The Battle of Chalons

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. Although Aetius had waged his own personal fight against the tide of the times, he had not been able to hold back the wave of invasions that had rolled over the West ever since Alaric and the Visigoths had sacked the city of Rome in 410.

One of the most fascinating features of the story of Attila and the Huns is that the background to their potent penetration of Roman Gaul and the decisive Battle of Chalons is every bit as spellbinding as the actual combat itself. Al though parts of the story are nearly incredible, the evidence for it is reasonably good-as good, at least, as evidence ever is for the fifth century AD. It is a tale of lust for sex and power, for money and land, and the principal actors are as colorful as any who ever lived.

After securing a strong position on the Roman side of the Danube the Huns were checked by the famous Eastern Roman general, Aspar, as they raided Thrace (442). Then, in 447, Attila descended into the Balkans in another great war against the East. The Huns marched as far as Thermopylae and stopped only when the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II, begged for terms. Attila accepted payment of all tribute in arrears and a new annual tribute of 2,100 pounds of gold. The Huns were also given considerable territory south of the Danube. One source says of this campaign, "There was so much killing and blood letting that no one could number the dead. The Huns pillaged the churches and monasteries, and slew the monks and virgins....They so devastated Thrace that it will never rise again and be as it was before." This strong victory in the East left Attila free to plan the attack on the West that culminated in the invasion of Gaul.

Another of the great barbaric chieftains of the age, Gaiseric, King of the Vandals, played a role in the prelude to Chalons. He urged Attila to attack the Visigoths in the West because of the hostility between Vandals and Visigoths. A generation earlier Gaiseric's son had married the daughter of Theodoric I, King of the Visigoths, but in 442 the Roman Emperor Valentinian III agreed to the betrothal of his daughter to Gaiseric's son, and the Visigothic princess was returned to her people with her nose and ears inhumanly mutilated. From that time on the enmity of Vandals and Visigoths was great, and when Attila did cross the Rhine, the Visigoths joined Aetius against the Huns, but the Vandals stayed out of the war.

Two other considerations proved especially important. One was the death of the Eastern Emperor Theodosius II, who fell from his horse and died in 450. His successor, Marcian, took a hard line on barbarian encroachment in the Balkans and refused to pay Attila the usual subsidy. The fury of the Hun was monstrous, but he decided to take out his wrath on the West, because it was weaker than the East, and because one of history's most peculiar scandals gave Attila a justification for war with the Western Emperor. Honoria, Emperor Valentinian's sister, had been discovered in 449 in an affair with her steward. The unfortunate lover was executed, and Honoria, who was probably pregnant, was kept in seclusion. In a rage she smuggled a ring and a message to the King of the Huns and asked Attila to become her champion. He treated this as a marriage proposal and asked for half of the Western Empire as her dowry. So when he crossed the Rhine, he could claim that he merely sought by force what was his by right of betrothal to Honoria.

After massive preparations Attila invaded the Rhine with a large army of Huns and allied barbarian tribes. In his force was a sizable body of Ostrogoths and other Germanic warriors, including Burgundians and Alans who lived on the barbarian side of the frontier. The Franks were split between pro and anti-Roman factions. As early as April Attila took Metz, and fear swept through Gaul. Ancient accounts give figures that range between 300,000 and 700,000 for the army of the Huns. Whatever the size, it was clearly enormous for the fifth century AD. Some of the greatest cities of Europe were sacked and put to the torch: Rheims, Mainz, Strasbourg, Cologne, Worms and Trier. Paris fortunately had the advantage of having a saint in the city and was spared.

In any event the Hunnic invasion of Gaul was a huge undertaking. The Huns had a reputation for cruelty that was not undeserved. In the 440's one of Attila's attacks against the East in the Balkans aimed at a city in the Danubian provinces, Naissus. It was located about a hundred miles south of the Danube on the Nischava River. The Huns so devastated the place that when Roman ambassadors passed through to meet with Attila several years later, they had to camp outside the city on the river. The river banks were still filled with human bones, and the stench of death was so great that no one could enter the city. Many cities of Gaul would soon suffer the same fate.

After he secured the Rhine, Attila moved into central Gaul and put Orleans under siege. Had he gained his objective, he would have been in a strong position to subdue the Visigoths in Aquitiane, but Aetius had put together a formidable coalition against the Hun. Working frenetically, the Roman leader had built a powerful alliance of Visigoths, Alans and Burgundians, uniting them with their traditional enemy, the Romans, for the defense of Gaul. Even though all parties to the protection of the Western Roman Empire had a common hatred of the Huns, it was still a remarkable achievement on Aetius' part to have drawn them into an effective military relationship.

Attila had not expected such vigorous action on the part of the Romans, and he was too wise to let his army be trapped around the walls of Orleans, so he abandoned the siege, according to one source, on June 14. This gave the Romans and their allies the advantage in morale as the Huns withdrew into the open country of the modern Champagne district of France. There on the Catalonian Plains (some believe closer to Troyes than to Chalons) a great battle was fought, probably about June 20. Attila seems to have been shaken by his sudden reversal of fortune. Uncertain of victory and in the confusion of retreat, on the day of the battle he stayed behind his lines in the wagon laager until afternoon. It is likely that he planned to begin fighting late enough in the day to fall back under darkness of night should that prove necessary. He did finally move up his army in battle order.

