Byzantine-Seljuq Turk Wars of 1064-81
1064 CE to 1081 CE
The Byzantine-Seljuq wars are a series of decisive battles that shift the balance of power in Asia Minor and Syria from the Byzantine Empire to the Seljuq Turks.
Riding from the steppes of Central Asia, the Seljuk Turks replicate tactics practiced by the Huns hundreds of years earlier against a similar Roman opponent but now combining it with newfound Islamic zeal; in many ways, the Seljuq Turks have resumed the conquests of the Muslims in the Byzantine-Arab Wars initiated by the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abassid Caliphate in the Levant, North Africa and Asia Minor.Today the Battle of Manzikert is widely seen as the moment when the Byzantines lost the war against the Turks; however the Byzantine military was of questionable quality before 1071 with regular Turkish incursions overrunning the failing theme system.
Even after Manzikert, Byzantine rule over Asia Minor does not end immediately, nor are any heavy concessions levied by the Turks on their opponents — it will take another 20 years before the Turks are in control of the entire Anatolian peninsula -- and not for long, either.During the course of the war, the Seljuq Turks and their allies attack the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, capturing Jerusalem and catalyzing the call for the First Crusade.
Crusader assistance to Byzantium is mixed with treachery and looting, although substantial gains are made in the First Crusade.
Within a hundred years of Manzikert, the Byzantines will have (with Crusader assistance) successfully driven back the Turks from the coasts of Asia Minor and extended their influence right down to Palestine and even Egypt.
Later, the Byzantines will be unable to extract any more assistance and the Fourth Crusade even leads to the sack of Constantinople.
Before the conflict peters out, the Seljuqs will manage to take more territory from the weakened Nicaean Empire until the Sultanate itself is taken over by the Mongols, leading to the rise of the ghazis and the conclusive Byzantine-Ottoman wars.
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The Komnenian restoration describes the military, financial and territorial recovery of the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire under the Komnenian dynasty, from the accession in 1081 of Alexios I Komnenos, to the death in 1180 of Manuel I Komnenos.
The Komnenian restoration is also closely linked to the establishment of the Komnenian imperial army.
The Seljuks win control of most of Anatolia within ten years of the Battle of Manzikert.
The Seljuk sultanate in Baghdad, although successful in the west, reels under attacks from the Mongols in the east and is unable—indeed unwilling—to exert its authority directly in Anatolia.
The ghazis carve out a number of states here, under the nominal suzerainty of Baghdad, states that are continually reinforced by further Turkish immigration.
The strongest of these states to emerge is the Seljuk sultanate of Rum ("Rome," i.e., Byzantine Empire), which has its capital at Konya (Iconium).
Rum becomes dominant over the other Turkish states during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The society and economy of the Anatolian countryside are unchanged by the Seljuks, who have simply replaced Greek Christian officials with a new elite that is Turkish and Muslim.
Conversion to Islam and the imposition of the language, mores, and customs of the Turks progresses steadily in the countryside, facilitated by intermarriage.
The cleavage widens, however, between the unruly ghazi warriors and the state-building bureaucracy in Konya.
Armenia had been annexed by the Eastern Roman Empire in 1045, but religious animosity between the Armenians and the Greeks prevent these two Christian peoples from cooperating against the Turks on the frontier.
Although Christianity had been adopted as the official religion of the state by King Tiridates III around CE 300, nearly one hundred years before similar action was taken in the Roman Empire, Armenians had been converted to a form of Christianity at variance with the Orthodox tradition of the Greek church, and they have their own patriarchate independent of Constantinople.
After their conquest by the Sassanians around 400, their religion had bound them together as a nation and provided the inspiration for a flowering of Armenian culture in the fifth century.
Large numbers of Armenians, when their homeland falls in the late eleventh century to the Seljuks, are dispersed throughout the Empire, many of them settling in Constantinople, where in its centuries of decline they will become generals and statesmen as well as craftsmen, builders, and traders.
The Seljuks, while they engage in state building, also emerge as the champions of Sunni Islam against the religion's Shia sect.
Tugrul's successor, Mehmet ibn Daud (r. 1063-72)—better known as Alp Arslan, the "Lion Hero"—prepares for a campaign against the Shia Fatimid caliphate in Egypt but is forced to divert his attention to Anatolia by the ghazis, on whose endurance and mobility the Seljuks depend.
The Seljuk elite cannot persuade these ghazis to live within the framework of a bureaucratic Persian state, content with collecting taxes and patrolling trade routes.
