The Eternal Empire: Emperor Maurice dies before being overthrown
- Thread starter wcv215
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The other interesting thing to come out of this war is the emphasis on surprise attacks and under preparedness. The Romans had no forts because they had not been attacked in years in Egypt so Markuria completely surprised them.
One would hope that might cause the Romans to look around and try to see if any where else is rich and open to attack from a strong neighbour with little fortifications to stop them (Cough Cough Italy) although given the narrators comments throughout other chapters, we know it does not happen in Italy.
However just because Italy did not take the hint It does not mean some strategos somewhere else unmentioned was not paying attention , perhaps in the Crimea which may help against the Mongols later on.
One would hope that might cause the Romans to look around and try to see if any where else is rich and open to attack from a strong neighbour with little fortifications to stop them (Cough Cough Italy) although given the narrators comments throughout other chapters, we know it does not happen in Italy.
However just because Italy did not take the hint It does not mean some strategos somewhere else unmentioned was not paying attention , perhaps in the Crimea which may help against the Mongols later on.
So his main flaw is that he doesn't know when to quit while he is ahead.
Alexios is very much in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. He can't give up Egypt. Any of Egypt. It represents too much of a financial blow to the Empire. But part of the reason is so profitable is that historically its been insulated from attack. Those are the pragmatic reasons. The more propaganda reasons boil down to the Thalassan dynasty still being the family who retook the Empire. There's a reason that ancestry is so closely defended and heralded in propaganda. If Alexios gives up in Egypt his family's prestige will be dealt a major blow, possibly a lethal one. But this means he's going to be stuck in a war against a more experienced opponent along a narrow strip of land that he'll have to fight down the whole way.
It'll be shorter yes. But the small area they're fighting over also means fewer men are involved in each battle, and the destruction being dealt is far less. The countryside won't be laid waste at Imperial order at the very least.
Honestly the Romans really don't care about the Crimea. Their control over the peninsula waxes and wanes, but so far as Imperial authorities are concerned Cherson is the only thing there worth holding. As difficulties start to mount elsewhere this will be even more true.
Makes me dread that this will be Justtinian's Gothic War all over again
I'm guessing the Empire will have to rely on their sheer manpower advantage to grind their way through this war.
The Romans heavier armed troops probably won't be able to wear said armor in the desert heat, and the amount cavalry available would be limited. So I'd give the edge to those hardier Nubians.
The Romans heavier armed troops probably won't be able to wear said armor in the desert heat, and the amount cavalry available would be limited. So I'd give the edge to those hardier Nubians.
Crimea was only an example I was using, I suspected Crimea was not cared about that much. I was more focussed on the lessons learned by the strategos, considering it seems to me that you have placed them as semi-feudal landowners and so they might be able to build their own fortifications because they have realised how exposed they are. It does not matter if its in Crimea or Mesopotamia or Italy or the Balkans or wherever etc... As long as somebody somewhere is building some fortifications where there are currently none as any fort is better than none.
The reason I believe it could happen is because, even though there is a general decline, it does not mean you can't have some smart strategos have their area be flourishing and gaining in power because they are more active, luckier or smarter than those around them.
Great timeline. Ive read it all in a few days and i have to say that its awesomely written. By far one of my favorites on the forum. The Thalassian dynasty sure has gotten lucky, unfortunately it seems that their were a few really good emperors cut short.....
Part 39: The First Nubian War II
Part XXXIX: The First Nubian War II
Alexios spent a few months training additional troops and ordering more men be shipped into Egypt for his coming campaigns. Along with these men the Emperor ordered large amounts of treasure be shipped into the region so he could pay his men. The new soldiers were largely either Daylamite or Turkish mercenaries hired from Persia or the steppes beyond. With hard currency increasingly rare in Persia as the Empire entered the final years before its collapse soldiers began to forgo service to the Shah and instead sought employment inside the Roman army.
This was a process that had been ongoing for a few decades at this point, and we covered some of the consequences when talking about the changes the Roman army begun in the 800s. We’ll need to remember the mercenaries Alexios utilized during the war however, as both the Daylamites and the Turks will be important in the coming years. In particular a man that we will want to remember is Servet Yalig, the Golden Bow. He arrived as the leader of a group of one hundred Turkic horsemen, and would prove to be a charismatic and skilled military leader.
