ATTILA AND THE HUNS BY EDWARD HUTTON AUTHOR OF “RAVENNA” LONDON CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD. 1915 TO BELOVED ITALY WITH WHOM IN THIS HOUR OF RENEWED PERIL ONCE MORE WE FIGHT THE BARBARIANS A.D. 401-1915 INTRODUCTION “There is a race on Scythia’s verge extreme Eastward beyond the Tauris’ chilly stream. The Northern Bear looks on no uglier crew; Bare is their garb, their bodies foul to view, Their souls are ne’er subdued to sturdy toil Or Ceres’ webs. Their sustenance is spoil. With horrid wounds they gash their brutal brows And o’er their murdered parents bind their vows....” In these words, Claudian the poet of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, describes the Huns of the fifth century, the brood of Attila to whom the German Kaiser appealed before the whole world when he sent his brother to China to meet the Boxers:-- “When you meet the foe you will defeat him. No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thousand years ago under the leadership of Attila gained a reputation in virtue of which they still live in historic tradition, so may the name of Germany become known in such a manner in China that no Chinaman will ever again dare even to look askance at a German.” These words will never be forgotten, for they have since been translated into action not only upon the Chinese but upon the body of Europe, upon the Belgians and the people of Northern France as upon the long martyred people of Poland. That appeal to the Hun startled Europe, and yet had we remembered the history of Prussia, had we recalled the ethnology of that race we ought not to have been surprised, for the Hun and the Prussian have certainly much in common even racially, and Attila, or Etzel, as the Germans call him, has ever played his part in the Nibelungenlied and the legends of the Prussian people.