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The Battle of Chalons or of the Mauriac Plain, 451 AD.
by J. F. C. Fuller
The Huns with whom, in or about the year 440, Gaiseric opened negotiations, were a nomadic people of Turanian stock, and in their conflicts with the Romans and German tribes is again introduced the clash between the wagon folk and the city dwellers. Though, so far as war is concerned, the Huns at first carried all before them, in the end they were overwhelmed, not so much by the arms of the western peoples as by their lack of civilisation. In at least one respect their story is that of the Hyksos over again, for in both incursions-as in centuries to come was to be repeated in the Arab, Seljuk, and Mongol invasions-the dominant factor which led to their initial successes was the horse.
Who the Huns were and where they originated have not yet been determined. In the middle of the eighteenth century M. Deguignes,1 a French Chinese scholar, conceived that they might be identified with the Hiong-nu (or Hsiung-nu),2 who at the time of their supremacy inhabited the region between the Altai, Kuen-lun and Khingan mountains, and to limit whose depredations, in 258 BC, the Emperor Hwang-te built the Great Wall of China. But whether this is so is of little consequence here, for what matters in this chapter is their coming and its influence on western history. Further, what caused their westerly advance against the Alans, another people of Turanian stock, which precipitated the Gothic invasions of 376, is also unknown. Some think that it may have been due to the epoch of increasing aridity which set in central Asia during the first few centuries of the Christian era and which culminated in about AD 5003. Others believe that it was caused by the destruction of irrigation canals by nomadic raiders, for as Mr. T. Peisker points out: In order to make a whole oasis liable to tribute "they need only seize the main canal; and the nomads often blindly plundered and destroyed everything. A single raid was enough to transform hundred of oases into ashes and desert. The nomads moreover not only ruined countless cities and villages of Central Asia, but also denuded the steppe land itself and promoted drift-sand by senseless uprooting of trees and bushes for the sake of firewood."4 Judging from subsequent nomadic inundations, this second reason would seem the more probable. Gibbon thinks likewise, and when considering the violence of the Mongols, he writes: "from the Caspian to the Indus they ruined a tract of many hundred miles which was adorned with the habitations and labour of mankind, and five centuries have not been sufficient to repair the ravages of four years."5 As we shall see, when the Huns came into contact with Latin civilisation, because they could give it nothing, they could only take from it, and, in fact, had to in order to survive alongside it. Had this process of a lower civilisation living on a higher endured long enough, the latter would have perished utterly, and Roman Europe would have become a second Khorasan.
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Like all wagon folk the Huns were wanderers, and in consequence civilisation was all but unknown to them. For unnumbered generations they had driven their herds and flocks-cattle, horses, goats, and sheep-over the steppes of central and southern Siberia; yet so primitive were their handicrafts that it would appear they were unable to weave, and, therefore, make woollen garments. Ammianus Marcellinus, who lived and wrote in the days of the Emperor Valens, has left us the following contemporary description of them:
"They all have compact, strong limbs and thick necks and are so monstrously ugly and misshapen, that one might take them for two-legged beasts or for the stumps, rough-hewn into images, that are used in putting sides [adorning] to bridges. . . . Roaming at large amid the mountains and woods, they learn from the cradle to endure cold, hunger and thirst. . . . They dress in linen cloth or in the skins of field-mice sewn together. . - They are not at all adapted to battles on foot, but they are almost glued to their horses, which are hardy, it is true, but ugly. . . . They are all without fixed abode, without hearth, or law, or settled mode of life, and keep roaming from place to place, like fugitives, accompanied by the wagons in which they live. . . - In truces they are faithless and unreliable, strongly inclined to sway to the motion of every breeze of new hope that presents itself, and sacrificing every feeling to the mad impulse of the moment. Like unreasoning beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the difference between right and wrong."6
Like all true nomads, agriculture was unknown to the Huns; therefore the linen garments, mentioned by Marcellinus, must, like many other things they possessed, have been obtained through barter. Of internal trade there can have been practically none, because the standard of living was so low that each family group could supply its own needs. Their external trade consisted in bartering horses, meat, furs, and slaves for the produce, arms, and manufactures of the settled agricultural peoples with whom they came into contact.
