Description

The Saljuq Turks' defeat of the Byzantines at Manzikert opened the way for their conquest of Anatolia and domination of the Near East.

On 26 August 1071 a large Byzantine army under Emperor Romanus IV met the Saljuq Turk forces of Sultan Alp Arslan near the town of Manzikert. The battle ended in a decisive defeat for the Byzantine forces, with the Byzantine emperor captured and much of his fabled Varangian guard killed. This battle is seen as the primary trigger of the Crusades, and as the moment when the power of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire was irreparably broken.

The Saljuq victory opened up Anatolia to Turkish-Islamic conquest, which was eventually followed by the establishment of the Ottoman state. Nevertheless the battle itself was the culmination of a Christian Byzantine offensive, intended to strengthen the eastern frontiers of the empire and re-establish Byzantine domination over Armenia and northern Mesopotamia. Turkish Saljuq victory was in no sense inevitable and might, in fact, have come as something of a surprise to those who achieved it.

As David Nicolle outlines in this highly illustrated account, it was not only the battle of Manzikert that had such profound and far-reaching consequences, many of these stemmed from the debilitating Byzantine civil war which followed and was a direct consequence of the defeat.

Table of Contents

Origins of the campaign
Chronology
Opposing commanders
Opposing armies
Orders of battle
Opposing plans
The campaign
Aftermath
The battlefields today
Further reading
Index

Product details

Published Aug 20 2013
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Extent 96
ISBN 9781780965048
Imprint Osprey Publishing
Illustrations 30 b/w; 42 col
Series Campaign
Short code CAM 262
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

David Nicolle

David Nicolle is Visiting Research Fellow at the I…

Illustrator

Christa Hook

CHRISTA HOOK began her illustrating career in 1986…

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