Æthelred of Wessex of Mercia, appealed to him for help against the Vikings. Æthelred and his brother, the future Alfred the Great, led a West Saxon army to Nottingham, but there was no decisive battle, and Burgred bought off the Vikings. In 874 the Vikings defeated Burgred and drove him into exile. In 870 the Vikings turned their attention to Wessex, and on 4 January 871 at the Battle of Reading, Æthelred suffered a heavy defeat. Although he was able to re-form his army in time to win a victory at the Battle of Ashdown, he suffered further defeats on 22 January at
Battle of the Catalaunian Plains 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000, but no real estimates of Hunnic military capacity can be determined. Their barbarian allies, however, do receive mentions at other times in other sources: in 430 A.D. The Hunnish king Octar was defeated by a force of 3000 Neckar Burgundians who would later come under Hun subjugation, and Heather estimates that both the Gepids and the Amali Goths could have each fielded a maximum of 15,000 men at the Battle of Nedao in 454. Therefore, the total Hunnic forces could have plausibly been in excess of 48,000 men. This is somewhat supported by the Chronicon