In order to subsist, it is clearly impossible that they can have wandered about in enormous hordes, if only because as they had to live upon their herds and flocks, these demanded extensive grazing grounds. Probably, like many other nomadic people, they were split into patriarchal groups of from fifty to a hundred persons, each group moving over a comparatively wide front from grazing ground to grazing ground. Their society was communistic and, according to Marcellinus, though the groups were under paternal leaders, whom he calls "important men", the whole had no king.7 The high figures, so frequently quoted by classical and ecclesiastical historians, were undoubtedly exaggerated by the rapidity with which the Huns moved and the terror their uncouthness and lack of resemblance to Europeans instilled. According to Jordanes, the Goths believed that the Huns were the offspring of sorceresses and "the unclean spirits, who beheld them as they wandered through the wilderness, bestowing their em-braces upon them and begat this savage race, which dwelt at first in the swamps, a stunted, foul and puny tribe, scarcely human and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance to human speech". He adds:
"For by the terror of their features they inspired great fear in those whom perhaps they did not really surpass in war. They made their foes flee in horror because their swarthy aspect was fearful, and they had, if I may call it so, a sort of shapeless lump, not a head, with pin-holes rather than eyes. Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds. Hence they grow old beardless and their young men are without comeliness, because a face furrowed by the sword spoils by its scars the natural beauty of a beard. They are short in stature, quick in bodily movement, alert horsemen, broad shouldered, ready in the use of bow and arrow, and their firm-set necks are ever erect in pride. Though they live in the form of men, they have the cruelty or wild beasts."8
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| The Huns, as seen by a 19th century artist |
Two generations after their first appearance, though the terror they instilled continued to paralyse the Romans, the ease with which they were able to extract tribute from their neighbours brought them to a standstill in the Danubian lands; when their social order rapidly began to change. In or about 430 they were no longer an amorphous mass of family groups, but instead a confederacy under a single ruler, Rua - the friend and protector of Aetius, who was sufficiently powerful to force a treaty on the Eastern Romans, by the terms of which Theodosius II (408-450) undertook to pay him a yearly tribute of 350lbs of gold. When he died in 433, Rua was succeeded by his two nephews Attila and Bleda. Of the latter nothing is known other than that, in 445, he was murdered by his brother, of whom Jordanes and Priscus have left the following vivid description. "He was of short stature, his eyes were small and bead-like, his nose snub and his skin swarthy. His head was large, his beard scanty, and his hair was already sprinkled with white. He was covetous, vain, superstitious, cunning, excessively arrogant, and cruel. Yet in his way of living he was markedly simple". As Priscus informs us, while "the guests drank from cups of gold and silver, Attila had only a wooden cup; his clothes ere only distinguished from the other barbarians because they were of one colour, and were without ornaments; his sword, the cords of his shoes, the reins of his horse, were not like those of the other Scythians, decorated with plates of gold or precious stones''.9
Attila's rule over the Confederacy he inherited was absolute, and though when he appeared among his people they received him with shouts of applause, their respect for him was based solely upon fear, for all stood in terror of him. "He realised more clearly than any of his predecessors", writes Mr. Thompson, "that if all the tribes could be united under an unquestioned and absolute leader, the Huns would form an unparalleled instrument for the exploitation of the peoples of central Europe. . . . Instead of relying on the unruly and divided tribal chiefs, he based his power on vassals . - . who were bound to him personally by an inviolable allegiance without the handicap of tribal obligations."10
When, in 499, Theodosius sent his famous embassy under Priscus to Attila, the Huns had ceased to be a wholly nomadic people and had become "a parasitic community of marauders.... Instead of herding cattle they had now learned the more profitable business of herding men. Sharp differences of wealth have appeared among them, though not perhaps differences of class. Their society could only be maintained as long as Attila was able to supply the mass of his men with the necessities of life and a few luxuries"11 This change may be gathered from Priscus's narrative, for he informs us that Attila no longer lived in a tent or a wagon, but in a log-hut of considerable size, surrounded by a palisade. In this hut he received the Roman ambassador, Maximin, and welcomed him with the appellation of "shameless beast". A feast next followed which is minutely described. Further, Priscus tells us that Attila married his daughter Esca-"the laws of the Scythians allow this"-and that when the embassy put up at a certain village "one of the wives of Bleda, sent us nourishment and beautiful women. This among the Scythians is looked upon as an honour." In fact, the Hunnish customs were not far removed from those which are still to be met with in certain regions of central Asia.
As a soldier, Attila was no more than a plunderer. Hodgkin says of him: "He made war on civilisation and on human nature, not on religion, for he did not understand it enough to hate it."12 Of constructive genius he shows none, in spite of the fact that Priscus tells us that he believed himself destined to be lord of the whole world. The extent of his empire is but vaguely known. Its
central grazing ground appears to have covered modern Hungary and Transylvania, and the rest stretched from Gaul eastward into the unknown.
