As the title states. WI John I, the Byzantine emperor that reconquered much of the Levant before his death in 976, lived. If he lived, would his conquests be solidified against the Abbasids? Could he even retake Egypt? What would the effects be on the long term health of the ERE? He died at 50 IOTL. Let’s say he avoids death until he’s 70. It is claimed that he was poisoned, so let’s say that plot is foiled and his short reign is prolonged by twenty years.
WI John I Tzimiskes Doesn’t Die In 976. Does He Reconquer the Levant?
- Thread starter Drewbdu
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Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
Egypt is out of question for that time. The Fatimids recently established Egypt as their centre and also invaded the Levant. John I Tzimiskes might have more succes in Syria. Especially around the coast. Coastal Lebanon and Syria were either Christian or Ismaili. If Tzimiskes conquers more in the Levant, Basil II wil have more ease to reach Jerusalem.
I think further conquests in the Levant are plausible, but I suspect they would be ephemeral. Egypt is, I think, off the table - Not even Tzimiskes is going to smash the Fatimids near the height of their power and conquer all Egypt.
What happens, by the way, to Basil II ITTL? I can't really see Basil being content with being John's junior puppet emperor until he's 36. I suspect someone's going to get murdered long before then.
What happens, by the way, to Basil II ITTL? I can't really see Basil being content with being John's junior puppet emperor until he's 36. I suspect someone's going to get murdered long before then.
Yes is can just survive 5-6 centuries more but in the end Byzantium was always destined to fail. For it's whole 11 centuries.
Faeelin
Banned
Yes is can just survive 5-6 centuries more but in the end Byzantium was always destined to fail. For it's whole 11 centuries.
Just saying, the French are still around, the Anglo-Saxons are still around, and the Byzantines had their capital sacked by a blind octogenarian.
William the Conqueror might beg to differ. But I'll grant you that France managed to match Byzantium's age in 1966 (Well I'll be kind and count West Francia too instead of sticking with Hugh Capet). For Britain we can talk again around in 2050. Or 2189.
Faeelin
Banned
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, the Byzantine conquests aren't that impressive. The Abbasids collapse, and they manage to seize Cilicia and Bulgaria, temporarily. They don't retake Sicily. This is not a huge conquest, and frankly pales in comparison to the Crusaders in 1099. Or the Normans seizing Sicily themselves.
John I Tzimiskes had just conquered the Levant almost to Jerusalem IOTL 976. If he continues to reign for twenty years I believe he may have been able to take Jerusalem and perhaps the rest of the Levant down to the Sinai peninsula. I’m really asking 1) How much land he could've taken? and 2) For how long could the Byzantines keep it?
trajen777
Banned
John was an excellent general. His plan was to soften up Syria and captured damascas as well as many other cities. In 976 the plan was to drive further south to jersulum . In wiki it has the list of cities however my byz history books by treadgood, and ost, are in storage so I think wiki is overstated. He had made a treaty with germany so the west was secure.
Anyway most likely ;
976 takes jersulum, occupies damascas, ( instead of just tribute) in 75 he dealt pretty easily with the Fatimid armies.
977 takes rest of Bulgaria
978 to 979 the rest of the coast down to ascalon.
980 to 81 consolidate
982 to 990 Egypt
He had defeated the Fatimids pretty easily in Syria and his forces were vastly superior so Egypt was very possible.
Here is wiki and his 975 conquests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_I_Tzimiskes
second campaign, in 975, was aimed at Syria, where his forces took Emesa (Homs), Baalbek, Damascus, Tiberias, Nazareth, Caesarea, Sidon, Beirut,Byblos, and Tripoli, but they failed to take Jerusalem.
Anyway most likely ;
976 takes jersulum, occupies damascas, ( instead of just tribute) in 75 he dealt pretty easily with the Fatimid armies.
977 takes rest of Bulgaria
978 to 979 the rest of the coast down to ascalon.
980 to 81 consolidate
982 to 990 Egypt
He had defeated the Fatimids pretty easily in Syria and his forces were vastly superior so Egypt was very possible.
Here is wiki and his 975 conquests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_I_Tzimiskes
second campaign, in 975, was aimed at Syria, where his forces took Emesa (Homs), Baalbek, Damascus, Tiberias, Nazareth, Caesarea, Sidon, Beirut,Byblos, and Tripoli, but they failed to take Jerusalem.
Do you think this would help the Byzantines against the Seljuks or that they could feasibly maintain this territory at all? After all a reunified ERE would be a force to be reckoned with.
I think there's a lot of overly optimistic assessments of John's Syrian campaign going on here, both in terms of its goals and its accomplishments.
Firstly, consider the context. Syria c. 975 is rather a mess. The Fatimids are new on the scene and still trying to consolidate their presence in Syria, and in the previous year they had to deal with a Qarmatian invasion. The loyalty of Fatimid clients and allies in the region was questionable. Damascus had been taken from its Fatimid garrison by Alp Takin (or Aftakin) earlier in 975, who was a former soldier of the Buyids who then became a Qarmatian ally and afterwards alternated between fighting with and fighting for the Fatimids. In other words, John was taking advantage of a land in considerable turmoil with a lot of internal divisions and weak rulers who were ready to be tributaries to the strongest power.
