The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-04
When AttiIa and His Huns
 Met Defeat on the Marne

In the French literature concerning the war the German Emperor has frequently been 1ikened to AttiIa, and his heImeted troops have often been referred to as Huns. The sini1e does not stop there, for history relates that it was in the vicinity of the Marne, near ChaIons and not distant from Rheims and Epernay-names that will loom large in the records of this war-that Attila and hisl conquering hordes were defeated and hurled back.
 It was fourteen hundred and sixty five years ago today, on Feb A. 451, that the first great battle of the Marne was fought. In it's ferocity no battle of the present war can com pare with it, for in this conflict, one of the most gigantic and certainly among the most important in all his- tory, it is said that not less than half a. million men lost their lives.
 We are wont to say, not without a grisIy boastfulness, that the present war has ec1ipsed all others in the ex- tent of it's slaughter, but. the River Marne could tell a different tale if it's tbabbIings could be translated into hu- man speech. Five Nhundred thousand nqangIed bodies dead and dying hpon war, with all it's destructiveness wrought by modern engines of war fare, can offer no such grim record
 Fighting hand to hand with wea- pons, little superior to those of the caVemen, 50O,00O Romans and Visf- goths opposed Attila's 100000 Huns on the plain between the villages of La Cheppe and Cuperly, near Chalons- sur-Marne. European civilization was the stake that the brave men of Aetius and Theodoric fought. for. Time and again on that sanguinary lax fT1n Q mt victory, but in the end they were de- feated and routed, and Attila, the Fear of the World and 'stl1e Scourge of God" escaped with but a fraction of the army he had led into France. 2
 All the nations of western Europe united against the Asiatic despot who had imposed his reign over. the vast stretch of Europe and Asia extending from the Rhine to the frontiers of China. Then he turned his attention westward, and. sweeping through Germany, entered France and pro- gressed as far as Orleans. Opposed there by a strong force, he retreated and took up his position near Chal ons on the Marne, where he was attacked sby Theodoric and Aetius, the Roman general
 The Romans, visigotas, Burgun- dians and Franks, composing the inn peria1 army, fought with desperate va1or, but the Huns were veterans of many sanguinary fields, and at first they were in the ascendant. The Ro- mans, comprising one wing, were driv- en back, and the Visigoths, who were on the other wing, were also repulsed. The latter were discouraged by the. fall of their leader Theodoric. and Aetius had given up the day as lost when the impetuous bravery of Thor isrnund, the son of Theodoric, changed the tide of battle. Burning to avenge n faf ia ed Visigoths to wild furyg and they attacked with such 5vigor as to drive the Huns back. Some of them even penetrated the Notifications thrown up by the invader, but when. their leader was wounded the Visigoths gave up the assault. A large propor- ton of his warriors slain, Attila was glad to retreat from France and to abandon his projects for extending his sway over that country.