War and Game

Romanus abandoned Manzikert in an attempt to reunite his forces with the group besieging Akhlât. Trapped in a valley on the Akhlât road, he neglected to send out scouts to assess the enemy’s position, and the Turks fell upon him. Romanus fought valiantly and might have won if his position had not been weakened by treachery within his ranks; his Turkmen troops went over to the enemy the night before the battle, and one of his generals, Andronicus Ducas, perceiving that the cause was lost, fled with his men. The Byzantine army was destroyed, and Romanus was taken prisoner.

1071

Forces Engaged

Byzantine: Approximately 40,000. Commander: Romanus IV Diogenes.

Turkish: Approximately 40,000. Commander: Alp Arslan.

Importance

Byzantine defeat severely limited the power of the Byzantines by denying them control over Anatolia, the major recruiting ground for soldiers. Henceforth, the Moslems controlled the region. The Byzantine Empire was limited to the area immediately around Constantinople, and the Byzantines were never again a serious military force.

Historical Setting

By the middle of the eleventh century a.d., the Byzantine Empire was well past its prime, although still a force with which to be reckoned. A series of weak and short-term emperors and empresses had frittered away the empire’s wealth while ignoring its frontiers and defenses. Although the Byzantine army, which trained and fought upon proven standards, was probably the best organized army of its day, it was irregularly led and the quality of its recruits had dropped markedly. The manualsStrategicon from the sixth century and Tactica from the early tenth century were the bases of a workable and working military philosophy, but the sturdy Anatolian peasant upon which the empire had long depended for its soldiery was no longer providing the core of the army. Foreign recruits or mercenaries made up the majority of the army. Although some of these were outstanding fighters, such as the Varangian Guard, few were tied to the empire in any way but monetary. Only the lack of an organized rival kept the Byzantine army the premiere force of the time, and the tenuous nature of the force’s composition meant that it could not really stand to be seriously challenged or badly commanded.

The empire had for two centuries been pressed along its southeastern front by the power of Islam. It had lost much of its territory in that direction, but by the time of Manzikert still held Asia Minor and the southern Balkans. When not fighting back the Moslem threat, the Byzantines made war in Europe against a variety of populations, most of whom had arrived in southeastern Europe during and immediately after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Serbs, Magyars, Petchenegs, cumans, and others were constantly causing the empire’s European frontiers to shift. They, also, were too few in number or too disorganized to do more than eat away at Byzantine power. Although the government in Constantinople needed to deal with them, the judicious use of bribery, diplomacy, or the threat of force kept that front sufficiently quiet that the government could focus most of its attention on the Moslems.

Along the far eastern reaches of the Byzantine Empire, acting as something of a buffer against the Moslems, was the region of Armenia. It was an area rich in natural resources and situated to take advantage of trade from Asia or up from Egypt. It was a wealthy region populated by inhabitants fiercely independent and difficult to subdue. Its wealth and resources made it attractive to generations of passing raiders and potential conquerors, and its location put it squarely in the path of the rising power of the Seljuk Turks, who appeared from the steppes of central Asia as another in a seemingly inexhaustible series of nomadic horsemen. What made them different was their conversion to the Sunni sect of Islam and that, instead of raiding and moving on, they stayed and established a government. By 1040, they ruled Persia and occupied Baghdad. This put them into a rivalry with the Egyptian Fatimid dynasty, which practiced Shia Islam and whose possessions included the Levant and the western coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Their control of Syria gave them access to lucrative trade, so for reasons of wealth, power, and religion, the Seljuks and Fatimids seemed bound to clash. The Fatimid alliance with Constantinople, however, ensured a continuing Byzantine interest in any conflict. Further, the Byzantine desire to acquire the wealth of Armenia would put them in the way of possible Seljuk territorial desires as well.

In 1065, Alp Arslan became leader of the Seljuk Turks. Arslan was both a good general and a good administrator, and under his rule the Seljuks prospered. He succeeded Tughril Bey, who had brought Baghdad, Mosul, and Diarbekir under Seljuk sway. Arslan extended the boundaries of the Seljuk domain, campaigning against Georgia and laying siege to the Armenian capital of Ani. He captured the city after a siege in 1064 and laid the city waste, as he planned to do with most of Anatolia. By denuding it of cultivated land, he could have the grassland so beloved of steppe people for the grazing of their horses. Thus, Arslan put himself and his people into the line of sight of the Byzantine government, which came under the control of Romanus IV Diogenes in 1068. Although Romanus was a general with some previous successes in the Balkans, the army was not happy with him, and the influential Varangian Guard distrusted him for the favoritism he extended toward native-born troops.