For now however he was just another adventurer looking for wealth in the Roman army, and if he was lucky a Roman command and title granted by the Emperor. Alexios departed Babylon in February 900, marching for Memphis, with the aim of defeating the Markurians decisively and retaking the city. Unbeknownst to him Simeon was also on the move, marching north into Aegyptus toward the town of Cleopatris. But the armies were moving along opposite sides of the Nile, and passed one another with neither ever realizing it. Alexios crossed the Nile just north of Memphis, and surrounded the city.
Rather than trying to hold out the Nubian soldiers inside took a bribe and opened the gates before retreating south back toward their homeland. Realizing he had now caught the Markurian king Alexios whirled his army north and raced after them, but ran his army ragged in the chase. When the Emperor caught up to Simeon near Cleopatris the Markurian king was ready to give another battle. Once again the armies lined up with the Nile on one flank, though this time it was the Romans who had the river on their left. The Turkic cavalry was lined up in front of the Roman infantry, and Arab cavalry was arrayed on the right. The Markurians themselves now had a strong Arab cavalry contingent as well, but more importantly had a force of Arab camelry. These camels were concealed between the Arab horsemen, whose mounts had been trained to tolerate the smell of camels. When battle was joined the Turks advanced first, letting fly into the Nubian ranks with arrows, while the Roman infantry and cavalry advanced behind them.
The Markurians advanced as well, forcing the Turks to withdraw through gaps in the Roman line to avoid being trapped. The nomads then circled around the Roman rear to join the Arab cavalry. The two infantry forces met, and were soon joined by a cavalry battle. As the cavalry fought however the camelry made itself known, and the Roman horse panicked at the unfamiliar animals. The Turks were forced to withdraw their horsemen from the fray, but lost a large number of soldiers in the process. The Arabs were more fully engaged and when they lost control of their mounts were often unable to flee. Half of the Roman horse was dead by the time the battle of was, and the rest had fled or been forced to retreat.
Their flank now open the Roman infantry tried to turn and fight the Markurian cavalry, but were hit too quickly.
Alexios’s army disintegrated under the attack, fleeing toward Cleopatris’s walls or back toward their fortified camp. The Emperor tried to rally his men, but failed and ran back to the camp as well. By all rights the war should have ended here, with the Emperor’s camp overrun, but Simeon instead divided his army in two. One would advance to Cleopatris and take the city while panic gripped it from the defeat, while the other half would try to capture the Emperor. Critically Simeon personally led the siege of the city rather than the camp.
Cleopatris fell rapidly, with the remnant of the Roman army inside deciding to withdraw further north, back to Babylon, rather than try and hold out with no hope of reinforcement. In the meantime Simeon’s second force settled into a siege of the camp, and the Emperor tried to offer terms to the commander outside. But Gregorios, Simeon’s own nephew, and the commander of this force, was having none of it. He wanted the glory capturing an Emperor would bring, and he was confident of victory.
After three days however something unexpected happened. During the night a Turkic force led by Yalig that had rallied up the Nile snuck into the area and set upon the Markurian siege lines. Seeing what was happening Alexios roused his men and they sallied as well, inflicting a major defeat on Gregorios’s force. The Markurians fled, and Alexios took the time to withdraw.
By the skin of his teeth Alexios had escaped the noose, but it was at a heavy price.
Of the army he had gathered on half had been killed, captured, or deserted when the battle was over. This amounted to about eight thousand men, but it did kill Alexios’s plans for an offensive for the forseeable future. Dejected the Emperor returned north to Babylon in late March and settled in to plan his next move.
The first thing the Emperor did however was richly reward Yalig for the daring rescue. The man was given a title as Imperial swordbearer, a salary, and a position as a general in the Imperial army. Both him and his men were also given two years pay as a bonus, and were granted gifts as well. Alexios wanted to make it clear that he rewarded loyalty handsomely.
Yalig for his part was perfectly happy to accept the Emperor’s pay, and use it to hire more of his own countrymen to be his direct subordinates, building a network of powerful allies around himself from many different Turkic tribes.
When the Emperor departed Babylon again he was thoroughly chastened however. He had now rushed into multiple battles, and had been repeatedly defeated. While the defeat at Cleopatris had been decisive it was not ruinous. Alexios still had an army, and he still had his treasury intact. Paying his men up front Alexios marched south once again. Simeon had again marched into Aegyptus and was taking control of towns and farms along the Nile, but avoiding the walled cities. He did not want to be trapped up against one of those should the Emperor once again chase him down.
