Thunder from the Danube: A First Bulgarian Empire TL

Entry No. 13: North and South, Byzantium Expands




The continued joint Byzantine-Armenian campaign against the Arab forces in the Middle East picked up anew with the fall of Antioch that did not truly occur until June 14th, 870 AD. With Eudokia Ingerina acting as regent for the infant Leo VI, the Byzantine Empire relied on its military leaders to manage the war against the Arabs. Antioch became the base from which the Byzantines and Armenians would use to spearhead further attacks, and Byzantine warships arrived more frequently. With Antioch under Byzantine control, there was no question as to which area the Byzantines will target next. Thus Cyprus became the next focus of the conflict between the Christian and Muslim powers.


Yet as the camaraderie still lingered between Byzantium and Armenia (though fragile), underneath tensions remained between the two nations due to their religious differences despite the fact that both kingdoms were nominally Eastern Christian, as opposed to the Latin Western Catholic nations that also fought both Byzantium and the Arab powers. Even as Ashot I remained as head of the Armenian kingdom, the Byzantines also sought to extend its influence into the rest of the Caucasus, primarily in Armenia’s northern frontier where the Sakartvelian statelets existed. There, the Byzantines can rely on one other Caucasian ally, the Principality of Iberia where the House of Bagratid (not to be confused with the similar sounding Bagratuni of Armenia) reigned.

Iberia was in a middle of a power struggle to maintain its independence against the ravages made by the Khazars while campaigning against the Arabs and Hungarians. In this region, the Byzantines were not allied with Armenia against the Khazars; rather, it could have been the other way around, with Byzantium needing Khazar aid against the Arabs. It is also an awkward position for the Sakartvelian statelets to rely on an empire that is also allies with its very enemy, which is why they turned to the Hungarians for help. By then, the Hungarians were moving towards the amalgamation of the Greek/Byzantine and Armenian Rite to form the Hungarian Rite and they were in a dominant position to influence the remaining unconverted pagans of the North Caucasus. This is true in the case of an important buffer state inhabited by the Alans.

Byzantine missionaries found themselves in direct competition with the Hungarian Khaganate in influencing the Alans towards their branch of Christianity (although the new Hungarian Rite was relatively new, the Hungarians were hampered by the lack of literate priests and also the lack of Hungarian speakers). Yet the Byzantines and Hungarians eventually reached a compromise where the Alans (and eventually all the Altaic-speaking Turkic, Tungusic and Khitan nations) would switch alphabets from Armenian to Greek. At the same time though, the Byzantines recognized the legitimacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Hungarian Khaganate, as evident by the adoption of the religious title “Katolikos of the Hungarian Apostolic Church”.

The compromise however, was merely a cover, for Eudokia Ingerina wanted to expand Byzantine influence into the Caucasus in exchange for additional decades of peace with the rising power of Khan Boris’s Bulgarian Empire. Far from it, Byzantine monks were employed as spies and infiltrators in the Caucasus to influence the Sakartvelians, Alans and the Armenians into accepting Byzantine vassalage. To make this work though, Eudokia sent messages to Bagrat I of Iberia, asking for military assistance against the Arabs, as well as to distract them by staging raids into Caucasian Albania. She sent the same message to Ashot I of Armenia, hoping that she could lessen her reliance on her Armenian ally in order to lay claim on the fact that it was Byzantine power that drove the Arabs from her lost land. She hoped to not only clear the Arabs out of the Caucasus Mountains, but to expand her influence from there as well.

The naval campaign against the Arabs in Cyprus proved to be difficult, as the Arab defenders there were heavily protected by its rough terrain. Nevertheless, with Antioch back in Byzantine hands, the Byzantine Navy under the command of a man only known as Christopher led the attack on Cyprus. At first the Arab warships proved to be a tough nut to crack, as their sailors were extremely skilled and battle hardened. Unfortunately, the Arab reinforcements from Egypt made the reconquest of Cyprus extremely difficult, and so Eudokia would appoint another battle hardened general from a famous military clan, Nikephoros Phokas the Elder, to continue the Byzantine advance southward into the Levant, and ideally, to capture the strategically important region around Mount Lebanon, of which the Theme of Lebanon was eventually established.

