Unfortunate news from home forced Charlemagne to leave Spain. While crossing the Pyrenees a part of his army met with serious disaster. The rear guard, led by Roland, was ambushed in a narrow valley near Roncesvalles by the Basques and slaughtered to the last man. It was impossible to offer resistance, for the enemy occupied an impregnable position on the heights, from which they rolled down huge rocks and hurled showers of missiles. The hero Roland and his brave comrades, the paladin Anschelm and the seneschal Eckart, who were slain, were celebrated at a later period in song and romance. Charlemagne undoubtedly would have turned back to avenge them had not a new Saxon uprising forced him to return as speedily as possible. He soon defeated the Saxons and laid waste their country to the Elbe. The usual result followed. Wittekind fled, the Saxons took the oath of allegiance and gave securities. Charlemagne well knew that the roots of the Saxon animosity were grounded in their heathen religion. He determined to eradicate it by force. His scheme was to pardon only those who consented to be baptized and to remain faithful to the Christian faith. Death should be the penalty of participation in the heathen service. Forcible measures of this kind, imposed for the purpose of changing ideas and sentiments, are improper, it is true; but under existing circumstances it seemed the only preventive of their constant uprisings. It also promised to be of great advantage, as the younger generation would be influenced by the abandonment of the heathen religion to become loyal.