Battle of Eisenach | |||||||
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Part of the Hungarian invasions of Europe | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
East Francia | Principality of Hungary | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Burchard, Duke of Thuringia † Egino, Duke of Thuringia † Rudolf I, Bishop of Würzburg † | Unknown Hungarian Commander | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Heavy together with all the commanders | Unknown (probably light) |
The Battle of Eisenach in 908, [1] was a crushing victory by a Hungarian army over an East Frankish army composed of troops from Franconia, Saxony, and Thuringia.
This battle is a part of the Hungarian - German war which started in 900, after the Hungarian conquest of Pannonia (Transdanubia), and lasted until 910, the battles of Augsburg and Rednitz, both ending in disastrous German defeats, which forced the German king Louis the Child, and the German duchies to accept the territorial losses, and pay tribute to the Hungarians. [2]
After the Battle of Pressburg ended with a catastrophical defeat of the attacking East Francian armies led by Luitpold prince of Bavaria, the Hungarians following the nomadic warfare philosophy: destroy your enemy completely or force him to submit to you, first forced Arnulf prince of Bavaria to pay them tribute, and let their armies cross the lands of the duchy to attack other German and Christian territories, [3] then started long range campaigns against the other East Francian duchies.
The first of these was the attack of one Hungarian army to Thuringia and Saxony. However this was not the first attack of the Hungarians in Saxonia, because two years earlier two Hungarian armies devastated the duchy one after another, after being asked to come by the Slavic tribe of Dalamanci, which lived near Meissen, which were threatened by the Saxons attacks and plunderings. In their campaign of 908, the Hungarians used again the Dalamancian territory to attack Thuringia and Saxonia, coming from Bohemia or Silesia, where Slavic tribes lived, like they did in 906. [3] The Thuringian and Saxonian forces, under the lead of Burchard, Duke of Thuringia met the Hungarians on the battlefield at Eisenach. The number of the forces are unknown, and the leader of the Hungarian forces neither, although it is possible that it was the same commander who led the Hungarians to great victories in the battles of Pressburg in 907, Augsburg and Rednitz in 910, because of the categorical outcome of those battles (annihilation of the enemy forces together with their leaders).
We do not know many details about this battle, but we know that it was a crushing defeat for the Germans, and the leader of the Christian army: Burchard, Duke of Thuringia was killed, along with Egino, Duke of Thuringia and Rudolf I, Bishop of Würzburg, together with the most part of the German soldiers. The Hungarians then plundered Thuringia and Saxonia as far north as Bremen, [4] returning home with many spoils. [5] [6]
After this victory the Hungarian campaigns against the German duchies continued until 910, the battles of Augsburg and Rednitz, ended with disastrous German defeats, after which the German king Louis the Child concluded peace with the Principality of Hungary, accepting to pay tribute to the latter, and recognizing the Hungarian territorial gains during the war. [2]
Henry the Fowler was the Duke of Saxony from 912 and the King of East Francia from 919 until his death in 936. As the first non-Frankish king of East Francia, he established the Ottonian dynasty of kings and emperors, and he is generally considered to be the founder of the medieval German state, known until then as East Francia. An avid hunter, he obtained the epithet "the Fowler" because he was allegedly fixing his birding nets when messengers arrived to inform him that he was to be king.
The 900s decade ran from January 1, 900, to December 31, 909.
The Battle of Lechfeld also known as the Second battle of Lechfeld was a series of military engagements over the course of three days from 10–12 August 955 in which the Kingdom of Germany, led by King Otto I the Great, annihilated the Hungarian army led by Harka Bulcsú and the chieftains Lél and Súr. With the German victory, further invasions by the Magyars into Latin Europe were ended.
Year 908 (CMVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.
Year 910 (CMX) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.
Louis the Child, sometimes called Louis III or Louis IV, was the king of East Francia from 899 until his death and was also recognized as king of Lotharingia after 900. He was the last East Frankish ruler of the Carolingian dynasty. He succeeded his father, Arnulf, in East Francia and his elder illegitimate half-brother Zwentibold in Lotharingia.
The Duchy of Bavaria was a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom from the sixth through the eighth century. It was settled by Bavarian tribes and ruled by dukes (duces) under Frankish overlordship. A new duchy was created from this area during the decline of the Carolingian Empire in the late ninth century. It became one of the stem duchies of the East Frankish realm, which evolved as the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.
