By 562, the Avars and Bulgars had reached the Lower
Danube: it was most likely in that year that Bayan became their supreme
Khagan in the stead of the previous ruler, the
Kutrigur khan
Zabergan. As allies of the
Byzantine Empire of
Justinian I (), the Avars had obtained a grant of gold to crush other nomads – the
Sabirs,
Utigurs,
Kutrigurs and
Saragurs – in the lands later known as
Ukraine, a task they accomplished to the emperor's satisfaction. Bayan's Avars now demanded the renewal of the alliance, increased pay and a land to live in. Bayan had eyed the plain of
Moesia (just south of the Lower
Danube in what would become northern
Bulgaria) as his promised land, but the Byzantines were adamant the Avars should not in any case cross the Danube. So Bayan and his horde in 563 rode around the northern
Carpathians to
Germany, where they were soundly repelled along the river
Elbe by the
Frankish king
Sigebert I of
Austrasia. This defeat induced them to retrace their footsteps to the Lower Danube region. After vainly trying to force the Danubian border when the new Byzantine emperor
Justin II () denied them both entry and wage, the Avars renewed their ride to
Thuringia. This time (566) they did defeat Sigebert, but had nonetheless to stop; in the meantime the
Göktürks, in pursuit of their former subjects, remained a real danger. The Avars, traditionally a
nomadic people, desperately needed both shelter and pasture for their
livestock, but the route to
Pannonia was blocked by impassable mountains covered with thick forests: the
Carpathian range. In the critical winter of 566–567 the Avars, stuck in present-day eastern
Germany, were sent feelers by
Alboin, the strong ruler of the
Lombards and brother-in-law of Sigebert, who sought an alliance to crush his old enemies the
Gepids. The latter, by chance, controlled the only practical way from the Lower Danube to the Avars' craved Pannonian pastures. So in 567 (see
Lombard–Gepid War (567)) king
Cunimund's Gepid kingdom was attacked from two directions: from the west came the Lombards, from the north, through
Moravia and the Danube, the Avars. Bayan crushed Cunimund's forces and made a cup from his defeated enemy's skull as a present (and warning) for his ally Alboin (famed for having forced Cunimond's daughter
Rosamund, whom he had taken as a war-bride, to drink from it, sealing his own fate). Then the Avar horde marched against
Sirmium, by now firmly held by Gepid remnants and a Byzantine garrison led by general Bonosus. In the meantime large numbers of
Slavs settled in Pannonia in the wake of the Avars; and in 568 Alboin and his Lombards deemed it wise to move to the
half-ruined but promising lands of
Italy where they would establish
a long-lasting kingdom. They concluded however a treaty with the Avar Khagan allowing them to reenter parts of Pannonia and
Noricum (
Austria) if they chose to do so in the future; they then departed with large numbers of the vanquished Gepids and a host of other
Germanic tribes. == Wars with Byzantium ==