Though the mode of life of the nomad was primitive in the extreme, as Ellis H. Minns points out, it possessed certain military advantages over that of the village or city dweller, and so fitted him better for war. "His life is laborious and dangerous", writes Minns; "it requires skill, courage, endurance, but he is exempt from that continuous back-breaking toil which bends the hoeman to mother earth. He has change of scene, wide spaces, and a sense of freedom. His leaders are used to problems of transport and the management of large bodies of men. The whole people is a ready-made army, easily marshalled, self-supporting, capable of sudden attacks, of long-distance raids. in the steppe the nomad is always on a war footing, prepared to extend his pastures at another tribe's expense, or to defend his own. . . - But whether for attack or defence the tribe must be well led; and the leader must have absolute authority."13
The Huns' conquests were not due to superiority of numbers, but to the high mobility of small bands of horse-archers who could concentrate rapidly at any given point, quickly disperse and re-concentrate at another. Though, on their first appearance, their ponies were no match for the Roman horses, they soon acquired the latter and the disadvantage rapidly disappeared.
When on the war path, the bands of mounted men, moving on a wide front, were followed by their families and wagons-travelling fortresses-which could quickly be drawn up into a defensive laager. Though the bands were extremely mobile, the wagon columns were slow-moving and frequently must have been immobile, especially in the hilly and wooded country of western Europe. Therefore it must often have happened that the fighting horde-the bands in total-was separated from its base, and when this occurred the horde had to keep moving in order to live, and as movement depended on forage, not only had the horde to split into groups, but campaigning during the winter months was normally not attempted. It was for this reason that Emperor Leo the Wise laid it down that Scythians and Huns should be attacked during February and March, when their horses are weakened by the hardships of winter.
To overcome the difficulties of rationing, the Hans, like the Mongols in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, lived on their horses. In Genghis Khan's army, Marco Polo informs us that each Mongol was obliged to take with him eighteen horses and mares, so that he might have mare's milk and horse's blood for food and drink.14 Their steeds were not only mounts and remounts, but self-replenishing canned food.15 With this may be compared a remark made by T. E. Lawrence on operations in Arabia: "Our cards were speed and time, not hitting power. The invention of bully-beef had profited us more than the invention of gunpowder, but gave us strategical rather than tactical strength"16
From this self-supplying base a cyclonic strategy was developed; operations took the form of whirlwind advances and retirements. Whole districts were laid waste and entire populations annihilated, not only in order to establish a heat of terror which would evaporate opposition, but also to leave the rear clear of all hostile manpower and so to facilitate withdrawals. The tactics adopted may be defined as "ferocity under authority". Fury, surprise, elusiveness, cunning and mobility, and not planning, method, drill and discipline were its elements. "Try twice, turn back the third time" is as much a Hunnish as a Turkoman proverb; and as Amedee Thierry points out: "The nomads, unlike ourselves, do not consider flight a dishonour. Considering booty of more worth than glory, they fight only when they are certain of success. When they find their enemy in force they evade him to return when the occasion is more opportune." Their master weapon was the bow, mainly made of horn as the steppes were treeless. Its value largely lay in the noiselessness of the arrows, which were tipped with bone. But in close-quarter fighting they relied on the sword "regardless of their own lives; and while the enemy are guarding against wounds from the sabre-thrusts, they throw strips of cloth plaited into nooses [lassos] over their opponents and so entangle them that they fetter their limbs and take from them the power of riding or walking".17
The weakness in their tactics lay in that they could seldom halt in any one place for long, because forage was rapidly exhausted. This and their inability to storm fortresses and walled cities rendered their occupation of any given area impermanent. At Asemus (Osma), twenty miles south of Sistova, in 443, Attila was easily repulsed, and when he started plundering the neighbouring country sallies against him were made from that fortress. In brief; the Hunnish method of fighting, though admirably suited for the steppes of Asia, in the end failed in more civilised and topographically difficult Europe.
The first great incursion of the Huns came in 395. They crossed the frozen Danube and their hordes devasted Dalmatia and Thrace, but their greatest effort was made far away to the east. They passed through the defiles of the Caucasus overran Armenia, devastated Cappadocia and parts of Syria and Cicilia, and laid siege to Antioch and many other cities on the Halys, Cyndus, Orontes, and Euphrates. The terror caused by this extensive raid is vividly described by St. Jerome. "Lo," he writes, "suddenly messengers ran to and fro and the whole East trembled, for swarms of Huns had broken forth from the far distant Maeotis (Sea of Azov) between the icy Tanais (Don) and the monstrous peoples of the Massagetae, where the Gates of Alexander pen in the wild nations behind the rocks of Caucasus. They filled the whole earth with slaughter and panic alike as they flitted hither and thither on their swift horses. . . They were at band everywhere before they were expected: by their speed they outstripped rumour, and they took pity neither upon religion nor rank nor age nor wailing childhood."18
The next incursion of importance came in 441, immediately after Gaiseric's negotiations with Attila. Again the Huns crossed the Danube and destroyed Viminacium (Kostolacz), Margus, at the mouth of the Morava, Singidunum (Belgrade), Sirmium (Mitrovitz), and many lesser places. This lightning campaign compelled Theodosius to recall his fleet from Sicily and to abandon his projected attack on Gaiseric.
