Dual
RIP Karl 1991-2014
August 26
1071: Battle of Manzikert
The Roman army under Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes attacks a Seljuk army under Alp Arslan near Manzikert in the Roman Armenian territories. After going in with a superior force to attack an enemy that didn't want to fight, the Romans were mostly encircled by a crescent formation of Seljuk horsemen as they retreated into the mountains. The commander of the Roman flank, Andronikos Doukas, a personal enemy of Romanos, ordered his forces to withdraw, leaving a large piece of the army and the emperor encircled by the Turks at nightfall. This section of the army was massacred almost to the man, but Romanos himself was captured and brought before Alp Arslan.
The following is an exchange between the Emperor and the Sultan:
"What would you have done, had I been brought before you as a prisoner?"
"Perhaps I'd kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople."
"My punishment is far heavier, I forgive you, and set you free."
Arslan released Romanos after he agreed to a minor annual tribute and to cede some minor border towns. Unfortunately for Romanos, when he got back to Roman territory, his throne had been usurped, he was blinded, and died from an infection shortly afterwards.
In the meantime, a civil war had started, almost completely wiping out the rest of the Roman army (this was especially a problem because jobs in the Roman army at this point were based on hereditary land grants). The Seljuk Turks took advantage of this to rampage across Anatolia, and ten years later had their capital at Nicaea, just across the Sea of Marmara from Constantinople itself. It would be decades before the Romans mounted a competent defense against the Turks, and by that time the prestige and wealth they'd enjoyed prior to the Turkish conquest would be lost. Even the most successful emperors failed to wipe out the entrenched Turks in central Anatolia, and those same Turks would one day have expanded to encompass all of the Roman Empire in the east, and even attack Vienna.
1071: Battle of Manzikert
The Roman army under Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes attacks a Seljuk army under Alp Arslan near Manzikert in the Roman Armenian territories. After going in with a superior force to attack an enemy that didn't want to fight, the Romans were mostly encircled by a crescent formation of Seljuk horsemen as they retreated into the mountains. The commander of the Roman flank, Andronikos Doukas, a personal enemy of Romanos, ordered his forces to withdraw, leaving a large piece of the army and the emperor encircled by the Turks at nightfall. This section of the army was massacred almost to the man, but Romanos himself was captured and brought before Alp Arslan.
The following is an exchange between the Emperor and the Sultan:
"What would you have done, had I been brought before you as a prisoner?"
"Perhaps I'd kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople."
"My punishment is far heavier, I forgive you, and set you free."
Arslan released Romanos after he agreed to a minor annual tribute and to cede some minor border towns. Unfortunately for Romanos, when he got back to Roman territory, his throne had been usurped, he was blinded, and died from an infection shortly afterwards.
In the meantime, a civil war had started, almost completely wiping out the rest of the Roman army (this was especially a problem because jobs in the Roman army at this point were based on hereditary land grants). The Seljuk Turks took advantage of this to rampage across Anatolia, and ten years later had their capital at Nicaea, just across the Sea of Marmara from Constantinople itself. It would be decades before the Romans mounted a competent defense against the Turks, and by that time the prestige and wealth they'd enjoyed prior to the Turkish conquest would be lost. Even the most successful emperors failed to wipe out the entrenched Turks in central Anatolia, and those same Turks would one day have expanded to encompass all of the Roman Empire in the east, and even attack Vienna.