Saxe-Weimar was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in present-day Thuringia. The chief town and capital was Weimar. The Weimar branch was the most genealogically senior extant branch of the House of Wettin.
The Ernestine duchies, also known as the Saxon duchies, were a group of small states whose number varied, which were largely located in the present-day German state of Thuringia and governed by dukes of the Ernestine line of the House of Wettin.
The Battle of Pressburg, or Battle of Pozsony, or Battle of Bratislava was a three-day-long battle fought between 4 and 6 July 907, during which the East Francian army, consisting mainly of Bavarian troops led by Margrave Luitpold, was annihilated by Hungarian forces.
Egino was a count in East Franconia and Duke of Thuringia in the late 9th century. He was a Babenberg, the younger brother of Henry of Franconia and Poppo of Thuringia. All three may have been the sons or grandsons of Poppo of Grapfeld.
Burchard was the Duke of Thuringia from shortly after 892 until his death. He replaced Poppo as duke shortly after his appointment in 892, but the reasons for Poppo's leaving office are unknown. Burchard may have been a Swabian.
The Conradines or Conradiner were a dynasty of Franconian counts and dukes in the 8th to 11th Century, named after Duke Conrad the Elder and his son King Conrad I of Germany.
The Duchy of Thuringia was an eastern frontier march of the Merovingian kingdom of Austrasia, established about 631 by King Dagobert I after his troops had been defeated by the forces of the Slavic confederation of Samo at the Battle of Wogastisburg. It was recreated in the Carolingian Empire and its dukes were appointed by the king until it was absorbed by the Saxon dukes in 908. From about 1111/12 the territory was ruled by the Landgraves of Thuringia as Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. When Frederick IV, the last independent ruler of Thuringia died in 1440, the territory passed to his nephew, the Saxon elector Frederick II.
The Hungarian invasions of Europe took place in the 9th and 10th centuries, the period of transition in the history of Europe in the Early Middle Ages, when the territory of the former Carolingian Empire was threatened by invasion from multiple hostile forces, the Magyars (Hungarians) from the east, the Viking expansion from the north, and the Arabs from the south.
The first Battle of Lechfeld, fought on 12 June 910, was an important victory by a Hungarian army over the combined forces of East Francia and Swabia (Alamannia) under the nominal command of Louis the Child. Located approximately 25 km (15.53 mi) south of Augsburg, the Lechfeld is the floodplain that lies along the river Lech. At this time the Grand Prince of the Hungarians was Zoltán, but there is no record of him taking part in the battle. After the battle, the victorious Hungarians broke into Franconia for the first time. On 22 June in Franconia, the same Hungarian army defeated a united army of the duchies of Franconia, Lotharingia and Bavaria in the Battle of Rednitz. The Bavarian, Frankish, Swabian and Saxonian duchies became taxpayers of the Hungarians. As consequence of this victory, in the next year, Hungarian attacks launched from the Carpathian Basin crossed the Rhine for the first time in 911.
The Battle of Rednitz on 22 June 910, was a decisive victory of the Magyar cavalry over the East Francian - German kingdoms armies. The location of this battle cannot be determined with 100% certitude. The battle happened near the River Rednitz, in Franconia, near the border with Bavaria. After the battle, the German king Louis the Child, together with the Swabian, Frankish, Bavarian, and Saxonian dukes, accepted to pay tribute to the Hungarian state.
The Battle of Püchen was fought in the summer of 919, between a Hungarian raiding army and the newly elected East Francian/German king Henry the Fowler, and ended with a Hungarian victory. This battle was a part of a long range Magyar raiding campaign, which lasted between the summer of 919 and the late winter or early spring of 920, and took part in countries like East Francia, West Francia, Burgundy and the Kingdom of Italy, resulting in victorious battles against the German king Henry the Fowler and the Burgundian king Rudolf II, while the West Francian and Lotharingian king Charles the Simple had no courage to face them.
The Battle of the Inn was fought in 913, when a Hungarian raiding army, at their return from plunder attacks against Bavaria, Swabia, and Northern Burgundy, faced the combined army of Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria, Counts Erchanger and Burchard of Swabia, and Lord Udalrich, who defeated them at Aschbach by the River Inn.
50°58′47″N10°18′53″E / 50.979729124473°N 10.314588884416203°E