Under strict orders and threat of death, Nikephoros Phokas and Christopher were to coordinate their attacks on the Arab forces that remained in the area. The Levantine Campaign kick started in the fall of 870 AD, on a fateful October day that would coincide with a new offensive made by Boris and Rastislav in the joint Bulgarian-Moravian offensive against the Franks, with an unknown amount of Byzantine troops under arms, while they were later joined by an Arab Christian faction called the Ghassanids. Fierce warriors they are, their skills in battle as well as their dedication to the protection of the borderlands between the Byzantine Empire and the Arab caliphates, the Ghassanids were crucial in the slow but systematic reconquest of the Levantine region that took a whooping four years to complete. Why it took four years to complete was precisely simple: the Byzantines also had to worry about Khazar and Hungarian incursion in the north.

Another Byzantine general would eventually be instrumental in expanding Byzantine influence into the Caucasus; for it was Eustathios Argyros who led 29,000 Byzantine troops to help Ashot I of Armenia with his campaign against the Arabs in Caucasian Albania alongside the Khazars under Khagan Benjamin. By the winter of 870 AD to March of 871 AD, the coalition between Byzantium, Armenia, Khazaria and the Sakartvelian statelets had not yet cleared the Arabs out, but by April of 871 AD the coalition forces decided to attack a city in the Shirvan region called Baku, currently held by the Shirvanshahs. Argyros used his experience from his earlier campaigns to capture Baku, although Khazar and Hungarian flotilla boats were used from the other side of the Caspian to raid Baku and the surrounding Shirvan lands.

When Baku finally fell by late April of 871 AD, they found the city to be in ruins, as most of the Shirvanshahs chose to retreat southwards into the Saffarid domain while plundering the city of its wealth to deny its usage to the victors. The Hungarians were furious with the lack of riches in Baku, chose instead to consolidate its control of the Kimek and Kipchak tribes and in addition, a new tribe would become the newest vassal of the Hungarian Khaganate. This tribe made its home across the Ural Mountains, and like the Volga Bulgars, had once worshipped the old Tengrii. The Bashkirs, as they were called, became useful allies to the Hungarian Khaganate in that they provided enough troops to help with the campaign against the Saffarids. It is also worth noting that the chronicles of the Bashkirs was made by Argyros while he stayed in Baku as 30 Bashkir horsemen asked to stay in the city to rest.

Argyros got to know the Bashkir guests and he even sent five Greek priests to accompany them back to the Bashkir lands as an effort to spread Byzantine influence into the Hungarian Khaganate itself. The Greek alphabet was used to codify the Bashkir language, itself a Turkic dialect, though the concept of a Greco-Turkic cultural fusion was not yet ready to make it known just yet. He left an impression on the Bashkir guests who wanted to know more about the rich empire that was fighting the Arab Muslim caliphates. Unfortunately for the Byzantines, the Hungarians succeeded in influencing the Bashkirs to side with the Hungarian Khaganate instead of Byzantium. Yet the determination of Eudokia Ingerina would remain undeterred, as Byzantine influence was not yet taking root in the Caucasus.



Note: Byzantine history is something that I would end up butchering since I know a little about it, but at least they're still here. Of course, don't expect the Byzantines to steal a show that should rightfully be Bulgaria's.:p

Now as we are gonna expect, Byzantine expansion into the Caucasus could be as likely as say, Khazars becoming the Jewish Ottoman expys, but hey, the Byzantines have to expand somewhere, and Hellenized Altaics would be entirely new, hence my idea of the Turkic nations using the Greek alphabet and fusing Greek and Turkish cultures together. It will not last long however, as they will eventually be destroyed by a nomadic force from the east that is definitely NOT the Mongols.
 
a novel idea I must say, please do go on, I like where it is going.