On the right wing of the Hunnic army Attila stationed the bulk of his Germanic allies. The Ostrogoths fought on the left, and in the center Attila took position with his best troops, the Huns. On the other side Aetius decide to put his least reliable troops, the Alans, in the center to take what ever assault Attila directed towards them. The Visigoths were placed on the Roman right, and the Romans themselves took the left. Aetius clearly hoped to execute a double envelopment, hitting hard against the two weak flanks of Attila's army while fighting a defensive, holding action in the center. When the Romans on the left were able to seize some high ground on the flank of the Hunnic right wing during an initial skirmish, they gained a considerable advantage.

Thus began one of the Western world's greatest and most decisive battles. All the sources agree that it was a costly one in human lives: cadavera vero innumera ("truly countless bodies"), is the way one ancient author puts it. Attila struck hard against the Alans in the Roman center. As he drove them back the Romans on his right moved down in a sharp attack. The forward momentum of the Huns in the center exposed their flank to an attack by Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, and as night fell, the Huns had taken a beating though losses on both sides were extraordinary. Attila retreated to the safety of his laager, and the archers of the Huns kept the Romans at bay. Theodoric had lost his life in the battle.

In fact at this point the battle was over. Some on the Roman side wanted Aetius to resume the fighting the next day, but he chose not to. Perhaps he wanted to leave Attila with his forces, though battered, still intact in order to keep the barbarians of Gaul united behind Rome. In any event, he encouraged the new King of the Visigoths to hurry back to Aquitaine to secure his accession to the throne. Attila began his withdrawal back across the Rhine and was able to effect it easily. Many have criticized Aetius for making things too easy for the Huns, for not destroying their army, but it is not necessary to introduce political considerations to explain the Roman commander's motives. Militarily he did the right thing. The sources make it clear that the Roman alliance also took heavy losses at Chalons, and Attila was merely a wounded tiger. He continued to have considerable military power. Although the Hun had been beaten in a bloody battle, it was probably wise for Aetius to allow his savage foe a line of retreat. To have driven Attila the Hun out of the Empire was satisfaction enough. It is true that in the following year Attila invaded Italy and caused much suffering before he withdrew, but if he had launched a successful counterattack in Gaul the whole course of Western history might have been changed. Unlike most other barbarians of the age, the Huns were not Christians, and their respect for the Greco-Roman Christian civilization of the Late Empire was much more limited even than that of Visigoth and Vandal.

In any event, the great Hun spared Rome and withdrew from Italy. Twice in successive years, at Chalons and in Northern Italy, the menace of the Huns had proved incapable of bringing the Western Empire to its knees. Perhaps Rome's last great service to the West was to serve as a buffer between the Asiatic Huns and the Germanic barbarians whose destiny was to lay the medieval foundations of the modern, western nations. Aetius had been blamed by many Italians for not having destroyed Attila and the Huns in Gaul, but "the last of the Romans" had contributed substantially to the ruin of the once proud barbarian nation. Its place in the pages of history was over.

To be sure, the exact location of the battle has been disputed and is in doubt. In that general area of modern France it has been a favorite occupation of retired colonels to spend their weekends looking for evidence of the battle field. But there are many extremely important ancient battles whose exact locations are uncertain: Plataea, Issus, Cannae, Zama, and Pharsalus, to name but a few. Considering the paucity of ancient evidence uncertainty of that sort is to be expected, and it can hardly be used as evidence that the battles were not important. As to exaggerating the danger of Attila and the Huns, why were they less dangerous than Hannibal and the Carthaginians or Alaric and the Visigoths it is true that the threat of the Huns to Rome had not been entirely removed by Aatius' victory at Chalons. Though beaten and forced to retreat across the Rhine, Attila still had a powerful force, and he had not learned his lesson. The next year (452) he crossed over the Alps and moved down into Italy, launching another great invasion that terrorized the inhabitants of the Western Roman Empire. In some ways this second invasion of the West was even more savage than the first. The city of Aquileia at the tip of the Adriatic was wiped off the face of the earth. The fugitives from that pitiful city are supposed to have fled into the lagoons of the Adriatic and to have founded the new city of Venice. Much of the Po Valley-Milan, Verona, and Padua--was devastated and depopulated. The Hun had pillaged and destroyed Northern Italy! Aatius found it much more difficult to persuade Visigoths and Alans to help in the defense of Italy than he had a year earlier in organizing them to protect Gaul. For awhile it appeared that Italy would be lost to the invaders, but actually Attila's position was weaker than the Romans realized, undoubtedly because of the serious losses he had suffered the previous year at Chalons. There is a famous tradition that Pope Leo I met Attila in Northern Italy at the confluence of the Minicio and the Po and persuaded him to leave Italy with a display of eloquence and a show of elaborate sacerdotal robes. There occurred, according to legend, one of the most famous miracles in the history of Christianity-St. Peter and St. Paul appeared to Attila threatening him with instant death if he ignored the urgings of Leo. In an act that added immeasurably to the influence of the fledgling papacy, an obliging Attila led his army out of Italy. It was probably not so much the influence of Leo as the fact that his troops were short of supplies that motivated the great barbarian leader. There had been a famine in Italy in 450-51, and logistical support had never been a strong point for barbarian armies. Also a plague swept through the army of the Huns, and the Eastern Emperor Marcian sent an army across the Danube to strike into the heartland of the Huns' territory. When these factors are added to the disastrous loses the year earlier at Chalons, it is obvious why Attila was able to see merit in the humanitarian arguments of Pope Leo.