4. The first great undertaking of Charles was against the Saxons. They were still heathen, and were a constant source of annoyance to the Franks, for they made frequent inroads to pillage and destroy their towns and harvests.
5. In the line of mountains which forms the step from lower into upper Germany, above the Westphalian plains, is one point at which the river Weser breaks through and flows down into the level land about three miles above the town of Minden. This rent in the mountain is called the Westphalian Gate. The hills stand on each side like red sandstone door-posts, and one is crowned by some crumbling fragments of a castle; it is called the Wittekindsberg, and takes its name from Wittekind, a Saxon king, who had his castle there. Wittekind was a stubborn heathen, and a very determined man.
6. In 772 Charles convoked a great assembly at Worms, at which it was unanimously resolved to march against the Saxons and chastise them for their incursions. Charles advanced along the Weser, through the gate, destroyed Wittekind's castle, pushed on to Paderborn, where he threw down an idol adored by the Saxons, and then was obliged to return and hurry to Italy to fight the Lombards, who had revolted. Next year he invaded Saxony again. He built himself a palace at Paderborn, and summoned the Saxon chiefs to come and do homage. Wittekind alone refused, and fled to Denmark.
Charlemagne.
7. No sooner had Charles gone to fight the Moors in Spain than Wittekind returned, and the Saxons rose at his summons, and, bursting into Franconia, devastated the land up to the walls of Cologne. Charles returned and fought them in two great battles, defeated them, erected fortresses in their midst, and carried off hostages. Affairs seemed to prosper, and Charles deemed himself as securely master of Saxony as Varus had formerly in the same country, and under precisely the same circumstances. Charles then quitted the country, leaving orders for a body of Saxons to join his Franks and march together against the Slavs. The Saxons obeyed the call with alacrity, and soon outnumbered the Franks. One day, as the army was crossing the mountains from the Weser, at a given signal the Saxons fell on their companions and butchered them.
8. When the news of this disaster reached Charles he resolved to teach the Saxons a terrible lesson. Crossing the Rhine, he laid waste their country with fire and sword, and forced the Saxons to submit to be baptized and accept Christian teachers. Those who refused he killed. At Verdun he had over four thousand of the rebels beheaded. At Detmold, Wittekind led the Saxons in a furious battle, in which neither gained the victory. In another battle, on the Hase, they were completely routed.
9. Then Wittekind submitted, came into the camp of Charles, and asked to be baptized. A little ruined chapel stands on the Wittekindsberg, above the Westphalian Gate, and there, according to tradition, near the overturned walls of his own castle, the stubborn heathen bowed the neck to receive the yoke of Christ. Charles's two nephews, the sons of Karlomann, were with Desiderius, the Lombard king, and Desiderius tried to force the Pope to anoint them kings of the Franks, to head a revolt against Charles. When the great king heard this he came over the Alps into Italy, dethroned Desiderius, and shut him up in a monastery. Then he crowned himself with the iron crown of the Lombard kings, which was said to have been made out of one of the nails that fastened Christ to the cross.
10. Duke Thassils of Bavaria had married a daughter of Desiderius, and he refused to acknowledge the authority of Charles. He also stirred up the Avars who lived in Hungary to invade the Frankish realm. Charles marched against Thassils, drove him out of Bavaria, subdued the Avars, and converted the country between the Ems and Raab—that is, Austria proper—into a province, which was called the East March, and formed the beginning of the East Realm (Oesterreich), or Austria. Charles also fought the Danes, and took from them the country up to the river Eider.