Towards Independence
In the first eight years of Rastislav's reign there is no report of Moravian rebellion which suggests that he remained loyal to Louis the German. In this period Rastislav seems to have acquired new territories in the east and established a border with the First Bulgarian Empire. According to the Annals of St-Bertin, in 853 Charles the Bald, king of West Francia, bribed the Bulgarians to ally with the Slavs (apparently the Moravians) and together attack Louis the German's kingdom. In the course of the Bulgarian–Moravian attack, Louis the German deposed his prefect of the Eastland, Ratpot who soon formed a rebel alliance with Rastislav. This alliance suggests that by that time Rastislav felt secure enough to challenge Frankish overlordship.
In 855 the East Frankish king gathered a large army to invade Moravia. His army, however, foundered before the walls of one of Rastislav's strongholds, perhaps at Mikulčice (now in the Czech Republic) that seems to have been rebuilt in the previous years. Unprepared for a prolonged siege, the king was forced to withdraw from the region. As the king was retreating, his army defeated a large Moravian force that attacked his camp. Nevertheless, Rastislav's army followed the Franks and pillaged many of their estates on the river Danube.
King Louis took an army against the Moravians and their dux, Rastiz, who was rebelling against him, with little success. He returned without victory, preferring for the time being an enemy defended by strong fortifications, as it was said, rather than risk heavy losses to his own soldiers. However, his army plundered and burnt a great part of the province, and annihilated a not inconsiderable enemy force which attempted to storm the royal camp, but not without retaliation; after the king's return Rastiz and his men followed them and devastated the places near to the border across the Danube. —Annals of Fulda (year 855)In 856 Louis the German turned over the command of the southeastern marches of his kingdom to his son, Carloman with the responsibility to hold the Moravians in check. According to the Annals of Fulda, Carloman led a new expedition against Rastislav in 858, but this campaign was a failure too, for Rastislav remained defiant. Carloman even struck an alliance with Rastislav against his father.
Karlmann, son of Louis king of Germany, made an alliance with Rastiz, petty king (regulus) of the Wends, and defected from his father. With Rastiz's help he usurped a considerable part of his father's realm, as far as the River Inn. —Annals of St-Bertin (year 861)Pribina, the Slavic dux of Lower Pannonia died fighting the Moravians in 861 which suggests that Carloman also had conceded this province to Rastislav. In response to the ongoing rebellion of his son and Rastislav, Louis the German negotiated a counteralliance with Boris I of Bulgaria. The king made it seem that he was leading a new campaign against Rastislav, but at the last moment he moved against Carloman who thus had no choice but to surrender.
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