Schlacht bei Pressburg by Peter Johann Nepomuk Geiger 1850
"Arnulf of Carinthia was supported by a Hungarian army when he invaded Moravia in 892. In the tenth century, Ottonian authors accused this late Carolingian monarch of unleashing the Magyars on Europe because of his desire to bring down the Moravian state. This chapter attempts to show that there is little reason to doubt their judgment. On the basis of admittedly fragmentary evidence, I surmise that Arnulf not only used the martial talents of these nomads to destroy Moravia, but he also probably employed some of them to further his policy aims in Italy, which resulted in his imperial coronation in 896. Although the Magyars remained loyal to Arnulf, they launched a major raid on Bavaria following his death in the autumn of 899.
In the early years of the tenth century, the struggle for control of the central Danubian basin began once more, this time between Bavarians and Magyars. The Moravian realm, by now in shambles, no longer played a major role, though Bavarian leaders belatedly tried to prop it up as a buffer against the Hungarians. One should not, however, consider the eventual Magyar triumph as an inevitable outcome. By the beginning of the tenth century, Bavarians had been conducting military operations in Pannonia for more than a century. They knew the terrain, and on several occasions they defeated Hungarian forces. There is no reason to believe that the Bavarians intended to surrender this huge frontier region to nomads from across the Carpathians without a struggle, which finally came to a bloody end in July of 907 at a place called Brezalauspurc [aka Battle of Pressburg or Battle of Pozsony], probably not modern Bratislava, as we shall see. In this encounter a large portion of the Bavarian nobility perished, permitting the Magyars to settle in the central Danubian basin, whence they raided Latin Christendom for the next half-century."
-Charles R. Bowlus. Franks, Moravians, and Magyars: The struggle for the Middle Danube
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| Schlacht bei Pressburg by Peter Johann Nepomuk Geiger 1850. Army of Eastern Francia crushed by the Magyars. |
Source:
Quote:
Charles R. Bowlus. Franks, Moravians, and Magyars: The struggle for the Middle Danube
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