And here let us take our leave of Roland the brave, whose brief story of fact has been rounded into so vast a story of fiction that the actual histories of few men equal in extent that of this hero of romance.
CHARLEMAGNE AND THE AVARS.
Striking is the story which the early centuries of modern Europe have to tell us. After the era of the busy building of empire in which the sturdy old Romans were the active agents, there came an era of the overthrow of empire, during which the vast results of centuries of active civilization seemed about to sink and be lost in the seething whirlpool of barbarism. The wild hordes of the north of Europe overflowed the rich cities and smiling plains of the south, and left ruin where they found wealth and splendor. Later, the half-savage nomades of eastern Europe and northern Asia—the devastating Huns—poured out upon the budding kingdoms which had succeeded the mighty empire of Rome, and threatened to trample under foot all that was left of the work of long preceding ages. Civilization had swung downward into barbarism; was barbarism to swing downward into savagery, and man return to his primitive state?
Against such a conceivable fate of Europe Charlemagne served as a mighty bulwark, and built by his genius an impermeable wall against the torrent of savage invasion, saying to its inflowing waves, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther." Attila, the "Scourge of God," in the track of whose horses' hoofs "no grass could grow," met his only great defeat at Châlons-sur-Marne, on the soil of Gaul. He died in Hungary; his hordes were scattered; Europe again began to breathe. But not long had the Huns of Attila ceased their devastations when another tribe of Hunnish origin appeared, and began a like career of ravage and ruin. These called themselves Avars. Small in numbers at first, they grew by vanquishing and amalgamating other tribes of Huns until they became the terror and threatened to become the masters of Europe. Hungary, the centre of Attila's great circle of power, was made their place of abode. Here was the palace and stronghold of their monarchs, the Chagans, and here they continued a threat to all the surrounding nations, while enjoying the vast spoils which they had wrung from ruined peoples.
Time passed on; civilization showed feeble signs of recovery; France and Italy became its abiding-places; but barbarian invasion still threatened these lands, and no security could be felt while the hordes of the north and east remained free to move at will. This was the task that Charlemagne was born to perform. Before his day the Huns of the east, the Saxons of the north, the Moors of the south kept the growing civilization of France in constant alarm. After his day aggression by land was at an end; only by sea could the north invade the south.
The record of the deeds of Charlemagne is a long one. The Saxons were conquered and incorporated into the kingdom of the Franks. Then collision with the Avars took place. The story of how Charlemagne dealt with these savage hordes is one of the most interesting episodes in the extended tale of his wars, and we therefore select it for our present theme. The Avars had long been quiet, but now again began to stir, making two invasions, one of Lombardy, the other of Bavaria. Both were repelled. Stung by defeat, they raised a greater army than before, and in 788 crossed the Danube, determined in their savage souls to teach these proud Franks a lesson, and write on their land in blood the old story of the prowess and invincibility of the Huns. To their alarm and astonishment they found themselves not only checked, but utterly routed, thousands of them being left dead upon the field, and other thousands swallowed up by the Danube, in their wild effort to swim that swollen stream.
This brings us to the record of the dealings of Charlemagne with the Huns, who had thus dared to invade his far-extending kingdom. Vast had been the work of this mighty monarch in subduing the unquiet realms around him. Italy had been made a part of his dominions, Spain invaded and quieted, and the Saxons, the fiercest people of the north, forced to submit to the power of the Franks. Now the Avars of Hungary, the most dangerous of the remaining neighbors of Charlemagne's great empire, were to be dealt with.
During the two years succeeding their defeat, overtures for peace passed between the Avars and Charlemagne, overtures which, perhaps, had their chief purpose in the desire to gain time to prepare for war.
These nomadic hordes were celebrated alike for their cunning and their arrogance,—cunning when they had an object to gain, arrogance when they had gained it. In their dealings with Charlemagne they displayed the same mixture of artfulness and insolence which they had employed in their dealings with the empire of the East. But they had now to do with a different man from the weak emperors of Constantinople. Charlemagne continued his negotiations, but prepared for hostilities, and in the spring of 791 put himself at the head of a powerful army, prepared to repay the barbarian hordes with some of the havoc which they had dealt out to the other nations of Europe.