The Byzantines versus the Mongols

[Faeelin]

A question: How would the byzantine army fared against the mongols in the 13th century?

[carlton_bach]

Well, we are talking post-1204, so the military power of the Byzantines is at a fairly low ebb. Some mercenary troops, some levies, and a core of very competent professionals from the territories in Greece and Anatolia, but not many. Much of the manpower reservoir has been lost over the past century-and-a-half (much of Anatloolia to the Seljuks, much of the Balkans to the serbs, bulgars and Hungarians, recently large swathes of Greece, the Islands, and for a time the city itself to the Latins). So whatever Byzantium can field will probably acquit itself much like other European armies did - dying more or less bravely. I can't see an Ain Jalut in the making unless we change history massively (Byzantine voctory at Manzikert?)

[Faeelin]

I was assuming that there was no 1204, and that byzantium had had a couple of emperors focused on reforming the military.

So they're still toast?

[Melvin Loh]

In 1204, wouldn't the Byzantines see the Mongols more as potential allies against the Saracens than as adversaries, in a similar manner as the Crusaders perceived the hordes ? Would they actually have to fight ? If so, then as Carlton stipulated, the Byzantine army was relatively rundown at the time, compared to its heyday, so they'd probably, despite the presence of elite Byzantine units like the Varangian Guards and Cataphracts, get trounced by the much better equipped and motivated Mongol light cav.

[carlton_bach]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

I was assuming that there was no 1204, and that byzantium had had a couple of emperors focused on reforming the military.

So they're still toast?

They may be. Except for the Mamluks and the Japanese, so was the rest of the world. However, if you get these reform emperors to grab enough territory (say they hold on to all of Anatolia and parts of Syria, Greece, and the Islands (including Crete and Cyprus, maybe even Sicily) as a core region, chunks of the Balkans and the Black Sea littoral as a recruitment area, and maybe some other bits and pieces, they could end up doing OK. It's still a long shot, but Byzantium has a military tradition that emphasises centralised command and control, combined operations, diplomacy, and operational ability over aggressiveness and gung-ho. They could give the Mongols quite a headache. I wouldn't bet on it, but at least there's a chance.

They're losing the northern Black Sea littoral, though. They just are.

[MerryPrankster]

On the old board, there was a "Rus-Byzantium Union" thread that involved Mongols versus Byzantines...the Mongols conquered ALL of Anatolia, but the Byzantines held out in Constantinople and, supported by their ships, managed to drive the Mongols out of the coastline. They got back some of the interior after beating the Mongols, but Eastern Anatolia was lost for a good while.

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

I was assuming that there was no 1204, and that byzantium had had a couple of emperors focused on reforming the military.

So they're still toast?

Yes. The Byzantines are pretty much screwed after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 AD, when the Seljuk Turks ejected them from the interior of Anatolia. The hardy mountain peoples of Anatolia, primarily the Isaurians, had been the backbone of the Byzantine military for several centuries. With them, the Byzantines were able to field strong, well organized, disciplined and equipped forces that were equal to or better than anything to be found anywhere else in the world. When the Seljuks ran them out of most of Anatolia, this was forever changed. The Seljuks, who, like the Mongols considered settled, agricultural populations to be worthless, slaughtered or drove away almost all of the people they found living there in order to make pastureland for their horses. When the Byzantines were able to retake parts of the interior, all they found was devastation...and no people there to recruit. From there, it was just a continual downward spiral for the Byzantines from which they never recovered. Charles Oman, THE ART OF WARFARE IN THE MIDDLE AGES, has an excellent discussion of this.

[Grey Wolf]

I can't accept that, 150 years of history without collapse implies that collapse is not inevitable

Grey Wolf

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by Grey Wolf

I can't accept that, 150 years of history without collapse implies that collapse is not inevitable

Grey Wolf

The only thing that saved the Byzantines as long as it did was the fact that Byzantium was rich. They were able, for a while, to partially make up for the loss of their primary recruiting grounds by hiring mercenaries (the Varangians, for example). Even so, they were never as powerful as they had been prior to 1071, and had to go begging to the Pope for aid to keep the Seljuks from completely ejecting them from Anatolia (thus the Crusades). Probably the thing that saved them more than anything was the Mongols themselves, who came in, chewed the Turks up and spit them out, leaving them in such a state that it took them a couple of centuries to recover.