In 442 a truce was agreed upon, but as Theodosius refused to hand over to Attila the fugitives demanded by him, in the following year the war was renewed. By occupying Ratiaria (Anzar Palanka), capital of the province of Dacia Ripensis and the base of the Roman fleet on the Danube, Attila secured his rear and then advanced up the valley of the Margus (Morava) and destroyed Naissus. Next he moved up the river Nischava and razed Sardica (Sofia) and Philippopolis to the ground. By-passing Adrianople and Heraclea because they were too strong for him to storm, in the neighbourhood of Constantinople he defeated Theodosius's army under Aspar, an Alan, in a series of battles, and finally exterminated it on the shores of the Dardanelles. These defeats compelled Theodosius to seek peace, which was granted by Attila. The main terms were that all fugitives should be handed over to him, that arrears of tribute, calculated at 6,000lb. of gold (approx. £28,000,000), should be paid, and that the annual tribute should be fixed at 2,100lb. This peace was agreed upon in August, 443.
In 447 Attila again invaded the Eastern Empire, but on what pretext is unknown. When he was about to advance, a series of terrible earthquakes threw down the walls of many Greek cities, and did such extensive damage to the fortifications of Constantinople that at first it appeared that the city was doomed. To protect it, the army of Theodosius advanced to the river Utus (Vid), and though it met with defeat, it would seem to have inflicted such heavy losses on the Huns that, after they had plundered and devastated the land as far south as Thermopylae, Attila thought it better to withdraw.
His rear secured by these incursions, Italy and Gaul lay at his mercy; but as Gaiseric looked upon the former as his private preserves, some time before the spring of 450 he pointed out to Attila how profitable it would be for him to raid the lands of the Visigoths. This suggestion, it would seem, decided the question Attila had for some time been turning over in his mind-namely, how best to attack Gaul ? He fell in with Gaiseric's idea, and as he knew that the Visigoths were the inveterate enemies of the Romans, he decided to march against them in the guise of Valentinian's ally, hoping thereby to neutralise Roman opposition. Further, Theodoric and Gaiseric were at loggerheads because Hunneric, Gaiseric's son, had recently repudiated his wife, Theodoric's daughter, and had returned her to her father minus her nose and ears. Therefore, with the Romans neutralised and Gaiseric hostile, Theodoric would be completely isolated.
While this scheming was in progress, on July 26, 450, Theodosius was thrown by his horse, and two nays later died of his injuries. He was succeeded by Marcian (450-457) who had married Theodosius's sister Pulcheria, and one of the first acts of the new emperor was to stop paying tribute to the Huns. Enraged by this, Attila sent two embassies, one to Constantinople to demand the resumption of tribute, which was emphatically refused, and the other to Ravenna to make a request relative to an incident which had occurred sixteen years earlier.
