Battle of Levounion

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Battle of Levounion
Alexios I.
Alexios I.
date April 29, 1091
place Levounion (near Enez , today's Turkey )
output Byzantine victory
Parties to the conflict

Byzantine Empire , supported by the Cumans , Wallachians , Bulgarians as well as Frankish and Flemish mercenaries.

Pechenegen

Commander

Alexios I. Komnenos
Georgios Palaiologos
Konstantinos Dalassenos

Unknown

Troop strength
20,000 Byzantines
40,000 Cumans
5,000 Wallachians
500 Flemish mercenaries 		80,000 Pechenegs

The Battle of Levounion was the first decisive Byzantine victory on the way to the Comnenian Restoration . On April 29, 1091, an invading Pechenegian army was defeated by troops of the Byzantine Empire under the command of Alexios I Komnenus and his Cuman allies.

background

On August 26, 1071, a Byzantine army led by Emperor Romanos IV was defeated by the Seljuks at Manzikert in eastern Asia Minor; Romanos was captured and only released after paying a ransom and signing a peace treaty. However, his political opponents took advantage of the emperor's absence and put Michael VII Doukas on the throne, who emerged victorious from the battle with Romanos. Since Michael did not adhere to the peace treaty negotiated by Romanos, the Turks began to advance to Anatolia from 1073 without the Byzantines offering them any resistance. Thousands of Turkomans streamed practically unhindered across the unguarded eastern borders of the empire, which by 1080 lost large areas with a large part of its population and a large part of its agricultural income. Even though the Battle of Manzikert ended in a serious defeat, it was only these delayed consequences that ultimately represented the worst blow in the 700-year history of the Byzantine Empire.

Against the background of this collapse, the accession to the throne of Alexios Komnenos, a successful young general who fought the Turks from the age of 14, must be seen on Easter Sunday, April 4, 1081. The historian John Julius Norwich writes about the significance of the rise of Alexios "... for the first time in over half a century the empire was in capable hands." In 1090 or 1091, the Emir Çaka Bey proposed an alliance to the Pecheneges to create the Byzantine Empire finally destroy it.

The Pecheneg invasion

In the spring of 1087 rumors reached the Byzantine court of a huge army approaching from the north. The invaders were Pechenegs from the region north of the Black Sea ; According to reports, they should number 80,000 men. Taking advantage of the precarious situation of the Byzantine army, their horde plundered and marched towards Constantinople . The invasion posed a serious threat to the Byzantine Empire, but years of civil war meant that the Byzantine army was unable to provide sufficient defenders. Alexios therefore had to resort to diplomatic means. He asked another nomadic tribe, the Cumans , to support him in the battle against the Pechenegs.

battle

After being won by the promise of gold for services to the Byzantine Empire, the Cumans rushed south to unite with the Byzantine army. In the late spring of 1091 the Cumans reached Byzantine territory. On Monday, April 28, 1091, Alexios and his enlarged army reached the Pechenegic camp near Levounion near the Maritsa river .

It seems that the Pechenegs were caught by surprise, so that the next morning the Battle of Levounion was more like a massacre. The Pechenegs had their wives and children with them and were not prepared for battle, so their hastily drawn lines quickly broke and they were slaughtered. The Pecheneg tribe seems to have been almost wiped out that day. The survivors were accepted into Byzantine services.

meaning

Levounion was one of the most important victories of Alexios. The battle also marks the turning point of the low point in Byzantine fortunes that the empire had reached 20 years earlier. For the empire, Levounion marked the beginning of recovery from the blows it had suffered. The Pechenegs had been completely eliminated, so that the European possessions of the empire were now secured.

Under the Comnen dynasty founded by Alexios, Byzantium began to slowly rise again. Byzantine armies returned to Asia Minor and soon recaptured the important cities along the fertile coasts. By restoring a strict central power, the prosperity of the empire grew in the next century and Constantinople's reputation as the most important metropolis of Christianity was renewed. This rise would continue until the fall of the Comnen dynasty in the 12th century.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John W. Birkenmeier. The Development of the Komnenian Army: 1081-1180 , p. 76, Brill Academic Publishers, 2002, ISBN 90-04-11710-5 .
  2. ^ W. Treadgold. A History of the Byzantine State and Society , p. 617.

literature