Hungarian invasions of Europe

Hungarian invasions of Europe
Hungarian raids in the 10th century
Date ~800/839–973 Location Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Balkans and Iberian Peninsula Result More than a century of raids and decisive wars Territorial changes Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Balkans and Iberian Peninsula
Belligerents
Hungarian tribes	Kingdom of Italy East Francia Middle Francia Great Moravia Byzantine Empire Catalan Counties Al-Andalus First Bulgarian Empire Khazaria West Francia Principality of Pannonian Croatia Principality of Littoral Croatia Kingdom of Croatia Principality of Serbia
Commanders and leaders
Árpád Bogát Dursac Szalárd Bulcsú Lehel Súr Kisa Apor Taksony	Berengar I of Italy Louis the Child Luitpold, Margrave of Bavaria Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria Henry the Fowler Otto the Great Conrad, Duke of Lorraine Muncimir of Croatia Tomislav of Croatia Časlav of Serbia
Strength
~25,000 warriors maximum (but variable)	~40,000 (variable)
Casualties and losses
Mostly not significant	Mostly heavy. Some villages and cities burned.

The Hungarian invasions of Europe took place in the 9th and 10th centuries, the period of transition in the history of Europe between the early and high medieval period, when the territory of the former Carolingian Empire was threatened by invasion from multiple hostile forces, the Magyars (Hungarians) from the east, the Norsemen from the north and the Arabs from the south.

The Magyars successfully conquered the Pannonian Basin (i.e. what is now Hungary) by the end of the 9th century, and launched a number of plundering raids both westward into what used to be the Frankish Empire and southward into the Byzantine Empire. The westward raids were stopped only with the Magyar defeat of the Battle of Lechfeld of 955, which led to a new political order in Western Europe centered on the Holy Roman Empire. The raids in to Byzantine territories continued throughout the 10th century, until the eventual Christianisation of the Magyars and the establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Hungary in 1000 or 1001.

The first supposed reference to the Hungarians in war is in the 9th century: in 811, the Hungarians (Magyars) were in alliance with Krum of Bulgaria against Emperor Nikephoros I possibly at the Battle of Pliska in the Haemus Mountains (Balkan Mountains).Georgius Monachus' work mentions that around 837 the Bulgarian Empire sought an alliance with the Hungarians.Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote in his work On Administering the Empire that the Khagan and the Bek of the Khazars asked the Emperor Teophilos to have the fortress of Sarkel built for them. This record is thought to refer to the Hungarians on the basis that the new fortress must have become necessary because of the appearance of a new enemy of the Khazars, and no other people could have been the Khazars’ enemy at that time. In the 10th century, Ahmad ibn Rustah wrote that "earlier, the Khazars entrenched themselves against the attacks of the Magyars and other peoples".

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