After the discussion on Late Roman unit sizes really yielded some semi-definitive results, here's a new one:
Who really won the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains? I decided to bring this up after reading Hyun Jin Kim's view that it was a decisive, if Pyrrhic, Hunnic victory.
Let's look at a factual summary of the Battle:
- Both armies roughly numbered about 50,000 to 70,000 men each.
- The Battle took place on a ridge running North-South, with the Huns on the East side and Romans on the West side.
- The Battle took place at the Ninth Hour of the Day, which in Roman times on June 20th, 451, would have been between 2:29 and 2:31 PM.
- The Romans were on the Left side facing the Gepids, the Alans were in the center facing the Huns, and the Visigoths were on the Right facing a number of disunited Gothic groups.
- The Romans, Alans, and Thorismund attained the crest of the ridge, but Theodoric and the Gothic infantry did not.
- In the fighting, there was a brief lull in the battle (in which Jordanes claims Attila made a speech)
- The fighting grew fiercer, and Theodoric was slain beginning a Gothic withdrawal.
- The Alans begin to retreat, and Thorismund leads the Gothic cavalry in a (presumably downhill) charge against the Hunnic center.
- Attila retreats, and Thorismund and Aetius find themselves near the Gothic camp amongst Hun forces, while the Hunnic forces are unable to approach the Roman camp due to their archers (and presumably Scorpiones)
- On the following day, Attila is prepared to fight again if he has to, and the Roman side assumes they won due to the sheer number of bodies.
- Aetius sends the Franks and the Visigoths Home, allegedly to secure their kingdoms.
- Attila retreats accross the Rhine, leaving only Aetius on the Battlefield who collects whatever remains from the past few days of looting the dead.
- Allegedly the Alans find the Huns and fight them again that year or the next.
I will post my views soon. Would like to get some opinions first.
Without getting into who won the Battle of Chalons, I think the big winners in the aftermath of the battle were the Franks & the Burgundians. Western Roman power seemed pretty impotent in Gaul after Aetius died & there was generally nothing they could do about retaking Africa from the Vandals or even stopping the sack of Rome, at this stage their army or what was left of it was almost completely comprised of barbarians while the Hunnic empire descended into civil war & quite quickly fell apart. The power of the Visigoths waned over time & it seems that the Alans, who probably outnumbered the Vandals in 406AD when they crossed the Rhine, through warfare & defections dwindled in numbers but from 440s AD seemed to relish their role as Aetius's enforcers unfortunately in the aftermath of Chalons were generally absorbed by other cultures.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
Quote:I will post my views soon. Would like to get some opinions first.
While maybe saying that Attila won the battle of Chalons might be a big stretch, maybe a stalemate at best, I do applaud Kim for actually breaking away from the commonly held view stemming from Jordanes or Cassiodorus which exaggerates the role of the Visigoths and downgrades the contribution of Aetius's forces and the Alans as well as the other forces allied to Aetius. I admit I am a bit of an Alans fan and have always felt that they have been cheated of their prominent role in the battle with Jordanes biased description. I know you are a big fan of Aetius and I am sure you have some opinions on his role in the battle.
For one thing, although not of a military background, I have always found it strange that according to Jordanes the cowardly untrustworthy Alans were placed in the centre of the allied line and had to face the Hunnic component of Attila's army, which were probably his shock troops, because they could not be trusted to fight and Aetius wanted to ensure they fought. With Aetius fighting for the ridge on the left and Theodoric holding the right wing the respective wings would be too busy fighting their own little battles to be able to stop the Alans from withdrawing from the battle anyway. Maybe there were a few forces from other allies to help the Alans in the centre. To be perfectly honest how do we know that by Chalons that it was not a mainly infantry battle. We assume that the Alans were horsemen but from the lack of details from Roman sources from Ist century AD onwards we never hear if Sarmatians or Alans had infantry with the possible exception of Arrian who in his Array against the Alans gives the impression that the Alans of the 2nd Century Ad were a cavalry force., but did every 5th century Alan ride a horse or only the nobles or leaders? I suppose the same goes with 5th Century Huns as opposed to 4th Century Huns.