In 434, Honoria, Valentinian's sister, when in her seventeenth year, had been seduced by one of her chamberlains and was sent by her mother Placidia in disgrace to Constantinople. She bitterly resented this and in a passion sent a ring to Attila begging him to accept her as his wife. Now that she had returned to Ravenna, the mission of the second embassy was not only to claim her as Attila's bride, but also to demand half the Western Empire as her dowry. No sooner was this demand refused than an event occurred which further widened the breach between Attila and Valentinian. The king of the Ripuarian Franks died and a succession quarrel broke out between his two sons; the elder appealed to Attila for aid and the younger to Aetius. As the latter was well received and adopted by Aetius as his son, it must have become apparent to Attila that he could no longer rely on Aetius's former friendship to maintain Roman neutrality during his projected attack on Gaul; therefore that, before he could deal with Marcian, he must first settle his account with the Western Empire, where he had many supporters among the Bagaudae again in revolt-where the Visigoths were still hostile to the Romans and Vandals, and where the Ripuarian Franks were in the throes of a civil war. To Attila, Ravenna seemed impotent; but, as so often happens, the unexpected lurked round the corner. Again a single man was destined to change the course of the apparently inevitable: this man was Aetius, called "The last of the Romans"
Renatus Frigeridus has left us the following brief description of him:
"Of middle height, he was manly in appearance and well made, neither too frail nor too heavy; he was quick of wit and agile of limb, a very practised horseman and skilful archer; he was indefatigable with the spear. A born warrior, he was renowned for the arts of peace, without avarice and little swayed by desire, endowed with gifts of the mind, not swerving from his purpose for any kind of evil instigation. He bore wrongs with the utmost patience, and loved labour. Undaunted in danger, he was excelled by none in the endurance of hunger, thirst, and vigil. From his early youth he seemed forewarned of the great power to which he was destined by the fates."19
Early in 45!, when war between Attila and Aetius became certain, the problem the latter had to consider was: would the kingdoms and tribes of Gaul set aside their quarrels and unite against the invader ? Above all, would Theodoric, the most powerful of the kings, join hands with him-his old and persistent enemy ? Attila's aim clearly was to prevent this, and being "a subtle man", and one who "fought with craft before he made war",20 he sent an embassy to both Valentinian and Theodoric. To the former he proclaimed that his invasion was but a continuation of the former campaign of Roman and Hun against the Visigoths, and to the latter he pointed out the danger of an alliance with Rome. Valentinian guessed what Attila had in mind and sent ambassadors to Theodoric to warn him against Attila. Among other things these ambassadors said: "Since you are mighty in arms, give heed to your own dangers and join hands with us in common. Bear aid also to the Empire, of which you hold a part. If you would learn how such an alliance should be sought and welcomed by us, look into the plans of the foe."21
While Theodoric hesitated, Attila struck, and, early in 451, he set out from beyond the Rhine and marched westward. His army is reputed to have numbered 500,000 men, a figure obviously exaggerated by panic. It was a conglomerate force, for besides the Huns there were in it Ostrogoths and Gepids, who formed its kernel, as well as Sciri from Riga, Rugi from Pomerania, Franks from the Neckar, Thuringi from Bavaria, and Burgundians from east of the Rhine. His first objective was probably the lands of the Ripuarian Franks, and his next Orleans, for located as it is at the apex of the great bend in the river Loire, once in his hands he could sweep into Gothia (Aquitania).
His army poured through Belgic Gaul in three columns of fighting groups and advanced on a wide front, its right moving on Nemetacum (Arras), its left up the Moselle to Mettis (Metz) and its centre on Lutetia Parisiorum (Paris) and Aureliani (Orleans). The devastation was appalling; fire, smoke, murder and rapine swept through the lands. Rheims, Metz, Cambrai, Treves, Arras, Tongres, Tournai, Therouanne, Cologne, Amiens, Beauvais, Worms, Mainz and Strasbourg were sacked and burnt. Paris, then but a small town built on an island in the Seine, was saved, so the story goes, by a young girl of the neighbouring village of Nanterre, Genovefa by name, better known to posterity as Saint Genenieve. When its inhabitants in panic were about to flee, she urged them to place their trust in God, and through her simple prayers held them to the city walls.
Meanwhile Valentinian's embassy had failed to win Theodoric over, and the vita] question remained-could a coalescence of the tribes be effected ? As usual, there was no reserve army in Italy, which the year before had been devastated by a terrible famine. For twenty-five years Aetius had relied upon the Huns to fill his ranks; now they were his enemy, and nothing but blank files met his anxious gaze. He hurried to Gaul and collected together such feoderati as were to be found there; apparently checked the impulse of the Alans at Valence to open the gates of that city to Attila; and then went to Arverni (Clermont in Auvergne) and sent to the Gothic court at Tolosa (Toulouse) a Roman Senator named Avitus (the future Emperor of the West, 454-456), who won Theodoric's support.
