Battle of Kephissus
The Battle of Kephissos (also known as the Battle of Halmyros or Orchomenos ) was a military clash in medieval Greece between the mercenaries of the Catalan Company and the Duchy of Athens . The battle took place on March 15, 1311 between Livadia and Orchomenos on the river Kephissos , or near the Thessalian Almyros ( Magnisia district ).
| date | March 15, 1311 |
|---|---|
| place | near Orchomenos ( Boeotia ), Greece |
| output | Catalans win |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
unknown |
|
| Troop strength | |
| around 2,000 horsemen and 4,000 infantrymen |
reportedly 700 knights and 24,000 infantrymen |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
reportedly 698 knights and |
prehistory
In 1308 Walter von Brienne - as maternal cousin - succeeded Guidos II. De la Roche as Duke of Athens . This duchy was founded by the crusaders in 1204 during the fourth crusade after they had conquered Constantinople . Since then, this state has been ruled by a thin French upper class and, from the time it was founded, had to defend itself in mutual battles against neighboring Greek principalities. Since 1261 especially against the Byzantine Emperor, who was able to recapture Constantinople and thus restore the Byzantine Empire .
As early as 1303, the Catalan Company reached Constantinople, where it fought in Anatolia for the emperor's pay. But the murder of their captain Roger de Flor in 1305 by the emperor's son sparked the anger of the mercenaries against the Greeks, whereupon they marched through Greece, pillaging and pillaging. In 1308, the French prince Karl von Valois tried to use the company for his purposes by trying to conquer Constantinople with it. However, contrary to the agreements, the company went robbing through Thessaly , whereupon in 1309 the representative of the Valois, Thibaud de Cepoy, fled to France. The company thus lost its last leader, whereupon it organized itself in a republican constitution with a council at its head, in which the mercenaries should decide on their future course of action.
Now Duke Walter put the company with which he wanted to expand his duchy against the surrounding princes into his service. After he had conquered several cities in Thessaly with their help and was able to secure them by contract, Walter no longer needed the company and suspended the agreed pay payments. He only wanted to keep two hundred of their best warriors in his army, he ordered the rest to leave his country. But the Catalans no longer knew where to turn: they were hated by the Greeks and the French princes also viewed them as a threat to the already fragile stability of their rule. They decided to keep several castles that they had conquered for Walter, and demanded that they be recognized by him as his liege-men. But Walter turned down this compromise and threatened the company with violence if it did not bow to his will. The company decided to fight for their rights with the sword, and in the winter of 1310 both sides prepared themselves to fight against each other.
Walter gathered all of his vassals into an army and received support from the Principality of Achaia and the Kingdom of Naples . He was also joined by the Duke of the Archipelago , the Margrave of Boudonitza and the Lords of Mykonos and Negroponte ; All of them wanted to drive out of Greece the constant unrest that the company formed. Overall, Walter gathered the largest French army in Greece since the fourth crusade. The Catalans had an outnumbered army, which was also reinforced by unreliable Turkish and Greek mercenaries, but their hard core ( Almogàvers ) was a combat-experienced force, and most of the two hundred warriors that Walter wanted to hire decided to join forces their comrades.
The battle
The company began their march from Phthiotis through Lokris in the spring of 1311 and crossed the Kephissos on Lake Kopaïs , on the right bank of which they positioned themselves. With this on their flank and the lake in the back, the Catalans wanted to prevent the opponent from bypassing. In addition, the marshy ground there, which they also dug through and filled with the water of the river, offered them an advantage on this level against the heavily armored knights of the duke. He camped with Zeitun and wrote his will there on March 10th.
On March 15, Walter advanced with his knights against the waiting Catalans. These had to accept a weakening of their posse when the Turks took up position away from the battlefield, suspecting that the fight was only a sham and should actually lead to their destruction by the Catalans and French. Duke Walter, however, let his knights run against the phalanx of the company, but before they reached it, they broke into the swampy ground. The Catalans then shot several volleys of arrows at the immobilized opponent. When his infantry intervened in battle, the Catalans rushed into hand-to-hand combat. The Turks, who waited on the side, decided on the side of their old comrades and also threw themselves into the fight against the duke.
The battle ended in the crushing defeat of the knights of the Duke of Athens. Almost all of them, including the duke, were killed, which is why this battle is often referred to as the Azincourt of the Latin East, as here, as a hundred years later, the heyday of the knighthood from France fell against an enemy fighting on foot.
consequences
On that day the Catalan Company became the new lord of the Duchy of Athens, the castles and forts surrendered without a fight and the Greek people willingly submitted for fear of looting by the Catalans, who were notorious throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. They were now embarrassed not to have a competent political leader in their ranks, so they looked for one among their few prisoners. Their first candidate was Bonifazio da Verona , who had the reputation of being the noblest knight of his time, but he turned it down. Only Roger Deslaur showed themselves ready to take over the burden; The mercenaries placed the greatest trust in him, as he came from Roussillon and was once a mercenary of the company. The Catalans drove the remaining French nobility from the duchy, captured its property and even divided the wives and daughters of the conquered among themselves. The widow Walters fled to Naples , where she asked the king there to help her reconquer Athens. But their rule could only hold on to Argos and Nauplia .
The Catalans realized that they could only survive among their hostile neighbors, Greeks and French, only with the protective hand of a ruler from the West. They finally sent an embassy to the court of King Frederick II of Sicily , who had once founded the company in the fight against the Anjou in Naples, and asked him to send a prince to Athens to become their duke. The king united the duchy with the Sicilian kingdom and made it a secondogeniture of his dynasty. He made his underage son Manfred Duke and sent a Vicar General to Athens to rule on behalf of the new Duke. This began the more than seventy years of Catalan rule in Greece, which was eventually replaced by the Florentine family of the Acciaiuoli .
swell
- Karl Lanz (ed.): Chronicle of the noble En Ramon Muntaner (= library of the literary association in Stuttgart, vol. VIII). Stuttgart 1844. (New edition of the edition published in Valencia in 1558 in Catalan).
- Ramon Muntaner : Chronicle . Translated by Lady Goodenough, In parentheses Publications, Catalan Series, Cambridge, Ontario 2000.
literature
- Ferdinand Gregorovius : History of the City of Athens in the Middle Ages. dtv, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-423-06114-6 (original: 1889).
- Kelly De Vries: Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century. Boydell & Brewer Inc, Woodbridge 1998 (reprint of the first edition from 1996), ISBN 978-0851155715 , pp. 58-65 (Section V: The Battle of Kephissos, 1311 ).