For those who have not read the book, Kim writes that rather than winning the day as Jordanes states, that when Theodoric was killed trying to halt the Goths from retreating from the battlefield and separating from the Alans who held the centre. It seems the Visigoths were wavering and breaking formation and creating a gap for the Huns to exploit and Theodoric was trying to regroup them when according to Jordanes he fell off his horse and was trampled by his own men. But it seems Jordanes sheeted the blame on to the Alans in the centre for breaking and thus Thorismund rode in regrouped his men and saved the day and the cowardly Alans are heard of no more. (A strange quote from Getica 40.210 which says that the Visigoths separated from the Alans who were in the centre then fell upon the Huns, so how did they fall upon the Huns, who were attacking the Alan centre, when they moved further right, away from the centre). Strange! I think the Alans were Aetius's most reliable troops, proven at Amorica and Valence and that was why they were tasked with holding Orleans and it was their spirited resistance at Orleans that caused the Huns to retreat back to Hungary in the first place, as Chalons was well east of Orleans. Thorismund and what was left of his army hightailed it pretty quickly after the battle, whether at the urging of Aetius or whether Thorismund needed to secure his succession at Toulouse, but who knows. I agree with Kim that the role of the Goths was highly inflated and magnified by Jordanes to cover their inglorious performance. :wink:
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
In terms of my book it's not finished, but this is my view:
Basically it's this:
There were a lot of men at the battle, and several armies acting in tandem is very difficult to coordinate. Basically, what I think happened is a partially successful feigned retreat:
The Alans under Sambida begin a feigned retreat, but at that moment Theodoric is killed and the Goths begin to retreat. Thorismund and the Gothic cavalry, seeing the situation, join Sambida's Alans in the downhill charge and hit the Hunnic center from the side at the same time the Alans hit them from the front, allowing them to be cut down.
The Huns, and Gothic infantry are retreating while the Alans and Thorismund are advancing. Aetius on the left is also advancing as the Roman line holds against the Gepids.
This in turn explains how Aetius and Thorismund ended up on the wrong side of the Battlefield, and how hunnic forces ended up near the Roman and Gothic camp as the various regiments became entangled with one another. In the confusion that followed, various sides had to fight their way back to each other's camps.
@Michael
Also, the Vita Germani records the Alans being mainly Horsemen in 442 AD. But they didn't number enough to hold the Hunnic center. With the Romans and Goths each numbering about 25,000, I'd say everyone else got wedged in the center with them as support.
I think it was mostly an infantry battle, but Cavalry made the turning point.
As for after the battle, I have a theory about the second Chalons and Odovacar's presence in Gaul: he was in charge of the force sent to ravage the Frankish countryside into submission, and didn't arrive in time for the Battle. So he ended up ravaging North Gaul until the Alans defeated him a few months later and he spent the next decade or so as a Soldier for hire.
I'm not a great fan of Jordanes, who attempts to rewrite history to the glory of the Goths. I find it incredulous that the central position of the Alans was due to their perceived cowardice by Aetius who had previously used them successfully. I have always felt their so-called "retreat" was the same old "Parthian Shot ploy" used by every steppe tribe going back to the Massagetae when the feigned retreat worked so well for Tomyris. Again we see it at Hastings when used by Alan the Red. We know they rounded and were not fleeing. :whistle:
The idea that the Alans were infantry is quite the novel idea. I can picture them pretending to actually ride horses while every 10th man clapped empty coconuts together... clipity clop, clipity clop... in a good Holy Grail tradition. The Alanic motto, of course, was, "Run away! Run away!"
In the real world, the Alans appear to have held their own (even backed up by the Visigoth cavalry). Perhaps Chalons was an infantry battle, but the Alans kept their head and were decisive in terminating a situation that could have... would have... been a draw. ;-)
Alan J. Campbell
member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians
Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)
"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
I get a bit confused about Jordanes, why would he change Priscus's story which said that Theodoric was killed by the spear of Andag and changed it to him falling off his horse and being trampled by his own forces. I don't see the point except that for some reason he hated Alans in general. Maybe he was treated badly by his father, I don't know. Its not only that he downplayed the role of the Alans in the army of Aetius but Kim mentions in his book that Andag although an Ostrogoth could have been of the Amal clan may have been of Alan blood as his name could be Germanized from Andac which was probably Iranian from a similar name found in a 3rd century inscription in Tanais, Andaakos. Very strange. :?