Meanwhile the hordes of Huns swarmed toward Orleans, in the neighbourhood of which Sangiban, king of the Alans, who had been settled there by Aetius in 442, promised to betray the city to Attila. When a report of this came to the ears of Aetius and Theodoric they set out at top speed to occupy the city before Attila could seize it, but the Huns arrived first and at once besieged the city. According to Gregory of Tours, it was saved through the intercessions of the blessed bishop Anianus (St. Aignan).22 In the Vita Aniani as quoted by Amedee Thierry, the story is as follows: He visited Aetius and impressed upon him the fact that Orleans could not hold out beyond June 14. Early in May, Attila appeared and for five weeks pounded at the walls with his rams and poured an unceasing hail of arrows into the city. As the walls crumbled, the worthy bishop restored them by perambulating certain holy relics round and round the battlements. Toward the middle of June all seemed lost, when one morning a soldier ascended the highest turret and spied in the distance a tiny cloud of dust-it hid Aetius and Theodoric. As it grew bigger, out of it gleamed the eagles of the legions and the embroidered banners of the Goths. Lastly, the armies met in a fierce fight in the suburbs. "Driven from street to street, beaten down by the stones hurled at them by the inhabitants from the roofs of the houses, the Huns no longer knew what was to become of them, when Attila sounded the retreat. The patrician, Aetius, had not failed in his word; it was the i4th ofJune. Such was that famous day which in the West saved civilisation from total destruction."23
Whatever happened, it would appear that Attila experienced a disastrous defeat; for instead of pressing the attack, he and his horde slipped away during the night, passed by Sens and made for the valleys of the Seine and the Aube where the country was open and called "Campania"-Champagne. On the former river, probably in the vicinity of; or at Mery-sur-Seine, he established his rearguard, a horde of Gepids, and retired his main body a little east of it on to "the Catalaunian Plains, which are also called Mauriacian".24 Against the rearguard Aetius launched a night attack, which must have crushed it out of existence, for, according to Jordanes, his enemy lost in killed and wounded 15,000 men, which though an impossible number, suggests heavy fighting.
Presumably on the next day, June 20th the battle opened.25
It would appear from Jordanes that Attila was in no way confident of success, and to shorten the engagement so that he might continue his retreat under cover of night, he did not issue out of his wagon laager until the early afternoon, when he formed up his horde in the following order. He took command of the centre with his bravest troops, with Walamir and the Ostrogoths on the left and Ardaric and the Gepids, etc., on the right. Apparently his idea was to charge his enemy's centre, to drive it back in confusion and then to withdraw to his camp and await nightfall. In his turn Aetius, who presumably realised what was in his opponent's mind, decided upon two outflanking attacks, the aim of which was to cut off the Huns from their laager. He drew up his most unreliable troops, the Alans, under Sangiban, in the centre; placed Theodoric and his Visigoths on his right to oppose the Ostrogoths; and himself took command of the left wing with his Romans.
When the armies were being marshalled, a skirmish for a rising piece of ground took place in which Thorismund, son of Theodoric, threw the Huns' advanced guard back in confusion. Disconcerted by this attack, Attila, according to Jordanes, addressed his troops. He pointed to the Alans and said: "Seek swift victory in that spot.... For when the sinews are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken away the bones. - . -No spear shall harm those who are seen to live; and those who are sure to die Fate overtakes even in peace."26 Their hearts being warmed by these words, "they all dashed into battle".
Next Jordanes writes: "Hand to hand they clashed in battle, and the fight grew fierce, confused, monstrous, unrelenting- a fight whose like no ancient time has ever recorded. There such deeds were done that a brave man who missed this marvellous spectacle could not hope to see anything so wonderful all his life long." A terrific struggle took place along a brook: "Here King Theodorid [Theodoric], while riding by to encourage his army, was thrown from his horse and trampled under foot by his own men, thus ending his days at a ripe old age....27 Then the Visigoths, separating from the Alani, fell upon the horde of the Huns and nearly slew Attila. But he prudently took flight and strait way shut himself and his companions within the barriers of the camp, which he had fortified with wagons."28
Darkness now set in, and with it complete confusion; for Thorismund, we are told, lost his way in the blind night, and thinking that he was rejoining his own men came upon the wagons of the enemy; while "Aetius also became separated from his men in the confusion of night and wandered about in the midst of the enemy. Fearing disaster had happened, he went about in search of the Goths. At last he reached the camp of his allies and passed the remainder of the night in the protection of their shields."
"At dawn on the following day, when the Romans saw the fields were piled high with bodies and that the Huns did not venture forth, they thought the victory was theirs, but knew that Attila would not flee from the battle unless overwhelmed by a great disaster. Yet he did nothing cowardly, like one that is overcome, but with clash of arms sounded the trumpets and threatened an attack. He was like a lion pierced by hunting spears, who paces to and fro before the mouth of his den and dares not spring, but ceases not to terrify the neighbourhood by his roaring. Even so this warlike king at bay terrified his conquerors. Therefore the Goths and Romans assembled and considered what to do with the vanquished Attila. They determined to wear him out by a siege, because he had no supply of provisions and was hindered from approaching by a shower of arrows from the bowmen placed within the confines of the Roman camp. "29
In spite of his roarings and ravings, Attila's situation was a desperate one, and further still he knew it, for in the semi-legendary history of Jordanes, we are told that he considered his position so critical that he constructed a funeral pyre of horses' saddles in the flames of which he determined to hurl himself should the enemy break through. Curious as it may seem, Aetius's situation was almost as perturbing; for shortly after the sun rose Theodoric's body was found and Thorismund was proclaimed king of the Goths.
