THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES 29
The Source of Byzantine Superiority
3.14. The Source of Byzantine Superiority
We have fixed, as the termination of the period of Byzantine greatness, the battle of Manzikert, A.D. 1071. At this fight the rashness of Romanus Diogenes led to the annihilation of the forces of the Asiatic Themes by the horse-archers of Alp-Arslan. The decay of the central power which is marked by the rise of Isaac Comnenus, the nominee of the feudal party of Asiatic nobles, may have already enfeebled the army. It was, however, the result of Manzikert which was fatal to it; as the occupation of the themes of the interior of Asia Minor by the Seljuks cut off from the empire its greatest recruiting-ground, the land of the gallant Isaurians and Armenians, who had for five hundred years formed the core of the Eastern army.
It will be observed that we have given no long account of the famous ‘Greek-fire,’ the one point in Byzantine military affairs which most authors condescend to notice. If we have neglected it, it is from a conviction that, although its importance in ‘poliorcetics’ and naval fighting was considerable, it was, after all, a minor engine of war, and not comparable as a cause of Byzantine success to the excellent strategical and tactical system on which we have dilated.
Very much the same conclusion may be drawn from a study of the other purely mechanical devices which existed in the hands of the imperial generals. The old skill of the Roman engineer was preserved almost in its entirety, and the armouries of Constantinople were filled with machines, whose deadly efficacy inspired the ruder peoples of the West and East with a mysterious feeling of awe. The vinea and testudo, the catapult, onager, and balista, were as well known in the tenth century as in the first. They were undoubtedly employed, and employed with effect, at every siege. But no amount of technical skill in the use of military machines would have sufficed to account for the ascendancy enjoyed by the Byzantines over their warlike neighbours.
The sources of that superiority are to be sought in the existence of science and discipline, of strategy and tactics, of a professional and yet national army, of an upper class at once educated and military. When the aristocracy became mere courtiers, when foreign mercenaries superseded the Isaurian bowman and the Anatolic cavalier, when the traditions of old Roman organization gave place to mere centralization, then no amount of the inherited mechanical skill of past ages could save the Byzantine empire from its fall.
A.A.A. Front Line, three banda of about 450 men each.
B.B.B.B. Second Line, four half-banda of about 225 men each.
C.C. Reserve, two half-banda of same force.
D.D.D. One bandon in double rank filling the intervals of the second line.
E.E. Enedroi, or detached bodies at the wings, who are to turn the enemy’s flanks: 225 each or one bandon together.
F.F. Plagiophylakes, troops posted to prevent similar attempts of the enemy: 225 each, or one bandon together.
G. The Commander and his Staff.
H. Place to which the troops D.D.D. would retire, when 2nd line charged.
The rude vigour of the Western knight accomplished the task which Chosroes and Crumn, Moslemah and Sviatoslaf, had found too hard for them. But it was not the empire of Heraclius or John Zimisces, of Leo the Isaurian, or Leo the Armenian, that was subdued by the piratical Crusaders, it was only the diminished and disorganized realm of the miserable Alexius Angelus.
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