For many years, German leaders had been struggling to cope with an influx of peoples across their borders. While the crisis was one that had afflicted much of Europe, it was Germany that bore the brunt. Year after after year they had been coming, crossing from the steppes of the Carpathian Basin into Swabia and Bavaria, a relentless tide of migrants who, while they shared neither the religion nor the customs of the native Germans, were irresistibly drawn by perceptions of their wealth. Various policies had been attempted to stem the flow. Carrots, in the form of financial subsidies, and sticks, in the form of refurbished border controls, had both been judiciously applied. Nothing, though, seemed to work. Indeed, the determination of those beyond the limits of Germany to cross its frontiers appeared, if anything, to be stiffening. As a result, for the German authorities, the moment of truth was drawing near. The choice they faced was a stark one: either to secure a definitive solution to the crisis, or else to lose control of their borders altogether.

The storm finally broke in the summer of 955. “A multitude of Hungarians, such as no living person can remember having seen in any one region before, invaded the realm of the Bavarians which they devastated and occupied simultaneously from the Danube to the dark forest on the rim of the mountains.” It was not only the scale of the invasion force which filled the Germans with dread, though, but the evident scope of its preparations. Previously, when the Hungarians had come sweeping out of their steppe lands, they had done so exclusively on horseback, setting a premium on speed, the better to strip a landscape bare, and then to retreat back to the Danube before the more heavily armoured German cavalry could corner them. Plunder, not territorial acquisitions, had been their goal. Now, though, it seemed that they had a different strategy. Crossing into German territory, their horsemen rode at a measured pace. Alongside them marched huge columns of infantry. Siege engines creaked and rumbled in their train. This time, it seemed, the Hungarians had come to conquer.