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| Attila faces defeat, from a 19th century illustration |
Apparently it was only then Aetius decided that though he had Attila cornered, it would be wiser to let him escape. Seemingly, he did not trust Thorismund, and he feared that, were Attila and his horde annihilated, the Visigoths would at once replace the Huns as the enemies of Rome. This is Jordanes's opinion, for he says:
"But Aetius feared that if the Huns were totally destroyed by the Goths, the Roman Empire would be overwhelmed, and urgently advised him (Thorismund) to return to his own do-minions to take up the rule which his father had left him. Other-wise his brothers might seize their father's possessions and obtain the power over the Visigoths."30 Further, the conditions at Ravenna were such that Aetius could feel safe only as long as he was indispensable, and to remain so it was necessary that Attila should not be crushed completely.31
The upshot was that, once Thorismund had marched away, Attila noticed his empty bivouac, harnessed his wagons and trekked back to beyond the Rhine. What his losses were is not known. Jordanes says that 165,000 men were slain on both sides, not including the 15,000 killed and wounded in the night before the battle. Idatius puts the number of killed at 300,000. All these figures are fantastic.
No sooner had Attila returned to his timber palace than again he claimed Honoria as his bride, and, in the spring of 452, he set out to invade Italy. He crossed the Julian Alps -from which the garrisons had been withdrawn-descended upon Aquileia, and after a long and desperate siege stormed the city and so annihilated it that even a century later scarcely the vestiges of it remained. Next he marched into Venetia and he wiped out Julia-Concordia, the luxurious Altinum and Patavium (Padua). As he marched on, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, and Pavia, struck by the terror of Aquileia, opened their gates, and though their buildings were not destroyed their inhabitants were either massacred or carried away into captivity. At length, Attila halted on the Mincio.
Aetius had been caught so completely unaware by this bold campaign that, unhinged by the prevailing panic, his first thought was to take Valentinian with him and to abandon Italy. Then, when he recovered his nerve, he decided to beg peace of Attila. Once this decision was agreed upon, an embassy consisting of Pope Leo, Trygetius, an ex-prefect, and Gennadius Avienus, consul for 450, was sent to the Mincio, and, according to ecclesiastical legend, the dreaded king of kings was vanquished "before the unarmed successor of St. Peter. . . . The awe of Rome was upon him . . . and he was forced incessantly to ponder the question 'What if I conquer like Alaric, to die like him?'"' But as Bury points out: "It is unreasonable to suppose that this heathen king would have cared for the thunders or persuasions of the Church."32
The true reasons are probably those given by Thompson:33 that Italy was still suffering from the famine of the previous year, which meant its inseparable companion, pestilence. Further, when Attila entered Italy, Marcian seized the opportunity to send an army under a general, also named Aetius, over the Danube. His enterprise was successful, for he routed the Huns left behind by Attila to protect his base. It was this bold counter-stroke, coupled with lack of supplies and the dread of pestilence, which in all probability compelled Attila to come to terms. His losses at Chalons had been so heavy that he dared not risk a further loss of men.
The next year he took to himself another wife, a girl Ildico (Hilda); drank copiously at the wedding feast and retired to his marriage bed. During the night he was attacked by a violent fit of bleeding at the nose, and lay on his back when the blood poured down his throat and drowned him.
Attila dead, his empire flew to pieces. As soon as he was secretly buried his tribe of sons divided his realm between them, then quarrelled over the divisions and fought each other. while thus engaged, the Ostrogoths, who had been herded by Attila into the valley of the Theiss (Tisza), revolted. A general rising of the German tribes followed, and finding a leader in Ardaric, king of the Gepids, in 454, on the unknown river Nedao, in Pannonia, they routed the Huns so completeiy that within two or three generations they virtually disappeared.