Alexios however had no intention of doing any such thing. Instead he aimed further south, deciding to once again cut the Markurian king off from his route home. By blocking the flow of money and reinforcements north Alexios hoped to make Simeon’s position untenable. When Alexios once again took Memphis in April he set about heavily fortifying the city, and had reinforcements shipped in from Arabia to hold it for him. Then the Emperor proceeded to bring a fleet down the Nile from Clysma and based them in the old Egyptian capital. From there this fleet would patrol down the Nile, bringing word of reinforcements from the south and blocking any ships sent north as well. In doing so Alexios was sure he would render the war unwinnable for Simeon, but the crafty Nubian king had a solution already in mind. As the new year began Alexios swept south, retaking Roman territory in the south and confining Simeon to the north, where he would hopefully starve.
By stripping the Red Sea of Roman ships however, Alexios had made a critical error. Simeon raced along the Nile and captured the small but prosperous town of Bubastis, the location of the Pharos Canal. From there he marched down the Pharos, and besieged Clymsa itself. The old Roman fortress was now heavily weakened, and had only a very light garrison. While the city tried to hold out by sea they were set upon by Arab pirates, and after a week the Markurians managed to sneak soldiers over the walls, and opened the gates. Clymsa was sacked and its residents scattered from the city. The Markurian king set himself up in the city, and sent orders that ships be sailed north through the Red Sea to reinforce his army.
By the time Alexios got word of what was happening another year was over.
In 902 then Alexios returned to northern Egypt and began a move to retake Bubastis, but Simeon’s army appeared on the horizon. The Emperor prudently withdrew across the Nile, and began shadowing the Markurian king. As Alexios moved he ensured that riders went ahead and pulled all boats to his side of the river, trapping the Nubians on the far side. Furthermore, any bridges in place were burned or collapsed into the river. In this way another year passed.
The stalemate that would define the First Nubian War was now in place. Alexios did not have the confidence to mount another attack, but as more Roman ships arrived his iron grip on the Nile ensured it was impossible for Simeon to get close enough to trap the Emperor for battle. By 905 the Romans had deployed nearly a thousand ships along the Nile, and had nearly fifty thousand men in place in the province. But the fleet was extremely expensive to maintain, many times the cost of the army the Emperor was keeping in place. Furthermore, the Emperor funded rebuilding of Egypt’s fortifications, first in the north and then going further south.
Dozens of small towns and cities were now given stone walls, and garrisons which could hold out long enough for the Emperor to arrive. The cost of the war was as you might imagine enormous. Nearly four million nomismata were spent in 904 alone, dipping deep into Imperial reserves and forcing the government back in Constantinople to borrow heavily from the Church, Jewish lenders, both Gothic and Frankish nobles. The Frankish loans in particular would be a major problem in the future.
Alexios meanwhile began to leave his infantry behind in these new defenses, maintaining only a cavalry force of about twelve thousand with him. On the occasions that Simeon crossed the Nile from his major fortresses along the Pharos and in Eastern Egypt the Emperor shadowed him, but avoided battle. Alexios’s aim was twofold. First, he could force Simeon to keep his army together, increasing the amount of supplies Simeon was forced to gather from any given point and thus increase the likelihood that portions of the army could not be fed. Alternatively he would force any split in the Markurian army to be between large divisions, so that if Alexios did force battle with an individual army he would still outnumber them but any decisive victory would be a major blow.
Simeon chose to keep his army together. In his estimation he was a better general than Alexios, a not incorrect view, and that if his army was intact he could eventually force the Emperor to give battle, and another defeat like Cleopatris would force the Romans to terms. But the war was being fought in Egypt, the breadbasket of the Empire. Simeon therefore had little difficulty keeping his army fed as the years passed.
The war dragged on for years, with numerous skirmishes taking place but neither side giving a pitched battle. In 910 however Alexios was confident enough in his position to try to take a battle to Simeon once again. Crossing to the Eastern side of the Nile Alexios had a bridge built behind his army, wide enough for a relatively easy crossing, and rigged to collapse should it be necessary. He brought together his cavalry detachments and ten thousand infantry and laid siege to Bubastis. Simeon at Clysma got word of the Imperial attack and marched down to give battle. The two forces lined up, the Imperial army had its back to the bridge across the Nile, while Simeon set up his forces divided in two. Three quarters of his army were arrayed directly in front of the Romans, while the final fourth were hidden along the riverbank where they had hidden themselves the night before. Simeon hoped to use these troops to cut off the Imperial retreat by either capturing the bridge themselves or setting it alight.
