Battle of the Utus

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of the Utus

caption=
partof=
date=447
place=near Vit river, Bulgaria
result=Narrow Roman Victory
combatant1=Eastern Roman Empire
combatant2=Huns
commander1=General Arnegisculus
commander2=Attila the Hun
strength1=
strength2=
casualties1=
casualties2=

The Battle

The Battle of the Utus was fought in 447 between the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Huns led by Attila at what is today the Vit river in Bulgaria. It was the final of three bloody battles between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Huns as The Eastern Roman Empire attempted to stave off the Hunnic invasion after refusing to continue tributes to Attila. In the previous years the Huns had ravaged the Balkan and Macedonian regions of the Eastern Empire as punishment for cutting off the Hun's tributes. None of the battles were decisive except that in the final battle at Utus the Eastern Romans inflicted such heavy losses that that the Huns split forces and never met the Eastern Romans in a pitched battle until late that year at Thermopylae.

The Eastern Romans' newly updated army which included large numbers of Heavy (cataphract) cavalry and large numbers of mounted archers and some troops returning from a canceled attack to regain North Africa from the Vandals were able to be brought to full force against the Hun's normally very fluid lines. The heavy losses (on both sides) forced Attila to retreat part of his forces while a splinter division continued raiding until they were turned back by the Eastern Romans at Thermopylae. As the Eastern empire was able to successfully defend its eastern borders against the Persians and rebuild its Balkan and Greek forces, Attila realized he could not do any more damage to the Empire's resurgence as a military power. Attila then focuses on the weaker Western Empire after the new Eastern Emperor Marcian refused to pay further tribute.... The Easter Romans under Marcian's successor Leo I defeat the Huns in 466 and 467 as they try to invade from Dacia....

Aftermath

The Eastern Emperor Theodosius II paid Atilla a huge tribute to keep the Huns from besieging Constantinople. Later, after the Emperor Marcian stopped paying this tribute, Attila decided to turn his attentions to the Western Empire, where he was defeated at the Battle of Chalons.

References

Gibbon, Edward. 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'. Everyman's Library Alfred M. Knopf, New York. 1993 (6th Printing)

Cameron, Averil. 'The Later Roman Empire'. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1993