Boleslav I Defeats the Magyars

Boleslav succeeded Wenceslas as first Bohemian Prince of that name.

His was a long and eventful reign, from 936 to 967, long at least for those days when rulers were apt to be removed abruptly. None knew this better than Boleslav himself.

Monkish chroniclers have little good to say of Boleslav I - allegedly on account of the murder of his brother Wenceslas at Stara Boleslav and of Boleslav's persistent paganism; actually, I imagine, on account of the anti-German attitude he adopted at the outset of his reign.

Boleslav ruled with a firm hand; he subdued a number of Bohemian nobles who had allied themselves with the national enemy the German, before he resumed the conflict with Henry the Fowler which his mother had started.

Henry, no doubt, was quite ready to quarrel, using the murder of his ally as a pretext, but he died before he had had time to settle down in the saddle, and left his son Otto to carry on.

Now Otto, first German Emperor of that name, was a strong man, and is called Great on account of his success in reviving the Holy Roman Empire.

Boleslav was a strong man too: Palacky, the famous Bohemian historian, describes him as "one of the most powerful monarchs that ever occupied the Bohemian throne."

He succeeded in defending his country from the armies that Otto launched against it, and even the invasion of 950, led by the Emperor himself, brought no decisive victory for the Germans. Boleslav seems to have considered it futile to continue quarrelling with his western neighbour, especially as the usual trouble continued in the east, in which direction the Prince proposed to extend his dominions.

By 955 we find Germans and Bohemians allied against the Magyars, who had acquired a habit of ravaging Western Europe once a year. They met their match on the Lechfeld, near Augsburg, and were utterly defeated in one of the most sanguinary and decisive battles fought during the Middle Ages.

According to Count Lützow it appears that a Bohemian contingent of a thousand men formed part of the victorious army. Boleslav himself, with the greater part of his troops, remained to guard the frontiers of his country.

The defeated Magyars suffered another defeat at the hands of Boleslav on their retreat through Bohemia, and their leader, Lehel, was taken prisoner. With peace and friendliness on his western front and his eastern enemy thoroughly beaten, Boleslav was in a position to carry out his ambitious plans.

He freed Moravia from the Magyars and united it to Bohemia, and he is said to have conquered a considerable part of the country between the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube; probably Slovakia of today.

By his conquests Boleslav became a near neighbour of Poland and managed to come to a good understanding with Duke Mieceslav I, ruler of that country, by giving that prince his daughter Dubravka in marriage, which would no doubt be considered a friendly act.

Dubravka succeeded in converting her husband and his yet heathen people to Christianity. Mieceslav must have taken to it very strongly, for between them he and Dubravka produced a pious son and heir who was to become known as Boleslav the Brave.