Alexios had no idea this force was present, but Yalig was suspicious, and so convinced the Emperor to hold four thousand Turks in reserve. Yalig commanded these men personally, and while publically his orders were to wait until the Emperor ordered him the Turk general had a very different plan.
As always the Roman horse archers, apart from Yalig’s contingent, attacked first, launching showers of arrows into Simeon’s army. The Markurians maintained discipline against the attack, and began moving forward. The Imperial army began moving forward as well, and the horse archers withdrew to join the forces on the flanks. Once again Simeon’s camelry assaulted the Roman cavalry, but the Romans held firm, their animals now familiarized with camels.
But as the battle continued the five thousand Markurians hidden along the river revealed themselves and charged for the bridge. Panic began to spread in the Roman ranks as men saw this, and infantry began to run, trying to avoid being cut off. The Emperor rode forward to rally them, but he failed. It was now however that Yalig’s men charged the emerging soldiers, loosing arrows into their ranks, and then drawing cavalry swords and falling on the disorganized force.
Despite their attack the Imperial route continued, with only the Turks once again taking the field to hold off the Markurian attack.
The nomads fought a rearguard action as the Romans set the bridge alight, until finally Yalig led the remaining Turks across the bridge, barely making it across before it collapsed into the river. The Markurians had once again won the day, but this time the casualty numbers were significantly different. Six thousand Markurians were dead, including virtually all of Simeon’s ambush force, to only about two thousand Romans.
Alexios claimed the battle as a victory despite his own army’s retreat, and he prepared once again to take the fight to Simeon. Yalig however had a different idea. Laying out his plan the Turk convinced the Emperor to leave a small force behind to fake a full sized camp on the Western side of the Nile, while secretly leading a daring march over the desert to the coast, to Clysma which now had to be virtually emptied of troops. If the city could be retaken the Romans would be able to cut Simeon’s supply off, and the war would then basically win itself.
Alexios allowed himself to be convinced, and began laying plans. Three days later the Roman Emperor parted under the cover of darkness, leaving only Yalig behind with four thousand Turks, while leading five thousand of his own cavalry out. He also sent messengers to Arabia, promising the king of the Hejaz significant treasure if the Arab king would send ships and men to meet the Emperor. The king agreed and when Alexios arrived at Clysma he was reinforced by three thousand Arabs and sixty ships.
The garrison of Clysma was totally unprepared, and in the initial assault Alexios’s men gained the walls while the Arab fleet took the port. The Markurian garrison was driven into the citadel, and refused the Emperor’s demands for surrender. Irritated at the refusal Alexios set about his contingency plan, he dammed the canal. Simeon had only been able to operate this far from home because of his supply lines at sea, by cutting the canal Alexios believed he could permanently end any threat to northern Egypt. It would be a major economic blow, but not as great as the loss of Egypt.
Seeing the Emperor’s intention the garrison gave up. They were loyal to Simeon while he could pay them, but if the Emperor could permanently sever the Nubian treasury from the army then the cash was about to run out. The Emperor accepted their surrender, and then accepted their oaths of fealty and sent the men north to the Danube, for reasons we will be discussing later.
For now however the Emperor turned his eyes West, where Simeon was just becoming aware that the noose was closing.
Alexios drove West along the canal, destroying the locks along the way, reaching Bubastis once again in 912. When he did however, he found the job had been done for him. Near the end of 911 Simeon had learned something was happening in the East, and so he had taken his army and begun marching East. Yalig had seen this, and decided to attack. He led his Turks across the Nile and began harassing the Markurian march.
The Battle of the Pharos was fought on March 26, 912 as four thousand Turks met the twelve thousand Markurians. Relieved of their need to support the Imperial infantry Yalig set his men to attacking with their bows along the Markurian lines, and after about an hour of fighting his men broke and ran. Three Markurians charged forward, aiming to catch the horse archers and destroy them. But to the horror of Simeon the Turks rallied, and fell upon the three thousand unsupported and out of formation men, slaughtering them all. A quarter of his remaining army was now dead, for a pittance of Turks.
The Turks did the same maneuver at other points of the line twice more, and each time they were pursued. Simeon sent warnings along to his officers, but they did not arrive in time. Both further incidents were smaller, but still left five thousand Markurians dead on the field. The casualties were too much, and Simeon’s army broke. The Turks pursued them without hesitation, and Simeon himself was captured by Yalig’s guard.
