When it comes to wars between ancient civilized countries and steppe peoples, apart from the famous Han-Hungarian war in the history of our country, the war between the Huns and the Roman Empire is the most impressive thing in the far west. In most text descriptions, the Huns are always described as an invincible nomadic force, while the Roman Empire is generally a weak and civilized army. This statement has a certain degree in the early confrontation between the Huns and the Romans. However, with the passage of time, unlike most people’s understanding, historical facts have begun to undergo subtle changes.
This fact, contrary to ordinary people’s perception, is that the Hungarian nation began to decline at a fairly rapid rate, even the most famous ruler of the Hungarians, but also the rule of Attila, the famous "whip of God". During this period, the Huns have begun to show obvious defeats. In fact, just over ten years after Attila's death, the head of his heir was hung in the capital of the Romans, whom we consider being weak.
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| Invasion of the Huns
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The Huns first appeared in front of Westerners in 350 AD. As soon as they appeared, they destroyed the kingdom of the Alan people entrenched in the Dun River basin north of the Black Sea. Because there were Greeks settled in this neighborhood long ago, and the Kingdom of Pontus, which once fought with the Romans, once occupied the land south of this area, now Crimea and surrounding areas. Therefore, the Roman Empire at that time Also learned about this.
What's interesting is that many written materials describe this incident as "shocked" the Western world, but from the perspective of the Roman Empire at the time, it shouldn't be taken seriously. The emperor of the Roman Empire at that time was Constantine the Great’s son Constantius II, and at least from the perspective of this emperor’s rule, the Romans at this time were mainly focused on defending against the increasingly fierce barbarian invasion. , And the Sassanid Persian Empire in the East from time to time marched. Therefore, the claim that the demise of the Kingdom of Alan shocked the West should be an exaggeration.
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| Roman Legion and Alain Cavalry
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However, the demise of the Aran kingdom, the demise of the Gothic kingdom, and the fleeing behavior of its people to the west did increase the pressure on the Roman Empire’s defenses. Therefore, the Huns really did their best to unify the Roman Empire and the demise of the Western Roman Empire. A share of strength. Especially since 395 AD, the Huns officially began to step into the territory of the Roman Empire. Because the Huns mainly lived in the Danube Valley, the Eastern Roman Empire, which was closer to them, suffered.
From 395 AD to 443 AD, the Huns invaded the Eastern Roman Empire many times, forcing the latter to negotiate peace and pay tribute. In the most exaggerated one, they also defeated all the troops in the European part of Eastern Rome and reached its capital, the monarch. Tantinburgh. A series of records looked very good, showing their excellent combat effectiveness, but, soon, this situation began to change.
The opponents the Huns faced, excluding Western Rome, which later fought with them, were mainly the Eastern Roman Empire and the barbarians entrenched in the Gaul region, and even the Sassanian Persian Empire in the east of Eastern Rome and south of the Caucasus Mountains. People have suffered.
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| The armies that should have belonged to East Rome are all in the West
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First of all, we might as well start with Eastern Rome. We must understand one thing, that is, what happened to defeating the Eastern Roman army many times. In fact, an extremely important reason for the Huns to achieve such an excellent record is the weakness of the Eastern Roman Empire itself. The Eastern Roman Empire was officially born after the split of the Roman Empire in 395 AD. Although its territory was mostly the essence of the Roman Empire, its best army was given to the last unified Roman Emperor Theodosius the Great. Taken to the west. Before the end of the previous civil war, Theodosius was the master of the eastern region. After winning the civil war, Theodosius himself, in order to wipe out the barbarians in the western region, specially dispatched outstanding troops from the east to the west. However, Theodosius died of illness before his goal was completed. Therefore, this group of troops was transferred to the commander-in-chief named Stirico before his death. Since Stirico remained in Western Rome, these troops naturally Also stayed in the west. After the Visigoths ravaged Eastern Rome, it was Stirico who led this group of troops to rescue.
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| The statue of Theodosius II, the main advantage of his rule is the relative stability of power
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In other words, the Eastern Roman Empire that the Huns encountered in the early days was a military shell country that had been drawn with powerful force. What's more interesting is that the Eastern Roman Empire during this period itself was still in a situation of intense political struggle. Arcadius, the first emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, was like a puppet, and his power was early controlled by Prime Minister Rufus. After Rufus was assassinated during the military parade, his power was controlled by his queen and the chief of the court guard. Arcadius himself did not ask about the government in the deep palace, and the queen and his party did not intend to resist stubbornly against foreign enemies. After the death of Arcadius in 408 AD, his son Theodosius II came to the throne and ruled for 42 years. Although he still attacked the outside world compared to his parents, he had no military experience, so Eastern Rome under its command is still a passive defense and passive attack country.
It should also be noted that the Eastern Roman Empire itself is still in a period of civil war recovery in Roman Empire. Therefore, the Eastern Roman Empire that the Huns encountered during this period was relatively weak in terms of military, economic, and people’s livelihood. of.
