Continued, read the beginning: Empire of the Huns. Scythian trace.
In the darkness of the ages
It is believed that the Huns were a Turkic-speaking nomadic people living in Altai. At the same time, many historians honestly write that science does not know (reliably) what language they spoke, whether they had a written language and from whom they originated.
Information about them is mainly drawn from: Chinese sources (copies of ancient texts rewritten by papal Jesuits in the 16-17th centuries); from European sources (copies of records of papal monks, rewritten in the 16-19 centuries, during the formation of the "new history" of Scaliger / Petavius / Mommsen).
For some reason, historians believe that people in those days did not go far from animals (except for the hyped Chinese and Romans, of course), and therefore ONLY the element of nature could force them to move: drought or, on the contrary, rains, the absence of an animal (!) And the like.
There is one more nuance for (some) modern historians: they are lost in conjectures where the peoples appear and where they disappear … That is, the Scythians lived for themselves in Altai (two millennia), and then suddenly - ONCE! - and they are not mentioned. Instead, for example, they began to mention some Xiongnu / Hunnu / Unnu, who went to war and defeated the Han people (today's Chinese).
But for this they must have a huge army, military culture, industry (conditionally) to provide the army, and so on. And where did they get all this? And where did the mighty Scythians go? Or maybe it is worth taking a closer look (and more critically) to take a closer look at the chronicles from which all this is known?
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Nations do not disappear into nowhere and do not appear from nowhere. They "flow" from one name to another (for various reasons). However, for some reason, no one considers the ancient Han people to be an extinct people, and they do believe the Scythians! In this article, I will move away from the official version of the story and present PERSONAL OPINION.
The battle is ready with the Romans.
War on two fronts
The Scythians, of course, did not go anywhere, they began to be called the Huns / Huns, but remained on their territory with their goals, history and complex relationships with neighbors and relatives. The migration of the Scythians to the West and their creation of the Empire from the Russian (Black) Sea to the Pacific Ocean is a well-known fact.
The fact that most of the Scythians had one haplogroup (R1a) with most of the Slavs and Tatars is also a known fact. This means that they were relatives and parts of a huge Empire - Scythia, as many ancient authors called it. Moreover, in many ancient sources (not completely cleaned up by scribes), they called it that way up to Genghis Khan.
Just as the Genghisids did after a thousand years (read more in the series of articles: Mongol Crusaders?), The Huns divided into two armies: the East wing went to fight the Han people (they were beaten throughout ancient history), and the West wing went to the rescue of their brothers in the war against the Ostrogoths, who re-proclaimed Drang nach Osten - Onslaught on the East.
Goths.
Ostrogoths
An ancient Germanic tribe, the eastern part of the Goths, in the 3-4th century advanced with battles to Slavic territories and occupied the Black Sea region, where it fought fierce battles with the state of Ruskolan. The Ostrogoths were more successful and won this war, conquering all the new territories of Great Scythia.
That is why the Huns were forced to advance to the West of their Empire - to repel the invaders. In those days, the East had much greater resources (human, financial and, relatively speaking, production) than Europe and not at all at the expense of the Han (Chinese), as it is now.
Moving to the West, the Huns, taking advantage of their superiority in military power, ended old conflicts with neighboring peoples with victories and raided neighboring states. The Hunnic army included Avars, Bulgars, Pechenegs (part of the Oguzes), Uzy (another part of the Oguzes) and Kipchaks (Polovtsy / Cumans), Ugric and Sarmatian tribes, part of the Alans and many others.
Around 371, the Huns came into direct contact with the empire of Germanarich (the king of the Goths in the 4th century). Thus began the war of the Goths and the Huns - the longest war of the Middle Ages, which began in the Black Sea steppes and ended in the Catalaunian fields in France (called by the West the "defeat" of the Huns at the Battle of Nedao in Pannonia in 455).
Map of the movement of peoples caused by the Western campaign of the Huns.
After the murder of Germanarich by the Huns in 375, his successor Vitimir / Vinitarius (“Vitimir - the conqueror of the Wends”) attacked the country of the Antes allied to the Huns and ordered their leader Boz, his sons and 70 elders to be crucified. The Huns naturally intervened, Vitimir was also defeated and fell on the battlefield in 376.
The Ostrogoths were forced to flee to the Dniester, under the cover of the western branch of their relatives - the Visigoths. According to Jordan, the Goths did not have their king for 40 years after the death of Vinitarius. After this defeat, the Goths could choose their own rulers only with the permission of the Huns.
The German invasion of the lands of Scythia was successfully repelled and thrown back
The Visigoths also could not withstand the pressure of the Huns and turned to the Roman emperor Valens with a request to allow them to settle in Thrace, on the southern side of the Danube. Valens agreed, and in the autumn of the same year the Visigoths crossed the Danube. Then they attacked the Roman provinces.
Visigoths in the Roman Empire.
Securing Success
Rome clashed with the Huns in 379 when they, following on the heels of the Visigoths, invaded Moesia. Since then, the Huns have repeatedly attacked the Balkan provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire, sometimes they were defeated, but more often they left only after receiving a ransom. So the government in Constantinople became their tributary.
In 395-397, the Huns invaded Syria, Cappadocia and Mesopotamia, then Thrace and Illyria. At the same time, the detachments of the Huns reached Asia Minor and raided Persia. In 408, the Huns attacked the Roman troops over the lower Danube with huge forces and again devastated Thrace. The Romans, at the cost of rich gifts, achieved peace with the Huns.
The Huns' march to the West took more than 200 years in total. The most famous ruler of the Huns was Attila. Read about him in the next part of the series of publications - Empire of the Huns.