When the sun set eight thousand Markurians were dead, three thousand captured, and the rest were scattered. The war was over. Or at least it should have been. But even as Yalig had Simeon’s head cut off and sent along to Alexios as a trophy the Emperor wasn’t finished the Markurians. He had just spent well over a decade fighting this war, and the southerners had to pay. Next time we will conclude the First Nubian War, as Alexios turned his attention south, readying himself and his army to remind the Nubians why they did not provoke the giant to their north.
Can't accept a partial victory AND unable to plan ahead of his decisions. My goodness, Alexios should be named 'The Small minded"
Just wondering will any of the future updates focuses on Turkic Society and Culture without OTL Islam?
This whole battle is giving me an idea on how Yalig future war strategies will develop and define a new and upcoming age in the first millennia.
Just wondering will any of the future updates focuses on Turkic Society and Culture without OTL Islam?
Yes. Yalig was introduced here for that reason. He (and his family) are going to be very important in the coming decades.
Part 40: The First Nubian War III
Part XL: The First Nubian War III
Alexios’s, or rather Yalig’s, victory over Simeon was a smashing success. By all rights it should have ended the war. The Markurian king was dead, his army shattered, and a significant sum of cash had been captured to be distributed to the victorious soldiers. Alexios was in the perfect position to make a peace with Simeon’s successor, sail back to Constantinople, hold a triumph, and send his soldiers home happy.
But Alexios didn’t know when to quit. And this then is Alexios’s unfortunate legacy. He was too stubborn, and he wanted to be the one who won the war. If it was Yalig’s victory then his triumph would always be shared. Therefore, no matter how much money had already been spent, no matter how much his soldiers were needed on the Danube and in Persia the Emperor just would not quit. Instead he marched his army south along the Nile, maintaining much of his fleet as they went. At points the ships were dragged overland to ensure they would be able to keep up with the army. On this trip Alexios also got word that his wife back in the capital, whom he had likely not even thought of since he came to Egypt, had died.
Despite that however the sudden reminder of his mortality did at least shake Alexios out of obsession, if only temporarily. He put the campaign on hold and returned to Alexandria sending orders for a new wife to be selected for him and sent south immediately for a marriage. This needless to say rankled the elites of Constantinople, but Alexios’s ministers obediently selected a pretty young girl named Anna, and sent her to Constantinople. Anna it should be noted was not Greek, she was a Slav, a noblewoman from Dacia. She was the first Slavic Empress, something that will of course become a problem down the line.
For now however, Anna and Alexios were married in Saint Mark’s cathedral in Alexandria in 915. His soldiers meanwhile enjoyed their rest and the years of pay they had built up. Yalig himself was dismissed at this point, and while the parting was not especially friendly Alexios did make sure to burden the Turk and his men with gold and other gifts. Yalig also officially retained his rank and title even if they were inactive. The two did at least part then on good terms, and Yalig would always look back fondly on his time in Egypt, something that will bear important fruit decades down the line. Though, perhaps the Romans who came after would have preferred a less amicable parting.
But the Emperor was not done. He planned to launch a punitive expedition south into Markuria itself, hopefully to sack Dongola, the Markurian capital. He launched the attack in 916, defeating an eight-thousand-man Markurian army that tried to halt his advance. The city of Primis, the premier fortress of northern Nubia. Nearly five thousand men held the city. Alexios surrounded the city and laid siege to it. The Emperor had hopes of a quick victory, but the garrison refused to give up. The siege dragged on for months and months, forcing the Emperor to keep his army in siege camp into 917, provoking mutinous talk among the soldiers. Ultimately however the garrison was forced to give up in March 917, and the fortress was sacked.
The damage to Primis was severe, but Alexios ordered the defenses reconstructed, and laid the groundwork for a new Theme of Nubia to defend southern Egypt. A strategos was put in place, and the Emperor continued south to Faras, laying siege to it as well. At some point during this siege Anna gave birth to a son, and was sent back north to Alexandria for the safety of her and her son.
The siege lasted for three months, but after a reinforcing army was driven off the city surrendered. Showing that his conquest of Primis was not a bluff Alexios ordered the city incorporated into the Theme of Nubia. Now having added a new theme to the Empire and winning several battles of his own Alexios was finally willing to talk peace. His conquests now being put in place Alexios agreed to talks with the new Markurian king, Petros.
