As I frequently note, real history is more interesting thanfiction so you’re better off with reality than a made up version. As this post willshow, you can’t make this stuff up.
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In the last post we described the sack of Rome whichoccurred in 410 A.D. Now we jump forward 40 years to find Rome and the Visigothsallied against Attila and the Hunnic Empire. How did this happen? How did the destroyerof Rome, the tribe that fought the Roman army for 200 years, now become an ally?
Before getting to the action – the Battle of Chalons in 451A.D. – we need to set up the preliminaries, which involve some intricatepolitics.
Circa 408 A.D, the Pyrenees were manned by a militia placedthere to block barbarian incursions into Spain. But the militia was withdrawnto support the usurper Constantine who sought to oppose Honorius for the crown.With the militia gone, the Suevi, Vandals, and Alani poured down from Gaul intoSpain, taking it over. They devastated the country before deciding to settle it and then put an administrative apparatus in place.
The king of the Goths at that time was Adolphus, who receivedthe crown following the death of Alaric. Formerly a rival of the Visigoths,Adolphus was now embraced by them out of necessity – the need for a strongleader. And Adolphus had come to realize the merits of friendly co-existence.As Gibbon tells us:
“In the fullconfidence of valor and victory, I once aspired (said Adolphus) to change theface of the universe; to obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins thedominion of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of thefounder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was graduallyconvinced, that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate awell-constituted state; and that the fierce, untractable humor of the Goths wasincapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. Fromthat moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition; andit is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledgethe merit of a stranger, who employed the sword of the Goths, not to subvert,but to restore and maintain, the prosperity of the Roman empire.
Adolphus suspended his operations of war and negotiated atreaty with Rome. Once the treaty was complete, he marched his army to thesouthern provinces of Gaul and settled between the Mediterranean and theOcean. Adolphus then cemented his relationship with Rome by marrying the daughter ofemperor Theodosius, who was also sister to Honorius.
Peace being foreign to the mind of the king, he becameconvinced at the urging of Honorius to attack the barbarians in Spain. Afterseizing Barcelona, he was assassinated. Some intrigues followed and then thecrown of the Visigoths passed to Wallia. The latter worked his way throughSpain and upon reaching Gibraltar, contemplated crossing to Africa, but hechanged his mind and decided to become an ally of Rome instead. Brought to thecity and given a triumph, Wallia now carried the mantle as Rome’s great ally inthe west.
Put to work by the Romans, he attacked Spain.
“He exterminated theSilingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the province ofBoetica. He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani; and the remains ofthose Scythian wanderers, who escapedfrom the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge underthe standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever afterwardsconfounded. The Vandals themselves, and the Suevi, yielded to the effortsof the invincible Goths. The promiscuous multitude of Barbarians, whoseretreat had been intercepted, were driven into the mountains of Gallicia; wherethey still continued, in a narrow compass and on a barren soil, to exercisetheir domestic and implacable hostilities.”
The year was 418 A.D.
With the Spanish war complete, the Visigoths establishedthemselves in Aquitaine under the ecclesiastical control of Bordeaux. Theirneighbors were the Burgundians who controlled upper Germany and the Franks whocontrolled lower Germany. After his death, Wallia was succeeded by Theodoric, aforward thinking man who had his six sons educated in Roman jurisprudence at thebest schools in Gaul.
The other component of our Roman-Gothic alliance is thesingular personality Flavius Aetius. Born in Moesia to a Scythian father and anItalian mother, Aetius served much of his childhood as a hostage: first withAlaric (405-408 A.D) and then with Rugila, king of the Huns. Those experiencesaided Aetius in two ways: he developed a comfort with military life and hebecame friends with his adversaries.
When Honorius died in 423 A.D, Aetius attached himself tothe usurper Johannes, who sent him to the Huns to ask for military assistance. Hereturned to Italy in 425 A.D. with an army only to find Johannes deadand the western empire in control of Valentinian III and his mother GallaPlacidia. After some fighting, Aetius was able to forge a compromise with Gallawhich required that he send the Huns home in exchange for an appointment asgeneral under the new emperor.
The list of Aetius military successes is a long one. Between427 and 430 A.D. he defeated the Visigoths and Franks in Gaul. Between 433 and450 A.D. he fought the Burgundians, the Suebi, and the Visigoths, treating withthe latter in 439 A.D. He fought the Burgundians again in 443 A.D. and theFranks again in 448 A.D. Wherever he went, Aetius carried a Hunnic cavalry withhim.
