Chapter 5 - Of Vikings, Bretons and Burgundians
The young Hugh, now 17, inherited a decaying realm, nothing like that of his great grandfather. His first task after being crowned was the ongoing viking occupation of Frisia that had started in 862, from where they would launch raids down the Elbe and Rhine rivers, severely disrupting the normal activities in the Empire. He enlisted the help of Rorgon, who’s armies had helped put him in power, and commanded him to march against the viking outposts in Frisia. Rorgon mustered his army and in mid 865 he marched north into Frisia. While he easily repulsed the first few raiding groups he came across, by that point news had made it across the Viking raiders, and they hopped into their boats with all the loot they had gathered. When Rorgon arrived, he found just ravaged land and empty city treasuries. Rorgon was not about to just disband his army, however, and he changed objectives. He turned around, and marched east, camping in Hamburg for the winter. In March 866, he resumed his march and went further north, invading into Jutland. He had received word of the names of the vikings who pillaged Frisia, and expected to find them in Jutland, their supposed lands of origin. He never did, and he retreated from Jutland in late July after having pillaged his way across the southern part of the peninsula, thus ending the First Viking War. His expedition did have an impact on the region, though, as the destruction of some eastern towns in the region pushed more norsemen into the Baltic Sea.
Meanwhile in the South, Childebert had several sons: Carloman, his heir to the Emperorship and designated King of Italy, Arnulf, named King of Bavaria in 860, and Charles (later called Charles the Unready), named Duke of a restored Duchy of Friuli in 860.
In the neighboring realm of Aquitaine, Pepin II inherited the Kingdom of Aquitaine and Burgundy from his father in 865, and immediately had to face a revolt south of the Pirenees. While in Hispania, his uncle Louis of Provence died, and he got the news that Louis II, who now ruled in Provence, not only had refused to swear loyalty to him (as Pepin II had expected, given the prior relation between his uncle and father), but had also invaded Burgundy and taken it for himself, placing his brother Charles as vassal Duke of Upper Burgundy. Having mostly dealt with the revolt, Pepin left one of his commanders in charge of pacifying the region, and went back to Aquitaine to deal with his rebellious cousins. In the meantime, Louis advanced into the core of the Aquitainian realm, taking Nevers in early 868, then crossing the Loire and taking Sancerre by July. It was in the outskirts of Clermont where Pepin’s army met Louis’ forces. The Battle of Clermont ended in a close Louisian victory, with Pepin retreating back to Limoges. As Louis continued his advance, a new army mustered by Carloman of Gothia crossed the Rhone and started besieging Arles. An emergency reserve Provençal army had to be sent to deal with that threat, but it was soundly defeated in early 869, with the city of Arles falling shortly after. The new threat of this southern army forced Louis to abandon his march into Aquitaine, though by that point, Pepin was able to regroup and resupply his army. Soon, Louis found himself fleeing from Pepin’s army rather than advancing to defeat the Gothian troops. Fearing a pinsir maneuver from his cousins, Louis abandoned his original route south and instead turned east, going back to Valence and later Lyon.
Just as things couldn’t get any worse for Louis, the Italian forces of Childebert crossed into Nice and occupied the city. Upon the news of the fall of Nice reaching Pepin, he contacted Childebert to know of his intentions in the region, who were rightfully his as per his inheritance. Childebert simply responded with an offer to help him subjugate Louis in exchange for a partition of Burgundy. Pepin answered that he didn’t need any help, and demanded the Emperor to retreat from his kingdom. Childebert declared this to be Pepin’s attempt to unrecognize him as Emperor, and declared war on him. By mid 870, this mere Provençal Insurrection had turned into a three-way war between the cousins. Pepin was defeated in the Battle of Marseille by Imperial troops, and in the north, Louis’ brother Charles of Upper Burgundy betrayed him, signing the Treaty of Besançon with Childebert, becoming an Italian Vassal in exchange for significant autonomy and the right to govern the rest of Burgundy once the conquest was over. Childebert’s plans however would be thwarted by death, more specifically, his own death, in a camp outside of Arles during the siege in March of 871, presumably by a combat wound, though this was never confirmed. His son Carloman, who was campaigning in the north seeking to take Lyon, had now become King of Italy and was to go to Rome to be crowned Emperor. With his father’s commanders unable to repel the counteroffensive in Marseille which drove them back to Nice, Carloman approached Pepin with a peace proposal. The Second Treaty of Besançon had Carloman recognize Burgundy as the rightful fief of Pepin II, except for Upper Burgundy (the County of Besançon and the region of Transjurania), which would be kept by Charles as a Duke under the Italian realm. Likewise, Provence was also confirmed to be part of Pepin’s crown. With Carloman dealt with, Pepin only had to deal with Louis, finally capturing him in late 871, and had him imprisoned in Bordeaux.