Petros was the nephew of Simeon, and grandson of the king before him, and he was desperate for a peace. Petros personally came north to Faras and began negotiations with the Emperor’s men. The peace talks would last for the next month. In the end however Markuria surrendered to the Romans.
Alexios’s terms were harsh, the surrender of all territory north of the second cataract to the Romans, as well as agree to pay an annual sum of two hundred pounds of gold and fifty slaves for the next twenty years. Petros would follow through on the payments for the next ten years, but as Imperial attention shifted north and East again he began to withhold payments, and the Romans simply let it happen. The Theme of Nubia would be held for more of the next hundred years, until finally the Emperor was forced to conclude the soldiers stationed there were simply too expensive to justify holding the region and withdrew, letting the Markurians retake the territory, beginning the next phase of Markurian power.
With this treaty though Markurian power was severly reduced. Rebellions would flare up in Alodia, and raids on the other frontiers would act to draw the king’s attention away from the Romans for a long time going forward. But the Markurians are not finished yet, and they will eventually trouble the Romans once again.
For now however Alexios left a garrison behind and began the long trip back up the Nile. He moved slowly, putting out local fires that had been going for the length of the war, putting down half a dozen local rebellions before arriving back in Alexandria in 919. When he arrived in the city however the Emperor came down with malaria, and he was forced to delay his return to Constantinople.
But in January the Emperor took a turn for the worse, and on the fourteenth he died. Alexios was 58 years old, and had been Emperor for 26 years. Alexios was a successful Emperor overall. He held Egypt, and while his long war was extremely expensive it should be remembered that he did have a point. Egypt was still the most important region in the Empire. It provided a vast amount of Imperial revenue, and holding it was justified by the revenue saved.
But on the other hand, the Emperor still spent a truly enormous level of treasure to fight a war that, by all rights, should have been over in just a few years. He won the war in the end by sheer weight of numbers and cash rather than any particular skill. Indeed as we look back at the war it can be said Alexios mostly just blundered around for several years without much of a strategy beyond, “don’t lose”. It was a subordinate who eventually destroyed the Markurian army, a subordinate acting completely independently I should add. If Alexios had been left to his own devices he might have lost yet another battle, letting the war continue the endless stalemate even longer.
If Yalig had simply been given command during the stalemate what might he have done? The Turkic general defeated the Markurians with a fraction of the main army. If Alexios had let a better commander hold overall power in the army the war could have been over two decades early. Instead he spent years campaigning in Egypt while in other places crisis flared.
All told however Alexios was at least an active and forceful Emperor, and he did hold Egypt in the end. But what did he hold now? Egypt had just been the subject of well over a decade of war. The population had shrunk by a tenth, and tax revenue in the province had fallen by a third. Italy had overtaken Egypt as the region that provided the most Imperial revenue, a position it would not lose until the Franks invaded. Egypt had been so reduced that it was now tied with Anatolia and Mesopotamia in wealth. It would recover of course, which was good news for the Romans, as by the time Egypt recovered its revenue was more important than ever before, and it would provide the lion’s share of the wealth that would let the Empire recover after the major losses that will close out the century.
Despite everything else then, Alexios was right that holding Egypt was of utmost importance. If he had not been so focused on crushing the Markurians now, perhaps rather than reclaiming the Theme of Nubia the king would have been happy to have another attempt at Egypt, which may well have seen the coming years would have seen Imperial finances, and thus the military, completely collapse. Alexios therefore cannot be judged too harshly, regardless of his more negative characteristics.
But that said, he left behind a very young son, and he had not been seen in the capital for over twenty years. To say that the throne was now unstable was an understatement.
Well the Nubian Wars are a repeat of the Gothic Wars when you compare the gains and the costs of said wars.
If I were to sum up Alexios in one sentence it’d be “It could have been worse”. A man of mediocre ability but with an iron will, a lesser man would have been easily broken, so his resilience alone is commendable.
Looks like Yalig will be the TTL Seljuk equivalent. It just so happens Persia is fractured and weak....
Looks like Yalig will be the TTL Seljuk equivalent. It just so happens Persia is fractured and weak....
Alexios is IMO the closest equivalent to Basil II honestly. Laser focus on his immediate strategic aims, but to the detriment of the Empire. And not enough ability to get things done quickly.
That said he’s the last successful legitimate Emperor this century.