The Battle of Brenta was fought between the cavalry of the Kingdom of Italy under King Berengar I, and the Hungarians hired by the East Francian king Arnulf of Carinthia, at an unidentified location in northern Italian Peninsula along the river Brenta on 24 September 899. It was one of the earliest battles of the Hungarian invasions of Europe. The result was a crushing defeat for Berengar I, allowing the Magyars (Hungarians) to continue west and sack large areas of Italy. The Hungarian invaders burned many cities, including Feltre, Vercelli, Modena, and monasteries like the monastery in Nonantola.
Arnulf of Carinthia died in December 899. As a result, the Hungarians, whom he had hired against the Italian king, left the kingdom the following year with all their plunder, but not before concluding peace with Berengar, who gave them many hostages and gifts. On their way home, the Hungarians attempted an improvised amphibious assault of Venice across the Adriatic Sea, a unique achievement for an exclusively land army in pre-modern times, succeeding in sacking some outlying portions of Venice, only to be repulsed with significant casualties by Venetian ships.
In some historians' opinion the returning army had a role also in the conquest of Pannonia, as part of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin from the Bavarians in late 900.
Background
At the end of the 9th century the Carolingian Empire of Charlemagne had been divided into the kingdoms of West Francia, East Francia, and Italy, led by Carolingian kings who often fought for supremacy. Arnulf of Carinthia, the son of the East Francian king Carloman, who became German king in 887, wanted to recreate the Carolingian Empire and so undertook an Italian campaign, claiming the title King of Italy in 894. In 896 he was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by the pope. His most important ally in Italy was Berengar of Friuli, who was himself a great-grandson of Charlemagne. After 898, however, Berengar began to consider himself more worthy for the title of emperor, believing himself to be a truer Carolingian than Arnulf, since the latter was an illegitimate son of Carloman.
Berengar had become king of Italy in 887, but soon lost control of most of his lands to Guy III of Spoleto, who proclaimed himself king of Italy and emperor. Berengar was saved by the intervention of Arnulf of Carinthia in 894; they together defeated Guy of Spoleto, who died shortly after. However, after Arnulf was crowned King of Italy and Emperor, he named his illegitimate son Ratold sub-king of Italy. Ratold and Berengar agreed to divide Italy between themselves, but soon after they started to fight for supremacy. When Ratold died unexpectedly, Berengar remained as sole rule, and started to aspire to the title of emperor. Aware of this, Arnulf, very ill, could not go personally to campaign in Italy, but concluded an alliance with the leaders of the Hungarians, who had in 895-896 occupied the Eastern parts of the Carpathian Basin, convincing them to send an army to attack Berengar. Arnulf was accused by his enemies of having concluded the alliance with the Hungarians by cutting a dog and a wolf in two, in a pagan way. This was how these nomadic peoples made alliances, with the parties swearing to keep the alliance and cursing themselves to die like the animals they had cut in half if they broke their oath. This shows that Arnulf was aware of the Hungarian threat to the eastern provinces of his realm, especially the March of Pannonia. So the alliance seems to have had two purposes: to punish Berengar, and to divert the Hungarians from invading Pannonia so at least for a while he could be assured that they would not attack him. He may have hoped that these two dangerous neighbors would weaken each other.
Prelude
Hungarian armies had entered Italy before. Military intelligence was one of the most important features of nomadic warfare. 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 before arriving in Friuli. They camped three days with their tents near the river Brenta, sending their scouts in small groups to reconnoiter 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, and the cities and the defensive works. It is certain that the place of the future battle was chosen during this minor incursion. The exact size of the reconnaissance force is not known, but according to Marco Polo, in the Mongolian Empire such reconnaissance units were composed of 200 riders, implying that the Hungarian force comprised about 100 to 200 riders. After three days the small groups they sent in every direction, returned, analyzed the information they gained, then returned home.
As Liutprand of Cremona mentions, after returning home, the Hungarians used the winter to prepare equipment and train their youth. In 899, a Hungarian army entered Italy. Historians do not agree about the route 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. 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. Historians also differ about the time of the year in which the Hungarian army reached Italy. According to Kristó, basing on the account of Liutprand, they arrived in February–March. Bóna believes, according to the account of Catalogus abbatum nonantulorum that they arrived in August 899.
On entering Italy, the Hungarians passed the strong walls of Aquileia without attacking it, then scattered in smaller groups, attacking the surroundings of Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, Pavia, destroying Feltre, with one group reaching the Great St Bernard Pass. 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 of 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. He sent envoys and letters into every corner of his country ordering his subjects to send their troops to him to fight the Hungarians. After all his troops had gathered, his army was about three times the size of the Hungarians'. According to Chronicon Sagornini of John the Deacon, the Italian army had 15,000 men, so we can infer that the Hungarians numbered about 5,000. This number could be exaggerated, as medieval chroniclers often did with the size of armies, but there is no reason not to accept the claim that the Italians were three times more numerous than the Hungarians, as contemporary chroniclers generally exaggerated the size of enemy armies relative to theirs. Convinced of his superiority, Berengar allegedly caroused with some of his friends in a town instead of attacking the Hungarian army immediately. 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 was probably chosen from the beginning to be the place of the battle. 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 group, forcing it to cross the River Adda in haste, causing the drowning of many of them. But generally the retreat was a success, as the Hungarians' light armor and weapons allowed their cavalry to move more quickly than the more heavily equipped Carolingian Italian cavalry. (Magyar commoners, who usually carried out the pillaging raids, wore only leather armor; only elites had lamellar armour, and their weapons were always composite bows; their melee weapons were sabres, and rarely battle axes or maces.) The Hungarians retreated along the old Roman Via Postumia.
The Hungarian 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. 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. 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. 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. He probably names this retreat so, because of the multiple results it produced:
- The Hungarians managed to retreat without great losses,
- They concentrated their troops on the place they formerly chose for the battle,
- Using the tactics of military deception they misled the enemy commanders about their plans,
- With the use of the psychological warfare (persuading the enemy that they are weak, thus making him overconfident) they "prepared" them to be defeated.
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). 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.
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. 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.