[Faeelin]

Oman's book is over 80 years old, and is hardly the best subject on the empire. The Nicaean empire was rather viable, and for an empire that was fated to collapse, succeeded in pushing back the turks rather well.

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

Oman's book is over 80 years old, and is hardly the best subject on the empire. The Nicaean empire was rather viable, and for an empire that was fated to collapse, succeeded in pushing back the turks rather well.

It's actually over 100 years old. I have the great good fortune to possess an original edition in my library. But I have read many treatments on the Byzantine military, and Oman's has definitely stood the test of time. And again, it was only because the Mongols came in and chewed the Turks up that the Byzantines were able to enjoy the limited success they did.

[Faeelin]

Well, except for it's ability to push them back before myrciocephalon.

[MerryPrankster]

Perhaps a Byzantine win at Manzikert keeps the "center of gravity" of the Seljuk state further east (their capital was @ Ishafan in Persia, but there was the Sultanate of Rum in ex-Byzantine lands). This means that all their power is in Persia for the Mongols to pulverize...no extensions in Anatolia to run to ground.

Rich, strong Byzantium now looks like a potential danger to the Mongol dominions in the Middle East.

[MerryPrankster]

"Well, except for it's ability to push them back before myrciocephalon."

I don't know as much about Myrciocephalon, except it resulted from an abysmally-stupid move by the Byzantine commander and it led to a general Byzantine pullout from Anatolia (they had cities there, but simply quit supplying them).

Perhaps if the Myrciocephalon never happens and the Byzantine reclamation efforts in Asia Minor are more successful, the Byzatines could weaken the Seljuks enough to come border-to-border with the Mongol Horde and THEN things could get ugly.

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by Matt Quinn

Perhaps a Byzantine win at Manzikert keeps the "center of gravity" of the Seljuk state further east (their capital was @ Ishafan in Persia, but there was the Sultanate of Rum in ex-Byzantine lands). This means that all their power is in Persia for the Mongols to pulverize...no extensions in Anatolia to run to ground.

Rich, strong Byzantium now looks like a potential danger to the Mongol dominions in the Middle East.

I agree...if the Byzantines win at Manzikert, they might have a chance against the Mongols.

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Originally Posted by Grey Wolf

I can't accept that, 150 years of history without collapse implies that collapse is not inevitable

Grey Wolf

Well, perhaps not inevitable, but definitely extremely likely. Manzikert did two critical things; (1) it totally destroyed the military establishment, ending the existance of units that could trace their origins into antiquity, and deprived the empire of a cadre of experienced troops to train further forces, (2), deprived the empire of its agricultrual heartland and primary recruiting grounds, and (3) deprived the empire of the geographical ability to defend itself from invasion.

Manzikert itself might not have rendered the situation totally hopeless, but the failure of the government to rally and repair the situation did.

So, a post-Manzikert Byzantine army would have found itself utterly overwhlmed by the Mongols. I see a 99.9% chance of catastrophic defeat.

The pre-Manzikert army, and by that I mean up to about 1050, would likely have been able to successfully defend the empire, althoughit would have been hard to hold some outlying areas like Syria south of the Taurus, and perhaps some areas of the Caucasus.

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Originally Posted by robertp6165

The Seljuks, who, like the Mongols considered settled, agricultural populations to be worthless, slaughtered or drove away almost all of the people they found living there in order to make pastureland for their horses. When the Byzantines were able to retake parts of the interior, all they found was devastation...and no people there to recruit. From there, it was just a continual downward spiral for the Byzantines from which they never recovered. Charles Oman, THE ART OF WARFARE IN THE MIDDLE AGES, has an excellent discussion of this.

Charles Oman is totally wrong. Far from finding agricultural peoples useless, the Mongols/Seljuks were perfectly happy to extract money and goods from them. The Seljuk penetration of Asia Minor was not a concerted or even intended effort, but rather was the result of Byzantine factions calling in the aid of Turkoman chiefs to support their factional strife. The central plateau, never suitable for large-scale agriculture without high-maintenance sophisticated irrigation systems, reverted to pasturage, while the more fertile coasts remained cultivated and Byzantine. The Mongols and Seljuks also did not kill or drive off the population, although much of the populace did flee West, and the remainder were assimilated and nomadized.

Even the robust Nicean state did not get beyond the fertile coastal region, and the interior of Anatolia, besides being wholly Muslim and Turkic, would not have been of economic benefit to the Byzantines, nor strategically valuable absent controlling the whole peninsula to the Taurus.