“The Mongols of Europe” .. the “Asian Huns” tribes that annihilated the peoples of the continent
In the seventh century AH, a brutal human flood swept the Islamic world, as waves of Mongol tribes attacked the Islamic countries one after another, burning green and dry, and ravaging the country and people, before forces from Egypt and the Levant succeeded in defeating them in the Battle of Ain Jalut led by the Mamluk Sultan Saif. Al-Din Qutz, who broke their thorn, and repelled their danger from the Muslim peoples and all mankind.
But what many may not know is that the European peoples were subjected to barbarian invasions, just like the invasions of the Mongols, but long centuries before that. Invasions shook the two parts of the Roman Empire, at the hands of the "Huns" tribes, who were similar to the Mongols of Genghis Khan and Hulagu, before their biography faded into history and their traces were cut off, so what is
? the story of the Huns people
Beginnings of the Hun Empire
The roots of the Huns go back to the Asian continent, but their origins are not known with certainty. Some estimates attribute them to the Xiongnu people who ruled large parts of Mongolia until the second century AD, while others attribute them to Kazakhstan or other regions of Asia. The Huns migrated in small, scattered groups to the eastern parts of Europe, and at that time they had no known state and no unified leader.
These nomadic pastoral tribes, whose members did not know agriculture or tend to settle, would play pivotal roles in European history during the fourth and fifth centuries AD. In 370 AD, the Hun warriors crossed the Volga River and began to attack the Alan tribes, then harassed the Ostrogoths who They were at enmity with the Roman Empire, and in the year 376 AD they began to attack the lands of the Visigoths and forced many of them to flee to the Romans , who were alerted at the time to this imminent danger coming from the east.
The Hun Empire extended over most of the lands of northern, eastern and central Europe
The Huns began to harass the lands of the Roman Empire beginning in 395, at that time, the Roman Empire , which controlled vast areas of Europe, and the greatest kingdoms of the ancient world, was going through a stage of historical weakness, on the impact of external invasions from the Goths and Barbarians, and internal conflicts over governance, and deteriorating economic conditions.
Theodosius I was the last ruler of a united Rome, and after his death in 495 the empire was divided between his two sons. Orcadius ruled the eastern half of the empire that would be known as the Byzantine Empire with its capital in Constantinople, then his son Theodosius II succeeded him, and Honorius ruled the Western Roman Empire with its capital, Rome.
“God’s Wrath” on European Peoples
By 432 AD, the Huns had gathered under a powerful leader called Rugela, who concluded a treaty with Theodosius II requiring the Romans to pay the Huns an annual tribute, in return for their help against the attacks of the Goths, the Huns then had a strong state and a stable civilization from the lands that constitute the present The state of Hungary, and they enjoyed a strong army consisting of infantry and cavalry of a mighty reputation.
The Huns were strong knights, growing their children from childhood on horses, and although they tended to wear simple clothes, they took care of their horses and adorned them with saddles and stirrups inlaid with gold and silver, and they followed a unique method in war, moving very quickly and with a bit of chaos. Apparently, causing confusion and panic among their enemies, they would attack their opponents, bring them down from horseback, and crush them to death.
Like a torrential torrent, the Huns carried out their raids, and moved from city to city, and rarely kept captives, they preferred to kill all who found their way, men, women and children, they were good at using the weapon of terror, so that their most famous leader Attila will be famous in history as “God’s whip,” as we will come to mention later, which is very similar to the attacks of the Tatar tribes that would conquer the world many centuries later.
The Huns had superior military technology than their opponents. They were adept at archery, they used war bows extensively, and their arrows rarely missed even from a distance. Historical sources indicate that the physical composition of the Huns also played a role in spreading fear among their opponents. They dissected the remains of the bones of the Huns centuries after the extinction of their civilization.
Attila the Hun invades the Roman Empire
If before the year 434 the Romans had suffered the scourge of the Huns, the later days proved that those days were but a small test of the infernal inferno that the next ruler of the Huns, Attila the Hun, the most famous ruler of the Huns ever, immortalized in history books as one of the most conquerors Brutality in history, while Roman sources mention him as one of the people who inflicted the most woes on the Roman Empire’s people and inflicted misery on its people, until he was nicknamed “The Lord’s Scourge” or “The Curse of the Lord.”
Attila, the nephew of the Hun Emperor Rugela, was a man of short stature, with a large head and sharp eyes, “always looking around at those around him as if he was enjoying terrorizing them,” as he was described , and when Rugela died, the empire was divided between Attila, his brother, and Bleda. But in the year 445 Blida is found murdered, the finger is pointed at Attila, who may have orchestrated the murder of his brother to seize power, which is consistent with his bloody character.
Attila is famous for his horrific campaigns against the Eastern Roman Empire and its capital, Constantinople, where he attacked his army like a deluge, plundering forts and cities and destroying almost all the lands around the city, then turning back, having succeeded in forcing the Emperor of Constantinople Theodosius II to accept his terms.
A painting showing Attila the Hun
The first of these campaigns was in the year 442, when Theodosius II decided to refrain from paying the prescribed tribute of pure gold to the Huns, and Attila invaded the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire with his army, forcing Theodosius to submit to the tax, before Attila's attacks on his empire were repeated in subsequent years, and in every Once, the Emperor of Constantinople had no choice but to submit to Attila’s “blackmail” and pay the annual tribute of pure gold, which the Emperor of the Huns raised every time.
History Turns the Page of the Empire of the Huns
In 450, Attila decided to change his direction a little, towards the West, to the Western Roman Empire, after she sent Honoria, an ambitious young girl, sister of Emperor Valentin, to ask him for help in obtaining her share of the power of her brother, and to offer him a wedding ring in return. that.
Attila salivated, and sent to the Emperor of Rome threatening and threatening him, and he himself led a great army across the Rhine River in 451, as his soldiers wreaked havoc in the cities and villages of the empire, before a great battle took place in northeastern France, the Battle of Chalon between Roman soldiers and the Goths who allied with them On the other side was Attila's army, which was exhausted from the distance, and from the diseases and pestilences that began to spread among its soldiers.
Unusually, Attila received a major defeat for the first and only time in the history of his battles, forcing with his soldiers to withdraw and resort to their usual hobby in destroying and sabotaging Italian cities, before the Pope of Rome Leo I, whom he met in 452, mediated with him, so that the Pope's mediation succeeded in persuading Attila to withdraw with His soldiers from Italy and back to the lands of the Great Hungarian Plain.
Attila recovered the effects of his defeat, and tried to retake the ball by attacking Constantinople again in 453, but fate did not allow him, as he was found dead with severe bleeding on the night of his wedding to a new bride. There are many accounts of the cause of death between those who consider it the result of a severe drunkenness, or excessive sexual activity, and those who consider it a conspiracy hatched by the new wife herself, as she belonged to one of the Germanic tribes that Attila had always terrorized with his campaigns.
The sons of Attila fought for power after his death, which led to the collapse of the empire of the Huns a few years later, and they are no longer mentioned in history, and some explain this that Attila did not rule a tight empire with an elaborate administrative or political system, but rather his state was a fragile tribal alliances It completely disintegrated after his death.
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