On the Influence of the Huns on Europe

In 376 AD, the European power Roman Empire suddenly faced various so-called barbaric invasions, such as descendants of Scythians Salmatians ; Thervingi, Gothic Style , Germanic nation ; and Gothic . What caused all these tribes to cross the Danube into Roman territory? As it happens, they were probably driven west by the Huns, a newcomer from Central Asia.

The exact origin of the Huns is still controversial, but it is likely that they were originally a branch of the Huns, who are now Mongolian nomads who often fight against the Han Empire of China. After being defeated by the Han people, a faction of the Huns began to move westward to absorb other nomads. They will become the Huns.

Unlike the Mongols nearly a thousand years later, the Huns will directly enter the center of Europe instead of staying on the eastern edge of Europe. They have had a major impact on Europe, and although they have made progress in France and Italy, most of their real impact is indirect.

heading westward gradually

The Huns did not show up, leaving Europe in chaos. They gradually moved westward and were first recorded in the Roman records as a new existence somewhere outside of Persia . Around 370, some Huns moved north and west, squeezing into the land above the Black Sea. Their arrival triggered the domino effect because they attacked the Allen, Eastern Goths , Vandals and others.The refugees flowed south and west before the Huns, attacking the people before them if necessary, and entering the territory of the Roman Empire. This is called the Great Migration or Volkerwanderung .

does not yet have a great Hun king; the different Hun tribes operate independently of each other. Perhaps as early as 380, the Romans began to hire some Huns as mercenaries and granted them the right to live in Pannonia, which is roughly the border between Austria, Hungary and the former Yugoslav countries. Rome needed mercenaries to defend its territory and prevent all the peoples who entered Rome after the Huns invaded. As a result, ironically, some Huns made a living defending the Roman Empire from the Huns' own movements.

Huns attack Eastern Roman Empire

In 395, a Huns army began its first large-scale attack on the Eastern Roman Empire with Constantinople as its capital. They passed through what is now Turkey, then attacked the Persian Sassanian Empire , and almost drove to the capital of Ctesiphon before being turned back. The Eastern Roman Empire eventually paid a large amount of tribute to the Huns to prevent them from attacking; the Great Wall of Constantinople was also built in 413, probably to protect the city from possible conquest by the Huns. (This is an interesting echo of the construction of the Great Wall to stop the Huns during the Qin and Han dynasties.)

At the same time, in the West, The political and economic foundation of the Western Roman Empire was gradually lost to the Goths in the first half of the 400s , Vandals, Soviets, , Burgundy, and other ethnic groups that flooded into Roman territory.Rome lost the fertile land of the newcomers and had to spend money to fight them, or hire some of them to fight each other as mercenaries.

The Huns at their height

The Huns Attila unified his people and ruled from 434 to 453. Under his leadership, the Huns invaded Roman Gaul and fought with the Romans and their Visigoth allies in the battle of (Catalonia battlefield) in 451, and even fought against them. Rome itself marched. The European chronicles of the time recorded the horror inspired by Attila.

However, Attila did not achieve any sustained territorial expansion during his reign, and did not even achieve many major victories. Many historians today agree that although the Huns did help overthrow the Western Roman Empire, most of the impact was due to migration before Attila's rule. Then came the collapse of the Hun Empire after Attila's death, which brought the coup in Rome. In the ensuing power vacuum, other " barbarians " raced for power in Central and Southern Europe, and the Romans could not use the Huns as mercenaries to defend them.

As Peter Heather said, "During the Attila era, the Huns' army increased from the iron gate of the Danube to , the walls of Constantinople, the outskirts of Paris, and Rome itself. But Attila’s ten-year glory is only a small episode in the collapse of Western Europe. The Huns had an indirect influence on the previous generations of the Roman Empire. At that time, their insecurity in Central and Eastern Europe forced the Goths, Vandals, Aran, Suvi, Burgundian crossed the border,Has greater historical significance. More important than Attila's brutality. In fact, the Huns even maintained the Western Empire until about 440 years. In many ways, their second major contribution to the collapse of the empire was that, as we have seen, they suddenly disappeared as a political force after 453 years. , So that the West loses external military assistance.

Consequences: the beginning of the "dark age"

Finally, the Huns played an important role in overthrowing the Roman Empire, but their contribution was almost accidental. They forced other Germanic and Persian tribes into Roman lands, Weakened Rome’s tax base and demanded expensive tributes. Then they left, leaving a mess.

500 years later, the Western Roman Empire fell and Western Europe fell apart. It entered the so-called "dark age", war Constantly, the loss of art, culture, and scientific knowledge has shortened the lifespan of elites and farmers. The Huns more or less accidentally pushed Europe into a thousand years of backwardness.