The Hungarian conquests in Europe were carried out in the 9th and 10th centuries – a transitional period in the history of Europe of the Early and High Middle Ages, periods when the territories of the former Carolingian Empire were threatened by the Magyars (Hungarians) from the east, the Vikings from the north and the Arabs from the south.
The medieval Hungarian kingdom was created by Magyar (Hungarian) tribes. Hungarians of that time were nomads and lived in constant raids and robberies. They fought the same way as the Mongols, using horse archers.
The Magyars seized the Pannonian Basin at the end of the 9th century, they carried out a number of predatory raids to the west, where the Frankish Empire used to be and southward to the Byzantine Empire. The raids to the west were stopped after the defeat of the Magyar in the battle on the river Leh in 955, which led to a new political order in Western Europe – the creation of the Holy Roman Empire. The raids on the Byzantine territories continued throughout the X century until the Christianization of the Hungarians and the creation of the Christian Kingdom of Hungary around the year 1000.
Early History
The first mention of the Hungarian raids dates back to the 9th century. In 811, the Hungarians had an allied relationship with the ruler of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, Krum, against the emperor of Byzantium, Nikifor I. In the 10th century, Averroes wrote that “the Khazars defended themselves from the attacks of the Hungarians and other peoples”.
In 860–861, the Hungarian soldiers attacked the convoy of St. Cyril, but the clash ended peacefully. Saint Cyril went to Kagan near Chersonese of Tauris, who was later captured by the Khazars.
Muslim geographers recorded that the Magyars regularly attacked neighboring East Slavic tribes and took prisoners to sell them to the Byzantine Empire.
In 892, according to the Fulda annals, King Arnulf of Carinthia invaded Great Moravia and then the Magyars joined their troops. From 893, the Magyar troops crossed the Danube with the help of the Byzantine fleet and defeated the Bulgarians in three battles. In the year of 894, the Hungarians invaded Pannonia alongside an alliance with the King Svatopluk I of Moravia.
The Effects on Europe
Around 896, the Hungarians, led by Arpad, crossed the Carpathians and entered the territory of the Carpathian Basin.
In 899, the Magyars defeated the army of the King of Italy Berengar II in a battle on the Brenta River, and invaded the northern regions of Italy. They looted the area around the cities of Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo and Milan. In 901, they again attacked Italy. In the year 902 they fought with troops in North Moravia. Almost every year in the 900s, they conducted military raids against the Catholic West and the Byzantine East.
According to modern sources, the Hungarians have conducted 45 or 47 military raids in different parts of Europe. Of these, 8 (17.5%) were unsuccessful and 37 ended in success (82.5%).
Having suffered defeat from the knights armored by the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Otto I, the Hungarians stopped their nomadic life and created their own feudal society, in which the power was in the hands of the aristocratic elite. Numerous tribes living in the territory of modern Hungary, including Kipchaks and Polovtsians, were integrated into the Hungarian society, as well as a large number of Russian, German and Italian mercenaries who became part of the feudal aristocracy.
By about 1000, Hungary had become a powerful European power, successfully resisting German and Byzantine expansion.
Method of Fighting
Initially, the peoples of Europe, whose troops mainly consisted of infantry, were powerless against the fast Hungarian cavalry and archers.
The Hungarian army consisted mainly of light cavalry. The warriors were highly mobile. If clashes were inevitable, then they fired arrows at their enemies and suddenly retreated, forcing their opponents to pursue them, and then dealt with them one by one.
In the following centuries, the Hungarians took notice of the Western European form of military organization and used armored cavalry in battle.
Sources:
Barbara H. Rosenwein. A Short History of the Middle Ages
Jean Baptiste Duroselle. Europe: a history of its peoples
Tóth Sándor László. Levediától a Kárpát-medencéig
Kevin Alan Brook. The Jews of Khazaria