In 451 A.D, Attila was recruited to come to the aid of theVandals and Franks who were under constant pressure from the Visigoths andRomans. His readiness to go to war is described by Gibbon in the following passage,
“The kings and nationsof Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed thewarlike summons of Attila. From the royal village, in the plains ofHungary his standard moved towards the West; and after a march of seven oreight hundred miles, he reached the conflux of the Rhine and the Neckar, wherehe was joined by the Franks, who adhered to his ally, the elder of the sons ofClodion. A troop of light Barbarians, who roamed in quest of plunder,might choose the winter for the convenience of passing the river on the ice;but the innumerable cavalry of the Huns required such plenty of forage andprovisions, as could be procured only in a milder season.
“But as the greatestpart of the Gallic cities were alike destitute of saints and soldiers, theywere besieged and stormed by the Huns; who practiced, in the example of Metz,their customary maxims of war. They involved, in a promiscuous massacre,the priests who served at the altar, and the infants, who, in the hour ofdanger, had been providently baptized by the bishop.”
…From the Rhine andthe Moselle, Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul; crossed the Seine atAuxerre; and, after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the wallsof Orleans.
Attila now began a siege of the city. The people put up a stubborndefense but were at the point of breaking when a messenger sent to the rampartsby the bishop returned with a report where he
“mentioned a smallcloud, which he had faintly descried at the extremity of the horizon. The remote object, onwhich every eye was fixed, becameeach moment larger, and more distinct; the Roman and Gothic banners weregradually perceived; and a favorable wind blowing aside the dust, discovered,in deep array, the impatient squadrons of Aetius and Theodoric, who pressedforwards to the relief of Orleans.”
To avoid being trapped in the heart of Gaul, Attila brokethe siege and retreated beyond the Seine near the plains of Chalon. There the plainsextend for a hundred miles in each direction -- an ideal spot for battle.
Above is a map showing the location of Chalons. I thought it would be interesting to point out the locations of the World War I battle line and Hitler's attack point at the start of World War II as references.
As Attila retreated, the rear of his formation was harassed bythe vanguard of the allies causing him some 15,000 casualties.
He asked for auspices to be taken and he was told, “youradversary will be killed, but you will lose the battle.” To avoid the negativeconnotation of the prophesy, Attila exhortedhis troops, telling them he would lead them into battle.
The battle dispositions were as follows.
“At the head of hisbrave and faithful Huns, he occupied in person the centre of the line. The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the Heruli, the Thuringians,the Franks, the Burgundians, were extended on either hand, over the ample spaceof the Catalaunian fields; the right wing was commanded by Ardaric, king of theGepidae; and the three valiant brothers, who reigned over the Ostrogoths, wereposted on the left to oppose the kindred tribes of the Visigoths. Thedisposition of the allies was regulated by a different principle. Sangiban, the faithless king of the Alani, was placed in the centre, where hismotions might be strictly watched, and that the treachery might be instantlypunished. Aetius assumed the command of the left, and Theodoric of the rightwing; while Torismond still continued tooccupy the heights which appear to have stretched on the flank, and perhaps therear, of the Scythian army.”
After the initial discharge of missile weapons, cavalry fromboth sides engaged each other in close combat. The middle of the Hunnic linewas able to pierce the weak center oftheir opponents and quickly wheeled left to attack the Visigoth army. Theodoric, leading his troops, was struck by a javelin, knocked off his horse, andtrampled to death. Soon the auspices would be fulfilled as the Visigothsrestored their order of battle, routed the barbarian army, and forced Attila to retreat. The Hunnic army spent the night preparing to be attackedbut the allies had suffered substantial casualties themselves and were inno shape to press them. Aetius' survey of the carnage proved to him that he had won the battle.
The following year Attila pressed a claim for Honoria, sisterof Valentinian III, who he had previously married. Rebuffed, he vowed todestroy Italy. Beginning with Aquileia, Attila pressed a three month siege to conclusionand then leveled the city. One by one the other cities and towns fell like dominoes before him: Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo were destroyed while Milan andPavia paid tribute to avoid the fate of the others.
Desperate to stop the carnage, the bishop of Rome and otherswere sent to negotiate with Attila and a treaty was struck for the withdrawalof his army from the peninsula. Before it could be signed, however, Attila diedsuddenly of a burst artery. The year was 453 A.D.
Over the next few years, the Goths became more powerful:Visigoths in Gaul and the Ostrogoths in the Balkans – the latter now separatedfrom the remnant Hunnic Empire. The Hunnic nation broke apart as a result ofthe poor leadership and infighting between the sons of Attila. Ellac, theeldest son, lost his life in the battle of Netad. Dengisich, another brother,was killed by his slaves. The youngest brother, Irnac, who was smarter than hissiblings, retired to lesser Scythia, only to be overrun by new hordes from theeast.
Most unfortunate of the threads of this story was theassassination of Aetius, who was intrigued against by Valentinian’s favoriteeunuch Heraclius. Jealous of his reputation and power, the emperor decided Aetiuswas a threat to the crown, and stabbed him during a palace visit onSeptember 21st 454 A.D. Less than a year later the emperor would beassassinated by two of Aetius’ lieutenants.