As for the Huns, in 434 AD, Attila and his brother Bleda succeeded in succeeding to the throne of the Huns and ruled the Huns together. When the brothers ruled, the main invasion was still the unfortunate Eastern Roman Empire. Until Attila killed his brother, Eastern Rome was still being beaten by the Huns. However, with the death of Theodosius II in 450 AD, the situation began to change dramatically.
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| According to Roman tradition, the emperor should be good at commanding the army
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The succeeding emperor was called Malikian, who was over 60 years old, but he had extensive military experience. As the saying goes, one soldier will be raging, and the raging nest, the previous weakness of the Eastern Roman Empire has a lot to do with the cowardice of the emperor himself. The most typical example is that before the death of Theodosius II, Eastern Rome and the Huns signed a very demanding treaty. Eastern Rome had to hand over 2,000 Roman pounds of gold to the Huns each year, and at the same time, it had to pay an additional 6,000 pounds in the first year. Gold, in addition to the two provinces of Thrace and Dacia, and to return the soldiers who fled to Eastern Rome from the Hungarian territory, including the Huns and German soldiers, and at the same time use huge wealth to redeem the captured East. Roman. When Theodosius II was alive, he readily agreed to the request of the Hungarians, but when Malikian came to the throne, he publicly announced that he would tear up all the treaties with the Hungarians and move the reorganized army to the border. Assembling, at the same time, he also reached a non-aggression agreement with the Sassanid Persian Empire, and at the same time continuously assembled the heavy troops of the Eastern Defense Line in the direction of the Huns.
Most importantly, the Eastern Roman emperor Malikian also publicly announced that he would personally lead his army to confront the Huns. In the eyes of ordinary people, Attila, known as the "Whip of God", will definitely compete with the Eastern Romans and prove his fame by defeating the Eastern Roman army. However, in history, Attila commanded the Hungarian army. However, there was no decisive battle with Malikian’s Eastern Roman Empire. Faced with the latter’s move to tear up all treaties, the Huns chose to retreat.
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| Sasanian Persian warrior fighting Eastern Roman soldiers
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The Huns' withdrawal may seem sudden, but in fact, there are traces to follow. In fact, only for the Eastern Roman army, the Huns were blocked by the latter's army in 442 AD and finally chose to retreat. Although the Huns eventually won the victory, the facts have begun to change, facing " The "weak" Eastern Romans, the Huns began to slowly become no longer invincible. The fact that is even more detrimental to the terror deterrence of the Hungarian army is that before Attila killed his brother, they once let the army descend from the Caucasus Mountains to attack the Kingdom of Armenia and the Sassanian Persian Empire. In history, there is no detailed record of the specific process of the war, but history tells us that the Huns were defeated, and they never attacked again.
The Sassanian Persian Empire, as an old rival that has faced off with the Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire for many years, its national power is not only inferior to the unified Roman Empire, even the divided Eastern Roman Empire has more national power than them. However, such a country can defeat the so-called invincible Huns. Even if the terrain factors in Armenia and the Caucasus are excluded, this also shows a problem, that is, the Huns are not invincible, or in other words, compared to the Huns. When they first appeared, the army's combat effectiveness declined.
Considering these two things, Attila’s decision not to fight East Rome is justified. For a good ruler like him, his own army has declined, and his opponent has dispatched a huge army, he is very likely to be I think I am not sure of winning.
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| The Huns' entry into Gaul finally triggered the war
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The Huns who avoided the war did not standstill. In 450 AD, Attila made another choice, which was to invade the Gaul region of the Western Roman Empire. Attila’s invasion of Gaul had two fuses. One was that the Franks entrenched in the northwest of Gaul had civil strife. The other was that the princess of the Western Roman Empire, Honoria, had an affair with the guards, so she secretly wrote The letter was brought to Attila, claiming that he wanted to marry Attila, and used half of the Western Roman land as a dowry. Attila then asked Valentinian III of Western Rome for the land. Of course, the latter could not agree to it, so the Huns used this as a reason to openly invade the Gaul province of the Western Roman Empire.
And this move caused the Huns to face the barbarians, their second main enemy besides Eastern Rome.
For the Huns, the main opponent of the Gaul region is not Western Rome, which is weaker than Eastern Rome, but other barbarian kingdoms entrenched here, such as the Frankish Kingdom, the Burgundian Kingdom, and the most powerful Sige. The Special Kingdom and so on. As the former defeated generals of the Huns, the Goths are not enough to fight against the Hungarian army led by Attila in most people's minds. However, what is interesting in history is that the former defeated generals may not always be subordinates. The defeated generals, the Visigoths, and the Huns are the most typical examples.
