Ricardolindo
Well-known member
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- Portugal
What if the Byzantines had not conquered the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia? Could the latter have resisted the Seljuks?
@heraclius
@heraclius
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Surviving Bagratid Armenia
- Thread starter Ricardolindo
- Start date
Ricardolindo
Well-known member
- Location
- Portugal
It's worth noting that the feudalization of Bagratid Armenia was one of the reasons for the Byzantine conquest.
Ricardolindo
Well-known member
- Location
- Portugal
Upon further reading, not conquering Bagratid Armenia may have been better for the Byzantines, themselves, as the conquest brought them into contact with the Seljuks.
heraclius
Well-known member
- Location
- New Forest, Hampshire, England, UK
The relentless pushing of the Byzantine border into the western and south-western Caucasus area was one of the many 'prestige' personal projects of the restless and aggressive Basil II 'the Bulgar-Slayer', who returned to it after the end of the Bulgarian conquest in 1018 to mop up various small principalities. The main surviving one, of Ani, was turned into a Byz puppet and then annexed finally on its ruler's death by Constantine IX - a weaker, civilian ruler who owed his throne to the choice of himself as a (third) husband by Basil's eccentric spendthrift niece Empress Zoe and who had already faced near-overthrow by the popular general George Maniaces in 1043. (GM, commander of the army in S Italy/ Sicily, invaded N Greece and defeated Constantine 's troops at Ostrovo but was fatally injured there, fell dead off his horse as the enemy fled, and had no heir. )
If GM, an experienced campaigner in the East and conqueror of Edessa (now SE Turkish frontier, close to the area of recent Assad vs ISIS war) whose main project was the reconquest of Sicily, survives and becomes emperor there is no inexperienced and civilian ruler in the capital needing an 'easy' conquest who latches onto Armenia . Nor does C IX survive to cut the experienced local 'farmer-soldier' frontier provinces' traditional militia in favour of non-local hired mercenaries on the NE frontier - so there are local troops used to fighting fast horse-borne steppe raiders and they can tackle the Turks better. (They might still be overwhelmed by numbers if enough Turkish tribes decide to invade regularly, but would put up a better show so this might put the Turks off.) Previous Byz emperors with military experience , including locals of Armenian origin like John Tzimisces (r 969-76, reconqueror of a lot of Syria and W Mesopotamia and able to march his army as far S as Galilee in the mid-970s), had left their Armenian allies - usual suppliers of mercenary troops but protective of their own independence and Christian but not Orthodox so disliked by many powerful Byz clerics) - alone.
Basil did not leave Armenia alone, and had the skills and energy to keep the frontier calm by brute force and repeated armed campaigns there; a succession of civilian rulers after him did not, but if Basil (d aged 67 as he launched his own Sicilian war) had lived long enough to retake most of Sicily or his niece Zoe's second husband Michael IV had done so in the 1030s as planned the Byz state would probably have been too busy protecting its new annexation vs Arabs, Lombard autonomists in S Italy, and incoming Normans to expand Eastwards. Also, if the Byz Orthodox Church had not persecuted the Armenians as 'heretics' in the 1060s just as the Turks arrived the amount of Armenian resistance to Byz as well as to the Turks would have been less - and that means a more practical and less devout (and ignorant of the frontiers) ruler by this point than the OTL ruler Constantine X Ducas, an incompetent aristocratic civilian aged around 55-60. This may be tweaked by his friend and predecessor, the skilled military leader Isaac I Comnenus (led coup 1057, revived army but abdicated ill in 1059) either not having to retire or having a son, a capable military not a weak civilian brother, or a grown-up nephew to succeed him. If Isaac or a substitute is campaigning regularly in Armenia and does not alienate the locals , the Turks may well be no more than a sporadic 'hit and run' nuisance and move on to Syria instead as a softer target. Or if they overwhelm the Armenians and Byz ends up in civil war again, the Armenians may hold out in smaller, mountain refuges as the towns are burnt or pay tribute and vassal troops to get peace as the Georgians did with the Mongols , Timur, and the Safavids in OTL
Also, if Armenia holds out there is less likely a mass migration of Armenians to Cilicia in SE Turkey - so there is no OTL Armenian principality there to alternately help and hinder the Byz push to reconquer the road to Syria in the C12th. Can the reviving empire of Alexius I and John II conquer and hold this area permanently in the 1110s to 1130s, or will the Crusaders or the local Saljuk state at Konya rule it? If the Byz win, or the Turks have moved off to Syria and never penetrated Eastern Anatolia, we get greater Byz pressure on the Crusaders and a clear Byz line of control from central Anatolia via Cilicia to Syria - do the Byz retake Antioch? Or are the Crusaders in Antioch in deep trouble from having no Christian allies in Cilicia to guard their route for arriving Christian armies by land, but a constant Turkish presence to their N as well as E?
