Victory Secrets of Attila the Hun: 1,500 Years Ago Attila Got the Competitive Edge. Now He Tells You How You Can Get It, Too--His Way

PROLOGUE
 
“Enter the Huns”
 
The Huns were improbable cast members of the drama played out in Europe in the late fourth to mid-fifth century. The plot included not only their growing power but also widespread corruption, greed, intrigue, civil war, inept leadership, and (perhaps inevitably) the collapse of the once great Roman Empire.
 
The Hunnic horde comprised Hungarians, Turks, Slavs, Mongols, and Asians who united in the fifth century as a confederacy led by Attila, king of Huns. Attila was probably from an Asiatic tribe that the Chinese called Hiung-nu, which translates as “common slaves.” Regardless of how the Chinese saw the Huns, his Huns saw Attila as a member of the royal clan that had provided them with leaders when, as loosely aligned, nomadic tribes, they had roamed the vast Mongolian plain, slowly migrating west.
 
The Roman Empire included large cities, small villages, and vast estates. Trade was well established. Citizens paid taxes to a central government. In contrast, the Huns lived on their horses, in tents, and in chariots and roamed the plains, surviving off the land. Their trade was limited to horses and slaves taken as prisoners of war. Having no central government, they paid no taxes.
 
The Huns were as noisy in battle as they were fierce. The pounding hooves of their shaggy plains ponies were accompanied by the roars of the Hunnic cavalry as they charged into battle. Yet the threat the Huns posed to the Roman Empire was negligible for a long time.
 
The Huns’ push westward began in the twilight of the fourth century and went largely unnoticed. Around A.D. 375, the Huns took the Ukraine and forced the Goths to flee to the Pannonian basin. The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) emperor allowed the Goths to settle there under terms of a treaty that required them to provide foederati (mercenaries) to supplement the Empire’s ailing imperial army. Later, Huns were to fight side by side with Goths as fellow mercenaries in that army.
 
The Huns continued their westward migration for the next twenty-five to thirty years, arriving at the eastern edge of the Roman Empire early in the 400s.
 
The Asiatic Huns looked different from the Caucasian Europeans. They were short, stout, and swarthy, with high cheekbones and dark hair and eyes. Hardened by nomadic life, many Huns wore clothing made largely from animal skins, which enhanced their ferocious appearance. Virtually all Hunnic males were accomplished hunters, horsemen, and archers. No doubt many of the women were as well. The customs and beliefs of the Huns and the Romans bore little similarity.
 
Neither pagans nor Christians, the Huns revered nature deities and believed in the healing, prophetic, and visionary powers of their shamans. In contrast, a declining number of Romans still worshiped pagan gods, while the majority had converted to Christianity. In the fourth century, Constantine the Great had made Christianity the official religion of the imperial Roman state.
 
The first Huns to enter the Roman Empire were not bellicose. For nearly half a century, the Huns, like other barbarian tribes, provided mercenaries to supplement the dwindling Roman army. In return, the Huns were allowed to reside on the abandoned fringes of the crumbling Roman frontier.
 
During this period—shortly after the death of his father, King Mundzuk—Attila was sent by his uncle, King Rugila, as a child hostage to the court of Honorius, emperor of the Western Roman Empire at Ravenna. (The practice of sending child hostages to live among potential enemies was well established during this period. On the one hand, the children were exchange students. On the other hand, many hostilities were avoided while these child hostages were in an enemy’s custody.) About the same time, a half-German, half-Roman boy named Aëtius was sent as a child hostage to the camp of the Hunnic king, Rugila, in the ancient Roman province of Pannonia (which became Hunland to the Huns). Attila’s experience at the court of Honorius and Aëtius’ experience with the Huns influenced them when as adults they led their respective nations.
 
After Attila’s departure from Ravenna, he traveled among the tribes of Huns for twenty years, persuading fiercely independent chieftains to support his plan for a Great Conquest by a new Hunnic confederacy. By 434, the Huns had gained enormous power. Attila had emerged as their co-ruler with his older brother Bleda. Together the brothers negotiated a treaty with Theodosius II that required the Eastern Roman Empire to pay the Huns a huge tribute of gold in return for peace. Attila is widely believed to have murdered Bleda around 445. Another version of Bleda’s death attributes it to a hunting accident. In any event, Attila became the sole king of Huns.
 
