Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)Wars and battles

Battle of the Catalaunian Plains

A Roman–Visigothic coalition under Aetius fought Attila’s army of Huns and subject peoples to a bloody draw in Champagne, and Attila withdrew from Gaul.

Date: 20 June 451exact dateDate in the Julian calendar
Place: Catalaunian Plainsapproximate locationtoday: Champagne, between Châlons-en-Champagne and Troyes, France · Western and Central Europe
Participants: Huns, Attila, Ostrogoths, Western Roman Empire, Flavius Aetius, Visigoths, Franks
Threads: Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
Also known as: Battle of Châlons; Campus Mauriacus; Битва при Шалоне

In 451 Attila crossed the Rhine with Huns, Gepids, Ostrogoths and other subject peoples, sacked Metz and besieged Aurelianum (Orléans). Aetius, the western commander-in-chief, allied with the Visigothic king Theodoric I, the Alans of Sangiban, Franks and Burgundians, relieved the city and then met Attila on the Catalaunian Plains. The Visigothic king fell in the fighting, but Attila’s army was checked and he retreated across the Rhine.

Both the date — 20 June 451 in the reconstruction of J. B. Bury, while some scholars prefer early July or late September — and the exact site are disputed, and Jordanes’s huge casualty figures are unreliable. The next year Attila invaded Italy instead; he died in 453, and his empire soon broke up.

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