Why was the Komnenian army significantly smaller than the Macedonian Byzantine army?

@trajen777

Yes,I’ve read that book.I just wasn’t aware of the fact that the Komenian emperors intentionally contained the size of their army.Thanks. Your posts explains everything now.
 
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Two armies could be raised. They very rarely were (unless it was sequential).

And the army sizes of the Kommenians could be large - just that they often contained large allied contingents (which usually required paying in cash or kind). At Levounian, the Byzantines comprised less than a third of the 60,000 man army and a Myriokephaion maybe 60% of a 35,000 man army. As Treadgold observes, maneuvering and supplying larger armies just became impractical.
Even the Romans in the antiquity had trouble maneuvering and supplying large 50k+ armies in the field,so I’m not too surprised about rarely mobilizing 40k+ armies,but as I’ve mentioned,garrison troops are important to war effort as well even without them being in the field.Even without the 100k troops who exchanged extra taxes for military servie,the empire had approximately 100-140k garrison troops with 40k out in the field.This meant that the number of garrison troops decreased from 140-100k to 30k.So how was it that the empire is now guarding a far longer border created by the Rum Sultanate in the middle of Anatolia with far fewer garrison troops?The remaining ERE territory in Anatolia didn’t have massive mountains like the Zagros to protect them either.

And yes,the ERE could get far larger armies if they called for help,but the question here is why are they so much more reliant on foreign help.Although,Trajen777 seems to have answered that question already.
 
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trajen777

Banned
Even the Romans in the antiquity had trouble maneuvering and supplying large 50k+ armies in the field,so I’m not too surprised about rarely mobilizing 40k+ armies,but as I’ve mentioned,garrison troops are important to war effort as well even without them being in the field.Even without the 100k troops who exchanged extra taxes for military servie,the empire had approximately 100-140k garrison troops with 40k out in the field.This meant that the number of garrison troops decreased from 140-100k to 30k.So how was it that the empire is now guarding a far longer border created by the Rum Sultanate in the middle of Anatolia with far fewer garrison troops?The remaining ERE territory in Anatolia didn’t have massive mountains like the Zagros to protect them either.

And yes,the ERE could get far larger armies if they called for help,but the question here is why are they so much more reliant on foreign help.Although,Trajen777 seems to have answered that question already.


In one of those books it also discusses nic. Phocus field army of 70,000 for the conquest of Aleppo and the difficulty of supplying such an army. Nic. Discusses the optimal field army of 24,000 with 60% being infantry. The greatest issue in this campaign was that the Byz ability to logistically supply and control a force of 70,000 which caused major problems
 
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PhilippeO

Banned
There was another major issue that I haven't seen mentioned here yet.

The Komnenoi, to my knowledge, did nothing to restrict the dynatoi, or landed elite families from buying up more and more land in reconquered Anatolia. The theme system relied upon a large freeholding class of farmers to provide its manpower base but when they allowed the dynatoi to do this, they not only increased their stability issues (it was essentially allowing a noble class to grow too powerful.) but soon found that the lands they were retaking were not providing as many troops as they had in the past, even if the population was fairly similar.

Seconded.

The middle class farmer-soldier disappear. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. And the state collapses.

Kommenoi is dynatoi themselves, many resources (manpower and tax money) that previously can be used by state now flow to dynatoi hand now, Reducing state capability of Byzantine government.
 
A few things I've heard that might be relevant, it might be erroneous but it makes sense to me.

Back in the Themata days the value of land equal to 1 pound of gold came with the requirement to contribute a cataphract, but by Basil this had increased to land to the value of 4 pounds.

During a long period the farming style in Anatolia changed from mixed farms with many middle and lower class owners to more and more large livestock ranches owned by the Dynatoi. This depopulated Anatolia to a considerable extent and gave the Turks the perfect environment for their lifestyle when they arrived.

Themata are good for defence but Tagamata are good for offense, so a lack of usefulness on the offensive rather than blind neglect was a major reason for the decline of the Themata.

Dunno how all that fits in, but I think they do somewhere.
 
A few things I've heard that might be relevant, it might be erroneous but it makes sense to me.

Back in the Themata days the value of land equal to 1 pound of gold came with the requirement to contribute a cataphract, but by Basil this had increased to land to the value of 4 pounds.

During a long period the farming style in Anatolia changed from mixed farms with many middle and lower class owners to more and more large livestock ranches owned by the Dynatoi. This depopulated Anatolia to a considerable extent and gave the Turks the perfect environment for their lifestyle when they arrived.

Themata are good for defence but Tagamata are good for offense, so a lack of usefulness on the offensive rather than blind neglect was a major reason for the decline of the Themata.

Dunno how all that fits in, but I think they do somewhere.
Well that was the point of the Themata. They were designed to keep raiding in check and provide a large pool of manpower for the army. They were good at this from everything that I've seen and while they were not great on the offensive, they were good enough to provide support the Tagmata when more troops were needed for an offensive.

During the height of the Theme system the ideal situation in case of an invasion that the local theme could not defeat on its own was for the local thematic soldiers to try and harass the enemy and keep them in place, limit their progress as much as possible until the Tagmata arrived along with reinforcements from other themes to drive the invasion off.

As far as I know the weakening of the Themes pre-Manzikert was intentional on the part of the Doukas emperors who sought to limit the power of the Strategoi and instead place smaller tagmatic forces, usually mercenaries, under Dux who owed their loyalty to the Emperor himself, at least in the short term. This is understandable given the problems the Byzantines had with civil wars, but it was incredibly short-sighted.

If I remember correctly, the Emperor of the time even went so far as to completely disband the Armenian theme and abandon it to the migrating Turks, losing not only a vital buffer area between the raiders and the economic heartland of the Empire, but also a valuable area for recruitment (rough mountainous areas tend to be a good place to recruit soldiers) and about 40,000 experienced troops. Manzikert, I'd think, could potentially have been avoided almost entirely if not for this Emperor, Constantine X I believe, and his astounding degree of complete incompetence.
 
Even the Romans in the antiquity had trouble maneuvering and supplying large 50k+ armies in the field,so I’m not too surprised about rarely mobilizing 40k+ armies,but as I’ve mentioned,garrison troops are important to war effort as well even without them being in the field.Even without the 100k troops who exchanged extra taxes for military servie,the empire had approximately 100-140k garrison troops with 40k out in the field.This meant that the number of garrison troops decreased from 140-100k to 30k.So how was it that the empire is now guarding a far longer border created by the Rum Sultanate in the middle of Anatolia with far fewer garrison troops?The remaining ERE territory in Anatolia didn’t have massive mountains like the Zagros to protect them either.

And yes,the ERE could get far larger armies if they called for help,but the question here is why are they so much more reliant on foreign help.Although,Trajen777 seems to have answered that question already.
I think another problem here is the idea of a linear border. Or the curse of the cartographer if you like.

The border with the Seljuks appears to be a long one and if the normal procedure was a linear defense of the border then your observations would make sense. But generally the defense of the border themes revolved around fortified towns and mobile field armies. So the defensive requirements of the hollowed out Anatolia of the late 11th and 12th centuries were not that much different from the 9th and 10th centuries. The difference was that much of the prime recruiting grounds in the border themes had been lost (or in the case of Armenia mentioned above, just given up) and the revenue from Central Anatolia that supported them was also lost. On the flip side the area for the mobile field armies to cover was reduced.

The only linear defenses in the Byzantine Empire were effectively the walls of Constantinople.
 
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