[845-853 A.D.]
Ludwig’s[140] independent sovereignty commenced at a moment of great national disaster. In the year 845 King Horik of Denmark, who had a large fleet of Norse pirate vessels at his disposal, commenced a general attack upon all the maritime provinces of the Frankish Empire. One division of his fleet, amounting, it is said, to six hundred ships, sailed up the mouth of the Elbe and made an unexpected assault upon Hamburg, the seat of missionary activity in the Scandinavian north. The city was taken and burned to the ground before the local levies (Heerbann) could hasten from the surrounding country to its aid. Many of the inhabitants fell by the Northmen’s swords, the rest were scattered or perished as they fled. Bishop Anskar sought refuge for himself and his books and relics in the desolate moorland between the Elbe and Weser. Another detachment of the Norman fleet wrought hideous havoc in the kingdom of the West Franks; Paris was committed to the flames and most of its inhabitants slaughtered by the Northmen. King Charles the Bald went so far as to collect an army, but he did not dare to confront the invaders; indeed, he was well content to procure the withdrawal of the pirates—who dreaded the vengeance of the patron saints of the churches they had plundered and burned far more than the Frankish arrière-ban—by the payment of a considerable sum of money. The Northmen carried home with them from their raid a deadly pestilence, to which King Horik himself succumbed after grievous suffering. Before his death he sent an embassy to Ludwig the German to entreat his pardon for the destruction of Hamburg, at the same time promising to restore the prisoners and booty.
The Northmen repeated their incursion no later than the following year. They respected the dominions of Ludwig the German, but ravaged the whole coast of western France as far as Bordeaux. The Saracens pillaged the coasts of Italy at the same time; it seemed as though the Norman pirate excursions had emboldened them to similar enterprises. From Africa their fleet sailed to Rome and took the city on the right bank of the Tiber, including the church of St. Peter. They then marched into south Italy, pillaging and slaughtering as they went. On the return voyage a storm at sea sent part of the fleet to the bottom of the Mediterranean, and the Christian world saw the avenging hand of God in their destruction. On the other hand, it was keenly alive to the shame of knowing that Rome and other famous holy places had fallen into the hands of the infidels.
WAR WITH THE SLAVONIC TRIBES
At this time King Ludwig was engaged in war with the Slavonic tribes. As early as the year 845 he had not been able to keep the Abodrites in subjection except by force. At the beginning of 846 he conquered a Slavonic tribe on the Elbe which we cannot more closely identify, and then took the field against the Moravians, whose duke, Moimir, was suspected of contemplating rebellion. Ludwig deposed the duke, and nominated his nephew Ratislaw as his successor. On his return march the king took the way through Bohemia, where, in mountainous ground and the depths of the forest, he found himself suddenly assailed by the Czechs, and the German army suffered severely before it could escape from the ambush. Immediately afterwards the Bohemians, who up to this time had been nominally subject to Frankish dominion, proceeded to open hostilities against the kingdom of the East Franks, and Ludwig consequently found himself under the necessity of undertaking a great expedition against them in the year 849. He himself was prevented by sickness from taking part in the campaign, and was obliged to send his army into the field under the leadership of several counts who were at variance among themselves. These commanders, after gaining some slight preliminary advantages, suffered heavy loss in men amongst the forests of Bohemia, and were actually compelled to give hostages to the Bohemians to insure their own return home unmolested. This occurrence aroused the profoundest indignation among the East Frank people, who had hitherto gloried in their military reputation above all things.
Since neither of the three kingdoms had any lack of enemies, the three brothers determined to maintain friendly sentiments towards each other and to make common cause for defence against their foes, adjusting their own small differences at a diet of princes (Fürstentag) to be held at short intervals. They met thus for the first time at Diedenheim in 844, then in 847 at Mersen on the Maas [Meuse], and at Mersen again in 851. With them appeared their great vassals, temporal and spiritual. The brothers swore to assist one another with counsel and deed against their enemies, and they directed that their mutual agreement should be put on record and made known among their subjects. But unhappily this act of brotherly concord was deficient in honest purpose, for each one was silently watching and suspecting the others, as though they had been his worst enemies.
LUDWIG TURNS AGAINST CHARLES THE BALD (853-860 A.D.)
[853-855 A.D.]
Up to this time Ludwig had remained the most loyal of the three to this friendly compact; but in the year 853 he allowed his greed of territory to seduce him into an act of treachery towards Charles the Bald. The Aquitanians, who had long struggled under the leadership of Pepin—son of a brother of the three kings who had died young—against union with the dominions of Charles the Bald, appealed to King Ludwig for aid after the death of their prince, proposing that he should either become their king himself or send one of his sons. The war with the Slavs was assuming ever vaster proportions, and Ludwig was unable to quit Germany. He therefore despatched his second son, Ludwig the Younger, with an army to Aquitaine. Charles the Bald was hard pressed by the Northmen at that time, and could only spare a small force to oppose the German troops. But the expedition of the German monarch’s son to Aquitaine was not the success he had anticipated. Only a fraction of the nobility took his part; another party adhered to the son of their late ruler; others, again, held with Charles the Bald. The whole attempt came to nothing. Ludwig was constrained to seek safety in a retreat which bore a strong resemblance to flight. The Aquitanians returned to their allegiance to Charles the Bald when he had set his son, who was still a minor, over them as king, and thus assured their country of a certain degree of independence.