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| The Hun’s invasion was at first like a broken bamboo
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During Attila's invasion of Gaul, the most famous battle was the famous Battle of Sharon. Attila's Hun-barbarian army and the Roman and Gaul barbarian army led by the famous Roman general Aetius fought in the Sharon Plain. In this battle, the Western Romans were distributed from left to right. The Roman army of Aetius, the Amcai barbarian army, and the Visigothic kingdom army was deployed, while Attila’s army from left to right was the Eastern Gothic army, the Huns cavalry, and the northern barbarian army, Rome Fang has two strong wings and weak in the middle, while the Huns are strong in the middle and weak on both wings.
To put it simply, the Huns’ central cavalry easily defeated the Amcai people in Rome, but the two wings were defeated by the Romans and Visigoths. Although the fighting was fierce, the fate of the Hungarian army was jaw-dropping. From the battle to dusk, the Hungarian army was completely suppressed, and even Attila himself retreated to the chariot formation and saw the outside. The closer the Romans and Visigoths were desperate enough to think of self-immolation and died.
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| Sharon is the biggest defeat of Attila in his life, and it is also an important node in the decline of the Huns.
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The reason why he escaped is simple because Aetius didn’t want the Hungarian kingdom to perish. It happened that the Visigoth King Theodoric fell from the horse during the battle and was trampled to death by his cavalry, so he convinced him. Prince Torresmond led the army back to the throne, and then he led the army to retreat, which allowed Attila to escape.
Judging from the history and results of the Battle of Sharon, Attila did not choose to fight a decisive battle with the Eastern Roman Emperor Malikian. It was really a very wise choice. And later Attila attacked Western Rome for the second time, instead of choosing the Gaul region, but directly entering Italy, so that Aetius could not invite the barbarian kingdom of Gaul to send troops. At this time, Western Rome had lost a large area of land. Whether it was Gaul, Britain, Spain, and North Africa, either a large area was attributed to the barbarians, or the entire area had fallen, so it was quite weak, so Aetius did not even lead an army to attack. , But to sit and watch the Huns burned, killed, and plundered. However, Attila did not really destroy West Rome in the end, excluding factors such as supplies and diseases, and it was also closely related to the fact that East Rome began to outflank its future.
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| The recuperation and rejuvenation of Eastern Rome successfully restored national strength
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What's interesting is that after returning from Italy, Attila did not have any major military operations. The Huns did not attack the barbarians, nor did they send troops to Eastern Rome. On the surface, this was a recuperation, but in fact, Whether it is the emerging barbarian kingdom represented by Visigoths or the traditional power represented by Eastern Rome, they are no longer an opponent that the Huns can deal with.
And as Attila died violently after the wedding in 453 AD, the Huns' kingdom also tore the so-called "powerful" fig leaf. Attila's eldest son Erak was defeated and died in a battle with the rebellious barbarian army in 454 AD. Attila’s second son, Dunkissik, was simply driven out of the lair by the barbarian rebels and had to go south and try to attack Eastern Rome. At this time, it was 468 AD. Emperor Malikian had passed away and the successor Emperor Leo. Nor did he give the son of "God's Whip" good fruit. Under his instruction, an Eastern Roman army successfully ambushed the Hun king, cut off the head of Attila's son, and sent it to Constantinople. . Attila’s Huns’ kingdom disappeared just 15 years after his death.
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| Visigoths on the Way to Civilization
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Analyzing this period of history carefully, in fact, the decline and fall of the Huns are already very obvious. When the Huns were at the Battle of Sharon, they could not make up enough Hungarian national troops. Clan, this shows that the Huns’ combat power has already declined significantly at this time. The main rival of the Huns, the Eastern Roman Empire, was recuperating. After the tough emperor came to power, Attila did not dare to attack. The barbarians who were once defeated, especially the Visigoths, were able to defeat the Huns at Sharon, and finally did not dare to attack Gaul again.
In fact, the different changes between the Visigoths and the Huns were exactly the two choices that barbarians made after they came into contact with civilized countries. The warriors of the Huns are decreasing because of the fighting. Isn't it true that the Visigoths do not? But why did the Huns continue to weaken, while the Visigoths slowly became stronger? I personally think that even in the Attila era, the Huns did not establish a decent civilized state system from a historical point of view. They still obtained wealth through conquest, even though their army also learned the techniques of civilized countries, such as joining the siege. equipment. On the contrary, the Visigoths were relatively weak in the beginning and were defeated many times by the Western Roman Empire, but they eventually settled in the southwestern region of France today, learned from the Roman Empire, and endowed themselves with various civilized systems, plus the barbarians' martial arts. The characteristics of the Huns have not been lost. Therefore, once the defeated generals of the Huns were able to defeat the Huns.
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| The Huns eventually disappeared
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Similar examples are not uncommon in our country. For example, the Northern Wei and Liao Kingdoms in our history are examples of nomadic peoples becoming more powerful after absorbing the Central Plains culture, and those who are not civilized, even if they can gallop for a while with the use of force. , But all are short-lived. In fact, people like Attila are famous because of the rarity of his deeds. In the long history, it is normal for civilization to defeat barbarism, and the situation where barbarism defeats civilization like the Huns is rare because of their scarcity. More famous.
