“Unconquered Louis Rejoiced In Iron”: Military History in East Francia under King Louis the German (c. 825-876) A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the University of Minnesota By Christopher Patrick Flynn In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Advised by Dr. Bernard S. Bachrach May 2020 Copyright © 2020 Christopher P. Flynn All Rights Reserved i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have accrued huge debts in the creation of this work, which will not be adequately repaid by mention here. I must thank the faculty of the University of Minnesota, particularly the Department of History and the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies. Thanks are especially due to my committee members, Drs. Bernard Bachrach, Kathryn Reyerson, Andrew Gallia, Michael Lower, and Oliver Nicholson, as well as to Drs. Howard Louthan and Gary Cohen, both of whom served as Director of the Center for Austrian Studies during my tenure there. I thank the office staff of the history department for navigating endless paperwork on my behalf, as well as the University of Minnesota library system for acquiring copies of difficult to find works and sources in several languages. Especially, among these numerous contributors, I thank my adviser Dr. Bachrach, whose work was the reason I came to Minnesota in the first place, and whose support and erudition made the journey worth it. In this regard, I thank Dr. Lorraine Attreed of the College of the Holy Cross, who not only introduced me to the deeply fascinating world of early medieval Europe, but also exposed me to the work of Dr. Bachrach and others, which inspired me to pursue graduate education. Of course, I thank my family for endless encouragement, support, and for believing in the value of a liberal arts education. Finally, I thank my wife Rachel, who now knows far more about Louis the German than any reasonable person ought to be expected to know, and without whom this work never could have been completed. It is to her that I dedicate this effort. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction……………………………………………………………...1 Chapter Two: Grand Strategy…………………………………………………………64 Chapter Three: Campaign Strategy………………………………………………….148 Chapter Four: The Fighting Force…………………………………………………...213 Chapter Five: Taking the Field—Logistics and Travel……………………………..296 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..349 Maps……………………………………………………………………………………358 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...360 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Campaigning on the Danube………………………………………………358 Figure 2: Treaty of Verdun and Partition of the Middle Kingdom at Meersen…..359 iv ABBREVIATIONS AB – Annales Bertiniani. Georg Waitz, ed., in MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, 5. Hanover: 1883. AF – Annales Fuldenses. Friedrich Kurze, ed., in MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, 7. Hanover: 1891. AH – Annales Hildesheimenses. Georg Waitz, ed., in MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, 8. Hanover: 1878. AI – Annales ex Annalibus Iuvavensibus Antiquis Excerpti. H. Breslau, ed., in MGH Scriptores 30.2. Leipzig: 1934. ARF – Annales Regni Francorum. Friedrich Kurze, ed., in MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, 6. Hanover: 1895. AX – Annales Xantenses. Bernard von Simson, ed., in MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, 12. Hanover: 1909. MGH – Monumenta Germaniae Historica. ULD – Die Urkunden Ludwigs des Deutschen. Paul Kehr, ed., in MGH Diplomata regum Germaniae ex stirpe Karolinorum, Vol. 1. Berlin: 1934. ULdJ – Die Urkunden Ludwigs des Jüngeren. Paul Kehr, ed., in MGH Diplomata regum Germaniae ex stirpe Karolinorum, Vol. 1. Berlin: 1934. v PREFACE The present work is a study of all aspects of military history in East Francia under King Louis the German (c. 825-876). Its intent is to challenge the existing historiographical tradition, discussed in chapter one, which portrays Louis the German as a king who made excessive concessions to the aristocracy, thereby limiting his ability to field armies and project military force. This picture of ninth-century warfare relies excessively on the idea of a fundamental transformation of the nature of the medieval military from the infantry levies of the ancient world into smaller, cavalry- and noble- dominated forces. In an environment where most military encounters took the form of sieges, this view is no longer tenable. Herein, I examine Louis the German’s military institutions, which drew upon the examples established by earlier Carolingians, especially Charlemagne. It is structured from “big picture” goals to minutiae. Chapter two addresses Louis’s grand strategy, the overarching military goals of his reign. His major intent was to retain