The result was a crushing defeat for Berengar I, allowing the Magyars (Hungarians) to continue west and sack large areas of Italy.

As a result, the Hungarians, whom he had hired against the Italian king, left the kingdom the following year with all their plunder, but not before concluding peace with Berengar, who gave them many hostages and gifts.

The most important source is Antapodosis, seu rerum per Europam gestarum, written by Liutprand of Cremona, which gives the most detailed description of the battle and the events which led to it.

After 898, however, Berengar began to consider himself more worthy for the title of emperor, believing himself to be a truer Carolingian than Arnulf, since the latter was an illegitimate son of Carloman.

[citation needed] Aware of this, Arnulf, very ill, could not go personally to campaign in Italy, but concluded an alliance with the leaders of the Hungarians, who had in 895-896 occupied the Eastern parts of the Carpathian Basin, convincing them to send an army to attack Berengar.

[citation needed] Arnulf was accused by his enemies of having concluded the alliance with the Hungarians by cutting a dog and a wolf in two, in a pagan way.

This is why in late October 898 they sent a lightly armored, quick moving small unit on reconnaissance, crossing Pannonia on their way to Northern Italy[6] before arriving in Friuli.

They camped three days with their tents near the river Brenta, sending their scouts in small groups to reconnoiter the land, its wealth, the number and the fighting spirit of the enemy troops, the routes of attack and retreat, the places which could be chosen as battlefields, where the most spoils were to be found, and the cities and the defensive works.

Gyula Kristó argues that they bypassed Pannonia and went westwards, following the courses of the rivers Sava and Drava and entering Italy near Aquileia, on the road named after them, Strata Hungarorum, due to the fact that they used it so often during the next decades and centuries.

[6] The Hungarian retreat also served as part of their psychological warfare, which had the goal of inducing over-confidence in Berengar and the belief that he had already won the war against them, thus lulling his vigilance.

[19] Although the chronicler Liutprand believes that the Hungarians were frightened, hopeless, and just wanted to escape alive, the modern historians consider that this was only a clever role-playing, in order to get the Italians into a mood which would lead to their defeat.

After this long pursuit, on 24 September 899, the Hungarians and the Italians arrived to the river Brenta, after the "most ingenious planned flight of the world history", as István Bóna points.

[21] Liutprand mentions that the horses of the Hungarians were very tired, but they had the strength to cross the river before the Italians arrived, so Brenta separated the two armies from each other.

[22] With these exaggerate but still unacceptable promises (knowing that Berengar will not accept their departure after the destruction they caused, and would want to take them all prisoners), the Hungarians managed to totally convince the king that their fate depends only from his goodwill.

But at the other side of the Brenta river was probably not only the tired, pursued Magyar army group, but other Hungarian troops too which at the start of the campaign, were sent in other directions to plunder, and in the meantime they returned for the battle, and also those who remained in their permanent camp placed in that very place from the beginning of the campaign, because it was chosen a year ago in their reconnaissance incursion.

In their campaigns in Europe, the Hungarians in every country they stayed longer, chose a place to be their permanent camp during their stay in the region (in 926 the Abbey of Saint Gall,[25] in 937 in France the Abbey of Saint Basolus near Verzy,[26] in the same year the meadows of Galliano near Capua, where they stood for 12 days[27]), so knowing these, it is highly probable, that the principal camp and the rallying point of the Hungarians was on the meadows near the Brenta river.

Some Italians tried to stay away from the little pockets of fight, where groups of their fellows tried to resist, hoping that if they show themselves peaceful and friends to the Hungarians, they will be spared, but they too were massacred.

[30] The Hungarians, after crushing all tiny attempts of resistance, showed no mercy to the Italians, who in the course of the days spent in chasing them, then after their arriving to the Brenta river, when they sent their envoys asking for an agreement, insulted them so many times, so they killed even those who wanted to surrender.

[32] This is of course an exaggerated number, knowing that the Italian army composed maximum 15,000 men, but shows that the losses were really high.

[36] In the meantime, on 8 December 899, emperor Arnulf died in Regensburg, so the alliance between East Francia and the Principality of Hungary lost its validity.

[35][39] After this defeat, or at the latest from 904, Berengar started to pay them tribute regularly, and until his death in 924, and in exchange the Hungarians helped him against every enemies that he had.

This attack was not a violation of the agreement with Berengar, because at that time Venice was not part of the Italian kingdom, but was an autonomous republic under Byzantine influence.

[45] On the other hand, Gyula Kristó and István Bóna think that the Hungarian army returning from Italy took part in the conquest of Pannonia, but in different ways.

He thinks that the Hungarian army came back from Italy because they received an order from home to come help in the conquering of Pannonia, accomplishing it with an encircling movement.