WI: Byzzies defeat Seljuks at Manzikert 1071

My guess is that he was looking for cheap victories to shore up his military credentials and get the army off his back. Monomachos in particular was under serious threat of being deposed by various generals e.g. Georgios Maniakes who were generally disgusted with his lack of army chops. Maniakes, incidentally, would've been an interesting emperor (I'm sure there's speculation about it somewhere in this board's archives), like a slightly-more-insane-but-equally-dangerous-to-everybody-around-him Ioannes Tzimiskes.

Somehow, "cheap victories" and "battles in the Caucasus" sound like contradictory goals.

I think there is a thread mentioning it, but it didn't go very far. Too bad, George I the Terrible would be...interesting. Not good, necessarily, but interesting.

Marwanid amirs ruled the Diyar Bakr and some territory south of Lake Van. Mosul was the Uqalid amirate, which generally fought against the Byzantines and their Marwanid allies. It used to be ruled by the Buwayhids during the peak of their rivalry with the Byzantines over the Anzitene in the 970s and 980s, but in 996 the Buwayhid governor of Mosul was forced out as part of the ongoing, almost perpetual state of collapse the Buwayhid state was in.

Gotcha.

If Monomachos really had "army chops" as you put it, this sounds like it would be the place to beat up and absorb - add a nice solid chunk of northern Mesopotamia to the empire.
 
Somehow, "cheap victories" and "battles in the Caucasus" sound like contradictory goals.
Oh, I dunno. Basileios' war in the 1020s was relatively painless. How hard could it be to beat the tar out of small Armenian and Azeri states? (Obviously, as it turned out, very hard. But not totally out of the question or anything.)
Elfwine said:
If Monomachos really had "army chops" as you put it, this sounds like it would be the place to beat up and absorb - add a nice solid chunk of northern Mesopotamia to the empire.
You talking about the Marwanids or the Uqalids? The Marwanids were Byzantine allies - at one point Basileios made amir Mumahhid doux of the East, basically Nikephoros Ouranos' deputy and second in command of all Byzantine forces east of the Bosphorus. The Uqalids...ehhh. I suppose conquering Mosul and giving it to the Marwanids wouldn't have been a bad idea. Certainly better than destroying Mirdasid Aleppo.
 
Oh, I dunno. Basileios' war in the 1020s was relatively painless. How hard could it be to beat the tar out of small Armenian and Azeri states? (Obviously, as it turned out, very hard. But not totally out of the question or anything.)

True. Just that it's a great deal of investment

You talking about the Marwanids or the Uqalids? The Marwanids were Byzantine allies - at one point Basileios made amir Mumahhid doux of the East, basically Nikephoros Ouranos' deputy and second in command of all Byzantine forces east of the Bosphorus. The Uqalids...ehhh. I suppose conquering Mosul and giving it to the Marwanids wouldn't have been a bad idea. Certainly better than destroying Mirdasid Aleppo.

More the Uqalids. Never make war on an ally, its an investment in making enemies, and Byzantium has enough of them as is.

The main thing about conquering Mosul is that at least you can justify it as a strategically useful project. Nothing about Dvin gives you anything except some mountain peaks and goats.
 
Manzikert

Overly rosy, I think. The whole reason Romanos felt the need to force a battle at Manzikert was because of small scale raids by Turkoman tribes- small scale raids that were, nonetheless, doing a lot of damage. A complete collapse of the Seljuk Sultanate would, IMHO, actually go some way to making things a lot worse for the ERE.

The whole reason that the Turkomans were doing so much damage in the 1060s is because there simply weren't enough "local forces" to deal with them- Byzantium had been moving for a century away from Thematic forces that could stand and defend the land against raiders, and towards Tagmatic armies that would go out on the attack. These armies were very effective in pitched battle against Arabs and Bulgars- but when confronted with small bands of nomadic Turkomans, they were quite easily outflanked and outmanoeuvred.
The short term is that Romanus will likely retain the thrown and the other factions in Constantinople will at least be temporarily discredited. Things won't really be that much more secure in Asia Minor unless Romanus and his successors can re-organize the country's defenses and armies.
 
The main thing is that a victory at Manzikert, by itself, means more to Romanus Diogenes than it does to the Empire proper. As several people have already mentioned, the main problem is the Turcoman raids. That's also why Romanus fought at Manzikert; he needed a victory now to shore up his legitimacy and prestige which was being hammered by those raids.

Now if a Byzantine victory at Manzikert is enough to butterfly away Alp Arslan's death in 1072, he might actually be able to begin his invasion of Fatimid Egypt, which as a war against Muslim heretics (the Fatimids are Shia Muslims), might serve to draw off the bulk of Turcoman raiders. Which would give time for Romanus, now with his position shored up, to rebuild the border defenses, which had been able to give the Seljuks a bloody nose before they were disbanded.
 
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