What if Romanos IV listens to Nikephoros Bryennios the Elder and rather than pushing on towards Lake Van the Roman army waits at Theodosiopolis and fortifies its position?
What if Romanos IV listens to Nikephoros Bryennios the Elder and rather than pushing on towards Lake Van the Roman army waits at Theodosiopolis and fortifies its position?
Not much of any use unless the Roman generals are more loyal to Romanus.
Wouldn't Romanos be in an inherently better postition with his military force not divided?
Yes, but if his generals for whatever reason refuse to obey him, he's going to be in a pretty bad position - however good the ground is to fight on.
And if they do obey him?
As Elfwine as pointed out his own commanders are Romanos' biggest threat. The truth is Manzikert was a winnable battle for Romanos and he would in fact likely have won if not for Andronikos Doukas. Now its possible that in a battle even more in Romanos' favor that Andronikos won't get the bright idea that he can suddenly pull out and justify it by saying he thought the battle was lost as he did in our timeline and its also possible all or at least some of the other troops that betrayed him will stay loyal in this situation. The problem with such a scenario is I'm not sure if Alp Arslan would actually fight with worse odds than he had at Manzikert so who knows how things would have turned out.
Seeing as he really didn't want a war with the Romans in first place he probably wont need much of an incentive. On the other hand that isn't the case with Romanos he NEEDS a victory to shore up his position or else he knows he likely finished.If Alp Arslan does not battle Romanos, what would need to happen for him to go back to his planned military campaign against the Fatmids?