army under his command, he marched into Saxony torch and sword in hand,
and swept the country with fire and steel. All who would not embrace
Christianity were pitilessly exterminated. Thousands were driven into
the rivers to be baptized or drowned. Carnage, desolation, and
destruction marked the path of the conqueror. Never had a country been
more frightfully devastated by the hand of war.

All who were concerned in the rebellion were seized, so far as Charles
could lay hands on them. When questioned, they lay all the blame on
Wittekind. He was the culprit, they but his instruments. 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.
But they were again brought to battle upon the Hase, and now the
superior skill and more numerous army of the great conqueror prevailed.