extends from the Rhine to the Danube, and, though clear victory has eluded him, claims Germany for Rome.

Despite the successes enjoyed by his troops, Germanicus' two-year German campaign had been in reaction to the mutinous intentions of his troops, and lacked real strategic value.

In addition, he had engaged the very German leader (Arminius) who had destroyed three Roman legions in 9, and exposed his troops to the remains of those dead Romans.

Furthermore, in leading his troops across the Rhine, without recourse to Tiberius, he had contradicted the advice of Augustus to keep that river as the boundary of the empire, and has thus opened himself to doubts about his motives in such independent action.

These errors in strategic and political judgment have given Tiberius reason enough to recall his nephew.