Author: Stephen Ladanyi
Add Woods (Wd) and Marsh (M) to lists based in the early Hungarian plain.
II/80 Hunnic - Only Western Huns from 410 to 453 AD
III/2 Early Lombard - Only before 568 AD
III/13 Avar - Only from 568 AD
III/30 Magyar - Only from 896 AD
III/67 Early Hungarian
(Limiting dates are taken from existing steps in the published lists, except for 410 in the Hunnic list, which is assumed as a date for the initial Hun occupation of Pannonia; some authorities have suggested earlier dates.)
Justification:
1. The Ancient Hungarians, Exhibition Catalogue 1996 edited by
István Fodor (former Director of the Hungarian National History
Museum), Page 28:
"The natural habitat of the eastern nomads in the Carpathian Basin
was the Great Hungarian Plain, extending over 10,000 sq. km. and the
Small Hungarian Plain, roughly one tenth of that area. The greater
part of this territory, however, was covered by the Danube and Tisza
rivers, and their tributaries, as well as innumerable lakes, marshes
and bogs...The immense floodplain of the Tisza was dissected
by innumerable levees, shoal islands and peninsulas, while the
grassy pastureland on these and higher elevations were covered with
oak, ash and birch grove forests."
2. The Magyars, Their Life and Civilisation by Gyula László
(Corvina, Budpaest, 1996). Pages 8 and 9:
"The Middle-Danube basin is the most westerly of the wooded steppe-
lands of Europe."
"At much the same time as Anonymous was writing, Otto, bishop of
Freising, who passed through 'Hungary' with his crusader army in
1147, described the country as 'God's own paradise', whose plains
were irrigated by 'noble streams and waters', the game of its
forests beyond counting, and 'its beauty as enchanting as its
luxuriant land is fertile."
"Vast reed-beds and boggy marshlands afforded refuge for inhabitants
on their hilly prominances, against enemies; by retreating there
they managed to ride out the devastations wreaked by Tartar and
Turkish armies. The same water-meadows were were an ideal habitat
for hunter and fisher, but these, and all other aspects of rural
life, changed by the land-drainage and waterway regulation schemes
of the modern age."
"Places where trains and automobiles now speed along without
hindrance in olden days had to be crossed by canoe, and only those
who knew the secrets of the marshes would dare to enter these
environs."
"The oakwoods of these marshy regions fell victim to clearance long
before land reclamation took place, as the timber was required to
build the fortresses of the border-defence system."
3. A Concise History of Hungary; the History of Hungary from the
Early Middle Ages to the Present
(Corvina, Budapest, 2005). Page 23:
"Ranges of hills of varying height enclose Transdanubia to the
north, east and south. At one time these were particularly rich in
minerals; being less favourable for settlement, a significant area
remainded forested and uninhabited until the late Middle Ages, and
in some parts even until modern times."
It is assumed:
- That if woods and marshy lowlands were present at the Conquest at the end of the 9th century, and in 1147, they would also be present in earlier eras.
- That land-clearance probably eliminated most marshes and woods by the time of the Later Hungarian list (remembering that the rules still allow any army to have a Marsh by a river), which therefore does not need these options.