The defeat at the Battle of Manzikert was a pivotal moment for the Byzantine Empire as it undermined its power and allowed Turk nomads to settle in Anatolia.
The battle took place on August 26, 1071 when the Byzantine army under Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes and the Seljuk Turks under Alp Arslan met in Manzikert, in today’s Mus Province, Turkey.
For Byzantium, it was a deafening defeat. For the Seljuk Turks it was a triumph, because it allowed for their inroads to Asia Minor.
For the powerful empire it was even more humiliating as Romanos IV Diogenes was captured by the enemy. It was the first time after Roman emperor Valerian was taken alive in battle.
After Manzikert the Byzantine Empire recovered temporarily but the Turkification of Anatolia, the heart of the empire, signaled its coming end, even though that came almost four centuries later.
Byzantine Empire Background
The first contact of the Byzantines with the Seljuk Turks was during the reign of Constantine IX Monomachos, in 1046, when the powerful Seljuks invaded Armenia.
Constantine, who was not a competent military commander, managed to secure a truce that lasted until 1064, when the Seljuk Turks took over Ani, the Armenian capital.
In 1053, however, Constantine had made a fatal mistake: He disbanded what historian of the time John Skyllitzes called the “Iberian Army”, a force 50,000 men strong.
As a result, the defense of the empire’s eastern part was significantly weakened, allowing the Seljuks to move further into Anatolia. In 1067 they moved even further conquering Caesarea.
The conquering of Caesarea disturbed the Byzantines seeing that the threat of Seljuk Turks was imminent. That led to the ascension of seasoned army commander Romanos IV Diogenes to the throne.
Romanos made some speedy reforms to the Byzantine army and led an expedition against the Seljuks in 1068-1069. He was accompanied by political rival Andronikos Doukas and had some minor victories against the Seljuks.
Yet, Romanos’ army wasn’t what once was. It was a mosaic and included a part of the Varangian Guard and a number of Georgian, Armenian and Syrian forces of dubious quality and loyalty.
There were also many mercenaries: Frankish, and Norman heavy cavalry and Turkic light cavalry. The total force was 40,000 to 70,000. Only 10,000 of them were Byzantine regular army.
Nevertheless, in 1071 Romanos campaigned in Anatolia to rid the Seljuks once and for all from Armenia and the other Asia Minor parts.
On the other side, the Seljuk Turks under Alp Arslan were an empire now covering Iran, Iraq, and most of the Near East. The sultan’s sizeable army included a cavalry of highly skilled and mobile horsemen.
The Battle of Manzikert, Day One
Unaware of Alp Arslan’s powerful cavalry, Romanos split his army into two, sending some 20,000 men to take over Chliat in Armenia. The rest of his force moved to Manzikert.
There is no Byzantine record of what happened to the force sent in Chliat. Muslim sources wrote about a great victory for Arslan. Nevertheless, the Byzantine emperor was unknowingly left with a big part of his army taken out.
The two armies finally met in Manzikert on August 25. Romanos had taken over Manzikert, but the arrival of the Seljuk army had the Byzantine emperor withdraw his army in order to regroup.
The Byzantine emperor was expecting the forces he sent to Chliat to return and join the rest of the army. Yet, they never came back.
That day, the Turkic mercenaries abandoned Romanos and fled to the other side. The Byzantine forces were weakened, leaving the Byzantine army cut in half for the final battle.
Day Two
On August 26, Romanos ordered his army to move forward for full-on clash, with several rows of infantry, his cavalry on the wings and himself in the center of the frontline. Andronikos Doukas led the reserve forces in the rear.
The Seljuk army was organized in crescent formation four kilometers (2.5 miles) away. As the Byzantine soldiers approached, the Seljuks moved backwards, with their wings slowly surrounding the Byzantines.
Then the Seljuk archers started hitting on the Byzantine troops from the sides, causing great damage. Romanos tried to force the Arslan troops to a pitched battle, but the cavalry would not engage and flee.
That forced Romanos to withdraw his army to the camp by nightfall, asking Doukas to cover the back.
Doukas did not follow the order and the Byzantine army retreated in disarray. That was when the Seljuks stormed against the retreating Byzantines.
The Byzantine rearguard was separated from the main body and then encircled by the Seljuk mounted archers.
The left flank of the army tried to come to the aid of Romanos who was being overwhelmed in the center but they were pushed back by the enemy.
Romanos’ horse was killed under him and he was wounded in his sword hand. Eventually he was captured by the Seljuks.
In the retreat, all professional Byzantine soldiers were killed while most of the peasant troops and levies fled.
The Byzantine Emperor Taken Captive
A battle eyewitness gave the following vivid description of the battle at Manzikert to Michael Attaleiates who added it in his book The History:
It was like an earthquake: the shouting, the sweat, the swift rushes of fear, the clouds of dust, and not least the hordes of Turks riding all around us. It was a tragic sight, beyond any mourning or lamenting. What indeed could be more pitiable than to see the entire imperial army in flight, the Emperor defenseless, the whole Roman state overturned – and knowing that the Empire itself was on the verge of collapse?
Attaleiates was a respected legal and military official of the empire with first-hand knowledge of the events he describes in the book.
When Romanos was brought before Alp Arslan he could not believe that the dirt-covered, bloodied man was the Emperor. In a symbolic act, the Sultan put his boot on the emperor’s neck but he was otherwise gentle.
According to Michael Psellos, Romanos was well fed for a week and even allowed to nominate any of his fellow captives for freedom.
The 11th century Scylitzes Chronicle gives a full account of the capture, including the famous episode in which Arslan asked Romanos what he would have done if the positions had been reversed.
Romanos was said to have replied “I’d have flogged you to death.”
“I will not imitate you,” the Muslim Arslan replied. “I have been told that your Christ teaches gentleness and forgiveness of wrong. He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.”
Upon his return to Constantinople, Romanos was dethroned and blinded by rival general Michael VII Doukas who took the throne and soon after that died.
The Byzantine Empire on a Slow Decline
The humiliating defeat in the Battle of Mazinkert was an indication that the long powerful empire was starting to weaken in status and shrinking in land.
The Seljuk Turks crushed the armies of Byzantium, took over the Anatolian heartland and started the permanent Turkish conquest of Asia Minor.
Historian John Julius Norwich wrote that the defeat was the Byzantine Empire’s “death blow, though centuries remained before the remnant fell. The themes in Anatolia were literally the heart of the empire, and within decades after Manzikert, they were gone.”
Furthermore, commanders in the provinces of Asia Minor returned to Constantinople to claim the throne for themselves. A civil war ensued and the lack of the army’s support for Michael VII weakened the empire’s ability to resist the Seljuks in the longer term.
Arslan and his successors continued to raid Asia Minor at will, establishing the Sultanate of Rum with their capital at Nicaea in 1078 and even capturing Jerusalem in 1087.
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