THE SCENE: The following passage contains a thrilling play-by-play of a city’s desperate attempt to break a siege with a complicated, multi-pronged attack on their enemy’s (the King’s) forces.
THE TEXT: The long-drawn siege at last compelled those within the city to active measure of tactical warfare. For they thought it would be worse to starve to death, should they be forced to his extremity, than to die bravely in battle. So the order was given that the cavalry should burst forth from the west gate, as if they were going to make an attack on the camp, while some other soldiers were to embark in some boats, cross the river near the city, and while the cavalry forced a battle, they would invade the camp which would then be abandoned by its armed guards.
The townspeople gathered at the ringing of a bell, an executed the plan agreed on; but this strategy was no unknown to those in the camp. Accordingly they too were being made ready. The horsemen delayed in making their rush from the gates, and the fleet was already a good way from the city; then those who disembarked from the ships burst into the camp, only to run headlong into armed soldiers, and while in trepidation they tried to flee they were cut down on every side.
Some reached the ships again, but in their terror they missed their footing and plunged into the water, while others overloaded some of the boats and capsized them so that as a result only a very few survived. As for the cavalry, it was harassed and conquered by the king’s cavalry, many of them wounded, and they were forced back into the city. The royal army returned victorious to the camp, bringing with them only one soldier struck with a mortal wound in the battle for the gates.
– The Deeds of the Saxons, Widukind of Corvey, 10th Century AD
