III/30 Magyar

Proposals:

1. Hungarian terrain

2. Remove the Slav infantry

3. Géza's Bavarians

4. List end date

1. Hungarian terrain

See Hungarian terrain

2. Remove the Slav infantry

Synopsis: Remove the subject Slav infantry entries, except for a token force.

Author: Stephen Ladanyi, Ulf Olsson

Proposal:

Delete all references to Slav infantry in the current Magyar list and

replace them with:

Slav or other tribal infantry - javelinmen or similar, Irr Ax(O) @ 3 AP,

or archers, Irr Ps(O) @ 2 AP, or poorly-armed levies, Irr Hd (O) @ 1AP 0-6

These infantry may represent Slavs, lower-class Magyars, Avar remnants or be from just about any other of the ethnic groups that had been living in the area for several centuries.

Justification:

The argument against allowing large numbers of Slav infantry in the Magyar list boils down to there being no reliable evidence at all for such troops.

The current position is that Phil Barker has said in email (see TNE message 9274) that he relied for the Magyar list on Ian Heath's Armies of the Dark Ages, 600-1066 AD (WRG, 2nd ed. 1980). Heath's book has the following comments:

Page 24 (talking about "The Asiatic Hordes" in general):

"They were normally 100 per cent cavalry but sometimes contained a small proportion of native infantry or a larger proportion of Slav subject infantry. The latter is particularly true of 6th and 7th century Avar armies, as well as Bulgar, Khazar and later Magyar armies."

Page 26 (talking specifically about The Magyars):

"After their conquest of Hungary, Slav and German auxiliairies are also recorded, and Pechenegs were employed from 1051; there were quite probably many Slavs in the army at Lechfeld, which would help explain its size." (The "Carolingian and Ottonian Warfare" chapter by Timothy Reuter in Medieval Warfare: a History (edited by Maurice Keen) also mentions that both the Ottonians and the Magyars have Slavic auxiliaries with them at the battle of Lechfeld. Heath does not cite a specific source for his assertion, and I have been unable to find any Hungarian historian who mentions large numbers of Slav infantry in the Magyar army at Lechfeld.)

Heath's book goes up to 1066, while the Magyar list ends in 997. Apart from the Lechfeld reference, he might be referring more to 11th-century conditions. No positive evidence has so far been found for Slav foot before 997. Against it, there is little indication that the Magyars controlled an extensive Slavic population in the 10th century:

- There is still considerable historical debate as to whether or not the Magyars found Slavs in the Carpathian Basin or whether the area was inhabited by remnant Avars, by a mixed population, or was largely depopulated.

- The Magyars had (mounted) fighters and "common people" who cultivated crops and bred animals. The plebs represented in the 24,000 Carpathian Basin grave sites dating from the 10th Century probably include Magyar "common people" (in addition to the mounted) rather than Slavs. According to Pal Engel "A mass of poor people ... formed part of tenth-century Hungarian society, and they seem to have been unarmed peasants" (The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895-1526 p.17).

- The Magyars maintained their strong tribal groupings implying that it would have been unlikely for them to have assimilated large groups of Slav fighters.

The Magyars did control a Slavonic population in modern southern Slovakia, after the fall of the Great Moravian kingdom c.907 and more certainly after 925; and almost certainly in Transylvania, where place-names indicate an important Slavic component in the population (Engel p.24). However direct evidence that these Slovaks or Transylvanians (or any other subjugated Slavic populations) played any military role this early is lacking. András Róna-Tas, in Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages; An Introduction to Early Hungarian History (p.381) says "In the literature on the Magyars' incursions on the west I did not find any reference to the participation of Slavic populations of the Carpathian Basin ... This means that they did not participate in military power, although it is true that there had not been much time for this. Thus Slavic leaders did not reach important military positions."

Magyar armies of the period are not described as containing infantry:

- "Western" nations considered the Magyars to be "the same" as the Avars, Skythians etc; that is, nomadic mounted archers from the steppes. For example the early 10th-century chronicler Regino of Prum (available online at http://www.dmgh.de) describes the Magyars' skirmishing horse-archers without mentioning that they possess any infantry. He does say that they don't dismount, and doesn't say they have any auxiliaries on foot to do the job; he gives the impression of an entirely mounted force.

- Western accounts of battles against the Magyars, notably Merseburg and Lechfeld, do not mention infantry in the Magyar army.

- In the century following the Conquest up to the establishment of the Christian Hungarian kingdom under Stephen I, the Magyars engaged in widespread raiding emanating out from the Carpathian Basin. You can't do raiding if you're dragging along heaps of slow Slav foot!

- While there may have been wars other than the raids where strategic mobility was less crucial, there still sems to be no evidence for Slav infantry in any such campaign.

Recently Charles R Bowlus (in The Battle of Lechfeld and Its Aftermath, August 955) has suggested that there was probably a significant infantry force (nationality unspecified) at the Lechfeld. Since infantry are not mentioned in the brief original accounts of the battle itself, Bowlus appears to deduce their presence from his interpretation of the siege of Augsburg a few days before: "foot soldiers who hauled the siege engines up to Augsburg's ramparts" (Bowlus p.123). This passage draws on the original account of that siege in Gerhard's Vita S. Oudalrici:

(...) exercitus Ungrorum inenarrabili pluritate ex omni parte ad

expugnandam civitatem circumcincxit, diversa ferens instrumenta ad

depositionem murorum. Cumque undique parati essent ad bellum, et

cuncta propugnacula civitatis repugnantium plena fuissent, quidam

Ungrorum flagellis alios minantes ad pugnandum coegerunt; (...)

