The Huns, the Great Migrations, and the Disaster at Adrianople

The German historiographical term Völkerwanderung describes the movements of peoples across Europe between the fourth and sixth centuries. The main trigger was the eruption of the Huns into eastern Europe around 375 CE, a people of uncertain origin possibly linked to steppe peoples of Central Asia, whose military organization rested on light cavalry and the composite bow. The Huns defeated the Ostrogoths and put pressure on the Visigoths that pushed them toward the Danube in flight, setting off a domino effect of successive migrations among both Germanic and non-Germanic peoples; beyond Hunnic pressure, the search for fertile land and ordinary demographic growth also played a part. The Huns went on to establish a center of power on the Pannonian plain, in what is now Hungary, where from 434 CE the brothers Bleda and Attila ruled jointly, until Attila had Bleda murdered around 445 CE and ruled alone thereafter.