History of the Balkans in Maps

Although their presence had been rather short, the Huns had essentially destroyed the Western Empire, and into the vacuum created by their destruction flowed the various Germanic tribes. The Visigoths settled in Spain, the Vandals marched all the way through Spain and into north Africa from where they built ships and captured half of Sicily, and all of Corsica and Sardinia, sacking Rome itself in 455. This sack, much worse than the Gothic one 45 years before, is usually cited as the end of the Western Roman Empire. A new "Kingdom of Italy "emerged under a German general named Odoacer who secured recognition from Constantinople. The Western Empire itself lived on only along the Dalmatian Coast in what is today Croatia.

The retreat of the Huns also revealed the presence of a large group of newcomers, the Slavs. Originating East of the Oder river, they flowed into the area north of the Danube sometime in the 5th century as the German tribes fled from the Huns. But only the disappearance of the Huns revealed the extent of their settlements. Huge in populations, they lacked concepts of centralized government and their myriad local chieftans remained hopelessly divided for the next millenia.