Indeed, making tributaries seems to be what John was after. Rather than an being existential threat to the Fatimid Caliphate, John's Syrian campaign was essentially a pacifying expedition, intended to take plunder, gather tribute, and prop up client states in Syria that could be a useful buffer. Sidon, Nisibis, and Beirut paid tribute (among others), while according to a Damascene chronicler Alp Takin was able to buy off the emperor with gifts, perhaps making a nominal submission. No significant pitched battles were fought. This is "conquest" only in the loosest and most ephemeral sense; while it's possible that the campaign of 975 could have "prepared the ground" for a later and more thorough advance of the empire's borders, his actual campaign was in the classic imperial mold of asserting dominance beyond one's own borders by knocking some heads, taking some tribute, and supporting a few favorable clients. It's only in the 12th century account of Matthew of Edessa, writing centuries later and in the age of the Crusades, that John is credited with marching all the way to Galilee and given a religious motivation of trying to liberate Jerusalem, thus portraying a rather more restrained (though successful) tribute-gathering raid as a sort of proto-Crusade.
Yes, John Tzimiskes was a good general, and yes, it is plausible that he could have done more in Syria than he did. But to treat the 975 campaign as an abortive "Byzantine Reconquista" that could have seen the empire restored to its Heraclian borders given a few more years of John's life is totally unwarranted. Permanently welding Syria to the empire was probably not even John's intent, let alone Palestine or Egypt. They were, I would argue, beyond his capability to take and certainly to hold. The story of Alp Takin demonstrates just how changeable the loyalties of these Syrian clients were, and John's one-time Turkish and Qarmatian "allies" were hardly going to remain in his camp for long. They were, for the most part, friendly as long as the Byzantine army was nearby and no longer.
The best case for John, IMO, is a sort of "Syrian Hegemony" - Syrian client rulers are kept friendly by the threat of force, tribute flows to Constantinople with the "encouragement" of the occasional imperial expedition, and the Byzantines have a nice broad swath of protectorates to pad their frontiers. Perhaps some coastal Syrian cities are brought under more "direct" rule and placed under Christian (that is, Greek/Armenian) governors; perhaps a few new "ducates" are erected, like for Tripoli and Beirut just as he set up doukes in Antioch, Chaldea, and [Byzantine] Mesopotamia. Perhaps Jerusalem even becomes a tributary and John visits the city for a real propaganda coup. The Fatimids are contained by this cordon of client states; maybe they even kick in some tribute. All this, however, probably requires everything else to go really, really right, and if there's one thing Byzantine history teaches us it's that empires are rarely left alone by external and internal events to carry out their ideal long-term foreign policies. Let's not forget the Bulgarians are still kicking and Basil II didn't fully crush them until 1018, long after John's death even if we generously give him another 20 years of life.
Firstly, consider the context. Syria c. 975 is rather a mess. The Fatimids are new on the scene and still trying to consolidate their presence in Syria, and in the previous year they had to deal with a Qarmatian invasion. The loyalty of Fatimid clients and allies in the region was questionable. Damascus had been taken from its Fatimid garrison by Alp Takin (or Aftakin) earlier in 975, who was a former soldier of the Buyids who then became a Qarmatian ally and afterwards alternated between fighting with and fighting for the Fatimids. In other words, John was taking advantage of a land in considerable turmoil with a lot of internal divisions and weak rulers who were ready to be tributaries to the strongest power.
Indeed, making tributaries seems to be what John was after. Rather than an being existential threat to the Fatimid Caliphate, John's Syrian campaign was essentially a pacifying expedition, intended to take plunder, gather tribute, and prop up client states in Syria that could be a useful buffer. Sidon, Nisibis, and Beirut paid tribute (among others), while according to a Damascene chronicler Alp Takin was able to buy off the emperor with gifts, perhaps making a nominal submission. No significant pitched battles were fought. This is "conquest" only in the loosest and most ephemeral sense; while it's possible that the campaign of 975 could have "prepared the ground" for a later and more thorough advance of the empire's borders, his actual campaign was in the classic imperial mold of asserting dominance beyond one's own borders by knocking some heads, taking some tribute, and supporting a few favorable clients. It's only in the 12th century account of Matthew of Edessa, writing centuries later and in the age of the Crusades, that John is credited with marching all the way to Galilee and given a religious motivation of trying to liberate Jerusalem, thus portraying a rather more restrained (though successful) tribute-gathering raid as a sort of proto-Crusade.
Yes, John Tzimiskes was a good general, and yes, it is plausible that he could have done more in Syria than he did. But to treat the 975 campaign as an abortive "Byzantine Reconquista" that could have seen the empire restored to its Heraclian borders given a few more years of John's life is totally unwarranted. Permanently welding Syria to the empire was probably not even John's intent, let alone Palestine or Egypt. They were, I would argue, beyond his capability to take and certainly to hold. The story of Alp Takin demonstrates just how changeable the loyalties of these Syrian clients were, and John's one-time Turkish and Qarmatian "allies" were hardly going to remain in his camp for long. They were, for the most part, friendly as long as the Byzantine army was nearby and no longer.
