Luneberg Heath is a bleak moorland in Northern Germany. On May 4th, 1945, was the scene of the first big unconditional surrender of Nazi forces in Europe, with German units in the Netherlands, northwest Germany, and Denmark surrendering.
But on the 2nd of February in 880, it was also the scene of a great battle that revealed the growing power of Dark Age Christian civilization to soak up the shocks, stresses, and setbacks that the aggressive and fast-evolving Nordic tribes were still able to deliver. On that bleak Winter's day, a Viking army, attacking in a snowstorm, crushed a mainly Saxon army of the German Empire, slaughtering several high-ranking nobles and bishops.
The Saxons, Christianised around a century before, was under the command of Duke Bruno. They advanced to attack the Vikings, but due to poor reconnaissance soon found themselves in a poor position, with melting ice and snow and and the marshes limiting their mobility. The Vikings seeing the difficulties of their enemies, then used a snowstorm that fortuitously arose to launch a surprise attack.
This led to a rout and terrible slaughter, with the Saxon commander Duke Bruno drowning as he attempted to escape. Along with him, the bishop of Minden, Bishop Marquard of Hildesheim, ten others nobles, and fourteen members of the king's bodyguard and their attendants were also killed. The rest of the army was driven into the swamps to drown, or taken prisoner.
Although a devastating defeat, the battle is mainly interesting because it represented a high point of Pagan Viking organisation but ultimately had little long-term impact. This Viking army, which had descended on Northern Germany the year before, was in large part the same Viking force that had descended on England in 865. Known as "The Great Heathen Army," from a reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it spent the next 13 years wreaking havoc across the land until finally contained by King Alfred in 878. While part of that army stayed and settled down in the new Danish colony of the Danelaw, the more restless and energetic members decided to try their luck in Germany.
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As their target population became impoverished and more wary they also became harder to attack. The Vikings had to either go elsewhere, which many did, or raise their game. The Great Heathen Army was an attempt at both -- an improvement in organisation but also a readiness to travel in search of opportunity, which is what brought them to Luneberg Heath.
The various Viking groups who were to make up the Great Heathen Army came to the realisation that if they could pool their resources and work together as a kind of syndicate, they could mobilise enough force to actually overawe many of the small principalities that made up England in those days.
Even better, they realised that their mobility, the speed with which they came and left, could also be offered as an inducement to their enemies so as to extract a ransom to leave, the infamous Danegeld. This threat factor had many advantages to actual fighting, which, even with their superior skills, would exact a high cost on their skilled manpower. The small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, they instinctively sensed, would be motivated by a combination of nimbyism and buck-passing to pay up in order to see the pagan horde go and be Vikings somewhere else.
This is exactly what happened when the Great Heathen Army made landfall in the English kingdom of East Anglia with a force that modern estimates put in the low thousands.
Instead of fighting a hard battle that would have cost themselves and the Vikings dearly, the East Anglians instead decided to pay them off and make them somebody else's problem. Part of the deal included allowing them to stay the Winter and then giving them horses so they could ride off and attack another part of England. The Great Heathen Army then rode off to attack Northumbria, where they took and held York until the Northumbrians finally paid them off to leave again.
This was the pattern they followed for the next few years, constantly blackmailing the kingdoms, occasionally backing up their credibility with military action, such as seizing and holding towns, and repeatedly reneging on the deals they made by returning to kingdoms they had already plundered and blackmailed. They also overthrew local leaders when they were strong enough to do that without serious costs to themselves. In 869 the king of East Anglia, already weakened by their earlier visit, got his just desserts when the Vikings returned to his kingdom, killed him, and took direct control of his land.
This highly effective form of parasitic Anarcho-Syndicalism was successful for several years, with the Anglo-Saxons playing the pathetic role of gullible dupe until the Vikings ruled over much England. However, their constant lack of trustworthiness began to work against them, leading to better organised and more determined opposition in the Kingdom of Wessex. Meanwhile the lands they gained had been impoverished by their pillaging ways and mistreatment of the inhabitants.
These were the factors that led the Great Heathen Army to decamp to Europe, where the former Frankish Empire of Charlemagne was in the process of splitting into what would later become France and the Holy Roman Empire. This political situation suggested a pattern not unlike England, with political control relatively decentralised and confused by power struggles. It seemed, at least on the surface, that a strategy similar to the one used in England could be employed with success.
But things did not quite work out that way. From what we can infer from the Saxon casualty list in the battle, it seems that the German forces united against the Vikings rapidly, drawing forces from a wide area. Even though the first battle ended badly for the Germans, there was nothing like what happened in East Anglia in 865. Instead of dividing and dealing with the Vikings separately in the hope that they would go somewhere else, the opposing forces remained united and continued to oppose the Vikings. A month later a new Saxon army checked the Vikings at the Battle of Thimeon, and then a year later the Vikings were crushed at the Battle of Saucourt.