Romanus’s ambitions faced toward Armenia. He quickly massed the Byzantine army and attacked the Seljuks, who had just plundered the west-central province of Phrygia. Romanus surprised them at Sebastea (modern Sivas) and drove them from the field, capturing all their plunder and freeing all their prisoners in the process. He then drove southward toward Aleppo, raiding there and returning to Anatolia via Alexandretta.

In 1069, Romanus resumed his campaign against the Seljuk Turks, clearing them out of the western province of Cappadocia, but he was forced to retreat after a defeat at Khilat, near Lake Van. He fought Arslan a few months later at Heraclea (Kybistra) and defeated him, but the Seljuk leader was able to break out of a trap and escape to Aleppo. In 1070, Romanus had to deal with the Normans in the west, so he placed his eastern forces under his nephew Manuel Comnenus. Manuel lost to Alp Arslan’s brother-in-law, Arisiaghi, and was taken prisoner, but entered into machinations with his captor, who contemplated seizing power from Alp Arslan. Manuel convinced Arisiaghi to go to Constantinople to negotiate with Romanus, which he did by entering into an alliance. When Alp Arslan demanded Arisiaghi’s extradition and was refused, he went again to war.

The Battle

Alp Arslan led his army north of Lake Van to Manzikert, which he besieged and captured. He marched then to Edessa and then, failing to capture the city, returned to Persia. Romanus was soon in the field after him. Early in 1071, Romanus gathered his forces, but the exact number is unknown. Contemporary Moslem sources cite numbers between 200,000 and 400,000, but those are certainly outrageously high. It was “considerable” in size, according to J. F. C. Fuller, and probably was larger than that fielded by the Seljuks, at least at first. By the time battle was joined, they were probably roughly equal. The trouble with the army was not its size but its discipline and loyalty, both of which were lacking. Romanus had difficulty demanding the allegiance of some German mercenaries and had to contend with the widespread pillaging in which many troops engaged despite orders to the contrary. Further, and more dangerous, was the conspiracy against him conducted by his wife, the Empress Eudocia, and her son Michael VII. Key officers in Romanus’s force were in league with them and that would prove his ultimate undoing.

Romanus paused in Theodosiopolis (Erzerum) to finish his planning. He was sure than Alp Arslan was in Persia, so Romanus decided to retake Manzikert and capture the city of Khilat some 30 miles to the south to establish a base of operations to launch his campaign into Persia. He led the column to Manzikert while assigning Khilat to Frankish mercenaries under the command of Roussel de Bailleul. As the garrisons defending the two cities were not large, this plan should have proceeded nicely. However, Romanus did not know that Alp Arslan was not in Persia but in Syria, where he was preparing to fight the Fatimids. When he learned of the Byzantine advance, Arslan gathered together what forces were handy and marched to Mosul. There he added another 14,000 men and then marched northeast to Khoi, where he received reinforcements from Azerbaijan. Now with some 40,000 men, he marched west toward Lake Van and then skirted the southern shore to approach Khilat from the south.

Romanus quickly captured Manzikert and then weakened his own force by sending reinforcements to Bailleul and a foraging party of 12,000 to Georgia. How many men Bailleul commanded is unknown, but when Arslan appeared seemingly out of nowhere on 16 August 1071, Bailleul retreated. He did not withdraw toward Manzikert and Romanus, however, but instead marched northwest away from both armies. He was almost certainly involved in the conspiracy with Empress Eudocia because this was poor tactics; further, he did not send word to Romanus of his move. Khilat rapidly fell to the Seljuks, and Arslan immediately pushed on toward Manzikert. Romanus meanwhile marched to Khilat, unaware that he was about to run headlong into his enemy.

When his advanced guard ran into the main Seljuk body, Romanus immediately sent for Bailleul to come to his aid, a futile errand. In spite of that, Romanus did not lack for confidence. He depended on the tactics proven over centuries, whereby the more heavily armed and armored Byzantines had often prevailed over the swifter and more lightly armed nomadic cavalry. Thus, when Arslan offered peace terms, Romanus rejected them out of hand, demanding Arslan’s surrender and a promise that the Turks would never again invade the empire. With neither side agreeable, both prepared for battle.

