The imperial forces, slowed by heavy wagons…
September 1176 CE
The imperial forces, slowed by heavy wagons carrying supplies and siege machinery, fail to prevent the Turks from devastating the countryside through which they march.
The Turks also destroy crops and poison water supplies to make Manuel's march more difficult.
Arslan harasses the imperial army in order to force it into the Meander valley, and specifically the mountain pass of Tzivritze near the fortress of Myriokephalon.
Once at the pass Manuel decides to attack, despite the danger from further ambushes, and also despite the fact that he could have attempted to bring the Turks out of their positions to fight them on the nearby plain of Philomelion, the site of an earlier victory won by his grandfather Alexios.
The lack of forage, and water for his troops, and the fact that dysentery has broken out in his army may have induced Manuel to decide to force the pass regardless of the danger of ambush.
Making their way up into the Phrygian mountains, the imperial army arrives on September 17 at the pass of Tzibritze, which permits access to the ruined fortress of Myriokephalon (southeast of modern Ankara), near Lake Beysehir.
The Turkish army masses on the hills flanking the pass.
Manuel's experienced generals warn of impending disaster, but he chooses instead to follow the advice of the battle-hungry younger princes, sending the vanguard of the army through the Tzibritze pass.
The Turks feign flight, circling around into the hills, and then charge down the narrow pass onto the main body of the army.
Manuel panics and flees back through the pass, throwing his army into disarray, and the Turkish victory is complete with the army's near-annihilation.
The battle, a shattering blow reminiscent of Manzikert a century earlier, marks the end of Constantinople’s counteroffensive against the Turks begun by Alexios I, ends the Empire's last hope of expelling the Turks from Anatolia, and points toward the collapse of the Empire itself.
The sultan forces the emperor to dismantle his fortifications along their common frontier.
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