[933-934 A.D.]
Henry had already collected a strong force of cavalry from Saxony and Thuringia and had ordered out the militia. Also from Bavaria and the other lands subject to him, many knights, it is related, had hurried to his standard. Quietly he awaited the moment when the countless swarms of the enemy should separate. Scarcely, however, had that troop separated and started towards the west, than Saxons and Thuringians attacked it impetuously. In a sanguinary battle the leaders of the enemy fell and their hordes fled panic-stricken in all directions. Many perished from the winter frosts, others died of hunger; a large number fell into captivity.
The other, larger part of the Hungarian army, however, which had remained in the east, in Thuringia, had in the meanwhile been informed that there was a castle in the neighbourhood where lived a sister of the king—she was born to Duke Otto out of wedlock and had married a Thuringian named Wido—in which there was much gold and silver. Consequently they at once set out and assaulted the castle. They would have taken it at the first attack if the fall of night had not put an end to the battle. Scarcely, however, were their arms at rest, when they heard of the defeat of their companions, of the victory of the Saxons, and of how King Henry was advancing against them with a powerful army. They lit great bonfires to collect their scattered troops and at once began their retreat.
Henry was camped that same night not far from the Hungarians in a place which was then called Riade, perhaps the present Rietheburg, in the golden meadow on the Unstrut, where many strongholds of the Luidolfings were scattered on all sides. When morning broke and it was learned how near the enemy was, the king determined to attack them at once and placed his army in battle array. He exhorted his followers to put all their trust in God, and declared that he would be with them to-day as in so many other battles; the Hungarians were enemies of the empire and of them all, they must fight to avenge their fatherland and their fathers; the enemy would soon give way if they would only charge bravely and strike boldly. Then the heart of each one in the army swelled with courage; they all saw with joy how their king hurried about on his horse, now in front, now in the middle, and now on the last ranks of the army, and how everywhere the flag of the archangel Michael, the chief banner of the empire, waved before him. The king was afraid that when the Hungarians saw the large numbers of armed horsemen of the Saxons they would not keep their stand but would break apart and thus frustrate a decisive battle. Consequently he sent on ahead a small force of one thousand Thuringian infantry with only a few armed knights. He thought that when this force appeared the Hungarians would at once give battle and then be led on, clear up to the battle ranks of his army. And so it happened. The Hungarians ventured close to the king’s army, but as soon as they caught sight of the troops of knights they turned and fled. And they fled so rapidly that, although they were pursued for two miles, only a few of them were captured or killed; the king, however, stormed their camp and freed all prisoners. It was the 15th of March, 933; after it, so long as Henry lived, no Hungarian was seen on German soil.
When this memorable victory had been fought, there was no end to the jubilee in the army and in the whole Saxon land. As father of the fatherland Henry greeted his army and his people; they extolled him as world-ruler and emperor almost as if they had had a premonition of the greatness and power which were reserved for his son Otto. He, however, gave God the glory for the victory; he attributed his success to divine aid alone, and the tribute which he had been accustomed to pay to the enemy he now gave to the church in order to give it to the poor. Far over the whole world spread the renown of the great Saxon king, who had been the first to conquer the much-feared Hungarians in a great battle and had driven them out of his land.
And Henry’s sword was to reach even the last enemy of the Saxons—the Danes. The latter had long since overstepped the bounds which the emperor Charles had once marked out for them. Not only the frontier district between the Eider, the Treene, and the Schlei had they taken in possession, but also, after the unfortunate battle in which Duke Bruno fell, they had seized all the land north of the Elbe, with the aid of the Wends, and had with fire and sword laid waste the fruitful districts of the Holsteins. The whole German population which had settled here was crowded over the Elbe, and they were hardly safe from the plundering of the enemy even on the hither side of the broad stream. It was only gradually that the Danes were driven back so that the Saxons could return to their old seats across the Elbe. But the Germans were also harassed by the Danes from a different quarter; bands of northern pirates landed continually on the coasts of Friesland and penetrated far into Saxony and Lorraine.
[934-936 A.D.]
The Danes seem often to have been overpowered, since we learn that in 931 Henry baptised the kings of the Abodriti and of the Danes. But the struggle was not ended. Therefore, the old hero rose once again at the end of his life and led his army across the boundaries of the Danes (934). Their king, Gorm the Old, although he was skilled in many battles as a successful fighter, and had first united the kingdom of the Danes on the islands in Skane and Jutland, yet did not dare to meet the conqueror of the Hungarians in an open battle. He sued for peace and promised to accept any conditions. Henry re-established the old boundaries of the empire, by giving the abandoned districts as a fief to Saxon warriors; he gave these northern districts a similar military organisation to the marks captured from the Wends. The districts between the Eider, the Treene, and the Schlei, called later the mark of Schleswig, remained in the German Empire until Conrad II, nearly a hundred years later, ceded to the Danes the land as far as the Eider. This cession seemed to be favoured by circumstances, but it was not a fortunate act, since it displaced the boundaries which Charlemagne had established and Henry had restored.[b]
The same year (934 A.D.) a friendly meeting took place between him and the kings of France and Burgundy on the Char, a tributary of the Maas. Henry afterwards planned a visit to Rome, but died without accomplishing that project (936 A.D.), when at the height of his splendour and renown. He was buried at Quedlinburg, his favourite residence.[e]