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It is understandable how many have concluded that the years 800 to 814 exhibited military failure, shattering the hopes and ambitions for the new empire. However understandable, it is not an accurate conclusion. Firstly, failure ‘is hardly the corollary of lack of expansion’ and one cannot claim that militarily the period was a failure because of the absence of organised offensive wars of conquest. The fourteen years following Charlemagne’s coronation instead witnessed, not chronographs, but the military consolidation of the empire. Between 802 and 804 the last pockets of Saxon resistance were extinguished and Saxony united with the Frankish monarchy in the Treaty of Salz of 803. The accusation that there was no military expansion during the fourteen years is quite correct, however that is not a military failing and the period instead saw the securing of the empire.

Concerning the allegation of border threats, King responds superiorly; ‘how could this be otherwise, given such vast dominions?’ One cannot pursue a theory of military failure as an aspect of failed ambitions in the period in question as there was military success, simply of a different sort.