Louis the Younger had inherited Bavaria, Charles the Fat had been given the Kingdom of Italy and Arnulf had been confirmed in Carinthia by an agreement with Carloman after the latter had been incapacitated by a stroke in 879.

Bavaria, however, is ruled more or less by Arnulf.

Arnulf had in fact ruled Bavaria during the summer and autumn of 879 while his father arranged his succession and he himself had been granted "Pannonia," in the words of the Annales Fuldenses, or "Carantanum," in the words of Regino of Prüm.

The division of the realm had been confirmed in 880 on Carloman’s death.

When, in 882, Engelschalk II rebelled against the Margrave of Pannonia, Aribo, and ignited the so-called Wilhelminer War, Arnulf had supported him and even accepted his and his brother's homage.

This has ruined Arnulf's relationship with his uncle the Emperor and put him at war with Svatopluk of Moravia.

At first, the rebels were successful, until Aribo appeals to not only Moravia, but also the Emperor Charles the Fat, who confirms Aribo in his post, to which he had been appointed by Charles' father, Louis the German, back in 871.

Svatopluk invades Pannonia and, capturing one of the Wilhelminer brothers, mutilates him.

The remaining sons then withdraw from Charles' suzerainty and do homage to Charles' bastard nephew, who thus estranges himself from his uncle.

The war between Arnulf and Svatopluk escalates after the former refuses the latter’s request to to surrender the Wilhelminers.

Al-Muwaffiq finally defeats the Zanj freedom fighters in 883, ending fifteen years of havoc and commercial disruption in southern Mesopotamia.

Ahmad never goes so far as to declare formal independence from the 'Abbasid caliph, but the autonomy of his rule is clearly a threat to the authority of the latter, and he ceases to send any tribute to the 'Abbasid government.

The Caliph himself is preoccupied with other problems and is unable to spare the military forces necessary to bring Ahmad into submission.

The Council of Toulouse meets in 883 at a moment of wavering resolve on the part of the court, and therefore increasing Jewish vulnerability.

It ratifies the restrictions of preceding councils and various public humiliations, such as the slap administered to a Jew at Easter by the Bishop of Toulouse on the steps of the cathedral, on the pretext that in the past the Jews had delivered the city to the Saracens (although it is known that Toulouse had never passed under Muslim domination).

Easter, by recalling the role that Jews played in the passion of Christ, charges relations between Jews and Christians with an intense animosity.

Although the legally mandated slap is in fact administered to avenge the injury done by the Jews to Jesus, it is nonetheless customary to accuse them unjustly of lacking loyalty.

Jews are also held responsible for the Danish incursion at Bordeaux in 848.

The slap ceremony, known as colaphization, will be discontinued only in the twelfth century, on condition of payment by the Jewish community of Toulouse of a special tax to the clergy.

These humiliations are repeated in other cities, such as …

…Béziers, where, under the bishop's direction, Easter week becomes an anti-Jewish riot.

Guy, now Duke of Spoleto, is accused of treason at an imperial synod held at Nonantula late in May 883.

He returns to Spoleto and makes an alliance with the Saracens.

Charles sends Berengar, equipped with an army, to deprive Guy of Spoleto.

Berengar is initially successful until an epidemic of disease, which ravages all Italy, affecting the emperor and his entourage as well as Berengar's army, forces him to retire.

The Doge of Venice, Giovanni II Participazio, a nepotist intent on continuing the power of his own dynasty, had tried to obtain the government of Comacchio for his brother Badoaro and to this end sent him to the pope.

However, Marinus, count of Comacchio, had captured him and sent him back to Venice, where he soon died.

Giovanni had attacked and devastated Comacchio, but he could not hold it, because it was the pope's.

Charles the Fat signs a treaty with Giovannni in 883, granting that any assassin of a doge who flees to the territory of the empire will be fined one hundred pounds of gold and banished.

King Alfred, because of his support and his donation of alms to Rome, receives a number of gifts from the Pope Marinus in probably 883, though there is some debate over the year.

Among these gifts is reputed to be a piece of the true cross, a true treasure for the devout Saxon king.

According to Asser, because of Pope Marinus' friendship with King Alfred, the pope had granted an exemption to any Anglo-Saxons residing within Rome from tax or tribute.

Fujiwara Mototsune had continued the trend begun by Yoshifusa of monopolizing the position of regent to the Japanese emperor.

He was third son of Fujiwara no Nagayoshi, brother of Yoshifusa, and Fujiwara no Otoharu, daughter of Fujiwara no Tsugutada.

He was adopted by Yoshifusa who had no sons, and Mototsune followed in Yoshifusa's footsteps.

After the emperor had reached his maturity, however, Mototsune invents the position of kampaku regent for himself.

This innovation allowed the Fujiwara clan to tighten its grip on power right throughout an emperor's reign.

Mototsune thus becomes, in 884, Japan’s first official civil dictator.

Emperor Yozei of Japan is deposed, and succeeded by his paternal great-uncle Emperor Kōkō.

The Bulgarians, in addition to the Franks and Moravians, also enter the conflict by invading Svatopluk's realm.

According to a record in the Annals of Salzburg, the region of Vienna (Austria) was also invaded in 881 by Hungarians.

They seems to have been hired either by Svatopluk or by Arnulf in order to intervene in their conflict.

The “Willhelminer War" leads to the devastation of Pannonia east of the river Rába.

Finally, Charles the Fat himself turns and receives Svatopluk as his man at Kaumberg, receiving promises of peace and fidelity.

Svatopluk also promises never to invade Charles’s realm with a hostile force as long as he lives, while Charles recognizes him as a prince of his realm.