GERMANY   THE   AGGRESSOR
Treaty of Verdun, its capital (Aachen) and nearly
all its other cities were sacked. * France' too was
repeatedly harried, and finally (a.d. 911) the North-
men had to he allowed to take permanent possession
of the region still called after them 'Normandy/
The eastern division of Frankland, i.e. 'Germany/
came off best. Its resistance was the strongest.
Indeed, a great victory over the Danes gained by the
last Carolingian king, Arnulf, in a.d. 891 may be
said to have marked the end of the Viking peril in
that region.
II
The fact that Germany at the end of the ninth
century finally defeated and expelled her Viking
invaders, while France and Lotharingia continued to
be harried by them, explains how it came to pass
that in the tenth century Germany took the lead
among the European nations. The Carolingian line
of kings having become extinct, she found a new and
vigorous succession of rulers in the dukes of Saxony,
beginning with the famous Henry the Fowler (a.d.
919-936), and continuing for just over one hundred
years (to a.d. 1024). The Saxons—only recently
conquered and forcibly evangelised by Charlemagne
—were the least Roman and Christian, the most
warlike and Teutonic, of all the German tribes.
Their ferocious Duke was elected king because Ger-
many, although delivered from the Vikings, was
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