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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

VIII. THE GERMANS TO 476 A.D.

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

Germany and the Germans   * Breaking of the Danube Barrier   * Breaking of the Rhine Barrier   * Inroads of the Huns   * End of the Roman Empire in the West, 476 A.D.   * Germanic Influence on Society

Page 13

ATTILA INVADES ITALY, 452 A.D.

In spite of this setback Attila did not abandon the hope of conquest. The next year he led his still formidable army over the Julian Alps and burned or plundered many towns of northern Italy. A few trembling fugitives sought shelter on the islands at the head of the Adriatic. Out of their rude huts grew up in the Middle Ages splendid and famous Venice, a city that in later centuries was to help defend Europe against those kinsmen of the Huns, the Turks.

DEATH OF ATTILA, 453 A.D.

The fiery Hun did not long survive this Italian expedition. Within a year he was dead, dying suddenly, it was said, in a drunken sleep. The great confederacy which he had formed broke up after his death. The German subjects gained their freedom, and the Huns themselves either withdrew to their Asiatic wilds or mingled with the peoples they had conquered. Europe breathed again; the nightmare was over.

 

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy