Part: CVI: That Which Contracts Must Expand
In the popular narrative around John V it is often imagined that no sooner was his father dead that he began plotting his war against the Arab Caliph. This, as you likely gathered from the discussion about Manuel IV is ahistorical. In fact, his father had long dreamt of undertaking just such a military campaign, and the groundwork for the war had been laid by the Imperial army for years. Another point that is often held true of John V’s reign was that invading Syria was his first act as Emperor. This also is a myth.
His first act as Emperor was a swift, and thorough purge of his father’s government. Manuel had never had the power or authority to undertake such a widespread action, but John and Leo had worked behind the scenes for years to put together the circumstances they needed. Too much of the government had been involved in the plots which had seen the throne withheld from their father, the rightful heir of Katarina, and given to his brothers. While thorough this purge did have the balancing point of just how many officials were left in place. Most of the men who had put puppets, as Leo and John saw it, in place on the Imperial throne were old men already and could be replaced by underlings loyal to the two brothers. Most of the others were simply dead. Of old age, plague, or some other cause. The important aspect was the very clear message that Imperial succession was extremely important, and meddling with it would be done at the peril of those who interfered. This would have ironic consequences when Leo died and left a man thoroughly unfit for the purple as his heir.
For now however, as the months passed John’s generals were readying for a full-scale offensive into Syria. At their head of Bohemund the Briton, Domestic of the Scholae.
Bohemund was technically the fourth son of a lord from Alba, where he had been left with few prospects after his oldest brother was made the sole heir, his second brother went into the Church, and his third brother apparently ran off into the wilderness of the Baltic coast as a Crusader and vanished from history. Not quite as adventurous as his older brother Bohemund had instead departed his homeland and headed for Italy, where the losses from plague had left a myriad of openings amongst the local nobility, and more to the point a lot of wealthy widows or unmarried heiresses. He had been unsuccessful in such pursuits, and so had moved on to Constantinople.
Here his boyhood training in arms and leadership, as well as education in Latin, Greek, and Francish made him excellent officer material, and he was accepted into the Roman army. He became friends with John while the young man was still Caesar, and had served in a number of small skirmishes fought along the Taurican border, as well as putting down a number of minor revolts in Dacia and North Africa. While in Africa he had been one of the men who negotiated a peace with the revolting Berber tribes which saw Roman control lessened over their favorite sport of raiding, so long as it was along the Caliphate’s border, that is to say, into Arabic Egypt.
It wasn’t mentioned last time, but this raiding had been one of the catalysts for the revolt there, and will eventually cause another, significantly larger revolt in the province of Africa when Egypt is brought back into the Imperial fold.
Now Bohemund was given the important duty of putting together the invasion force that would strike south from Roman positions in Syria, aimed at retaking Thomopolis before the Emperor himself arrived to lead a follow-up attack south the retake Jerusalem, and with it all of Palestina. John seems to have had ideas of reconquering all of Mesopotamia as well but was unsure of the resources that would be required, and so did not commit himself to such an attack. Had other events not intervened he likely would have tried to recreate all of Leo’s conquests so many centuries before.
The Arabs were not blind to these Roman preparations, and threw themselves into work preparing defenses and readying for the assault. Walls were repaired, fortresses were built and strengthened, men were trained and readied for the coming war. The cost was hard to bear with the falling tax revenues, and ongoing fiscal problems that had followed the war with Turkia, but as that Empire fell apart in the East the Caliph was able to shift more soldiers from garrison duty there to face the oncoming Roman onslaught.
Marwan’s preparations would likely have been sufficient to hold back a Roman army from any point at the height of the Thalassans. His defenses were strong, and the terrain was far more favorable to him than say southern Gaul had been when Manuel had invaded the Francish Empire so long before. But he was facing a force that, while less numerous and less well-trained than the Thalassan troops, were backed up by a more powerful and more terrifying weapon.
Skirmishing and border conflicts had started even before Manuel IV died ,but the war did not kick off until the following spring, in April. John was present, leaving Leo to handle the ongoing reorganization back in the Capital. However, the Emperor remained in Antioch where he readied a second force, larger than Bohemund’s before striking south in July. He met up with Bohemund’s army outside Thomopolis, and brought the massive siege guns of the Imperial army to bear on the city, blasting holes in its walls over the course of mere hours. As their defenses crumbled the city surrendered without further resistance. Relying on the population to be thoroughly cowed John raced south, as fast as his heavy ignifera would carry him, blasting apart defenses as he went. He finally arrived at Ace in August, and the Caliph was ready to meet the Roman army. On paper the Arab army was actually reasonably prepared for the battle they expected to fight.
John only had about 20,000 men with him when the Caliph attacked. This amounted to about half his total force, while the remainder were fanned out into a number of smaller screening forces. One had been surprised a few days before and destroyed without getting word out, leaving the Emperor blind to the advance of the Caliph. John was thus only aware of the threat when he woke up and was preparing the army to toward Jerusalem, bypassing the Arab capital.
Instead, he rushed his troops into combat formation, forming up ten thousand of his infantry into a square with crossbowmen at the corners, positioned to retreat back through to the phalanx’s center. Roman infantry at this point mostly consisted of men armed with long spears and a scutum, a deliberate reference to the Roman legionnaire shield of old, but actually a smaller version. Normally the men also wore chainmail a padded jacket called the gossipion, but because of the nature of this battle few of the men were wearing their heavier mail. The crossbowmen carried a heavier version of the scutum, designed to be driven into the ground and allowing men to crouch behind it while reloading. The crossbowmen were divided into groups of three assigned to an individual shield, so one man could reload while others fired. His cavalry was set as a screen on the flanks, but was both fewer in number and lighter than their Arab counterparts. The most important group was placed behind the cavalry on the right flank, the Palatine Guard.
This was a unit organized by Manuel during his reign, and was the heaviest unit in the Roman army. Made up of the best Italian troops the Palatine Guard, later called the Palatine Legion and in the west called the Clockwork Legion, was similar to the Kataphractoi of old, being armored head to toe, in what was then very new armor. Full plate armor with additional heat treating, giving it a distinctive blue color. These men were armed with polearms and heavy crossbows, and unlike the Kataphractoi they fought on foot.
Against John’s army was Marwan’s army of thirty thousand, twenty-thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry. The Arab infantry were a mix of archers and spearmen. The infantry were very similar to their Roman counterparts in equipment, but with lighter shields and shorter spears. Marwan knew he needed to attack and scatter the Emperor’s army, then fall on the smaller detachments. If he could manage this then he could race north, retake his lost territory, and maybe occupy Roman Syria. Such a victory seemed achievable.
The Arabs thus launched their attack as the Romans were still forming up, but quickly ran into problems. The Roman adoption of firepowder was far greater than the last war fought between the two sides, and Roman engineers opened up with a barrage of fire arrows launched from Roman Vespidae, these were bundles of fire arrows loaded into artillery pieces. They also made a horrible roaring sound when fired, and terrified the Arabs who had not be exposed to such weaponry before. The barrage held off the Arab infantry until the Roman infantry was formed up, and the crossbowmen added their bolts to the ongoing rain of projectiles. The two infantry lines met. The Roman left was pushed back by the Arab cavalry on the right. The Roman right however seemed to immediately break, and began falling back through the Palatine troops. The Arabs pursued but ran into the solid line of infantry. The Guard loosed a volley of fire arrows at point blank range, hitting the Arab charge hard, and then they grabbed their polearms and advanced.
The Roman cavalry meanwhile circled around the rear of the army, and joined their comrades on the left. After significant fighting the Arabs facing the Palatines were forced to retreat, and the Guard advanced. Arab reserve forces saw the coming flank attack, and moved forward to intercept. They launched a volley of arrows. The only contemporary account is from an Arab source, who was an officer at the battle. His description of the battle describes how the Arab arches loosed their arrows into the core of the Palatine Guard, and watched in horror as their arrows collided with their armor, and quite literally bounced off.
The Palatine kept coming, barely even slowing down, and soon the Arab reserve threw down their weapons and fled, the combination of fire arrows and these men broke their morale. The Palatine silently executed a turn into the Arab center, and the rout began.
Casualties of the Second Battle of Neapolis, deliberately named despite the battle taking place significantly further north, were relatively light. Six hundred Roman dead to about three thousand Arab. But the effect was clear enough. Marwan simply did not have an army anymore. His cavalry deserted him, and soon the leaders were in talks with John to switch sides. His infantry had largely thrown down their weapons, were going home, or both. Looking at his options Marwan did the unthinkable. He surrendered.
Riding into the Roman camp in full regalia, and allowed in by sentries who saw only a lone rider in expensive clothing and so assumed he was just some local lord coming to do homage to the Emperor, not exactly unheard of, they waved him through. No one in John’s camp even knew what Marwan looked like apart from a few Arab lords who were actually there to pay him homage.
When he threw the tent of the Emperor’s tent open these men went quiet, and John soon realized something odd was happening. He did not realize who had entered until the man announced himself, and presented the Emperor with the Arab Diadem, signet ring, and jeweled purple robe of office.
John was seemingly stunned at the development, but soon overcame his shock and accepted the gesture, even having Marwan sit at his table beside him and treating him as he would any other royal visitor. In exchange for his surrender Marwan asked only for himself and his family to be spared, and John agreed. The former Caliph would be sent to Italy with his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and three daughters. He would live there for the next thirty years, on an estate in Campania granted to him by the Emperor. In doing so he will outlive both John, and his brother Leo, as well as see his granddaughter become Augusta. He would entertain dignitaries and nobility from across Europe, playing up the image of an exotic foreign king.
So that’s it right? The Caliph has surrendered. At his word Acre and Jerusalem threw open their gates, and the war was over. Right? Well, not so much. Palaestina was now open the Romans, but the remainder of the Arab empire was far from dead. As word spread of events happening there other events were transpiring in Mesopotamia, where another Roman general was looking to mimic the success of Konon Isauria. Another John, this one John Laskaris, a general from a relatively minor family in Cappadocia, had risen to prominence and was offered command of a second army, which John had intended, as Leo did before him, as more of a screening force than one of conquest. But he dreamed of bigger things, so even as the Emperor was accepting Marwan’s surrender Laskaris launched an invasion of Assyria. However, instead of glorious victory he met colossal defeat.
Without the firepowder weaponry which made the Emperor’s forces so destructive Laskaris launched on a slog into the heavily fortified, and still recovering Mesopotamia and was met with frustration on every side. His supplies were raided, he could gather little forage from the countryside, and local strongmen refused to throw open their gates to a mere Roman general. Over the course of 1371 he lost large numbers of troops to desertion as men abandoned the ill-fated campaign and went home. Finally as the year was drawing to a close Laskaris was lured into a battle near Babylon, and his army was destroyed. He lost a full ten thousand men, and soon his opponents were raiding into northern Syria.
John raced north, and scattered the raiders, but was unable to push onward into Anatolia as his great prize still eluded him, Egypt. Instead he concluded a peace with the leader of Babylon, allowing him to crown himself Basileos of Mesopotamia, a deliberate insult to the Turks most likely, and returned to Palestine to try and get Egypt back into the Empire.
This would be a difficult proposition however as the Egyptians were deeply angry about raids from Roman Africa, and were going about setting up their own kingdom after throwing out the Arabs with no Imperial reinforcement. Leo was in negotiations, but John was ready to charge in, and reconquer Egypt completely. But he wouldn’t do it. John went out hunting in December 1371, cut himself on an arrow, and soon it became infected. By Christmas Day he was dead. He was 25 years old, and had been Emperor for 2 years.
If we are judging John there is only one person who really qualifies as a point of comparison, the Emperor Aurelian. His brother Leo even declared John to be the Restitutor Orbis, as Aurelian had been, giving his brother most of the credit for reconquering the East, and somewhat undeservedly. He had won a single major battle, and then then had scattered some raiders who didn’t have much interest in fighting a major battle. In truth, the hardest part was yet to come. Because John could have conquered Egypt. It would have been a long, bloody, and vicious slog. One which would have alienated Egypt, and led to it becoming a hotbed of problems in the future.
Leo had the harder job. He wasn’t much of a soldier, and had little interest in such a campaign. Therefore he would undertake the more difficult task of getting Egypt back into the Empire not through force, but through diplomacy. He wanted Egypt back in the Empire for the same reason Italy had put the Empire back together, because it would be in the best interests of those making the decisions.
It would not be without cost, however. Because while he gained Egypt, he laid the groundwork to lose Africa.
