MANZIKERT
BYZANTINE ARMENIA 26 AUGUST 1071
W
hen Byzantine Emperor
Romanos IV Diogenes
assembled the Imperial
army in Anatolia shortly
after he came to power on
1 January 1068, he was shocked at what he
saw. The imperial standards were tattered and
grimy, many of the infantrymen were armed
with scythes or pruning hooks, and the cavalry
was dismounted because it had not been
furnished with horses. Furthermore, he would
need to hire additional foreign mercenaries to
bring it up to strength in the face of a severe
manpower shortage.
The Eastern Roman Empire, as it was
known at the time, was in the midst of a
military crisis. Following the death of Emperor
Basil II of the Macedonian Dynasty in 1025,
the Byzantine military arm had been in a
precipitous downhill slide. Most of the rulers
who had held the throne for the past four
decades had purposely neglected the imperial
army in the belief that by doing so they could
prevent military coups.
The army was so downtrodden that it would
take several months at least to re-equip
it for battle against the Seljuk Turks who
plundered Anatolian cities nearly unopposed.By the middle of the 11th century the Turkish
raiders had begun penetrating deep into
Anatolia nearly unopposed. The Christian
Armenians who lived under Byzantine rule
had become war-weary and harboured deep
doubts about the Byzantines' ability to defend
them. They resented the incompetence of
Byzantine officers who preferred the luxury
of Constantinople to the hardship of the
frontier outposts. Indeed, the frail empire
was on the verge of a major disaster unless
immediate steps were taken to strengthen
frontier outposts in Byzantium’s easternmost
provinces that bordered Seljuk vassal states.The Seljuk Turks wore down a Byzantinearmywitharrow volleys and then launched a
counterattack when a treacherous commander refused to reinforce the Byzantine emperor
Great Battles
WORDS WILLIAM E. WELSH