While this was going down in the south, Hugh saw himself involved in yet another war. The Second Viking War started in 868, a mere two years after Rorgon’s retreat from Jutland, though the theater was not the same. This time, the Vikings were in the offensive, and had allied themselves with part of the Bretons, who rebelled against Frankish control under Salomon, a cousin of Erispoe, the Duke of Brittany. Erispoe fled to Hugh’s court, requesting his assistance to retake his realm, though by this point the Breto-Viking army had already attacked several garrisons and Hugh was already committed to the war. Hugh came to intercept the rebel army, however both his reports and his intuition underestimated the size of the rebel forces. With an advantage of 2:1, the rebels soundly defeated Hugh in the Battle of Alençon. In the following year, Hugh was defeated again three times while he retreated back to Paris. However, before he could reach the city and properly fortify himself, a surprise army of Viking raiders attacked him from the Seine. Hugh was captured, but despite this, the Frankish nobles decided to keep on the fight, and in 871, with the death of Emperor Childebert, they decided to unilaterally declare Odo, a noble from the region of Moselle, as king of Francia (dropping the “North” part of the name, given that no other realm was referred to as Francia). The decision to break with the Carolingian line was not taken well by everybody however. The Bretons were suddenly in custody of a mere pretender, and as such, they decided to support Hugh’s restoration to the throne, with Hugh having little to no say in this, but preferring to be forced to concede privileges to the Bretons rather than lose his throne. In the east, Gauzlin, who was serving as regent in the East Saxon March for his old and sick father, had become friends with Hugh after spending time in his court, and was certainly not fond of the Frankish nobles not including him in the decision to crown a new king. As such, Gauzlin declared his support towards Hugh.
The forces of Odo were reinforced by armies from the rest of his realm, with those from the east of the Rhine being destined to contain Gauzlin, who became Margrave in 872. Soon these forces found themselves in a stalemate with Gauzlin’s troops, who had occupied most of western Saxony. In the west, the Breton army received reinforcements from Pepin of Aquitaine, who wasn’t happy to see his cousin deposed by a bunch of nobles, though he didn’t commit much more to the war, seeing how he was just recovering from his own conflict in Burgundy. Even these forces weren’t enough to prevent the Frankish army from pushing back the Bretons and Vikings. Multiple nobles were put in charge of garrisoning the coasts of Neustria to prevent further Viking incursions, with several concessions in autonomy and tax collecting being made in the region by Odo. Furthermore, Odo sent covert agents to sabotage the major fields around the main rebel fortresses, causing fires and leading to the rebel progressive retreat from Neustria and back into Brittany. By 875, both frontlines were in a stalemate. Gauzlin had successfully built a series of minor fortresses along the border, and the Bretons had managed to stop the Frankish advance just west of Laval. The war, however, came to a close after the death of Hugh, who was childless, and therefore, the Hughist party had no reason left to fight for the Frankish throne. Odo agreed to grant Salomon independence within the territories he controlled, as long as he vowed to expel the vikings and stop any raids into Neustria, which Salomon happily accepted. Gauzlin signed a similar deal, with Odo granting him independence in all of Saxony. Thus began the reign of the Odonian dynasty in Frankia, the first non-Carolingian family to come to power in all of the former lands of Charles the Great.
