Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans, Episode 1, a new beginning, in more than one.

This is the very first real episode of my podcast, and I so hope you enjoy it. I am massively excited.

And if I sound a bit nervous, it is because I am. So please bear with me,

it will get better. So, on with the show. We are starting in the year 919 AD. Things

are not going well. The mighty Empire of Charlemagne has fallen apart. What we have instead

are multitude of puny kingdoms.

Their feeble rulers are being pushed around by their formidable barons. The frontiers are

breached. In the north, the Vikings and the Danes are ransacking towns and villages along the coast,

and even deep inland. And in the east, the Slavs are burning Hamburg. And in the south, the most

terrifying of them all, the Magyars, a step tribe like the Huns and the Mongols, are marauding all the way

from Bavaria to northern Spain. One of those crumbling kingdoms was East Francia, which covers what is today West Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Its ruler, Conrad, was the last king who traced his claim back to Charlemagne himself,

even though that was really only by adoption.

After seven years of incessant and fruitless civil and foreign wars,

Conrad exhausted and disillusioned, gave up and died. For six months the throne remained vacant.

So by rights the crown should have gone to the West France and King Charles. Charles is simple, as the

most senior member of the Carolingian family. However, the four German dukes of Franconia,

Swabia, Bavaria and Saxony agreed on one thing, and one thing only, and that was that Charles

should not be king.

Ruling Charles out left only three credible contenders.

Iberhard of Franconia, the brother of the deceased King Conrad, Duke Arnulf of Bavaria,

and Duke Henry of Saxony.

...