The Great Military Leaders -

 Attila and the Huns

 Since first century AD, Chinese sources speak about the Huns. At this time, they were divided, some of them in vassal relations with China. Among them are various groups who move themselfs attach or separate from them and support the war for the development of large pastures in Central Asia. During this stage, equestrian peoples still move around the steppe with their entire families. Gradually, the individual hordes gained their formed territory, which led to the specialization of animal husbandry, according to the types of steppes. In some places there is temporary settling and even practicing agriculture. Large groups of clans has began to build their temporary settlements from tents, which were built or removed very quickly.

 The struggle around the Chinese Empire did not stop, especially after second century AD, when the Han dynasty temporarily split into three states. The attacks continued in the following centuries, and the attackers became numerous until the IV century AD. However, at this time the Huns still did not go further into Europe. In these steppes they mix with a large number of other nomadic peoples, mainly with Ugur's. Towards the middle of the IV century, part of the Huns, who came from Western Siberia, taking with them Ugrian tribes, began to attack the Alans, who lived along the Aral and Caspian Seas, and around 370 AD they defeat them completely. 

Since this events  Huns join a large part of the defeated community , treating them as Ugurians. This led to them to attacks on the Goths of Hermanarich and to the pressure on the eastern and western borders of the Eastern Roman Empire.

 The Hun tribes were in the background in the politics of the Eastern Roman Empire until the middle of the V century and would even join the fight against the Goths, for example, with the leader Ildis, who helped in the battles against Gaina in 400-401 AD. Once they managed to expelled some of the Goths beyond Danube river, they start to seek their turn and began to systematically attack the Balkan lands, combining these campaigns with others aimed at Central Europe. This is a period of rapid flourishing of the so-called Hun Empire. In European history, the Huns can be taken as a model for these nomadic ethnic groups that entered Europe from Central Asia throughout the early Middle Ages.

 In 434 AD, Rua died and Theodosius hurried to enter into contractual relations with his heirs - his nephews Bleda and Attila. The agreement, concluded in the town of Margus on the Morava River, envisages doubling the tax, creating conditions for trade in the Danube cities, difficult conditions for the ransom of the Byzantine captives, etc. At the same time, the empire undertook not to accept fugitives, subjects of the Huns. This treaty was observed for several years, during which the Huns achieved their greatest territorial expansion: from the Caucasus mountains to the Rhine river and from Pannonia to the Northern Elbe. The center of this power is Pannonia, from where cross-actions are taken to the western lands and to the Danube territories of the Eastern Roman Empire.

 In 439 AD the fortification of the Theodosius walls in Constantinople was completed. As Byzantine troops also have to fight in the east, which must attack in alliance with some Arab tribes, the Danube border is again vulnerable. In 441 AD, the Huns recaptured several fortresses on the Middle Danube. Two years later, when the Huns invaded again, they had to head for the diagonal road - "via Diagonalis" and inflict a heavy damage on Naisos (Nis), Serdica, Philippopolis, and even reached the Thermopylae and Arcadiopolis.

 Attila - the legendary leader of the Huns, their sole ruler in 444 AD, after killing his brother Bleda. Then he expanded his possessions to the northern Black Sea coast. In 447 AD, Attila carried out another major attack on the Danube. This time he navigates deep into the Balkan lands. Byzantine administrative authorities began to fear for the capital. In 448 AD, with Byzantine intervention, a conspiracy was organized against Attila, which nevertheless failed. Relations with the Eastern Roman Empire soon improved. Attila then directed his blow to the west in 451 AD, when the Hun hordes crossed the Rhine and ravaged Eastern Gaul, reaching the city of Orleans and besieging it. The siege was nevertheless abandoned, and on his return Attila was met by the Roman general Aetius, who also acted with auxiliary troops from the Franks, Visigoths and other mercenary tribes. On June 20, Attila was defeated for the first time at the Catalunian plains in central France. However, the following important year, in 452 AD, he began a new devastating campaign against Italy. In Rome he met Pope Leo I, but then returned to his camp in Pannonia, where he died suddenly in 453 AD.

 With the suddenly death of Attila, a rapid disintegration began, depending on the country, where internecine struggles took place. The Germanic tribes also quickly began to fall away from the vast Hun community. About a year after Attila's death, the Hun power came to an end. Towards the end of the century, only the memory of Attila, called the "Scourge of God", remains. Initially, the rapid rise and territorial expansion, as well as the rapid disintegration of Attila's "step empire" were examples of the emergence and extraction of similar short-lived state formations.