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
I take your point in a way but he didn't mind mentioning that the Ostrogoths were fighting on Attila's side and to me it doesn't sound too glorious to have the king of the Visigoths fall off his horse and get trampled by his own troops while they were fleeing than to die in battle, killed by a spear. I think there may be a bit more to it than a perception of Goth unity.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
Actually, we're giving Jordanes a bad rap. The Origio paraphrases Cassiodorus, so we really don't who said what. :dizzy:
When I mentioned Jordanes "glorified" the Goths, I was really implying how the Gothic origin legends became Jordanesian fact. Yet strangely enough, when we get to the historical period, Theodoric is falling off his horse.
Alan J. Campbell
member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians
Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)
"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
Kim states in his book that Attila wanted to fulfil three objectives in his invasion of Gaul. To subdue the Franks and put his preferred candidate on the Frankish throne bringing the Franks under his sphere of influence, to pressure the Alans of Orleans as well as the Visigoths to defect to his cause and to meet and destroy Aetius's army there by making the Western Empire too weak to resist his demands of tribute.
.The first part of this strategy is confirmed by the route taken by Huns in their invasion of Gaul. Tournai, Cologne and Trier are attacked first and occupied and sacked. If he had succeeded in taking Orleans then it probably would have been an easy task to take the capital of the Visigoths Toulouse or at least detach the Visigoths from Aetius. The next part of his strategy was to bring what was left of the Western field army to battle so he could destroy it like he did the Eastern army.
While it seems he achieved his first objective, he did not succeed in the second and the third is debatable but it seems that the power of Aetius declined after the battle of Chalons as even the following year he was in no position to stop Attila's invasion of Italy. So even though the battle of Chalons probably ended in a stalemate, Attila probably achieved most of his objectives, although at great cost to both sides in that the western Roman field army which probably wasn't that strong before Chalons, took heavy casualties and never seemed to recover after the battle. In twenty five years the last emperor was deposed by Odoacer although Nepos ruled a small rump state in Dalmatia till 480AD and Syragius ruled Soissons till he was murdered in 487AD. But never again was the western army a force. Sounds like a good strategy from a 21st century historian's perspective but maybe the situation was a little bit more complex in the 5th Century.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
I read your PDF and you've done an admirable job at sorting out the mess. Congratulations. mile:
However, I did find one flaw. Under the heading of The Order of Battle, you said, "... while the Huns faced the Alans under Sambida in the center." As far as I know, Sambida was a "chieftain" of the Alans in southeastern France. The Alanic "king" who fought at Orleans and then the Catalaunian Plains was Sangiban.
The Alans who fought at the Battle of Chalons were from the Orleans-Loire area. They were Arian Christians who stopped short in 407, leaving the other Alans and the Vandals to continue south into Spain. Possibly their leader was Goar/Echocar/Eothar, three names yet all the same king. We know that Bishop Germanus halted him when his Alans were ordered to crush a minor rebellion in Armorica. Since Germanus died at Rome in 448, this Goar was still living just prior to that time. His replacement was Sangiban, perhaps from the same family/ruling-class.
Sangiban was first recorded by Jordanes. And while he managed to "muddle" history, Jordanes was a stickler for nomens, anal-retentively so. In ancient times, a person's name was important. Unfortunately, we have no other primary sources to call upon. In "modern" times Sangiban is credited correctly in 1748 by Sale. In 1788, Edward Gibbon calls the Alanic king at Chalons by the tag of "Sangiban." Same man, same name, as in Jordanes. Gibbon was followed by Herbert (1838), Greenwood (1836), Breed (1885), White (1965), Montgomery (1968), Frassetto (2003 and 2013), Sidnell (2007), Cummins (2008), Tucker (2010), Reynolds (2011), and the list could go on and on.
How a "chieftain" from southern France became the "king" of the Orleans Alans remains rather inexplicable. There are incorrect sources out there, perhaps some authors assuming that "Sambida" sounded a lot like "Sangiban." Actually, it doesn't. :dizzy:
To me it's very important to give a man his due by using his correct name and personage, especially to the leader of a contingent that turned the tide at Chalons. I personally have faith in both Jordanes and Gibbon on this point. Sangiban was Sangiban, and Sambida was the other guy. :whistle:
Alan J. Campbell
member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians
Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)
"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
ad: :errr:
