Attila the Hun and the Battle of Chalons (MilHist)

MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History ^ | N/A | Arther Ferrill

[indcons]

No one represents the unbridled fury and savagery of barbarism as much as Attila the Hun. Even in the twentieth century one of the worst names that could be found for the Germans was to call them Huns. Attila, as the greatest Hun leader, is the stereotypical sacker of cities and killer of babies. In his own day he and his Huns were known as the "Scourge of God," and the devastation they caused in Gaul before the great Battle of Chalons in 451 AD became a part of medieval folklore and tradition.

The clash at Chalons was one of those rare monumental conflicts, pitting against one another two of the towering figures of Late Antiquity, the fierce and passionate Attila and the noble Aetius, sometimes called "the last of the Romans." By 451 Aetius had been the foremost general in the Roman Empire for many years, and he was also the chief political adviser to the Emperor of the West, Valentinian III. In the previous forty years the once great Empire had suffered staggering setbacks, especially in the West. Aetius had done more than anyone else to keep what remained of the Roman world strong and prosperous.

Despite Aetius' efforts, when Attila crossed the Rhine with the Huns in 451, he threatened a tottering relic of power. The Western Roman Empire had already been ravaged by Visigoths, Vandals, Suebi, Alamanni, Burgundians and other barbarian tribes. Visigoths had an independent kingdom in Aquitaine, and Vandals occupied North Africa with a capital at Carthage. Roman rule in many parts of Gaul and Spain was merely nominal.

[joylyn]

Zsa Zsa Gabor was very proud of being descended from the Huns.

[RoadTest]

This is a charming Roman Catholic tale.

[indcons]

It appears that some of them did settle down in Hungary.

Others appeared to have settled down in the Caucasus, Mongolia, and Central Asia.

[indcons]

That's interesting....I think this factoid reiterates the close connections between the Mongols and the Huns. When Genghiz Khan died, the Mongols had to transport his body from present-day Tibet (then called Si-Sa). To keep the death and the preparations a secret, they killed EVERY human and animal on the long journey home to Mongolia.

After that, they buried Genghiz Khan in the Burkan Kaldun mountain range, reshaped the mountain he was buried in, and ensured that no non-Mongol could ever reach the mountains in the next few hundred years (so that the place would be forgotten to history and wild forest growth).

Even today, modern Mongols continue to make fools of the considerale number of Japanese researchers who have been trying to find Genghiz Khan's tomb.

[indcons]

Now, THAT's interesting.......

[Young Werther]

I always thought that she was a HONEY!

[Chode]

yup...

[Jimmy Valentine]

Timing is everything. Attila was a punk next to Vercengetorix, and Julius Caesar whipped his behind like a puppy peeing on the carpet.

[Vicomte13]

Yes, Vercingetorix was an extremely dangerous rival.
Caesar didn't fare well against him early in the campaign.
And Alesia was a desperate affair.

It is interesting to speculate what might have happened had the Gauls torn a hole in the Roman "doughnut". The Romans were so heavily outnumbered, that had their line been breached and rolled up, they may have lost every legion in Gaul and had a united and powerful Gallic army rolling into Italy. What made Vercingetorix so particularly generous was the imposition of things like order and drill on a barbarian horde. Also, the Gauls weren't really all that barbaric. Settled people, with full agriculture and good military technology. And with a literate chieftain and bardic class. Dangerous and numerous.

They'd never had any order or unity. Administration was their Achilles' heel, and Celts were infamously fractious (still are: look at Ireland!). But Vercingetorix gave them unity, and military organization too.

Very, very dangerous moment for Rome. Could have gone the other way. So could Chalons-sur-Marne, or Tours.
Two out of three went for Gaul/France.
Had Alesia gone the other way, France wouldn't be France in the first place. "Magna Scotia", maybe.

[Sam the Sham]

We know that around 200 AD the climate in the Eurasian land sea turned cold and dry. This sent a tidal wave of barbarian conquest surging against every empire on the Eurasian land mass.

221 AD. Barbarians surge over the Great Wall and overthrow the Han Dynasty.

250ish. Barbarians surge through the Himalayas and overthrow the Gupta Dynasty in India.

350ish. Huns destroy the Ostrogothic state in the Ukraine.

378. Visigoths destroy the East Roman Army and kill Emperor Valens at Adrianople.

400-500 The Persian Empire concludes a century long peace treaty with the Romans so it can focus on fighting for its life against the Yueh Chih in Central Asia.

Etc....

[patton]

interesting stuff.

[indcons]

Very interesting details here, Sam the Sham. Can you please point out a source with more info on the same? Would love to read up more....Thanks.

[Sam the Sham]

William McNeil's brilliant "The Rise of the West" detailed the barbarian explosion that occurred from 200 to 500 AD from one end of the Eurasian land mass to the other. Empires either developed mobile heavy cavalry based armies or fell.

He brilliantly sees Sassanid Persia as the key factor. The Sassanid Persians had a military based upon armored lancers supported by horse archers. The Eastern Roman military, for whom the Sassanids were Most Likely Enemy, did not rebuild the legions that were destroyed at Adrianople. They shifted to the heavy cavalry army of Belisarius and Justinian.

Later the Tang Dynasty succeeded in reuniting China around 630 with a heavy cavalry based army.

[colorado tanker]

But it is at least certain that the Magyars of Arpad, who are the immediate ancestors of the bulk of the modern Hungarians, and who conquered the country which bears the name of Hungary in A.D. 889, were of the same stock of mankind as were the Huns of Attila, even if they did not belong to the same subdivision of that stock. Nor is there any improbability in the tradition that after Attila's death many of his warriors remained in Hungary, and that their descendants afterwards joined the Huns of Arpad in their career of conquest. It is certain that Attila made Hungary the seat of his empire. It seems also susceptible of clear proof that the territory was then called Hungvar and Attila's soldiers Hungvari. Both the Huns of Attila and those of Arpad came from the family of nomadic nations whose primitive regions were those vast wildernesses of High Asia which are included between the Altaic and the Himalayan mountain chains. The inroads of these tribes upon the lower regions of Asia and into Europe have caused many of the most remarkable revolutions in the history of the world. There is every reason to believe that swarms of these nations made their way into distant parts of the earth, at periods long before the date of the Scythian invasion of Asia, which is the earliest inroad of the nomadic race that history records. The first, as far as we can conjecture, in respect to the time of their descent, were the Finnish and Ugrian tribes, who appear to have come down from the Altaic border of High Asia towards the northwest, in which direction they advanced to the Uralian Mountains. There they established themselves; and that mountain chain, with its valleys and pasture lands, became to them a new country, whence they sent out colonies on every side; but the Ugrian colony, which, under Arpad, occupied Hungary, and became the ancestors of the bulk of the present Hungarian nation, did not quit their settlements on the Uralian Mountains till a very late period, and not until four centuries after the time when Attila led from the primary seats of the nomadic races in High Asia the host with which he advanced into the heart of France.(v) That host was Turkish, but closely allied in origin, language, and habits with the Finno-Ugrian settlers on the Ural.

This is from Creasy's description of the Battle of Chalons.

[Jimmy Valentine]

You are correct, sir.

The Roman fighting line and logistical organization provided for a lot of their "punch" in fighting. Also the use of true Roman citizens rather than foreign conscripts in the line added a level of ferocity.

Vercengetorix was a very tough customer. It was Roman gule as well as Roman fighters who brought him down.

[SunkenCiv]

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Note: this topic is dated 12/16/2005. Blast from the Past. Thanks indcons. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.