(...) the army of the Magyars has surrounded in unexplicable number

from every direction the city to conquer, carrying varied equipment

to put down the walls. And when they were everywhere ready to fight,

and all bulwarks of the city had been full of opponents, certain

ones of the Magyars, driving others with scourges, have summoned

them to fight; (...)

(translation by Michael Fischer)

The Latin is at http://www.dmgh.de/ . Go to "Scriptores (in Folio) (SS)" then "4: (Annales, chronica et historiae aevi Carolini et Saxonici)", and it's page 401.

Since carrying siege equipment is not a task that is carried out on horseback, these men could have been infantry who had escorted a siege-train. However, they could just as easily have been dismounted Magyar cavalrymen using simple siege devices such as rams or grappling-hooks, improvised from local materials. The "instrumenta" are associated with an assault, not an artillery bombardment.

If any infantry were present, they can be catered for by the small contingent allowed in this proposal, rather than by assuming large numbers of unattested Slavic warriors.

Related issue: Slav cavalry

If the Slav infantry are removed, the question of Slav subject cavalry (currently 0-2 elements of Irr Cv (O)) remains. These would represent the magnates of Slav groups subject to the Magyars, and their household warriors; and the practical arguments against Slav infantry participation in the great raids would not apply.

Modern Hungarian historians tend to suggest no Slavic participation in early armies:

"It was not just the lack of ethnic political unity among the Slavs that meant they could not assimilate the Magyars in the same ways as they had the Bulghars and the Avars; they were also excluded from any military role in the Magyars' campaigns beyond the region. This shut them out from any positions of power and hindered any organised defence of the Carpathian Basin's Slavs." (András Róna-Tás, Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages; An Introduction to Early Hungarian History (Central European University Press, 1999), page 390.)

At least one historian of Slovakia disagrees:

"Elements of an organizational connection were possible probably also because of the fact that a part of the Slavic aristocracy in the Central Danubian region – i.e. also in southern Slovakia – got accustomed to the new conditions and took part in the military expeditions of the Old Magyars that were directed into various parts of Europe and were aimed at the acquisition of booty." (Alexander Ruttkay at http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/texasczech/Slav%20Origins/Seventh%20and%20Eight%20Century%20Slovaks.htm )

However at the moment there seems to be no contemporary evidence for Slav cavalry in Magyar armies, any more than for infantry.

Related issue: Bohemian allies

The published list currently allows Bohemian allies (from the Early Slav list) in the years 912-932. These dates correspond to the period when Vratislav I (r. 915-921) and Vaclav I ("St Wenceslas", 921-929 or 935) were establishing a unified, Christian, Czech state. Vaclav was killed in batle with the Magyars, and one webpage - http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=592 - suggests an alliance between the Magyars and a pagan Czech faction at this point. Something like this is probably the basis for the alliance entry in this list, but no firmer evidence has yet been discovered.

3. Géza's Bavarians

Synopsis: Allow Géza's Bavarian bodyguard

Author: Duncan Head

Proposal:

Add the following:

Only Géza in 975-997:

Bavarian caballarii - Irr Kn (I) 0-3

Convert C-in-c with Bavarian bodyguard to Irr Kn (I) 0-1

Add to list notes:

Bavarian Kn may dismount at any time as Bd (O). All Bavarian Kn must be in the c-in-c's command.

Justification:

From C A Macartney's Hungary: A Short History (Edinburgh University Press, 1962) online at http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/macartney/macartney02.htm :

"Géza moved his capital to Esztergom and surrounded himself with a bodyguard of Bavarian knights, on whom he bestowed large estates."

Peter F Sugar (ed), A History of Hungary, p16:

"To strengthen himself militarily, he (Géza) constructed earthwork forts and invited western knights and Russian warriors to join his bodyguard."

Ilona Karádi (ed), The Illustrated History of Hungary, p 19:

"Géza finished his life's work by securing a marriage to Gizella, daughter of Henry II of Bavaria, for his son (Stephen). The princess was escorted to her new home by German knights, who provided considerable military (and moral) support to the leadership of the country in transition."

Numbers are arbitrary, enough to be a significant guard force without being overwhelming. Assuming this list is at "normal" scale, which seems appropriate, it gives 800-1,000 horsemen. The classification of Bavarians comes straight from their own East Frankish list.

4. End date of the list

Synopsis: Change end date to 1003

Author: Duncan Head

Proposal:

Change the dates of the list from "650-997 AD" to "650-1003 AD".

Change the list notes from "...ends with their metamorphosis into the Christian Kingdom of Hungary under Stephen I" to "...ends with the last opponents of Stephen I, first ruler of the Christian Kingdom of Hungary".

Battles between Magyar and Early Hungarian armies in the 997-1003 overlap between the two lists should count as civil wars.

Justification:

This change will produce an overlap with the Early Hungarian list, III/67. After his accession in 997 Stephen had to defeat the revolt of his kinsman Koppány, and then subdue the gyula, the semi-independent Magyar ruler of Transylvania, in 1003. It seems highly unlikely that these dissident rulers would have the use of German knights, so these campaigns can be represented as an Early Hungarian army fighting against a Magyar army.

Reference:

Pál Engel, The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895-1526, p. 27.