Battle of the Catalaunian Plains 451 - Aetius vs. Attila DOCUMENTARY

[Music] to say that the battle of the catalonian planes is iconic would be an understatement but it is equally controversial as the sources describing the battle are conflicted many details are unknown and it seems that we will never get a clear picture of the events add to that two larger than life figures in attila and aesius the great migration the agony of the roman world and the birth of new kingdoms and it is clear that we had no other choice but to cover it we know very little about the huns before their arrival to the eurasian steps in the second half of the 4th century in the 370s they defeated the allens and goths who lived to the north of the black sea and this probably caused a cascade of events known as the great migration as many tribes were forced to flee to the west and enter the territory of the roman empire either as allied federation or invaders roman army was crushed at adrianopol by the western branch of the goths the visigoths in 378 while the vandals and swabi first entered gaul and then occupied part of spain in 410 the visigoths under alaric sacked rome the visigoths were then allowed to form a kingdom in southern france with a capital in toulouse in exchange for military service against the vandals and swepty meanwhile the huns subjugated the gepids alemany the eastern goths ostrogoths and other minor germanic slavic and summation tribes between 395 and 399 they attacked both the eastern roman and the sassanid empires raiding the balkans the caucasus northern iran and eastern anatolia as the hunnic realm was extremely decentralized many of their warriors served as mercenaries both for the western romans and the goths still the raids into the eastern roman empire continued and the empire was forced to pay annual tribute in 422 [Music] the western empire was also having problems as civil wars rebellions and further invasions weakened it enter flavius aesius this roman general either of gothic or scythian origin spent his childhood as a hostage in the visigothic and hunnick courts learning much about their fighting styles and gaining valuable allies among the huns in 423 it allowed him to recruit a sizeable hunnic force and move to italy to support joannis to the throne however by the time ayeshas reached the capital ravenna another pretender valentinian was crowned to curb his ambitions aesius was paid a hefty son and was appointed the commander in gaul despite some setbacks he managed to restore roman rule to most of gaul relying heavily on the hun mercenaries he settled the allens around oleon to weaken the rebellion in brittany destroyed the burgundian kingdom and resettled it to the south and weakened the visigoths and franks basically creating his own semi-independent kingdom in the region [Music] back east the first ruler of the centralized hun state rua passed away and was succeeded by the nephews attila and bleda in 433 the new rulers renegotiated the treaty with the eastern romans in 435 receiving promises not to enter into an anti-hunnic alliance and to provide 700 pounds of gold annually however this piece was short-lived in 439 carthage was captured by the vandals the following year the eastern roman empire sent an expedition to reclaim africa meanwhile the sassanids attacked the romans in the east and all that allowed the huns to raid and pillage the balkans between 441 and 443 and this time they even reached constantinople emperor theodosius was forced to agree to pay 6000 pounds of gold annually in 445 bledder died possibly murdered by attila who became the ruler of the hanukk realm we don't know why but in 447 attila invaded the eastern romans yet again he destroyed the roman forces at the battle of the utes raided the balkans and compelled the emperor to sign another peace this time promising to leave the danube region as a buffer it was around that time the relationship between attila and ayeshas soured different sources present different reasons the huns were prohibited from serving as mercenaries which weakened aeitius at the same time the vandals who had animosity with the visigoths and one of the frankish heirs invited attila to invade gaul to deal with their enemies the sister of the western roman emperor honoria sent her ring to attila asking for his help and he took this as a promise of marriage and allegedly demanded half of the empire as a dowry attila was also displeased that the huns received no lands within the roman empire unlike other allies surprisingly the war against the western roman empire became inevitable when the eastern romans refused to send tribute in 450 attila needed that income to pay his troops and as he knew that the balkans were devastated and had little hope of taking constantinople he decided to invade gaul instead in the spring of 451 attila joined by the ostrogoths gapids alemany and others crossed the rhine [Music] at that point aisius was in italy and as he couldn't rely on his usual hanukk units he was forced to enter an alliance with his rival the king of the visigoths theodoric ask the burgundians and franks for help and rush to gaul we know very little about the root of attila's troops and which towns were sacked by them but by early june his horse-heavy army reached early on the sources are conflicting here some claim that attila besieged the city and as ayeshas arrived in the area soon he was forced to abandon the siege others think that aeithius was near orleon before the huns and that he didn't allow attila to blockade the city we also don't know if the illani leader sangiban was planning to side with the huns or the romans or was waiting to see which side was stronger in any case as the area wasn't favorable for cavalry the huns retreated and the illani joined aesius who also received contingents of visigoths franks burgundians and saxons the roman general then moved to pursue attila the exact location of the battle that we usually call the battle of the catalonian plains is unknown but some modern historians concluded that it happened at a place called morica close to thoi some 200 kilometers from oleon and not near shalom as was previously assumed another hotly debated topic is the number of troops but it is possible that both sides had around forty thousand