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IN THIS ISSUE: The Magyar invasions in Europe
The steppe warrior defeated:
Otto I versus the Magyars
With:
• The Other Saxon Revolution
• The final clash: the Battle of Lechfeld
Also:
• Byzantine fortresses on the Bosporus
• The Battle of Bryn Glas, 1402
And much more!
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CONTENTS
4
Publisher: Rolof van Hövell tot Westerflier
Editor in chief: Jasper Oorthuys
Editorial staff: Dirk van Gorp (editor Medieval Warfare),
Andrew Brooks (copy-editor)
Marketing & media manager: Christianne C. Beall
Contributors: Carl Pyrdum, Curtis Szmania, Kay Boers,
Andrei Pogăciaş, Kai Grundmann, David Balfour, Armen
Ayvazyan, Konstantin Nossov, Owen Rees, Tim Newark,
Stephen Bennett, John Clements, Sidney Dean, Ronald
Delval, Gareth Williams, Raffaele D’Amato.
Illustrators: Giorgio Albertini, Graham Sumner, Johnny
Shumate, Carlos Garcia, Rocio Espin, Milek Jakubiec,
Matthew Ryan, Christianne C. Beall.
Special thanks goes to Andrei Pogăciaş for his assistance.
Design & layout: MeSa Design (www.mesadesign.nl)
Print: PublisherPartners (www.publisherpartners.com)
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Medieval Warfare is published every two months by
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NEWS AND LETTERS
33
THEME
Byzantine pragmatism
vs. imperial prejudice
The Armenians and Maurice’s
Strategikon
Otto I versus the Magyars
6
Historical introduction:
Migration, confrontation and
transformation
37
Strife over the straits
Fortresses on the Bosporus and the
Dardanelles (1): the Byzantine Empire
9
From Pannonia to
the west
The growth of Magyar
power in Europe
43
Glyn Dwr’s finest hour
The Battle of Bryn Glas (1402)
14
“Not quite straight fly
the arrows”
Liudprand of Cremona on the
Magyars
19
The Other Saxon
Revolution
Simple arms and complex strategy
26 “A cruel encounter”
Otto I’s destrution of the
49 A warrior prejudice
The use of the bow by medieval knights
53
Reviews
Books and games
58 On the cover
Magyars, Augustus 955
ISSN: 2211-5129
Printed in the European Union.
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NEWS
Otto I – How lucky can one guy get?
It might seem a bit absurd to suggest (as the headline above this
column does) that Otto the Great, whose exploits at Lechfeld are
the subject of one of this issue’s articles, owed his success to a run
of blind luck. But that’s precisely what I intend to do!
Consider his unlikely timing. The pivotal battle at which Otto
routed those pesky Magyars fell in the first half of August, when
nature (and the debris field of the comet Swift-Tuttle) just so
happens to fill the skies with shooting stars – or, as they were
known in those days, “fiery portents of the fortunes of kings”.
ILM couldn’t have put together a better light show to mark the
arrival of the soon-to-be conquering hero.
Granted, those shooting stars did go by another name in
Otto’s day: ‘the tears of St. Lawrence’, named after the lachrymose third-century martyr who was not exactly the saint you’d
invoke before a martial encounter; he was more the ‘tending to
the sick’ and ‘suffering Roman persecution with dignity’ sort than
the ‘smiting your heathen enemies and their mobile light cavalry
regiments’ sort. But here, too, Otto’s timing was fortunate, for
it was precisely in Otto’s day that a different version of the St.
Lawrence myth was starting to catch on. One in which the saint,
sentenced to die by roasting on a gridiron, taunted his enemies
from the flames by telling them to be sure to “turn me over – this
side is already done.” Just the sort of bravado a man could use to
rouse his troops – and Otto’s forces, as they rolled into Augsburg,
were in particular need of rousing.
But even without the saint-cum-action-hero to invoke, the
reduced numbers and diminished battle readiness of Otto’s
forces at Lechfeld each proved oddly fortunate for the future
emperor. Revolting Slavs on the western front had kept most
of Otto’s loyal Saxon forces from accompanying him to face the
Magyar invaders, forcing him to rely on a mixed collection of
impressed divisions composed of Bavarians, Swabians, Franks,
Thuringians, and Bohemians. Once the Hungarians were sent
packing, Otto would later argue that they might as well just go
ahead and crown him emperor, as he had already united the
different peoples of Germany on the battlefield, proving that his
authority extended beyond his close kinsmen.
Of course, before he could brag, he still had to send those
Hungarians packing. At that, Otto largely succeeded, precisely
because his kingdom was already so beleaguered when the
Magyars arrived. The Slavs weren’t the only revolting peoples
Otto had had to contend with recently. In fact, the fortress at
Augsburg which the Magyars had come to lay siege to was only
remotely ‘siegeable’ due to damage it had incurred during Otto’s
recent campaigns against his own rebellious barons. Typically,
the Hungarian light cavalry avoided siege warfare, as mobility
was their biggest asset, but the damaged fortress was just too
tempting a target. And, they could assure themselves, they
wouldn’t really need their usual advantage, as word had spread
of Otto’s troubles in the west. He could hardly muster the troops
needed to face them, at all.
Even once the battle began, Otto’s improbable luck continued to hold. Even though they quickly outflanked Otto’s forces,
so that the Germans were faced with enemies at both the front
and the rear, the overconfident Magyars foolishly overextended
themselves, by diverting a sizable portion of their troops to
pillage Otto’s unprotected baggage train – a train he would normally have protected, but, without sufficient troops to divide his
men, had been forced to leave exposed. Once again, Otto succeeded where, by all rights, he should have been overrun.
After the dust had settled, Otto, weakened and occupied by
the clean-up, might have had some trouble with further rebellions, but, once again, he ‘lucked out’, as his biggest potential
rival, Conrad, had been killed in that very campaign. With Conrad
out of the picture, Otto was free to consolidate his power and
fix his ambitions upon a coronation in Rome. It helped that the
current Pope, John XII, was a dissolute lush who had managed
to enrage so many of his previous supporters that he had no
choice but to throw his lot in with Otto to survive, granting him
the throne of ancient Rome and inaugurating the Holy Roman
Empire.
Rewind history, run it back one hundred times, and Otto
would probably come out on top only once, without that lucky
confluence of breaks that all went exactly the way he needed
them to go.
Carl Pyrdum’s column On the margins appears every two
months in each issue of Medieval Warfare magazine.
He also maintains a blog, Got Medieval, at
www.gotmedieval.com.
Themes and deadlines
The upcoming themes are as follows:
- II.5: Turmoil in Northern Italy: The War of the League of
Cambrai (1508-1516) – published end of September 2012.
- II.6: The Byzantine Empire strikes back: Basil II against the
Fatimids – published end of November 2012.
- III.1: The Hundred Years War in Spain: The War of the Two
Peters – proposal deadline August 15, 2012.
- III.2: The clergy at war: Warrior bishops – proposal deadline
October 15, 2012.
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If you have a proposal that fits our themes, you are welcome to
send it to [email protected], along with your ideas
for illustrations, artwork and pictures, and a note of your qualifications. We can then discuss the possibility of publishing an
article in an upcoming issue of Medieval Warfare. Do make sure
to send the proposal before the deadlines listed above.
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