Why was there stiffer and more united resistance in Germany than in England?
There are several obvious reasons. First, despite its feudal divisions, Germany was more politically united than England. Secondly, the Vikings had already used up any good faith in their sworn word through their insincere dealings with the Anglo-Saxons. In short, the Anglo-Saxons, through their naive trust and subsequent sufferings, had exhausted the moral power of the Vikings. These were no longer people you could trust to not attack you, even if you had a deal with them.
A third factor seems to have been the mobilisation of Church power, showing the growing influence of Rome. The death toll at Luneberg Heath names several bishops, which reveals both the role that the Church was playing in actively opposing the invaders and also its attitude to the fallen. Instead of being forgotten as failed warriors, the dead were "weaponised" by a process of deification, becoming the famous Martyrs of Ebsdorf. The power of this should not be underestimated as it put a positive spin on what would otherwise be a dispiriting defeat.
The Pagan Viking tendency to renege on agreements played into the hands of the Church. In fact the Vikings so exhausted their pagan credibility that finally their enemies could only swear a treaty with them if they converted to Christianity first.
This was the pattern they followed for the next few years, constantly blackmailing the kingdoms, occasionally backing up their credibility with military action, such as seizing and holding towns, and repeatedly reneging on the deals they made by returning to kingdoms they had already plundered and blackmailed. They also overthrew local leaders when they were strong enough to do that without serious costs to themselves. In 869 the king of East Anglia, already weakened by their earlier visit, got his just desserts when the Vikings returned to his kingdom, killed him, and took direct control of his land.
This highly effective form of parasitic Anarcho-Syndicalism was successful for several years, with the Anglo-Saxons playing the pathetic role of gullible dupe until the Vikings ruled over much England. However, their constant lack of trustworthiness began to work against them, leading to better organised and more determined opposition in the Kingdom of Wessex. Meanwhile the lands they gained had been impoverished by their pillaging ways and mistreatment of the inhabitants.
These were the factors that led the Great Heathen Army to decamp to Europe, where the former Frankish Empire of Charlemagne was in the process of splitting into what would later become France and the Holy Roman Empire. This political situation suggested a pattern not unlike England, with political control relatively decentralised and confused by power struggles. It seemed, at least on the surface, that a strategy similar to the one used in England could be employed with success.
But things did not quite work out that way. From what we can infer from the Saxon casualty list in the battle, it seems that the German forces united against the Vikings rapidly, drawing forces from a wide area. Even though the first battle ended badly for the Germans, there was nothing like what happened in East Anglia in 865. Instead of dividing and dealing with the Vikings separately in the hope that they would go somewhere else, the opposing forces remained united and continued to oppose the Vikings. A month later a new Saxon army checked the Vikings at the Battle of Thimeon, and then a year later the Vikings were crushed at the Battle of Saucourt.
Why was there stiffer and more united resistance in Germany than in England?
There are several obvious reasons. First, despite its feudal divisions, Germany was more politically united than England. Secondly, the Vikings had already used up any good faith in their sworn word through their insincere dealings with the Anglo-Saxons. In short, the Anglo-Saxons, through their naive trust and subsequent sufferings, had exhausted the moral power of the Vikings. These were no longer people you could trust to not attack you, even if you had a deal with them.
A third factor seems to have been the mobilisation of Church power, showing the growing influence of Rome. The death toll at Luneberg Heath names several bishops, which reveals both the role that the Church was playing in actively opposing the invaders and also its attitude to the fallen. Instead of being forgotten as failed warriors, the dead were "weaponised" by a process of deification, becoming the famous Martyrs of Ebsdorf. The power of this should not be underestimated as it put a positive spin on what would otherwise be a dispiriting defeat.
The Pagan Viking tendency to renege on agreements played into the hands of the Church. In fact the Vikings so exhausted their pagan credibility that finally their enemies could only swear a treaty with them if they converted to Christianity first.
This is what happened in England, where peace was arrived at between Alfred the Great of Wessex and Guthrum the leader of the Great Heathen Army only after he rebuilt his credit by converting to Christianity.
Likewise with the remnants of the Great Heathen Army. After being besieged in their camp at Asselt in the Meuse valley the next year, they came to terms with the Charles the Fat but only after their leader Godfird restored his shattered credibility by converting to Christianity.
Likewise with the remnants of the Great Heathen Army. After being besieged in their camp at Asselt in the Meuse valley the next year, they came to terms with the Charles the Fat but only after their leader Godfird restored his shattered credibility by converting to Christianity.
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