Victory in the East

by John France

  Such success owed something to their tactics. Traditionally steppe people ride light ponies, perhaps ten to twelve hands on average, and depend on strings of them to provide speed and endurance in battle. We have very little information about Turkish horses, though in contrast to the Mongol armies we do not hear of large strings of spare horses. When Alp Arslan fought at Manzikert in 1071 he took with him 15,000 picked cavalry, and the fact that all had a spare horse is remarked upon by the sources suggesting that it was unusual and a mark of their elite status.16 In fact, for nomads the difficulties implicit in the raising of heavier breeds with the need for stall-feeding, stud farms and the isolation of dams were overwhelming.17 Their special forte was mounted archery and they provided extraordinary fire-power and accuracy combined with speed of manoeuvre. A ninth-century Arab writer remarked of the Turkish troops then becoming common: ‘The Turk can shoot at beasts, birds, hoops, men, sitting quarry, dummies and birds on the wing, and do so at full gallop to fore or to rear, to left or to right, upwards or downwards, loosing ten arrows before the Kharijite [Arab tribesman hostile to the Abassids] can nock one.18

  This combination of speed of manoeuvre with the range of the bow was extremely difficult to combat. They used the composite bow – wood with horn which reacts to compression bound on the belly side, and sinew on the back to increase elasticity. Thus, despite its shortness, the nomad’s bow had great strength and considerable range. Albert of Aachen salts his chronicle with poetic cliches; his Franks seize helms and armour as they fly to battle, but the Turks seize bows, often described as being of horn and sinew. Such vivid word pictures convey sharply the difference in style of warfare.19 In a famous passage after his account of the battle of Dorylaeum, the Anonymous praises the skill of the Turks as soldiers, but Albert gives a very much more specific example of their archery. During the pursuit after Dorylaeum, he says, the enemy remained dangerous and often turned at bay. Gerard of Quiersy, spotting a Turk on the brow of a hill, drew across him and attacked with his lance; his intended victim, however, fired an arrow which went through the shield and struck him between the liver and lungs, and while he lay dying the Turk made off with his horse. As the Franks forced the crossing of the Iron Bridge he again mentions Turkish arrows piercing a hauberk.20 If we think of a Turkish horseman drawing a bow with a pull of between twenty-seven and thirty-six kilograms, he might have an effective range of well over sixty metres so the Anonymous’s comment on their ‘astonishing range’ makes sense. Consider the effect of many such individuals firing together and it is possible to understand the frequency with which the western accounts mention the sleets of arrows which the Turks produced in battle. Fulcher speaks of the clouds of arrows which overcame the army at Dorylaeum, and Albert describes hails of arrows as the Turks fought back in the pursuit after the battle and which destroyed Swein of Denmark’s reinforcements and Renaud of Toul’s force in the final battle at Antioch.21 Such language is too frequent to be mere extravagance, as are references to the fast horses of the Turks. Raymond of Aguilers describes their hit-and-run tactics in which speed was essential to avoid crusader retribution. Ralph shows them manoeuvring outside ‘Artāh to lure Franks into ambush, while according to Albert warriors on speedy mounts opposed the crossing of the fords near the Iron Bridge and later lured Roger of Barneville to his death.22 It is possible that they had developed light tubular crossbows, throwing darts to augment their firepower.23 It was by throwing a hail of arrows that the Turks demoralised their enemies, isolated and broke up their formations before charging in for the kill at close quarters with sword and spear. This was how they had destroyed the forces of the People’s Crusade. Once at close quarters their primary weapon was the sword, at this time a straight edged weapon rather narrower and more sharply pointed than the Frankish weapon, but otherwise little different.24

  It is difficult to comment on the armour of the nomads. As early as 1037/8, Bayhaqi says that when Tughril Bey entered Nishapur his 3,000 cavalry were mostly armoured. Much of our evidence about the Seljuks comes from Byzantine sources of the twelfth century which show mail shirts and poncho-like garments of mail. By this time Greek influence upon their protective equipment and style of war was becoming very strong25. However, there is ample evidence for the use of armour, scale, chain-mail and lamellar armour throughout the Middle East. Strips or scales fastened to cloth or leather seem to have been outmoded in the West, but such lighter equipment would have suited the warfare of the area very well and so have remained in use. There is no reason to think that the nomads of Asia Minor were ignorant of armour. Ralph of Caen gives a very vivid description of the fighting at Dorylaeum and tells us that in the press of battle the Turks ‘trusted in their numbers, we in our armour’ which implies that they did not have armour. However, he does not explicitly say that they had none and it would be very surprising if they were prepared to close with the Franks with no protection at all. In much of the Middle East armour was worn under the cover of other materials, most often in the form of a Hazagand, a leather jerkin with mail or lamellar within and there were variations on this like the later western brigandine. Felt or fur caps were often worn by Turks at this time.26 We can think, therefore, of the Turkish horsemen wearing rather lighter armour than the western knights, and, above all, carrying a much smaller and lighter shield. However, their skilful horsemanship and tactics were not in themselves a sufficient advantage to account for the victories of the Turks in Asia Minor – they owed far more to Byzantine weakness.27

