THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES 16

The Byzantines and their Enemies

3.01. The Byzantines and their Enemies

A.D. 582–1071

From the accession of Maurice to the battle of Manzikert

Alike in composition and in organization, the army which for 500 years held back Slav and Saracen from the frontier of the Eastern Empire, differed from the troops whose name and traditions it inherited. To the Palatine and Limitary numeri of Constantine it bore as little likeness as to the legions of Trajan. Yet in one respect at least it resembled both those forces: it was in its day the most efficient military body in the world.

The men of the lower Empire have received scant justice at the hands of modern historians: their manifest faults have thrown the stronger points of their character into the shade, and Byzantinism is accepted as a synonym for effete incapacity alike in peace and war. Much might be written in general vindication of their age, but never is it easier to produce a strong defence than when their military skill and prowess are disparaged.

‘The vices of Byzantine armies,’ says Gibbon, ‘were inherent, their victories accidental.’ So far is this sweeping condemnation from the truth, that it would be far more correct to call their defeats accidental, their successes, normal. Bad generalship, insufficient numbers, unforeseen calamities, not the inefficiency of the troops, were the usual causes of disaster in the campaigns of the Eastern Emperors.

To the excellence of the soldiery witness, direct or indirect, is borne in every one of those military treatises which give us such a vivid picture of the warfare of the age. Unless the general is incompetent or the surrounding circumstances unusually adverse, the authors always assume that victory will follow the banner of the Empire. The troops can be trusted, like Wellington’s Peninsular veterans, ‘to go anywhere and do anything.’ ‘The commander,’ says Nicephorus Phocas, ‘who has 6000 of our heavy cavalry and God’s help, needs nothing more.’

In a similar spirit Leo the Philosopher declares in his Tactica that, except the Frankish and Lombard knights, there were no horsemen in the world who could face the Byzantine Cataphracti, when the numbers of the combatants approached equality. Slav, Turk, or Saracen could be ridden down by a charge fairly pressed home: only with the men of the West was the result of the shock doubtful. The causes of the excellence and efficiency of the Byzantine army are not hard to discover. In courage they were equal to their enemies; in discipline, organization, and armament far superior.

Above all, they possessed not only the traditions of Roman strategy, but a complete system of tactics, carefully elaborated to suit the requirements of the age.

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