The Historians' History of the World 07

But civil wars, the strengthening of royalty, and the activity of the church were but a part of the interests of Otto. From the day of his coronation the Slavs had been ravaging the frontiers on the northeast and the Hungarians had raided the rich valleys of the upper Danube. In campaign after campaign the king and his lieutenants kept the invaders at bay. To secure his kingdom, Otto granted larger powers to the counts of the border, the markgrafen, and thus prepared the way for the power of Brandenburg and of Austria (the East Mark). He encouraged German colonisation along the Elbe, and called to the assistance of his armies the influence of Christianising missionaries. The reformation of his clergy stood him in good stead, for not since the day of Charles the Great did the missionary effort of the monks and clergy reap such triumphs over heathenism and win so much in land and people for Christendom.

VICTORY OVER THE MAGYARS AND WENDS

But the Hungarians were still unsubdued, and in the year 955 they made a vast and final test of the strength of the new kingdom.a A powerful party in Bavaria, headed by the count Werner, brother to the fallen Arnulf, were induced by the hatred they bore to Henry to have recourse to the Hungarians, whom they invited into the country. Confident of success on account of their enormous numerical strength, the arrogant barbarians boasted that their horses should drain every river in Germany. Augsburg, whose supposed treasures attracted their cupidity, was besieged by them, but made a brave defence under the command of Burkhard of Swabia. Their king, Pulzko, was encamped at Günsburg. Otto instantly assembled the arrière-ban of the entire empire; the Bohemians united their forces with his; the Saxons, at that time engaged in opposing the Slavs, alone failed. The two armies came within sight of each other on the Lech, near Augsburg. Before the battle commenced, Otto addressed his troops, as his father had done on a similar occasion, and vowed, when referring to the victory won by Henry, to found a bishopric at Meresburg, if God granted him success.

It was the 10th of August, 955. The sun poured with intense heat upon the plain. The Hungarians rapidly crossed the Lech, fell upon the rear of the German army, dispersed the Bohemians, and were pressing hard upon the Swabians, when the fortune of the day was again turned by Conrad, who, anxious to retrieve his fault and to regain the confidence of his master, performed miracles of valour at the head of the Franconians. The emperor struggled sword in hand in the thickest of the fight. A vast number of the enemy were drowned in attempting to escape across the river. Conrad was mortally wounded in the neck by an arrow aimed at him by one of the fugitives, when in the act of raising his helmet in order to breathe more freely. A hundred thousand Hungarians are said to have fallen on this occasion.[145] Two of their princes, Lehel and Bulcs, were by the emperor’s command hanged on the gates of Augsburg. According to some writers, King Pulzko and four of the war-chiefs were hanged before the gates of Ratisbon. Werner was killed by the enraged Hungarians, but few of whom escaped to their country, almost the whole of the fugitives being slain or hunted down like wild beasts by the Bavarian peasants. The adherents of the adverse party were mercilessly punished by Henry of Bavaria, who caused them to be buried alive, or burned in beds of quicklime. Herold, bishop of Salzburg, was by his orders deprived of sight, and the patriarch Lupus of Aquileia met with a still more wretched fate. This was the last inroad attempted by the Hungarians, who for the future remained within their frontier, on their side equally undisturbed by the Germans. The booty was so enormous that a peasant is said to have had a silver plough made out of his share. The innumerable Hungarian horses taken on this occasion also gave rise to the establishment of the Keferloher horse fair.d

THE REVIVAL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

[936-962 A.D.]

For a quarter of a century Otto (936-962) ruled with no higher title than king of the Franks. It was not till the winter of 962 that this successor of Charlemagne received the imperial crown, and proclaimed once more to the world the fact of that union of Roman and Teuton, upon which the structure of modern society was to rest. We have now to trace the story of what Bryce regards as the real foundation of the Roman Empire of the Middle Ages.

German Peasant of the Tenth Century