India 2001 books

But Wittekind
had vanished, the protesting chiefs and people were in the conqueror's
hands, and, bent on making an awful example, he had no less than four
thousand five hundred of them beheaded in one day. It was a frightful
act of vengeance, which has ever since remained an ineradicable blot on
the memory of the great king.
[Illustration: THE BAPTISM OF WITTEKIND.]
Its effect was what might have been anticipated. Instead of filling the
Saxons with terror, it inspired them with revengeful fury. They rose as
one man, Wittekind and Alboin at their head, and attacked the French
with a fury such as they had never before displayed. The remorseless
cruelty with which they had been treated was repaid in the blood of the
invaders, and in the many petty combats that took place the hardy and
infuriated barbarians proved invincible against their opponents. Even in
a pitched battle, fought at Detmold, in which Wittekind led the Saxons
against the superior forces of Charlemagne, they held their own against
all his strength and generalship, and the victory remained undecided.


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