The thing is, by the 11th century the Byzantines are gonna end up controlling the Caucasus through vassal allies. There will be someone who will end up with the title "Khazarslayer", but no "Bulgarslayer" though. Either I could have a successor empire to the Byzantines in Anatolia itself, or the Byzantine Empire might be snuffed out and replaced by some other empire.
 
Entry No. 14: A Hard Fought Peace Paid in Blood



Eudokia Ingerina decided on the winter of 871 AD that the Byzantines should pause for a while as her army is struggling to maintain its numbers due to other commitments in the Levant, allowing her garrison forces in Baku to set up their permanent base there. Although she was unsure of whether or not the Saffarids and many other Islamic emirates that emerged in the Middle East could survive, she wanted to position Byzantium into a dominant position to take over should the Arab conquerors fall apart and a power vacuum has been created. In addition, Baku also served as a suitable place from which she could launch an attack on the unprotected back of the Saffarids in Persia. Luckily, Many Caucasian Albanian inhabitants of the region were willing to take up arms and fight for Byzantium, even though they were Christian in the Oriental Orthodox sense.

In the Levant, Nikephoros Phokas the Elder and Admiral Christopher had progressed considerably in recapturing key ports that were held by the Arabs. In the region of Lebanon, the Ghassanids were busy consolidating their own control over that key territory and they were more than eager to expand their control, especially in the land of Palestine, where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in harmony. However, by the winter of 871 AD Nikephoros Phokas the Elder arrived at the important port city of Haifa, currently controlled by the remaining Arab survivors who holed up in that city, hoping for warships from Egypt to escort them out of the city. With little need to negotiate with the Haifa defenders, Nikephoros Phokas the Elder proceeded to attack Haifa from land. His eagerness to take the city before winter set in would prove to be his undoing, as the Arab fleet unexpectedly arrived in Haifa after they were defeated by Admiral Christopher in the Byzantine reconquest of Cyprus that occurred on Christmas Day.

By January 13th of 871 AD, Nikephoros Phokas the Elder was forced to retreat from Haifa in defeat as the Arabs rejoiced at having beaten back the Byzantine advance. The retreating Byzantine troops were then relocated back to Beirut where the Ghassanids proceeded to take up their duties in guarding the frontiers that divided the Byzantine Empire from the Arab lands. To make things more interesting for the old general, Eudokia Ingerina told him not to carry out any more offensives in the Levant and to allow the Arabs to exhaust themselves while she sends her emissaries to the Bulgarian court in Preslav to convince Boris that Bulgarian entry into the Arab-Byzantine War was necessary.



Bulgaria and Moravia – Clearing out the Enemy:


Rastislav I of Moravia and Khan Boris I of Bulgaria continued their advances into East Francian territory during 871 AD, intending to clear out the Frankish forces from Great Moravia. Once the last Frankish force was cleared out of Moravian territory, Rastislav would launch his first offensive into Frankish territory in order to expand his borders westward. His new goal though, was to consolidate a vital piece of territory that straddled on the banks of the Saale River. His Saale River campaign, unlike the Byzantine campaign that took four years to complete, will be completed in just one and a half year, often with Boris helping him. Starting on February of 871 AD, Rastislav ordered the construction of a fortress on the Elbe River close to the border of his own Moravian domains that will take six months to complete (yet it was a relatively small sized fortress).

The new fortress on the border with Great Moravia itself also sprung up into a small, military settlement where the soldiers of Rastislav’s forces settled down. This new fortress would eventually emerge into the modern Moravian city of Labehrod (Elbetown) (1), an important border town that served as a great bastion of Moravian power against the Franks. Although the new fortress town was not yet completed, on the Frankish side Arnulf was not in a hurry to capture the fortress because he needed more troops to replace the ones he lost in the last Frankish incursion into northern Moravia. To make sure that the danger posed by the remaining Franks to the new town of Labehrod was eliminated, Rastislav marched with 6,000 of his troops into the Frankish fortress of Magdeburg (though Boris accompanied him with his 20,000 plus troops).