intact the portion of the regnum Francorum that he inherited upon the death of his father, Louis the Pious, in 840. Louis the German also did not shy away from opportunities to expand his territory. Chapter three discusses campaign strategy, which was necessarily affected by grand strategy. The king’s long-term goals in each region meant that campaigns progressed differently, depending upon the desired outcome. Chapter four concerns the armies, including military organization, training, arms, morale, and tactics. Chapter five discusses travel and logistics, the supply and provisioning of armies on the march. It also examines the effect of weather, climate, and famine upon East Frankish armies. All translations from Latin or German by the author, unless explicitly noted otherwise. 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION During the latter half of the twentieth century, in the era after two world wars and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, military history fell into general disfavor, and as a result, it became a relatively neglected topic. Military history does not only concern the study of set-piece battles and generalship; there are important social and economic components, particularly in the pre-modern world. Therefore, to neglect the field of military history does a great disservice to the study and understanding of the medieval western world, since in this atmosphere, most societies tended to expend the greater part of their surplus human and material resources on preparing for and waging war. Recently, early medieval scholarship has gone a long way towards developing a good understanding of the influence of warfare upon Merovingian, early Carolingian, and early Ottonian society.1 Despite the publication of several excellent recent political biographies of the later Carolingian kings,2 greatly lacking are dedicated military histories of the later Carolingians, which would elucidate the effect of endemic warfare in several theatres simultaneously upon society. As will be examined below, traditional scholarship claims that constant fighting bankrupted royal treasuries and compromised central authority, allowing power to grow increasingly localized as various powerful magnates usurped for themselves powers 1 Bernard Bachrach, Merovingian Military Organization (Minneapolis, 1972); idem, Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire (Philadelphia, 2001); idem, Charlemagne’s Early Campaigns (768-777): A Diplomatic and Military Analysis (Leiden, 2013); David Bachrach, Warfare in Tenth Century Germany (Woodbridge, 2012). 2 Egon Boshof, Ludwig Der Fromme (Darmstadt, Primus, 1996); Eric Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict Under Louis the German, 817-876 (Ithaca, 2006); Wilfried Hartmann, Ludwig der Deutsche (Darmstadt, 2002); Janet Nelson, Charles the Bald (London, 1992). 2 which ought to have fallen to the Carolingian kings.3 This vacuum of royal power, brought upon the Carolingian state by the kings themselves, by buying magnate loyalty with gifts of land, privileges, and immunities, caused aristocratic resistance to central authority to remove the king’s ability even to summon the royal military forces to challenge local authority. The accuracy of such claims remains to be ascertained. The present work is a systematic analysis of Louis the German’s (d. 876) military agenda and war machine, scrutinizing long term strategy, tactics, the raising of armies, the training of troops, logistics, morale, and military effectiveness. In every aspect of his military, from grand strategy to the minutiae of military organization and logistics, Louis deliberately relied upon the administrative systems and precedents established by his Carolingian predecessors, particularly Charlemagne; such institutions survived into the tenth century, to underpin the military efforts of the early Ottonian kings as well. Throughout this study, I shall examine whether it is fair to characterize Louis the German, as some scholars recently have, as a shrewd and adept commander who proved capable of effectively projecting military force over long distances and often in various theatres simultaneously. With regard to the status quaestionis presented below, I shall explore Eric Goldberg’s idea that Louis’s long term strategy was to reunite the regnum Francorum under his own authority, which requires slight modification on a basis that Goldberg himself identifies.4 3 This trend, it has been argued, even began in the later years of the reign of Charlemagne, when offensive warfare had largely ceased and the imperial administration proved “skeletal” and inadequate. F.L. Ganshof, “The Last Period of Charlemagne’s Reign, a Study in Decomposition,” and idem, “Charlemagne’s Failure,” both of which are available in Ganshof, The Carolingians