Battle of Brenta

Hungarian armies had never been to Italy before. Military intelligence was one of the most important features of nomadic warfare.^[5] Starting a war without knowing the enemy's power, number of soldiers, will to fight, etc., was unimaginable in the nomadic societies. This is why in late October 898 they sent a lightly armored, quick moving small unit on reconnaissance, crossing Pannonia on their way to Northern Italy^[6] before arriving in Friuli. They camped three days with their tents near the river Brenta, sending their scouts in small groups to reconnoitre the land, its wealth, the number and the fighting spirit of the enemy troops, the routes of attack and retreat, the places which could be chosen as battlefields, where the most spoils were to be found, the number of the cities, castles and the strength of their defence system.^[7] It is certain that the place of the future battle was chosen during this minor incursion. We do not know the exact numbers of this scout unit, but according to Marco Polo, in the Mongolian Empire the reconnaissance units were composed of 200 riders.^[8] So we can presume that the Hungarian scout unit, which went in 898 into Italy, had a number around 100-200. After three days the small groups they sent in every direction, returned, analyzed the information they gained, then returned home.^[7]


As Liutprand of Cremona mentions, after returning home, the Hungarians used the winter to prepare their weapons, sharpen their arrowheads, and to teach to the youth how to fight.^[9] Then in 899, a Hungarian army, crossing Pannonia, headed to Italy. The historians do not agree about the road they took. Gyula Kristó argues that they bypassed Pannonia and went westwards, following the courses of the rivers Sava and Drava and entering Italy near Aquileia, on the road named after them, Strata Hungarorum, due to the fact that they used it so often during the next decades and centuries.^[10] According to István Bóna, the Hungarian army, with the permission of Arnulf, crossed Pannonia, then headed towards Italy on the ancient road Via Gemina, which linked the ancient cities Celeia, Ljubljana and Aquileia, arrived in Italy.^[6] The historians' opinions differ also about the period of the year in which the Hungarian army arrived to Italy. According to Kristó, basing on the account of Liutprand, they arrived in February–March.^[11] Bóna believes, according to the account of Catalogus abbatum nonantulorum that they arrived in August 899.^[6]


They entered Italy they passed next to the big walls of Aquileia, without attacking it, then scattered in smaller units, spread in many directions, attacking the surroundings of Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, Pavia,^[6] destroying Feltre, one of their unit reaching in the West even the Great St Bernard Pass.^[11] Usually the Hungarian nomadic warriors did not attack castles and big cities surrounded by walls, because they were not skilled in sieges and had no siege machinery, so they plundered and burned monasteries, gathering spoils along the way.


As Liutprand of Cremona mentions, hearing about the appearance of the Hungarians in his kingdom, Berengar I was very surprised that this army from a nation he had never heard of had appeared so suddenly. Then he sent envoys and letters into every corner of his country ordering his subjects to send their troops to him to fight the Hungarians.^[12] After all his troops had gathered, his army was three times the size of the Hungarian army. According to Chronicon Sagornini of John the Deacon, the Italian army was 15,000 men,^[13] so we can infer that the Hungarians numbered about 5,000. This number could be exaggerated, as medieval chroniclers often did with the numbers of armies, but there is no reason not to accepted the claim that the Italians were three times more numerous than the Hungarians, as usually the chroniclers exaggerate the number of the enemy armies and diminish the number of men on their own side, so we can accept that the Italians heavily outnumbered the Hungarians. Noticing his superiority, Berengar spent his time in a town carousing with his men instead of attacking the Hungarian army immediately.^[14] This gave time to the Hungarian troops, scattered to plunder every corner of the Italian kingdom, to retreat towards a gathering place, one not precisely specified, on the bank of the river Brenta, which, as shown before, was probably chosen from the beginning to be the place of the battle.^[15] Seeing this, King Berengar thought that they were frightened by the number of his troops and started to pursue them, thinking he had already won. His cavalry even managed to surprise a Hungarian troop and force it to cross the River Adda in haste, thus causing the drowning of many of them.^[16] But generally the retreat was a success, as the Hungarians light armor and weapons (the commoners, who usually carried out the pillaging raids, wore no armour except leather, only their officers had lamellar armour, and their weapons were always composite bows, the hand-to-hand weapons were sabres, and rarely battle axes or maces)^[17] enabled their horses to be more rapid than the heavy armored and weaponed Carolingian type Italian cavalry.^[18] The Hungarians retreated on the old Roman road the Via Postumia towards the future battlefield.^[6]