Magdeburg was besieged by March 29th, 871 AD in what Frankish historians would later call the Great Miracle, as this battle became known. Though the siege lasted for three and a half months (the Magdeburg fortress was surprisingly difficult to capture), it was Rastislav’s turn to sustain heavy casualties, as he eventually lost around 5,231 of his 6,000 troops. Boris therefore took over command of the siege while Rastislav acquired extra troops to replace the ones that he had lost. However, Arnulf was recalled to Carinthia in order to stave off a potential coup against Adrian II, and instead, another young prince was appointed the commander of a Frankish army that would meet the Moravian threat, for it was Hugh of Saxony who eventually emerged as a powerful opponent of Rastislav, and it was through his tactics that Rastislav suffered a setback in his attempts to conquer Magdeburg.

The arrival of Prince Hugh of Saxony gave the defenders a morale boost as fresh troops, counter-siege equipment and provisions arrived in Magdeburg by June 26th. Yet Boris too, began to lose more of his troops to Hugh and even he was forced to retreat back to Labehrod within just three days. Yet Rastislav was not deterred by the defeat that he and Boris sustained, for the internal strife that occurred between Louis the Younger, Charles the Bold and Charles the Fat would force the Franks to deal with the fratricidal war. By September of 871 AD, both Charles the Bold and Charles the Fat were killed and Arnulf had officially become the new Emperor of the Franks with Adrian II’s help. It was then that both Arnulf and Adrian II felt that the time has come for the Frankish realm to consolidate control of its territories and to reconquer lost lands that fell under Moravian rule.

Northern Italy was annexed to the Frankish Empire by October of 871 AD under Arnulf’s orders as he continued his reorganization of the empire into various provinces. He also raised taxes in order to generate revenue for the purpose of building a new army that will take down the Moravians. Finally, Arnulf would turn his full attention to the long awaited mission of bringing Moravia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Serbia under the light of Roman Catholicism, a mission that he will ultimately fail. By December of 871 AD, he felt ready to march towards the town of Labehrod and to take care of the Moravians and Bulgarians before they return with reinforcements. Yet something unexpected had occurred that will not go in his favor.

News of Arnulf’s ascension as Emperor of the Franks had greatly caused alarm within the Varangian lands as Ubbe Ragnarsson (another of Halfdan’s brothers) marched to Moravia with 4,000 additional Varangian warriors from Denmark. Accompanying Ubbe Ragnarsson was a force of 2,000 Norse Varangians commanded by King Harald Fairhair (who sailed from Norway) and last but not least, a force of 3,000 Swedish Varangians commanded by Askold alongside a token force of 1,000 East Slavic warriors and 500 Varangians under the leadership of Chief Helgi (the future Oleg of Novgorod who succeeded Rurik). As it turned out, Rastislav wrote to his Varangian neighbors, pleading for help in a war against the Franks, enticing them with bountiful treasures once they cross into the Frankish lands. Suffice to say, most of these Varangians jumped at the offer.

Arnulf received a nasty surprise when on December 30th, 871 AD, his army was about to cross the Elbe once again to attack Lyubiche when Ubbe’s Varangians staged an ambush on his troops at the Moravian border with the Frankish Empire. At the same time, Rastislav, King Harald Fairhair and Chief Helgi attacked Magdeburg once again, although this time they came fully prepared with siege engines built by the Moravians themselves, using stolen blueprints that their spies had taken from the Frankish camp while the Moravians rested up their troops. Once again, Hugh of Saxony was called in to defend the fortress but against the Varangians his forces were fearful of their reputation. To make matters worse, King Harald Fairhair moved away from Magdeburg and began to launch devastating raids across the Frankish lands between Magdeburg and Labehrod, often resulting in many slaves being captured and treasures being taken.