The sequel to these events-Attila's death and the collapse of his empire-is a strange one. Two daughters and no son had been born to Valentinian and the empress Eudoxia, daughter of Theodosius II, and Aetius, to secure the succession for his own family, in 454 sought to gain the hand of one of the daughters for his son. In a passion Valentinian stabbed Aetius to death, and in the following year was himself assassinated and succeeded by Petronius Maximus. He forced Eudoxia to marry him, and it is said that in revenge she appealed to Gaiseric to aid her. In June, 455, he sailed up the Tiber, was met by Eudoxia, whom he stripped of her robes and jewels, and for fourteen days sacked Rome, but the lives of its inhabitants were spared by the intercession of Pope Leo. Before the looting Maximus was assassinated, and when Gaiseric withdrew, power passed into the hands of Ricimer, the barbarian Master of the Troops and grandson of Wallia the Visigoth. In rapid succession emperor followed emperor until 475, when Orestes, a Roman who had served as secretary to Artila, won the support of the barbarian mercenaries, had his young son Romulus, surnamed Augustulus, proclaimed emperor at Ravenna, and marched on Rome. But no sooner had he set out than his troops demanded one-third of Italy as their reward, and because this preposterous claim was refused, on August 23, 476, they raised their leader, Odoacar-who appears to have been the son of one of Attila's lieutenants, the Hun Edeco34, upon a shieid and proclaimed him king of Italy. From then until Christmas Day of the year 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne in St. Peter's and inaugurated what was to become the Holy Roman Empire, there was no Emperor of the West. Romulus opened the great cycle in the legendary year 753 BC, and twelve hundred and twenty-nine years later his effete namesake closed it. Henceforth for long centuries the twilight of legend returned in the West.
It will be seen from these events that the victory Aetius and Theodoric won at Chalons in no way saved the Western Empire from obliteration. Also it will be seen that, even had they suffered defeat, Attila's empire would have collapsed on his death; it had no political bottom-it was built wholly on terror and was devoid of creative force. Nevertheless, when we look back on the making rather than the winning of the Battle of Chalons, its importance becomes apparent.
It was not a Roman victory or a Teutonic victory, but a victory of both peoples combined over Asiatics, as Salamis had been a victory of both Athenians and Spartans over Persians. Once again West and East-Europe and Asia-were in clinch, and once again Europeans set aside their private quarrels in order to face a common foe.
More important still, the ecclesiastical organisation in the Frankish territories remained unbroken, with the result that the Church became the chief international authority during the Middle Ages, and the only authority which could trace unbroken descent from Roman times. Frankland was, therefore, more fortunate than England, where ecclesiastical organisation was destroyed completely by the Saxons, with the result that its inhabitants had to be reconverted by missionaries from Ireland and Rome. Had the same happened in what to-day is France, the whole course of medieval history would have been changed.
Further, the prestige of the papacy was vastly enhanced, for though the probability is that, when Pope Leo met Attila on the Mincio, he came as a humble supplicant, the sudden death of the ferocious Hun following so closely on the meeting appeared to a superstitious age to be the judgement of God. The devil had been subdued by God's vicar, and the legend which sprouted from this victory of righteousness over evil went far to set the papal chair firmly on the floor of the miraculous, and as Thomas Hodgkin35 writes: ". .. thus it is no paradox to say that indirectly the King of the Huns contributed more perhaps than any other historical personage, towards the creation of that mighty factor in the politics of medieval Italy, the Pope-King of Rome." What Attila began Gaiseric added to. "From now on", writes Dean Milman, "Rome ceased altogether to be a pagan city."36 And as the old Roman nobility went down, the papal power went up; yet the horror of these invasions lived on and the very features of Attila were transmogrified into the countenance of Satan, the Black Magician. Even to-day, when we seek to insult our enemies, we call them Huns.
As religious outlook changed, so did the outlook on war, which so often is the physical expression of mystical beliefs. Horror was so complete, impotence so deep-founded, and fear so universal that the miraculous alone could be relied upon. Though the generals created hell on earth, the priests could at least promise heaven in the world to come. Had not a girl saved Paris by her prayers? Had not 11,000 virgins been martyred in Cologne, and did not their dusty bones stir forth miracles? Was it not a bishop who had saved Orleans? Had not Heraclea in Macedonia been defended by a saint? Therefore, would not the innumerable cities wasted by the Huns have beaten back their onslaught had there been more saints, even if less soldiers? Thus it came about that relics became spiritual ammunition and papal authority the engine which detonated their power.
As the greatness of Alexander may be judged from his legend, so may the horror of Attila be translated from his. He was the Flagellum Dei, the Grandson of Nimrod, the Anti-Christ of the Scriptures, and the Etzel of the Nibelungenlied. It was he who married Kriemhild (Ildico); the Nibelungs visited him in Hun-land, and "reaping the due of hoarded vengeance" Kriemhild murders him for love of her girlhood husband Siegfried. The great epic sprouts out of the blood-soaked fields of Europe, cropping forth a common heritage. It is found in Byzantium, in Germany, France, Italy, Scandinavia, and Iceland; it is one of the great legends of the western world. Taken together, these things made the Battle of Chalons one of the decisive moments in western history.