The Hungarians retreat also served as part of their psychological warfare, which had the goal of inducing over-confidence in Berengar and the belief that he had already won the war against them, thus lulling his vigilance. To augment this, the Hungarians sent envoys to Berengar, promising that they would give up all their plunder and asking only to be allowed a safe return to their homeland; but the over-confident Berengar and his commanders refused this, believing that it would be an easy task to take them all prisoner.^[19] Although the chronicler Liutprand believes that the Hungarians were frightened, hopeless, and just wanted to escape alive, the modern historians consider that this was only a clever role-playing, in order to get the Italians into a mood which would lead to their defeat.^[6][15] The role-playing of the Hungarian army was almost exposed when the Italian vanguard reached the Hungarian rearguard at the "wide fields" of Verona and forced it to fight, and the Magyars were forced to defeat the Italians, in order to escape, although probably it was not among the commanders' plans to expose their strength before the final battle. But when Berengar's main forces arrived, the Hungarian rearguard ran away, continuing its retreat.^[20] But Berengar did not take this sign too seriously, and continued to chase the fleeing Hungarians.


After this long pursuit, on 24 September 899, the Hungarians and the Italians arrived to the river Brenta, after the "most ingenious planned flight of the world history", as István Bóna points.^[6] He probably names this retreat so, because of the multiple results it produced:


The nomadic armies used the tactic of feigned retreat very often in the ancient and medieval times, and the Hungarians were masters of it, using it in many battles of the period of their invasions of Europe (899-970).^[21] Liutprand mentions that the horses of the Hungarians were very tired, but they had the strength to cross the river before the Italians arrived, so Brenta separated the two armies from each other. The heavily armored Italians could not pass the river so easily, so they remained on the other side, and both armies assembled their battle lines on the both sides of the river.^[22]


Then the Hungarians again sent envoys to the Italian side, this time with even more alluring propositions for the Italians; in return for their safe return home, they promised to give them everything: prisoners, equipment, weapons, horses, keeping only one for each of them for their homecoming. To show how serious they are about this proposal, they promised that they will never return to Italy, and as guarantees for this, they will send their own sons to the Italians.^[22] With these exaggerate but still unacceptable promises (knowing that Berengar will not accept their departure after the destruction they caused, and would want to take them all prisoners), the Hungarians managed to totally convince the king that their fate depends only from his goodwill. So the Italians responded harshly, threatening them, probably wanting their total surrender.^[23]


The Hungarians waited for this moment. The Italians assembled a fortified camp, which however was not sufficiently guarded, left their guard down, and many of them started to eat and drink, to refresh after the long and exhausting pursuit, waiting the continuation of the negotiations,^[24] because Berengar thought that the Magyars are too weak and tired to fight, so they are at his mercy. But at the other side of the Brenta river was probably not only the tired, pursued Magyar army group, but other Hungarian troops too which at the start of the campaign, were sent in other directions to plunder, and in the meantime they returned for the battle, and also those who remained in their permanent camp placed in that very place from the beginning of the campaign, because it was chosen a year ago in their reconnaissance incursion. In their campaigns in Europe, the Hungarians in every country they stayed longer, chose a place to be their permanent camp during their stay in the region (in 926 the Abbey of Saint Gall,^[25] in 937 in France the Abbey of Saint Basolus near Verzy,^[26] in the same year the meadows of Galliano near Capua, where they stood for 12 days^[27]), so knowing these, it is highly probable, that the principal camp and the rallying point of the Hungarians was on the meadows near the Brenta river. So, without Berengar's knowledge, on the other side of the river were a great number of fresh troops with fresh horses, which just waited to start the battle.