  The death of Basil II (976–1025) saw the Byzantine empire in a position of strength, extending from Mesopotamia to Bulgaria.28 But Basil’s success, and the manner in which it was achieved, left considerable problems for the Byzantine state. He significantly changed Byzantine military organisation. In the seventh century the Byzantine army had been reorganised with the division of the empire into Themes, each of which was defended by its own military-force locally recruited, housed and financed. When an imperial expedition was mounted, the army of the themata combined with the central army based at Constantinople, the tagmata, at selected aplèkta, camps on the military highways such as that at Dorylaeum which was the gateway to the Anatolian plateau.29 However, the settlements of peasant soldiers, which were the basis of this army, were being absorbed into the estates of the aristocracy of Asia Minor who thus were able to control the armies of the Themes. In 987 a group of these families revolted against Basil and were only defeated in 989 with the aid of a corps of 6,000 Russians, the basis of the later Varangian guard. From this time onwards Basil found it prudent to rely more and more on mercenaries for the regular army which was the basis of his successful expansion of the empire in the Balkans. The increasing wealth of the empire, evidenced by the growth of cities, facilitated the replacement of territorial forces by mercenaries.30 As a result, the old armies of the Themes were somewhat neglected, except on exposed frontiers where they continued to serve a useful purpose. At the same time, he revived old legislation to prevent the great families of Asia Minor from absorbing peasant holdings into their estates in order to protect the tax base which was even more necessary to pay his professional armies. On the basis of his victory of 989, Basil established a harsh government which dominated the great noble houses and at the same time demanded a crushing taxation to support a professional army and a policy of expansion. The strains that this imposed on the empire meant that when Basil died there was bound to be change, and this was complicated by the lack of a clear line of succession on the death of his brother Constantine VIII (1025–8) whose daughters’ marriages determined the succession for the next twenty years without ever producing heirs to prolong the Macedonian house. This failure inevitably produced uncertainty and promoted the emergence of aristocratic factions who competed for power; there were thirty rebellions in the period 1028–57, such as that of Tornikios in 1047–8 which was only defeated by stripping the frontiers of troops.

  Competition for power amongst aristocratic houses was a feature of Byza
ntine history, and this period produced able, as well as feeble, emperors, but this came at a time when the empire had severe problems. The rise of a mercenary army imposed massive financial burdens and it is hardly surprising that, with the less expansionist stance after 1025, efforts were made to cut back on military expenditure. Constantine IX Monomachus dismantled the army of the theme of Iberia. The policy was logical for the local army duplicated the mercenary one, but, to its great discontent, this area now had to pay taxes and it was exposed to hostile attack. In the East, the Turks began to press on the frontier, while in the Balkans the Patzinacks were a potential menace and in Italy the Normans became a major force in the 1040s. Thus, economy in military matters came at a time of increasing external threat. Moreover, in the east, there were a number of populations whose religious affiliations made them suspect to the Byzantine authorities (most notably the Jacobite Syrians and the Armenians), and the efforts of Constantine X Doukas (1059–67) to settle problems with these churches, intended to strengthen the frontiers, simply aroused hatred. Thus, every effort of the imperial government worsened the security situation in the eastern provinces and, by the 1060s, the Turks were raiding deep into Asia Minor with Iconium and Chonae falling victim towards the end of the decade. Even more importantly, the vacuum of power at the centre continued to be filled only intermittently and the autocracy was the subject of bitter factional conflict which prevented consistent policies from emerging. The factional struggle allowed other forces to emerge within the state – the church especially under the Patriarch Michael Keroularios (1043–58) became a major factor in the state and not a mere arm of the autocracy, while the mob of Constantinople had also to be considered. This was the background to the reign of Romanus IV Diogenes (1067–71).

  When Constantine Doukas died he had invested imperial power in his wife Eudocia, to exercise on behalf of his young sons, but there was widely felt to be a need for a strong ruler and as a result, she married Romanus IV Diogenes, a successful soldier who had defeated the Patzinacks in the Balkans. He consolidated his power and produced two sons, but inevitably this aroused the hostility of the Doukas.