Fighting for the Western Roman Empire, the Huns defeated the Visigoths, the Franks, and the Burgundians. Meanwhile, Aëtius was caught up in a power struggle with two other generals that forced him to flee for his life. He took refuge with the Huns, and King Rugila equipped him with an army of Hunnic warriors. The imposing threat of this horde convinced Placidia, who was regent in the West at the time, to restore Aëtius as magister militium in praesenti. Because of the unusual power afforded the magister militium in praesenti (who was both master of soldiers or supreme military commander and patricius or prime minister in the West), Aëtius was the real ruler of the Western Roman Empire for much of the period between 433 and his death in September 454. For years, he relied on the Huns to supply him with mercenary soldiers.
 
Attila’s vision for the Huns’ future suggested world governance secured by his mighty army, which would be trained according to the Roman model. By the early 440s, the Huns were settling permanent villages and building wooden homes: The king of Huns, known among Germanic tribes as Etzel, established his capital city, Etzelnburg (“the city of Attila”), in Pannonia, probably on the site of the present city of Budapest, Hungary.
 
During the late 440s, Attila concentrated his attacks on the Eastern Roman Empire. His vast army included not only Huns but also Heruli, Scirians, Rugians, Thuringians, Ostrogoths, Gepids, Burgundians, and Ripuarian Franks. In 451, with Attila in command, this horde crossed the Rhine and swept into Gaul to destroy a number of cities. The Great Conquest had begun.
 
Attila now refused to provide any more mercenaries to Aëtius. Alarmed—and fully aware of the threat the Huns posed to Italy—Aëtius convinced his former enemies, the Visigoths, to join forces with him and his largely barbarian troops. They succeeded in chasing the Huns out of Orléans. Then the two great barbarian armies—one commanded by Attila for the Huns, the other commanded by Aëtius for the Western Roman Empire—met on the Catalaunian Plains (near present-day Troyes, France). There they clashed in one of the major battles of the Middle Ages, the Battle of Châlons.
 
The Battle of Châlons was bloody for both sides. Although there is no generally accepted figure for the number of men in either army, it is known that thousands of men and horses were slain. Eventually, Attila retreated, giving Aëtius a de facto victory. The king of Huns then returned to Hunland.
 
Although the West’s victory at the Battle of Châlons was inconclusive, it convinced Attila that his army needed major reconstruction. With characteristic fervor, he dedicated himself to reorganizing his army. By 452, the Huns that invaded Italy were trained, equipped, motivated, and disciplined as never before in their history.
 
Aëtius had fallen out of favor with the emperor and the Senate, possibly for allowing Attila to withdraw at the Battle of Châlons. As a result, they no longer sought his advice on dealing with the Huns as was warranted by his office as supreme military commander and prime minister in the West. In addition, a large portion of Aëtius’ army that fought the Huns in Gaul had been disbanded. Attila’s Italian campaign, therefore, met virtually no opposition from Roman forces, and the Hunnic horde devastated city after city. Their rapid advance was briefly halted at Aquileia, which they razed only after a long siege. Although many Huns were sick and rations were scarce, the horde rode on and destroyed Patavium. The cities of Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, and Pavia simply opened their gates to the Huns. In return, their citizens suffered fewer atrocities than had those of Aquileia and Patavium, who had stubbornly resisted.
 
Finally, Aëtius decided he could effectively challenge the Huns when they had been worn down by disease, famine, and the unfamiliar heat of the Italian peninsula. Attila and his horde were resting on the banks of the Po at the same time that Aëtius and his Roman soldiers were camped near Mantua, southeast of Milan. The patricius viewed the Huns from a distance and saw many signs that they were weakening at last. Confident that he had little to fear if he opposed the Huns in August, Aëtius rode to tell this good news to the emperor, Valentinian.
 
Valentinian had fled from Ravenna to Rome to escape Attila’s advancing army. There he listened to an altogether different plan to persuade Attila to spare the rest of the Italian peninsula. Several among the emperor’s inner circle of advisors believed Attila might respect men of religion, for he had spared Troyes when Bishop Lupus asked him to. The emperor, therefore, asked the pontiff, Pope Leo, to meet with the king of Huns and to appeal to him for peace on behalf of the Empire.
 
As Aëtius made his way southward to tell the emperor he could soon stop the Huns, he was astonished to see the pope and his retinue pass him. Little did Aëtius know that Leo was on his way to meet Attila near Mantua. Valentinian had not told Aëtius about the papal peace mission to the king of Huns.
 
The pope and the king met in private on the south bank of the Mincio River. Not long afterward, Attila turned his horde north toward Hunland. Rome was spared.