ABSTRACT
Discussions of Otto’s decisive victory over the Magyars in 955 generally begin with the military reforms initiated in the mid-920s by his father, King Henry I (919-36).1 According to Widukind, this ruler responded to the Hungarian threat by restructuring the military of ducal Saxony, his power base. After completing this task he abruptly ceased to pay the Hungarians tribute. When they retaliated by invading Thuringia and Saxony in 933, Henry’s revitalized army forced them to flee empty-handed back to the Carpathian Basin. The most celebrated victory during the campaign of 933 took place on the Unstrut River at an unidentified site called Riade near Merseburg on the eastern frontiers of Thuringia.2 This engagement, depicted by a mural at Henry’s palace in Merseburg, enormously enhanced the king’s reputation as a military leader. Although the triumph over the Hungarians in 933 was less spectacular than Otto’s annihilation of their forces in August 955, historians agree that the latter’s good fortune rested on concrete military reforms that had first borne fruit at Riade.
