The Battle of the Katalaun Fields took place on June 20, 451, in Gaul, in which the troops of the Western Roman Empire under the command of the commander Aetius in alliance with Visigoths fought the Huns and Germanic tribes under Attila. The battle became the largest and the most important in the history of the Western Roman Empire before its disintegration. Although the outcome of the battle was unclear, Attila was forced to retire from Gaul.
Huns
The invasion of the Huns in Europe began in the 370s, when nomadic tribes from Asia, unknown to Europe, attacked the Germanic tribes in the Northern Black Sea Coast, opening a new period of history – the Great Migration. Some of the Goths, later called the Visigoths, moved into the Roman Empire, the other part (Ostrogoths) remained under the domination of the Huns. At the end of the 4th century, the Huns reached the lower Danube, then crossed it and, by the 420s, settled in Pannonia.
Attila, in 434, united the majority of barbarian tribes to the north of the Danube and the Black Sea, and therefore began to pose a serious threat to the existence of the Western and Eastern Roman empires.
In 440, Attila devastated Byzantine possessions in the northern Balkans, until in 448 the peace with the Emperor Theodosius was concluded on the terms of payment of an annual tribute. In 451, Attila turned his cavalry to Gaul.
At first, the Romans managed to use the Huns for wars with their enemies. By 450, Gallia was a country politically torn by Germanic tribes. With the Huns, Aetius long managed to maintain good relations based on personal contacts. But by 451, Attila felt strong enough to crush the Western empire.
Invasion of Gaul
The leader of the Huns managed to raise a huge barbarian army for the campaign in Gaul. Under Attila, there were Huns and Alans, the Germans of the Ostrogoths, the Gepids, the Rugi, the Sciri, and the Heruli.
Before the invasion, Attila made an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the peace agreement between the Romans and the Visigoths. In the spring of 451, Attila crossed the middle Rhine. On April 7, he captured and completely destroyed Divorumum.
The Roman Aetius’ forces consisted mainly of teams of barbarian detachments (Franks, Sarmatians, Burgundians, Saxons, Ripariols, Bryons – former Roman warriors, and then already among the auxiliary troops, and many others both Celtic and German tribes). They could not independently resist the Huns, demonstrated by the subsequent invasion of Attila in 452 in Italy.
In June 451, Attila approached Aurelian in the middle Loire in the center of Gaul. In those parts of Aecium in 440, one of the Alanian tribes were settled, whose leader, Sangiban, promised Attila to surrender the city. Then Attila would have had the opportunity to cross the west coast of the river without problems on the bridges, opening the way to the possessions of the Visigoths. The combined forces of Aetius and Theodoric saved the city. Attila went to the Catalaunian fields (more than 200 km east of Orleans), moving to the right bank of the Seine, into a vast plain in the modern province of Champagne, and a general battle took place.
Battle
According to descriptions of the writer Jordan, which retold Prisk, the great battle with the number of troops and victims took place chaotically and without much preparation. At first, at night, probably in the oncoming march, the Franks (the Roman’s side) clashed with the Gepids (the Hun party), having killed 15,000 men in battle on both sides. The next day, the disposition of forces was revealed. The Romans and Huns shared a high hill, which was first occupied by Roman-Gothic troops. On the left flank were the troops of Aetius. On the right were the Visigoths of Theodoric. At the center, the Allies placed the unreliable king of the Alans, Sangiban. Attila, with the best troops, occupied the center, Ostrogoths were on his left flank.
Attila hesitated for a long time before attacking the enemy. The Huns unsuccessfully attacked the top of the hill, whence they were defeated by detachments of Aetius and Thorismund, the elder son of Theodoric. Attila addressed the Huns with a speech and led the troops on the offensive.
Visigoth king Theodoric died. Not noticing the loss of their king, the Visigoths threw the Huns into their camp. The battle gradually faded with the onset of night. The son of Theodorich, Thorismund, returning to his camp in the dark, came across the carts of the Huns, and in the ensuing battle was wounded in the head, but was saved by his men. Aetius, whose troops dispersed with the Allies, also found it difficult to find his way to his camp in the dark.
Only in the morning, the parties saw the results of the evening slaughter. Attila’s heavy losses testified to his reluctance to move beyond the fortified camp. Nevertheless, the Huns ceaselessly fired from behind the fence, the sounds of pipes and other activity were heard inside their camp. On the advice of Aetius, it was decided to lay siege to the enemy camp.
Soon after, the body of Theodoric was discovered, and the situation changed dramatically. Aetius advised the new Visigothic king Torismundu to hasten to Toulouse to assert his authority over the remaining brothers there. The Visigoths left the battlefield, and after a while, the Huns withdrew unhindered.
Consequences of the Battle
Attila was not defeated but had to leave Gaul. Having rounded the Alps, he attacked Northern Italy in 452 from Pannonia. It destroyed the largest city on the Adriatic coast of Aquileia. Other cities fell, Milan was captured. Only the epidemic among the Huns, as well as the troops of the Eastern Roman Empire to the distant rear of the Huns beyond the Danube, forced Attila to leave Italy. In 453, Attila once again entered the battle with the Alans and the Visigoths on the Loire, but was again forced to retreat and died the same year. In medieval works, Attila was called the Whip of God (flagellum dei), reflecting the Latin church tradition to consider the leader of the Huns as punishment for sins. In medieval works, the Battle of the Catalan fields was presented as a symbol of the victory of the civilized world over destructive barbarism.