warriors the chanuk army was cavalry heavy with elite horse archers as its core while the romans had more infantry than their opponents aesius chased attila for two weeks on june 19th his frankish vanguard skirmished with attila's gepid rearguard the gepids soon retreated as attila's goal was to bring the romans to the battlefield of his choosing that was advantageous for his cavalry two paths were leading to morocco divided by a forest and although the romans had to split their forces in two to move around this forest attila did not attempt to stop them at the choke points probably rightly considering his infantry was inferior to that of his enemy still a small cavalry detachment was left on the montgo ridge in the early morning of the 20th of june the visigothic column met this detachment on the hill attila wasn't planning to defend this position hoping to fight the romans on the open field to the east but he still sent some cavalry reinforcements to the ridge both the original unit and the reinforcements slowly retreated shooting a few volleys by the afternoon the visigoths were in control of the ridge and although both sides had a good defensible position they needed a decisive battle so the armies started to deploy aesius placed a small cavalry detachment under theodoric sun thorismund on the ridge so that the summit would hide them and formed up his army with his right flank protected by said ridge and his rear and left by the forests which gave attila no opportunity to attack the romans from the sides or the back theodoric and the visigoths held the right wing and dismounted forming a shield wall with archers in the second line allen cavalry took the center while the left side was held by the romans franks burgundians and saxons with infantry in the first line in a shield war with another group of missile infantry behind them and cavalry in the rear attila and his huns or cavalry formed the opposing center while the ostrogoth cavalry led by valomir manned the left with other germanic infantry behind them on the right attila placed the frank infantry and the gephit cavalry under uttarik with more germanic infantry in the second line the hun leader gave a speech in front of his line and then formed up his horse archers in the center into a wedge the hunch then galloped forward sending volleys into the allens who answered similarly but as the huns had numerical superiority sankibun's horsemen had to retreat according to their usual fighting style the hun wedge then split down the middle towards the left and the right sending arrows towards the romans and the visigoths but these volleys were less effective as they were met with the shield wall on the contrary the missile units in the second lines managed to wound and kill many lightly armoured huns still this attack covered the advance of the austrogoths against their visigoth cousins while the gepids moved against the romans initially both shield walls were pushed back but as the cavalry momentum was lost the shield walls restored their composure and the archers in the second line continued to send arrows above the shields however the huns turned towards the center once again and attempted to enter the hole left by the allen retreat that threatened the visigoth shield wall from the flank and the rear the king of the visigoth theodoric was killed while trying to encourage his troops and it seemed that the battle was turning in attila's favor still aesius managed to turn some of the allens back and ordered them along with the cavalry reserves to plug the center which stemmed the tide feeling that victory was close attila's second line of infantry joined the battle at the same time thorismund learned of his father's death and finally descended from the ridge charging the enemies left from the flank and rear it seems that the hunnic left was encircled and destroyed seeing that his cavalry were bogged down and his right was making no gains against the romans attila ordered a retreat to the camp by nightfall the battle stopped completely the huns were seemingly on the back foot so it is a mystery why aisius did not attack the next day some sources claim that the visigoths and franks declined to fight while others assert that it was aesius himself who wasn't eager to destroy the huns as they were a perfect balance against the germanic tribes a later frankish source maintains that aeitius received a payment from attila we will probably never learn the number of casualties but even if they were heavy in 452 attila invaded the roman empire yet again this time via italy and sacked aquilea and milan also inadvertently forcing the foundation of venice once again we don't know why but according to the sources he turned back after talking to the pope leo in 453 attila died either from an illness or killed by his young wife thorusmund was murdered by his brother soon after a year later attila's sons were defeated by the gapids of arderic at the battle of nidao and that resulted in the collapse of the hun empire in the same year aesius was murdered by the emperor valentinian who was in turn killed by isis's bodyguards in 455 just 20 years later the western roman empire ceased to exist [Music] this video was made possible by our patreon supporters and youtube sponsors consider joining their ranks in order to support us learn about our schedule vote on the next video and much more we also try to answer every comment so let us know what you think we're always happy to talk about history this is the kings and generals channel and we will catch you on the next one

Channel: Kings and Generals

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Rating: 4.9345131 out of 5

Keywords: attila the hun, roman empire, adrian goldsworthy, total war: attila, battle chalons, flavius aetius, valens, battle of catalunian plains, battle of maurica, last romans, visigoths, huns, romans, adrianople, kings and generals, animated documentaries, battle documentaries, rome, theodoric, ostrogoths, justinian, justinian's restoration, documentary, alans, gepids, valentinian, honoria, alaric, bleda, rua, Sangiban, ardirac, fall of the roman empire, sacking of rome, decisive battles, siege of rome

Id: 1KMHlGxm9K8

Length: 15min 7sec (907 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 10 2018