ABSTRACT
The Magyars first came upon the horizon of the Western Empire in 862, when the first of their bands which pushed across Hungary made a transient irruption into the Bavarian Ostmark. The extraordinary successes which the Magyars obtained during the first thirty years of the tenth century were far more the result of their enemies' divisions and ill-governance than of their own strength. While half the Magyars offered battle, and turned to fly after a trifling resistance, the rest of their horde lay hid in ambush till the German horse swept by them in the disorder of victory. The Magyars, dismayed by the disaster which had befallen their detached corps, made a poor resistance. They were indeed wholly incapable of standing up to the Germans man to man: their horses were smaller, and very few of them wore any defensive armour.