If GM, an experienced campaigner in the East and conqueror of Edessa (now SE Turkish frontier, close to the area of recent Assad vs ISIS war) whose main project was the reconquest of Sicily, survives and becomes emperor there is no inexperienced and civilian ruler in the capital needing an 'easy' conquest who latches onto Armenia . Nor does C IX survive to cut the experienced local 'farmer-soldier' frontier provinces' traditional militia in favour of non-local hired mercenaries on the NE frontier - so there are local troops used to fighting fast horse-borne steppe raiders and they can tackle the Turks better. (They might still be overwhelmed by numbers if enough Turkish tribes decide to invade regularly, but would put up a better show so this might put the Turks off.) Previous Byz emperors with military experience , including locals of Armenian origin like John Tzimisces (r 969-76, reconqueror of a lot of Syria and W Mesopotamia and able to march his army as far S as Galilee in the mid-970s), had left their Armenian allies - usual suppliers of mercenary troops but protective of their own independence and Christian but not Orthodox so disliked by many powerful Byz clerics) - alone.
Basil did not leave Armenia alone, and had the skills and energy to keep the frontier calm by brute force and repeated armed campaigns there; a succession of civilian rulers after him did not, but if Basil (d aged 67 as he launched his own Sicilian war) had lived long enough to retake most of Sicily or his niece Zoe's second husband Michael IV had done so in the 1030s as planned the Byz state would probably have been too busy protecting its new annexation vs Arabs, Lombard autonomists in S Italy, and incoming Normans to expand Eastwards. Also, if the Byz Orthodox Church had not persecuted the Armenians as 'heretics' in the 1060s just as the Turks arrived the amount of Armenian resistance to Byz as well as to the Turks would have been less - and that means a more practical and less devout (and ignorant of the frontiers) ruler by this point than the OTL ruler Constantine X Ducas, an incompetent aristocratic civilian aged around 55-60. This may be tweaked by his friend and predecessor, the skilled military leader Isaac I Comnenus (led coup 1057, revived army but abdicated ill in 1059) either not having to retire or having a son, a capable military not a weak civilian brother, or a grown-up nephew to succeed him. If Isaac or a substitute is campaigning regularly in Armenia and does not alienate the locals , the Turks may well be no more than a sporadic 'hit and run' nuisance and move on to Syria instead as a softer target. Or if they overwhelm the Armenians and Byz ends up in civil war again, the Armenians may hold out in smaller, mountain refuges as the towns are burnt or pay tribute and vassal troops to get peace as the Georgians did with the Mongols , Timur, and the Safavids in OTL
Also, if Armenia holds out there is less likely a mass migration of Armenians to Cilicia in SE Turkey - so there is no OTL Armenian principality there to alternately help and hinder the Byz push to reconquer the road to Syria in the C12th. Can the reviving empire of Alexius I and John II conquer and hold this area permanently in the 1110s to 1130s, or will the Crusaders or the local Saljuk state at Konya rule it? If the Byz win, or the Turks have moved off to Syria and never penetrated Eastern Anatolia, we get greater Byz pressure on the Crusaders and a clear Byz line of control from central Anatolia via Cilicia to Syria - do the Byz retake Antioch? Or are the Crusaders in Antioch in deep trouble from having no Christian allies in Cilicia to guard their route for arriving Christian armies by land, but a constant Turkish presence to their N as well as E?