Quote Originally Posted by Lemmy View Post
So... I was wondering about the viking expansion...

What allowed vikings to be so successful conquering so much land?

By that, I mean... What was it that made them so difficult to deal with. What sort.of tactics or weapons?

And what did Alfred The Great (and whoever else succeed in defending against them) do to finally beat them (at least to the point where a treaty was possible)?
Well, as far as I'm aware the vikings didn't really conquer all that much. They certainly explored a lot, and got into just about every corner of the globe they reasonably could. But their major attempts to actually conquer territory in France and Italy were beaten back. Now the Normans, which descended from viking raiders who were given territory in France (but didn't strictly speaking conquer it) did get footholds. But the actual lands the Scandinavian true vikings conquered are limited to the Rus (which is admittedly, impressively large), Greenland, Iceland, and parts of Scotland and Ireland, briefly England, and scattered settlements around the Europe's coast. But most notably with these lands that they conquered they faced down places that were less technologically adept and with a less unified government that could be overcome.

This is best seen and examined with the information we have on the invasion of England. The Scandinavians certainly gained a lot of territory fairly quickly. But a large part of that was because the Heptarchy were constantly fighting each other. It is not a surprise that when unifying figures like Alfred showed up, they were able to stop the viking expansion, and even push it back.

Mind you we can then get to actual successful conquerors like Cnut. Cnut was able to get warriors from all across the Scandinavian lands agree to fight for him (which is impressive in his own right). He basically landed in the south of England when no one thought he'd be (because of the superiority in ship based maneuverability as Max_Killjoy points out). Makes a B line to London before the English king can mount a real defense. Cnut fails to take the city (vikings weren't great at sieges). And when the king does get his army in order, Cnut and King Edmund have several indecisive battles, with Edmund winning a fair few. Before Cnut just gets one of the notable English lords to betray Edmund and switch sides mid battle. And that's how he won.