When Charlemagne incorporated much of Central Europe, he brought the Frankish state face to face with the Avars and Slavs in the southeast. In 788, a new enemy arrived on Frankish lands: the Avars. They were a pagan Asian horde who had settled in what is today Hungary (Einhard calls them Huns), before invading Friuli and then Bavaria. Charlemagne was highly preoccupied until 790 with other political conquests, but in that year he decided he finally had the time to march down the Danube into Avar territory and ravage it all the way to the river Raab. As a second strike, Charlemagne called up a Lombard army under Pippin to march into the Drava valley and ravage Pannonia. Their forked campaign would have continued if the Saxons had not revolted again in 792, breaking seven years of peace and forcing Charlemagne to focus on the Slavs and the Saxons for the next two years.
Pippin and Duke Eric of Friuli, however, continued to attack the Avars’ strongholds. The great Ring of the Avars, their capital fortress (so named because the fort was built in 10 rings of earthworks), was taken twice, and the booty was sent to Charlemagne at his capital, Aachen, and redistributed to all his followers and even to foreign rulers, including King Offa of Mercia. The Avar leaders soon learned that fighting Charlemagne or his sons was a losing battle: they traveled to Aachen personally to offer themselves to Charlemagne as vassals and Christians. Charlemagne accepted, and he sent one native chief (baptized Abraham) back to Avaria with the ancient title of khagan. Abraham kept his people in line, but not for long: in 800 the Bulgarians under Khan Krum swept the Avar state away, and a hundred years later the Magyars arrived on the Pannonian plain and began a new threat to Charlemagne’s descendants.
To consolidate his empire further, in 789 Charlemagne marched an Austr-asian-Saxon army across the Elbe into Abrodite or Slav territory. The pagan Slavs immediately submitted under their leader Witzin, and Charlemagne then accepted the surrender of the Witzes under their leader Dragovit. He did demand many hostages from Dragovit and the permission to send missionaries into the pagan region; once his aims were met, his army marched to the Baltic Sea before turning around and returning to the Frankish heartland with much treasure and no harassment.
The Slavs wisely became loyal allies, even helping Charlemagne fight the Saxons. In 795 the Abrodites and Witzes rose in arms with the French king against the Saxons. Witzin died in battle, and Charlemagne avenged him by attacking the Eastphalians on the Elbe. Thrasuco, Witzin’s successor, led his men to conquest over the Nordalbingians and handed their leaders over to Charlemagne. The Abrodites remained loyal until Charlemagne’s death and even fought later against the Danes. Charlemagne wanted to bring in the Slavic peoples to the west of the Avar khaganate: the Carantanians and Car-niolans. Although these people were overcome by the Lombards and Bavarians and made Frankish tributaries, they were never fully incorporated into the Frankish state.
The most southeasterly Frankish neighbors were Croats, who settled into two duchies: the Pannonian Croatia Duchy and the Littoral Croatian Duchy. While fighting the Avars, the Franks had called for their support, and the Pan-nonian Croatian duke Vojnomir aided Charlemagne. In turn, Charlemagne offered protection to the Croatians of northern Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Pan-nonia, but not to the Littoral duchy.
This duchy was soon an item on Charlemagne’s list of projected conquests. Eric of Friuli, a Frankish commander, wanted to extend his dominion in Charlemagne’s name by conquering the Littoral Croatian Duchy, ruled by Duke Viseslav, one of the first known Croatian dukes. Sadly for the Frankish king, the effort failed. In the battle of Trsat, Eric’s forces fled their positions and were totally defeated by Viseslav’s army. Eric himself was among the dead, and his defeat was a great setback for the Frankish empire.
World History
