conquest of attila the hun

Originally posted by great_hunnic_empire Yes, After his death Huns went back to Central Asia to join Gokturks

No...    The Goths and others rose up and broke the control of the Huns. The Alans split and moved West.  Many individual Huns joine the Roman Armies.
There was no mass migration of Huns thousands of miles to join the gok Turk.

 Yes there is many accounts of Huns serving in 6th and 7th century Byzantine armies as mercenaries for example, its seems they were largely dispersed or assimilated after the Hun empire collapsed.

 It should be pointed out that the *huns* themselves wernt in very high numbers Ive read accounts of the battle of Chalons that suggest only around 10 - 15 thousand of the *hunnic* army were actually huns and the rest were an assortment of Gepids and Ostrogoths and other germanics who fought for the Hun King.

I'm speechless in front of our astute colleague.

The anscestors of modern Hungarians are of course those that followed Arpad through the carpathians (Ugric), who came after Atilla and his Altaic Huns.  But Magyars see themselves more as descendants of the Huns, which although far less directly that Arpad's people, they are.

I'm reading the book entitled 'Atilla, the barbarian king that challenged Rome' by John Man, and i really recommend it.  It's an eye-opening and very captoivating read.  It tell about Lajos Kassai, a Hungarian who over the past twenty years has taken it upon himself to revive the ancient horse-back archery skills of the HUns, and has achieved his goal and now runs a school teaching the Hunnic maneuvers of archery whilst in the saddle.  A great man who lives for his profession.

The Huns get attention today, but for the wrong reasons.  They were a great race of Turkish stock (related to the Xihongnu) that ruled from the Caucasus to Friesland-Holland.

Regards.

Why hire huns as mercenaries? Simple, they were without a violent expansionist leader and happened to make good cavalrymen,

 The Huns could be excellent mercenaries, ferocious, fearless, their reputation alone scared the hell out of their enemies, their charges were murderous and enemies rarely stood against them and for good reasons.

 I dont know what the Hun population when they entered Europe but I did definately hear that its may have been 10,000 huns at Chalons, most of their army was made up of Ostrogoths and Gepids and god knows what else. Allies were obviously hugely important to the Huns.

 I'd like to know though what was the size and composition of Attilas army when it invaded Italy after Chalons?

I don't see why if the Huns used auxiliary troops or not is even a discussion at this point. It would be impossible for a nomadic race to raise an army of 10,000 men, attack, be defeated, raise another, and attack again, all in a short amount of time. The majority of the troops would have been Germanic (which, one might argue, was why the Romans called the Huns Germanic), with a bunch of other people mixed in.

You would have had everything from Goths to Scythians fighting under the Huns.

As for Attila's Empire, it fell primarily because it didn't have a single strong leader to control it. He ruled the way Genghis Khan did -- extermination. If there were people there, there needed to be Huns there to control them. And the Huns, like the Mongols, didn't have the population to constantly watch their subjects.

Originally posted by Abyssmal Fiend As for Attila's Empire, it fell primarily because it didn't have a single strong leader to control it. He ruled the way Genghis Khan did -- extermination. If there were people there, there needed to be Huns there to control them. And the Huns, like the Mongols, didn't have the population to constantly watch their subjects.

I disagree, Chingiz' empire was a quite different Steppe empire from previous ones in that he did conquer settled lands as opposed to just raid them like most other Nomads (in europe at least).

the battle of Chalons and the following last camapign of Attila give a good picture of Steppe warfare but is mostly distorted in favour of a more pro-Roman viewpoint. anyways, it has been noted that at the battle of Chalons, on both sides mostly German allies of both Rome and Huns fought each others, the actual amount of native Roman and Hun troops at the battle is comparably low. the battle was very bloody and costly for both sides and the Huns eventually mounted a feigned retreat which was either ignored by the Romans & allies or the losses were too high to pursue the Huns. this would explain why the Huns lost at Chalons and why they still had the capability of raiding Italy afterwards unopposed.

Hungarians an Bulgarians are somewhat later settlers, as Attila the Hun's people went up north. Today's Finns have 25% of our genes herited from the Hunns.

Hope this helps.

 

Originally posted by Turk Nomad I think you guys must use Hun Turks when need to use hun =)They are Turkic like Volgo or İthil Bulghars.   I have simple question:Are magyars sons of Hun Turks?