Meanwhile, Boris began to launch an offensive against the Franks from Labehrod by January 6th, 872 AD. He simply ordered his troops to raid supply lines that are lightly guarded and to retreat only when the Franks were about to launch a surprise attack on them. Much of the Varangian and Bulgarian raids on Frankish farms had devastating consequences as the civilian population had nothing to eat during this harsh winter, and 2,800 people within the Eastern Francian lands died from starvation. The lack of food also meant that the defenders of Magdeburg were down to their last rations as Hugh of Saxony thought of retreating from the fortress and into safety on the other side of the Elbe River. So it was rather surprising when Hugh of Saxony surrendered his fortress to Rastislav’s troops by February 8th (only because the last provisions was consumed), three weeks later than expected and he was allowed to retreat back to the Frankish lands along with the survivors of his army. Rastislav then proceeded to annex the fortress town and renamed it Kremenohrod as the Moravian flag was raised.

Although Adrian II was utterly devastated with the loss of Magdeburg to the Moravians, he had other things to worry about other than the schismatics who scored yet another victory. It appears that the Emirate of Sicily’s forces were on the verge of attacking southern Italy, and so he advised Arnulf to call off the war against the Moravians and to take care of the Arabs first. So it became a weird episode for Arnulf as he sent emissaries to Constantinople for a temporary alliance with Eudokia Ingerina against the Arabs. In one of the proposals of this alliance, Arnulf declared his intention to annex southern Italy (including the Italian lands controlled by the Byzantines) and in return he will let the Byzantines keep the Levant and cede Egypt to them.


Byzantine Empire – The First Piece of the Puzzle:


With the Frankish threat subsided in favor of a common offensive against the increasing strength of the Arabs, the Byzantine Empire could now focus on recapturing the Levant, as well as the potential re-conquest of Mesopotamia from the Arabs (though the Saffarids in Persia were also preparing for war against the Byzantines as well). However, the Byzantines were still determined to expand their influence in the Caucasus, and they had to do it through the Sakartvelian rulers who had connections to the Byzantine authorities. This kind of cultural expansion greatly worried Ashot I of Armenia who was eager to expand his own influence into the rest of the Caucasus, regardless of whether or not Byzantine power was more prevalent. To this end, Ashot I sent spies into Sakartvelian lands to learn about the latest intrigues and to figure out which Sakartvelian prince was more willing to formulate an independent course from Byzantium.

Ashot I of Armenia’s fortunes were boosted with the marriage of the Sakartvelian Prince Guaram Mampali to his sister, which cemented a potential alliance that could either help the Byzantines or endanger their eastern frontier. With that marriage secured, Ashot I encouraged Guaram to seize the territory of Abkhazia and even sent 15,000 troops to help with the campaign. Though the mountainous terrain of Abkhazia made it difficult to pull off a successful military campaign, Ashot I of Armenia gradually countered this problem by building a series of small forts in Kutaisi and Samtredia in order to serve as forward bases from which Guaram could launch his attacks. The small forts took two months to complete (although much of the work was done in a rather poor manner, which explains why those forts crumbled constantly). The Samtredia fortress would not be rebuilt until the year 960 AD, by which time the Sakartvelians would be closely integrated with Armenia.

The emerging so-called ‘cold war’ between Byzantium and Armenia would occur over the dispute in Abkhazia, but the Armenians were not ready to campaign against the Abkhazians until the year 874 AD. In those two years though, Ashot I shelved his plans to aid Guaram (though it is also due to the birth of Prince Tigran Mampali in June of 872 AD) and focused on conducting trade between his kingdom, Byzantium and the Hungarian Khaganate. The Hungarians still proved themselves to be natural allies of Armenia but the slow growth of Kievan Rus’ meant that the Hungarian Khaganate and Khazaria had to watch out for the impulsive tendencies of the Rus’ Varanagians to raid at any given time. Two additional years also proved to be a boon for Guaram as well since he still served Bagrat I of Iberia. Yet the tensions between Guaram and his other brothers who still maintained their allegiance to Byzantium (the title curoplates was borne by Bagrat I) since Guaram saw Byzantine intrusion into Sakartvelian affairs to be a danger. However, a different event would shock the Sakartvelians into action.