  Romanus was determined to end the Turkish attacks on the eastern provinces, but there was considerable uncertainty about how best to do this. A considerable body of thought suggested that he should make the border provinces, with their disloyal populations, a desert and crush the Turks in central Asia Minor. He preferred to try and oust the Turks by a strategy of large-scale expeditions to the eastern frontier which would put pressure upon the Sultan Alp Arslan. But the Turks were steppe horsemen to whom the Anatolian plateau presented a congenial and familiar habitat across which they could move quickly and they melted before the lumbering Byzantine army, returning to isolate the fortresses once they had gone.31 In 1068 Romanus attacked Aleppo, and the campaign of 1069 was directed against the upper Euphrates although the rebellion of the Norman mercenary Crispin was a considerable diversion. These expensive forays produced no results and it is likely that the emperor’s enemies, led by the Caesar John Doukas were becoming a threat. In 1071, Romanus led a huge Byzantine army with the intention of bringing the Sultan Alp Arslan, who was preparing for an attack on Fatimid Egypt, to battle: Romanus needed a victory. The army was overwhelmingly mercenary with contingents of Greeks, Russians, Khazars, Alans, Georgians, Armenians, Turks and Franks; it was the Germans, amongst these latter, who attacked the emperor at Cryapege when he tried to curb their excesses. Some of the units were very good but there was enormous variation in quality and they were not used to working together. As they moved eastwards there was friction with the Armenians. It was a huge army, though the 300,000 suggested by some Arab sources is a gross exaggeration: it was probably of the order of 40,000–60,000. Alp Arslan was surprised by their coming – he had negotiated a truce with Romanus in the previous year, but the Byzantines saw continued Turkish raiding, over which the Sultan had no control, as a breach. Manzikert (east of modern Erzerum (see fig. 3)), a fortress recently captured by the Turks, was quickly recaptured, but a large section of the imperial army was dispatched to take Chliat. When Alp Arslan arrived, the Norman mercenary leader, Roussel of Bailleul, and Tarchaniotes who commanded many of the Turks, simply fled. In the crisis of the battle Andronicus Doukas seems deliberately to have betrayed Romanus who was captured in the ensuing rout.32

  Manzikert was not quite the overwhelming victory that has been supposed, for much of the army was never engaged and many units escaped intact, but the emperor’s guard was slaughtered.33 Alp Arslan concluded a very merciful treaty with Romanus, for he was preoccupied elsewhere and had no wish to see a major Turkish power in Anatolia. It was the Byzantine reaction which turned the situation into a disaster. Romanus’s enemies, led by Michael VII Doukas (1071–8), denounced the treaty and blinded Romanus. The Byzantine state now dissolved in a series of civil wars, in which the numerous contenders were all prepared to call in the Turks. This was why the cities of Asia Minor which could have resisted a nomadic people with no experience of siege warfare did not do so. Instead, the keys of their gates were handed over to the Turks by the contending magnates. In the chaos, the Norman mercenary leader Roussel of Bailleul attempted to create a new state in Asia Minor and his success brought 3,000 Franks into his following. In an effort to divide his enemies he championed the imperial pretensions of John Doukas. He was only defeated in Bithynia when the imperial authorities brought in the Turkish Emir, Artuk, whose activities so far to the west are a revelation of Byzantine weakness. Even then, he escaped and in the end was betrayed to Alexius Comnenus.34 In Cappadocia and Cilicia, independent Armenian princes were happy to see the back of Byzantine rule and to take over the cities of the area. Amongst them was a former Curopalate and Domestic of Romanus IV who had fought with him at Manzikert, Philaretus Brachamius, who refused to recognise Michael VII and created a principality based on Marasch, Ahlistha and Melitene (see figs. 2 and 4). In 1074 he defeated Isaac Comnenus, duke of Antioch, and by 1078 he had acquired this major city. Nicephorous Botaneiates, who rebelled against Michael in 1078, was a former comrade in arms of Philaretus and recognised his independent principality to which he added Edessa in 1083–4. When Sulayman, leader of the Anatolian Turks, was peacefully admitted to Antioch in 1085, it is not impossible that local factionalism within the city was encouraged to this end by Alexius I Comnenus – in order to get rid of an adherent of the overthrown Botaneiates.35 When Nicephorous Botaneiates began his rebellion in 1077 he was able to gather very few troops but the government, beset by the rebellion of Nicephorous Bryennius in the west which allowed the Patzinacks in once again, called upon Sulayman, leader of the Anatolian Turks. He changed sides, however, and Botaneiates used his forces to hold down many of the cities of western Asia Minor, including Nicaea which appears to have fallen into Turkish hands at this time. Much of the army which Botaneiates used against Bryennius in the west under Alexius Comnenus was Turkish, and it was turned against Botaneiates whom Alexius succeeded in 1081, only to face the rebellion of his brother-in-law, Melissenus, who turned over more of the cities of western Anatolia to Sulayman. There can be no doubt that for the Byzantine magnates and generals, civil war in their own interests was far more important than defence of Anatolia. It seems almost as if these great nobles were quite happy to loan a vast and rich province to barbarians for whom they had the greatest disdain and whom they never seem to have regarded as rivals, like the Arabs against whom Nicephorous Phocas (963–9) and John Tzimiskes (969–76) had waged a holy war.36 It was the Emperor, Alexius Comnenus (1081–95), who finally brought to an end the chaos in the Byzantine state and established himself as the head of a group of aristocratic families who dominated the machinery of state. He was not a great soldier: he would suffer heavy defeats, such as that at Dyrrachium, and win few real victories. He was as prepared as any of his rivals to make arrangements with the Turks. He was, in the end, a skilful and cautious politician anxious to nurse his deeply wounded empire. The spirit of the crusad
e was deeply alien to this cautious politician. He ‘came to power as the head of a powerful aristocratic network’, so it is hardly surprising that he offered no revival of that spirit of holy war which a century before had enabled the warrior emperors, Nicephorous Phocas and John Tzimiskes, to drive the Byzantine frontier deep into Syria.37 But the Comneni and the families allied to him were all from Asia Minor which they regarded as the heartland of the empire, hence the importance which he attached to regaining it, and hence the appeal of 1095.