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Updated: May 5, 2025
As a natural precaution for the defence of Bavaria, Charles then turned against the Avars, a race akin to the Huns, who had settled on the middle Danube after the departure of the Lombards for Italy. Their land was annexed but not settled; for Germany offered a more tempting field to the Frankish pioneers.
He would have been content with the neutrality of the Avars; and his friendly entreaty, that the chagan would act, not as the enemy, but as the guardian, of the empire, was accompanied with a more persuasive donative of two hundred thousand pieces of gold.
The impulse thus given, uninterruptedly propagated itself to the primitive country of the Fins, on the banks of the Ural, whence irrupted a torrent of Huns, Avars, Chasars, and divers mixtures of Asiatic races.
But unhappily a pestilential disease broke out among the horses, who died by thousands, and he was obliged to retreat, unpursued, however, by the Avars, their surprise and terror not having yet subsided. In the doubtful lull that followed, a conspiracy was raised against the life and throne of the monarch, in which his natural son, Pepin the Hunchback, was implicated.
This internal strife was naturally profitable to the Greeks, who lavishly subsidized the rival factions. At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south of the Danube joined forces with those to the north in the efforts of the latter against the Avars, who, beaten by Charlemagne, were again pressing south-eastwards towards the Danube.
Farther off towards the north, east, and south, people differing in origin and language Avars, Huns, Slavons, Bulgarians, Danes, and Northmen were still pressing or beginning to press upon the frontiers of the Frankish dominion, for the purpose of either penetrating within or settling at the threshold as powerful and formidable neighbors.
It is possible that the sudden inroads of destroying nations, such as the Huns, or the Avars, or the Mongol Tartars, may have inflicted misery as extensive; but there the misery and the desolation would be sudden like the flight of volleying lightning. Those who were spared at first would generally be spared to the end; those who perished would perish instantly.
"Now, Alboin, King of Lombardy, instigated by Narses and aided by the Avars, following after our expelled kinsmen, has invaded our country even to the plains of the Danube. We can see from the castle walls not only our own, but his invading host as they make preparation for final battle to determine the sovereignty of Pannonia.
Under the Karlings the Arab and the Moor were driven back beyond the Pyrenees; the last of the old heathen Germans were forced into Christianity, and the Avars, wild horsemen from the Asian steppes, who had long held tented dominion in Middle Europe, were utterly destroyed.
He made eighteen expeditions against the Saxons, three against the Danes, one against the Bavarians, four against the Slaves, four against the Avars. Adding to these his campaigns against the Saracens, Lombards, and other peoples, the number of his military expeditions is not less than fifty-three.
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