The best case for John, IMO, is a sort of "Syrian Hegemony" - Syrian client rulers are kept friendly by the threat of force, tribute flows to Constantinople with the "encouragement" of the occasional imperial expedition, and the Byzantines have a nice broad swath of protectorates to pad their frontiers. Perhaps some coastal Syrian cities are brought under more "direct" rule and placed under Christian (that is, Greek/Armenian) governors; perhaps a few new "ducates" are erected, like for Tripoli and Beirut just as he set up doukes in Antioch, Chaldea, and [Byzantine] Mesopotamia. Perhaps Jerusalem even becomes a tributary and John visits the city for a real propaganda coup. The Fatimids are contained by this cordon of client states; maybe they even kick in some tribute. All this, however, probably requires everything else to go really, really right, and if there's one thing Byzantine history teaches us it's that empires are rarely left alone by external and internal events to carry out their ideal long-term foreign policies. Let's not forget the Bulgarians are still kicking and Basil II didn't fully crush them until 1018, long after John's death even if we generously give him another 20 years of life.
trajen777
Banned
I sort of agree but mostly disagree with the statement (interesting on Damascus was not familiar with that -- thanks):
ON key points :
1. 100% right it was a raid vs conquest,however this was following the process of what the Byz had done pre conquest of Antioch and the other lands around the Taurus and anti Taurus mts in the preceding years. Nikephoros had started this precedent by raids, defeating local forces, taking forts, devastating the moral of the local forces then following up with conquests the following year (years). So you are very correct for the campaign of 975, however the plan was for reconquest in 976 and beyond. To paraphrase Treadgold "he undoubtedly would have most likely taken the rest of Syria and Palestine and Egypt was a distinct possibility. https://smerdaleos.files.wordpress....-a-history-of-byzantine-state-and-society.pdf Page 535 and page 536 is a good summation of the 975 campaign and the plans for the future. "had he died at 60 instead of 51 he might have taken the rest of Syria and campaigned in Egypt".
2. On page 535 he referenced the campaign success in a letter to Ashott III John outlined his 975 campaign objective (page 536 above) is being Jerusalem. So at the literal time of the campaign their is evidence of his plan.
So back to the original question if he had lived to 70 vs at 51 i feel with the following certainty :
1. 98% :Bulgaria conquered in its whole (so Basil or whoever followed John would most likely have focused on Syria or Egypt or Sicily, and not being distracted for 20 years in Bulgaria).
2. 80% Coast line in Leb and Palestine taken.
3. 75% Damascus (weak and an opportunity perhaps like Aleppo a dependent)
4. 90% Jerusalem -- His objective in 975 so it would be a great moral victory (which would have a need to make further conquests to protect it) to take it.
5. 30% Egypt : I think campaigns here is likely whether conquest or not would come down to a main battle or a series of lengthy sieges????? I think the need and desire to take Egypt by the next emperor (if Basil is there his methodical military mind would have been perfect for an Egyptian conquest)
As to long term the main issues would be the Turks. They defeated them in 1045 in Armenia and the Turks only made inroads after the 50,000 Iberian army was dismissed leaving a very weakly protected border. With the additional resources of the conquests (est if Egypt) their would be significance more money for army expansion.
The collapse of the Byz from 1025 (the strongest nation in the world) to collapse in 1080 (with loss at Manzikert in 1071) is almost ASB. The dismissal of a large powerful army in the east, the horrendously bad emperors from 1025 to 1071, and the loss at Manzikert (if you read the battle is was lost almost exclusively because of traitors) would be called ASB if you wrote about it today. The butterfly effects could only be better then actual history. With any moderate good leadership and the added resources, no crusaders, peace in the Balkans, weak Arab states in the south and east, and only the Turks to fight (which they beat in 1045), and the army not cut in Armenia by 50,000, it would be a better future for the Byz.
It appears the major question is: Was the invasion simply a large raid or a precursor for a reconquest?
John I seemed set on restoring at least some of the lost Imperial land, so I’d think he’d want to integrate the Levant into the ERE.
I’m not well versed on John I military prowess, but it seems as though if he wished to conquer the Levant, it was a matter of when rather than if.
John I seemed set on restoring at least some of the lost Imperial land, so I’d think he’d want to integrate the Levant into the ERE.
I’m not well versed on John I military prowess, but it seems as though if he wished to conquer the Levant, it was a matter of when rather than if.
I don't know enough about the period to have an educated opinion about it, but, from a demographic point-of-view Syria caan certainly be seem as a sustainable part of the Empire. It's important to highlight that until this very day "Greeks" (i.e. Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox and Melkite Catholic) are still an important minority in Syria. And, yes, they are, in a certain way, Greeks: They were a part of the Rum Millet, played a role in the Greek Independence War, etc. Going back to the 10th century, Syria was certainly mostly Greek-speaking Orthodox, at least in the urban areas.
The conversion of the majority of Bilad al-Sham to Islam is dated from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, so “mostly” is overstating things — Syria had, if not a majority, a very sizable Muslim minority. They also would have spoken mostly Aramaic, not Greek.