Each year the ghazis cut deeper into imperial territory, raiding and taking booty according to their tradition.
Some serve as mercenaries in the private wars of Roman nobles and occasionally settle on land they have taken.
The Seljuks follow the ghazis into Anatolia in order to retain control over them.
Alp Arslan routs the imperial army at Manzikert near Lake Van in 1071, opening all of Anatolia to conquest by the Turks.
The Seljuq Turks, riding south and west from the steppes of Central Asia, replicate tactics practiced by the Huns hundreds of years earlier against a similar Roman opponent but now combined these with newfound Islamic zeal; in many ways, the Seljuq Turks have resumed the conquests of the Muslims in the Byzantine-Arab Wars initiated by the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abassid Caliphate in the Levant, North Africa and Asia Minor.
The Byzantine-Seljuq wars are a series of decisive battles that shift the balance of power in Asia Minor and Syria from the East Roman Empire to the Seljuq Turks.
Alp-Arslan, the second sultan of the Turkish Great Seljuq empire, successfully fights off the challenge of the Ghaznavids of Afghanistan and other dynasties that have arisen after the decline of the Abbasid caliphate and, after restoring unity to Iran and Iraq, asserts his authority to the borders of Fatimid Egypt and Greek Anatolia.
The Battle of Manzikert is widely seen as the moment when the Greeks lost the war against the Turks; however the imperial military had been of questionable quality before 1071, with regular Turkish incursions overrunning the failing theme system.
The Turkmens, with the frontier completely shattered after the Battle of Manzikert, are able to range over most of Anatolia virtually at will.
Constantinople’s rule over Asia Minor, even after Manzikert, does not end immediately, nor are any heavy concessions levied by the Turks on their opponents—it will take another twenty years before the Turks are in control of the entire Anatolian peninsula, and that will not last for long.
Alp Arslan defeats Qutalmish for the throne and succeeds on April 27, 1064, as the second sultan of Great Seljuq, thus becoming sole monarch of Persia from the river Oxus to the Tigris.
Alp Arslan successfully fights off the challenge of the Ghaznavids of Afghanistan and other dynasties that have arisen after the decline of the Abbasid caliphate.
In consolidating his empire and subduing contending factions, Arslan is ably assisted by Nizam al-Mulk, his vizier, and one of the most eminent statesmen in early Muslim history.
With peace and security established in his dominions, Arslan convokes an assembly of the states and declares his son Malik Shah I his heir and successor.
After restoring unity to Iran and Iraq, he asserts his authority to the borders of Fatimid Egypt and Greek Anatolia.
Born outside the traditional Muslim countries that he is later to govern, Alp Arslan leaves their administration to his vizier, Nizam al-Mulk.
Alp-Arslan decides to go to Egypt to crush the Isma'ili Fatimid Shi'a heresy, which the 'Abbasid Sunnite caliphate at Baghdad, whose protector he is, will not accept.
On the other hand, he is aware of the necessity of keeping his influence over the Turkmens, which is essential to his military strength.
The Turkmens are interested above all in the success of the holy war against the infidels and in raids on Christian territory.
With the hope of capturing Caesarea Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia, he places himself at the head of the Turkish cavalry, crosses the Euphrates, and enters and invades the city.
Along with Nizam al-Mulk, he then marches into Armenia and Georgia.
Rival Turkish groups have independently invaded Eastern Roman Anatolia for many years but had gained little success in acquiring territory until Alp Arslan, as leader of the dominant Seljuqs, conducts a series of campaigns into Anatolia, which are extended by attacks from autonomous Turkmen bands.
In 1064, he seizes Ani, the former Armenian capital, and …
…Kars.
These operations result only in some consolidation of boundaries, which assure the Turkmens control over pastureland on the Aras River.
Nevertheless, although the Turkmens return to Muslim territory to store away their booty, these expeditions upset the imperial defense system and pave the way for the subsequent Turkish conquest of Asia Minor.
They result in reactions by the empire's citizenry in Syria and Armenia, after which the two empires begin to negotiate.
The accession of Constantine X Ducas in 1059 had been a triumph for the civil aristocracy.
Unfortunately, he has proven to be an incapable emperor, having reduced the army and neglected the frontier defenses at a time when the Seljuq Turks are pressing into the eastern provinces.
He had suffered invasions by Alp Arslan in Asia Minor in 1064, resulting in the loss of the Armenian capital, and by the Oghuz Turks in the Balkans in 1065, while Belgrade has been lost to the Hungarians.