Siege of Constantinople (674-678)

Siege of Constantinople

Part of: Islamic Expansion

date	674 to 678
place	Constantinople
output	Byzantine victory

Parties to the conflict
Byzantines	Arabs
Commander
Constantine IV	Muawiya I.
Troop strength
unknown	unknown
losses
unknown	unknown

The siege of Constantinople , traditionally dated from 674 to 678 , was the first heavy attack by the Arabs on the Byzantine capital. Essentially only Theophanes reports on these events , which is why several traditional views have been questioned in recent research.

background

In the course of the Islamic expansion , the Arabs came into conflict with the Byzantines. In 655, the Arabs succeeded for the first time in defeating a Byzantine fleet at the Battle of Phoinix . From 663 they appeared year after year in Asia Minor and caused havoc. Sometimes the attackers penetrated as far as Chalcedon , the suburb of Constantinople on the Asian side of the Bosporus . However, they knew that only conquering the capital would bring down the Byzantine Empire. Caliph Muawiya I therefore planned a multi-year siege of the city if necessary. In advance, some Aegean islands were conquered by the Arabs. In 670 they seized the city of Kyzikos on the Arktonnesos peninsula on the south side of the Marmara Sea , which was to become the base of the attacks. Before the storm on the Byzantine center of power began, the nearby Smyrna was taken in 672 , while another naval division attacked the Cilician coast.

course

This attack on Constantinople came from the sea. The traditional tradition gives the following picture: The Byzantine fortifications on the Sea of ​​Marmara and the Golden Horn withstood the Arab attacks, while Byzantium for its part caused devastating damage to the attackers with the help of the Greek fire , but the Arabs did not stop the attacks. At the onset of winter, they withdrew to Kyzikos, ordered reinforcements from Syria and made their ships ready for sea and combat again during the following months. In the spring they attacked again, but remained unsuccessful for years. After (allegedly) four years of unsuccessful racing, the siege was finally abandoned in 678. The remainder of the Arab fleet sailed homewards and was caught in a violent autumn storm on the way back along the coast of Pamphylia , which resulted in further casualties. Muawiya's land army suffered similar setbacks against the so-called Mardaites , groups of Christian fighters who resisted the Arabs.

In modern research, it is controversial whether one can assume a siege of several years or whether it was not more a question of repeated, but separate attacks, combined with sea blockades. In addition to the central Greek source, the Chronicle of Theophanes , Latin, Syrian and Arabic sources (as well as reconstructed basic sources such as the Chronicle of Theophilos of Edessa ) can only be viewed as a supplement. Latin sources that report briefly on Arab advances (such as the Mozarabic Chronicle ), but without describing a siege lasting several years, apparently relied on original Greek or Syrian models. The sources give the picture of at least strong fighting in the 660s and 670s between Byzantium and the Caliphate, whereby the Byzantines were not without successes. The acts of the sixth ecumenical council 680/81 explicitly report a first siege during this period, but the interpretation of the passage in question is problematic.

Around 680, Caliph Muawiya accepted Constantine's offer of peace on terms that would have seemed shameful to him a few years earlier: evacuation of the Aegean islands he had recently conquered and payment of an annual tribute of 50 slaves, 50 horses and 3,000 pounds of gold to the emperor . In any case, it can be clearly seen that the Byzantines were able to successfully repel the Arab attacks (whether it was a siege in the strict sense of the word or an increased advance). It can also be assumed that the Byzantines successfully launched exonerating attacks on the caliphate.

episode

The repelled siege (or even individual advances with only a temporary siege) prevented the conquest of the Byzantine Empire and thus a possible subsequent invasion of the Arabs via the Balkans into Europe. This was only possible for the Turks as a result of the capture of Constantinople . For the first time, the advance of the Muslims had been halted. The Arabs also failed 40 years later in the renewed siege . The replacement of the Umayyads by the Abbasids in 750 and the simultaneous relocation of the seat of the caliph from Damascus to Baghdad then significantly reduced the pressure on the Byzantine Empire, and there was no further siege of Constantinople in the period that followed. After the battle of Tours and Poitiers , the importance of which was often overestimated in older research, Islamic expansion also came to a standstill in western Europe.

Source criticism of recent research

There are no contemporary reports of the siege. In his fundamental source-critical study, the Oxford historian James Howard-Johnston takes the position that the assumption that there was a siege of Constantinople for several years in the 670s is based on an error of the later chroniclers, namely Theophanes : He had two pieces of news from Arabs Attacks falsely linked. In fact, as was also shown in 717/18, the Arabs were logistically incapable of a continuous siege of Constantinople for several years. Although there were indeed serious attacks on Byzantine territory in the 670s, there were no four- or even seven-year blockades of the capital.

Marek Jankowiak also comes to some other conclusions regarding chronology and events in a detailed source-critical study. He assumes, for example, that attacks began in 667 and a temporary siege that lasted a few months, but not of a continuous, continuous siege lasting several years. The Byzantines had also successfully counter-attacked in the 670s, with the fleet playing an important role. In parts of the more recent research, there is thus an interpretation of the events of the middle of the 7th century that deviates in key points from traditional representations.

literature

• James Howard-Johnston : Witnesses to a World Crisis. Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-920859-3 .
• Marek Jankowiak: The first Arab siege of Constantinople. In: Travaux et Mémoires du Center de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilization de Byzance. Vol. 17. Paris 2013, pp. 237-320.
• Ralph-Johannes Lilie : The Byzantine reaction to the expansion of the Arabs. Studies on the structural change of the Byzantine state in the 7th and 8th centuries. Institute for Byzantine Studies, Munich 1976 ( Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 22, ISSN  0076-9347 ; also: Munich, Univ., Diss. 1975).

Remarks

1. ^ Marek Jankowiak: The first Arab siege of Constantinople. In: Travaux et Mémoires du Center de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilization de Byzance. Vol. 17. Paris 2013, p. 292ff.
2. ↑ Comprehensive evaluation of all sources in Marek Jankowiak: The first Arab siege of Constantinople. In: Travaux et Mémoires du Center de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilization de Byzance. Vol. 17. Paris 2013, p. 238ff.
3. ↑ Ralph-Johannes Lilie: The Byzantine reaction to the expansion of the Arabs. Munich 1976, p. 81f.
4. ↑ Marek Jankowiak offers a reconstructed chronology: The first Arab siege of Constantinople. In: Travaux et Mémoires du Center de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilization de Byzance. Vol. 17. Paris 2013, pp. 318f.
5. ↑ James Howard-Johnston: Witnesses to a World Crisis. Oxford 2010, pp. 302-304.