Abkhazia’s King George II unexpectedly launched an attack on the Iberian lands as early as November of 873 AD in response to Ashot I’s military buildup and his fear that the Armenians would succeed in encircling the Sakartvelians by cutting them off from the Black Sea. Surprisingly, Bagrat I managed to repel the Abkhazians’ invasion into Iberian territory but George II called upon Khazaria’s Khagan Benjamin for help in defeating the Iberians. By November 28th, Khazar cavalry units entered Iberia and preceded to ramsack the towns and villages controlled by Bagrat I. Khagan Benjamin would also join in the Abkhazian attack on Salkhino by December 2nd. The Khazar danger forced Ashot I to accelerate the Armenian preparations and wrote a letter to Arpad, asking for his help in fighting the Khazars.

As for the Byzantines, Eudokia Ingerina finally decided to take action in response to the growing danger posed by the Saffarids in the south and the Khazars in the north by ordering Eustathios Argyros and his garrison of 32,000 soldiers (the extra 3,000 troops came from the Caucasian Albanian Christians who defected to the Byzantine side from the Arabs) to commence with the Byzantine conquest of Caucasian Albania in order to drive a wedge between the Khazars and the Saffarids. Starting on January 14th, 874 AD, Eustathios Argyros launched an attack on the Caucasian Albanian stronghold of Gabala (2) (controlled by the surviving Arab garrison). By this time, the Arab forces in Caucasian Albania were in the process of retreating from there in order to reinforce the Abbasid stronghold in the face of Byzantine resurgence in the Middle East.

Yet like Nikephoros Phokas in the Levant, Eustathios Argyros had a hard time taking the fortress, as the Arab defenders were surprisingly stubborn. Such stubbornness was so fierce that the Byzantine general requested for Ashot I to divert his troops from the Armenian border with the Sakartvelian statelets to help dislodge the Arabs out of Gabala. Armenian troops reached Gabala by February 27th, by which the siege was still going. The presence of Armenian soldiers in Gabala accelerated the depletion of ammunition, weapons and provisions within the Arab garrison to the point where the Arab defenders decided that, rather than to allow themselves to be captured by the Byzantines; they would attack them in a series of suicidal attacks. The Arab frenzy resulted in over 4,000 Byzantine soldiers killed, including Eustathios Argyros himself, who was slain by an Arab cavalryman.

The heavy price the Byzantines paid for the capture of Gabala prompted Ingerina to send Andronikos Doukas to replace the slain Argyros as the commander of the Byzantine garrison troops in Caucasian Albania but the heavy casualties sustained by the Byzantines there meant that the Byzantine empress had to scale back Byzantine involvement in Caucasian Albania and to shift her focus back towards the Levant. It was there that Nikephoros Phokas the Elder would be joined by another general, Andrew the Scythian. It was worth noting that Andrew the Scythian was Nikephoros Phokas the Elder’s predecessor as the leader of the prestigious Domestic of the Schools and his appearance in the Levant meant that Ingerina’s intentions were sincere and serious. With two Byzantine generals commanding a large army that was poised to continue its campaign against the Arabs, the Abbasids in Egypt were hard pressed to march their forces to reinforce Jerusalem. The final thrusts that the Byzantines would make against the Arabs would decide the fate of the whole of the Holy Land. For now, Eudokia Ingerina could now add northern Caucasian Albania as the latest addition to her empire's conquests.


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(1) Labehrod is TTL’s name for Dresden.

(2) Gabala is TTL’s name for Qabala, Azerbaijan.
 
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