But instead of throwing at once the whole force from within and without on the besiegers, however great their superiority in numbers, Vocula pitched his camp at Gelduba (Gellep on the Rhine, not far from Krefeld) a long day's march distant from Vetera, while Flaccus lay farther back. The worthlessness of the so-called general and the ever increasing demoralisation of the troops, above all, the distrust towards the officers, which frequently went so far as to maltreat and attempt to kill them, can alone at least explain this halting. Thus the mischief gradually thickened on all sides. All Germany seemed desirous to take part in the war; while the besieging army constantly obtained new contingents from that quarter, other bands passed over the Rhine, which in this dry summer was unusually low, partly in the rear of the Romans into the cantons of the Ubii and the Treveri to lay waste the valley of the Moselle, partly below Vetera into the region of the Maas and the Scheldt; further bands appeared before Mentz and made pretext of besieging it. Then came the accounts of the catastrophe in Italy. On the news of the second battle at Betriacum in the autumn of the year 69 the Germanic legions gave up the cause of Vitellius as lost and took the oath, though reluctantly, to Vespasian, perhaps in the hope that Civilis, who had in fact inscribed the name of Vespasian on his banners, would then make his peace. But the German swarms, who had meanwhile poured themselves over all northern Gaul, had not come to install the Flavian dynasty; even if Civilis had ever wished this, he now had no longer the power. He threw off the mask, and openly expressed--what indeed was long settled--that the Germans of north Gaul intended, with the help of their free countrymen, to shake off the Roman rule. [Sidenote: Relief of Vetera.]