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QINGDAO TODAY
在线翻译:
szdaily -> Speak Shenzhen -> 
The Battle of Lechfeld
    2019-05-21  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

James Baquet

Lechfeld is another battle we’ve never heard of, but the result of which had far-reaching effects. The Germans won; had it gone the other way, and the Hungarians prevailed, Europe may have had a very different face.

The year was 955; over three days in August, the army of King Otto I “the Great” — estimated at 7,000-9,000 men — annihilated the slightly larger contingent of Hungarians under a “horka” (perhaps a type of warlord) named Bulcsú.

For over a century and a half, the Hungarians had been rushing into the vacuum left by the failing of the Carolingian Empire. It was a fraught time: As the Hungarians came from the east, the Vikings came from the north, and the Muslims from the south. The Hungarians and the Vikings each had their own brands of “paganism”; thus, along with the Muslims, they threatened the Christian hegemony of Europe.

These Hungarians were fierce Eurasian warriors and such devastating archers that a Latin prayer of the time implored, “From the arrows of the Hungarians, save us, O Lord!” But the German victory at Lechfeld put an end to the threat from the east.

Some 8,000-10,000 footsoldiers and archers on horseback invaded Bavaria around the start of July 955, with the intention of destroying Otto’s army. They laid siege to the city of Augsburg on the River Lech, and Otto arrived to relieve the city.

The Hungarians surprised and destroyed his rearguard. But while they plundered the camp of the vanquished, German leader Duke Conrad the Red counter-attacked as Otto’s heavily-armed soldiers took on the lightly armed Hungarians.

The invaders retreated in an orderly way, and Otto chose not to give chase. Instead, staying at Augsburg, he sent orders for local forces to hold all river crossings in the east, preventing the Hungarians from returning home. The Hungarians were bogged down by heavy rainfall and accompanying flooding, giving the Germans the opportunity to mop them up. Bulcsú and the other Hungarian leaders were captured and hanged.

So great was the victory that Otto was crowned the first proper Holy Roman Emperor largely on the strength of that achievement.

Vocabulary:

Which words above mean:

1. finish killing them

2. anxious, worrisome

3. stuck, unable to move quickly

4. lack of government

5. looted, sacked

6. overwhelming

7. coming along with

8. begged

9. group of soldiers

10. killed with a rope around the neck

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