[Chapter VI.]
CHALONS
If, in the battle of Chalons, Attila and his Huns had been victorious over the combined forces of the semi-Christianized Visigoths under Theoderic and the Romans under Ætius—then Hungvari influence rather than Teutonic would have dominantly determined the progress of the civilized world.
Rome had fallen: effete in her withered hand lay the rod of empire: and swarming about her, now quarrelling among themselves and with her, now fraternizing, but always more or less in awe of her prostrate majesty were her barbarous children—Franks, Burgundians, Alans, Lombards, Gauls, Alemanni, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths. These had known Rome in the hour of her pride and power; they revered the Rome that was for the sake of the Rome that had been; they had imbibed something of her culture, her military discipline, her laws, her religion. Semi-civilized, semi-Christianized, with the bold Teutonic virtues yet pristine from the Black Forests of Germany,—they were the possible material of an excellence surpassing that of Rome, even when Rome could boast of excellence.
But about 450 A. D. hordes, innumerable hordes, velut unda supervenit undam (even as wave upon wave) of hideously ugly, lithe, little, wiry, imp-like men poured into Europe from the Asiatic lands north of the Black Sea. By their numbers, their lightning-like rapidity, their uncanny appearance, and their brute ferocity, they quickly swept the countries before them, put to flight the Alans, the Ostrogoths, and other tribes dwelling along the course of the Danube, and finally under their terrible leader Atzel (Attila), Scourge of God, they confronted the civilized and semi-civilized world in arms on the plain of Chalons.
Battle.
From early dawn even until darkness frowned over the field the blood-feast flowed: and Death was satiated.
Attila withdrew to his camp. He left an effective guard around his wagons and outposts and made every thing ready for a prolonged and obstinate resistance to the attack anticipated at early dawn. Nevertheless he built for himself a massive funeral pile, placed upon it his most valued treasures and his favorite wives, and was fully prepared and resolute to apply the torch, ascend the pyre, and so perish in the flames—should defeat fall to his fortune on the following day.
Morning dawned. The awful work of death on the preceding day appalled both armies; miles upon miles of outstretched plain lay covered with carnage; the all-night-writhing mounds of men were ominously still. Sullenly did foe gaze upon foe; but each recoiled from renewal of the slaughter.