The standard Byzantine tactic for fighting the Turkish light cavalry was to maintain steady lines with their heavy infantry and cavalry and then push the enemy against some terrain feature where the enemy’s maneuverability could not be used. Early in the battle, the Turkish tactics of lofting arrows from long range had the desired effect of hurting the Byzantine horses and provoking sufficient fear in the Kipchak and Petcheneg mercenaries that they abandoned the field. As his cavalry was diminishing because of the archery, Romanus ordered his lines forward. This disciplined maneuver had the desired effect, for the Seljuks retreated past their camp. This advantage failed to hold, however, because the Turks had plenty of open area into which they could retreat, and retreat they did until the day was almost gone.

As darkness approached, Romanus found himself in a dilemma. To push forward would gain nothing, but it was too late in the day to return unhindered to his own camp. With little choice, he ordered his lines to fall back, and the Seljuks were quick to face about and harry the withdrawing infantry. As the enemy approached, Romanus ordered his lines to turn and face them, but only the line nearest the enemy heeded him. The rear line continued to retreat, whether through ignorance of the order or (more likely) out of design. The line that continued to retreat was commanded by Andronicus Ducas, whose noble father was one of Romanus’s bitterest enemies. He reached the Byzantine encampment, leaving behind Romanus who, with a much smaller force, could not stand. The Seljuks quickly enveloped the remaining Byzantines and demolished them. Romanus’s men fought hard, but they had no chance. By the time darkness was complete, so was Alp Arslan’s victory.

Results

Romanus was one of the few survivors, and he was taken captive to Arslan. The sultan treated him with the utmost courtesy and concluded a treaty whereby Romanus would return to Constantinople and raise a ransom to be paid over 50 years. It was a debt that was only partially paid. While in captivity, Romanus lost his throne to Caesar John Ducas, Andronicus’s father. The empress, for all her plotting, found herself in a nunnery while Ducas ruled as regent over her son Michael VII. Romanus gathered some loyal troops and challenged Ducas, but met defeat a second time at Doceia. Captured by Andronicus, Romanus was blinded so traumatically that he soon died of his wound. Before his death, however, he had gathered the first payment of his ransom and sent it to Alp Arslan.

Edward Gibbon wrote of Manzikert: “The Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl: they forgot to mention that, in this fatal day, the Asiatic provinces of Rome were irretrievably sacrificed” (Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 6, p. 243). From this point forward, the Turks dominated Asia Minor as well as much of the Middle East. The Seljuks soon gave way to the Ottomans, but it was the Seljuk victory and their plan for devastation that irrevocably changed the face of Anatolia. Alp Arslan’s forces were once again on the offensive in 1072, but he was soon assassinated by his son, Malik Shah. Malik completed what his father had begun, which was the destruction of every Anatolian city, town, and farm and the execution of everyone in them. Hundreds of thousands of Byzantine citizens were killed or sold as slaves, and Asia Minor was for generations afterward a wasteland. The Turks accomplished what seemed to be the traditional goal of the steppe nomads, to have as much grassland as possible for their horses. Physically, the region was never the same.

Politically, the Byzantine Empire did not fall, but a huge portion of its remaining territories was lost. The peasants of Anatolia had provided for the bulk of the stolid fighting men of the Byzantine army, but they never would again. The Byzantine Empire, which was already overly dependent on foreign troops, became completely so. This meant that, as in the late Western Roman Empire, power came from the loyalty of the military rather than from administrative ability or vision. The Byzantine line of succession was almost never a line at all, for the prevailing philosophy was that, if an emperor was overthrown, he had lost God’s favor and therefore should no longer rule. This meant that “might became right,” resulting in a series of short-term rulers. Unable to maintain any consistency in any area of government, the Byzantine Empire became progressively weaker as the Normans took away territory in the Mediterranean. The resulting weakened empire could not defend itself from the successive nomadic tribes that harried its European possessions. In less than a quarter century after Manzikert, Constantinople appealed to the west for aid. The result was the first of the Crusades.

References:

Canard, M. “Byzantium and the Moslem World to the Middle of the 11th Century,” in J. Hussey, ed.Cambridge Medieval History, vol. IV. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1966; Friendly, Alfred. The Dreadful Day: The Battle of Manzikert, 1071. London: Hutchinson, 1981; Fuller, J. F. C. A Military History of the Western World, vol. 1. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1954; Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 6. New York: Gallery Press, 1979 [1737]; Jenkins, Romilly J. H. Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries, a.d. 610–1071. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.

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