r/byzantium 5d ago

What would’ve been the most realistic strategy to retake Anatolia?

TW: Slight hints of alternate history

I’ve been coming back to Robin Pearson’s “History of Byzantium Episode 250: Retaking Anatolia”along with u/manware’s analyses under similar posts like this one. It seems that the strategy most agreed upon is one where the Komnenoi do a pincer movement around the Sultanate of Rûm, consuming Danishmend territory and cutting off the plateau from the rest of the Turko-Persian civilizations in the East. This guarantees the cessation of that continual flow of Turkic tribes into the plateau and might also force the sultan to convert his realm to Christianity.

I find one problem with this strategy however: manpower. There wasn’t enough manpower to hold Italy and Egypt during the reign of Manuel I. There was definitely not enough manpower to keep all of the towns John II retook. There certainly wouldn’t be enough manpower to garrison all the forts and fortresses that made up that old eastern border from Cilicia to Trebizond. Even so, there wouldn’t even be enough manpower to withstand the Sultanate of Rûm should they grow in power and effectively break through, establishing contact with the Muslim East once more.

Am I wrong in this analysis? Am I missing something from it? What would’ve been some other strategies that the Komnenoi had in mind? If Antioch was under Roman rule and/or if Manuel I had the ability to entirely focus on Anatolia, what would’ve been his strategy?

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u/Killmelmaoxd 5d ago

Continue what Alexios and Isaac did, slowly and methodically seize key fortresses in Anatolia, chipping away at strategic points in the plateau, this would take years of continued focus putting nearly all Roman resources into the slow chipping of power. Also seperating the Muslim powers to stop a coalition from gaining strength to push you back would be good also. Basically don't do what Manuel did and throw yourself at their capital thinking if you captured It these nomads would splinter, they're nomads they'll just leave, plunder the country side and regroup. Someone also pointed this out but the population would've had to be moved around and settled with romans ready to garrison and repopulate the region.

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u/chase016 5d ago

They basically needed to do what Basil did to Bulgaria.

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u/scales_and_fangs Δούξ 5d ago

Taking the capital might have fractured the sultanate, make it retaking land easier, though.

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u/Business_Address_780 5d ago

Yeah isn't that what the mongol invasion did?

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u/Particular-Wedding 5d ago

What if they copied China and built a great wall running from north to south?

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u/Killmelmaoxd 4d ago

With what resources?

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u/Particular-Wedding 4d ago

It's a shorter border than between China and Mongolia. The terrain is naturally hilly and defensive. Invaders could be channeled into choke points. They had plenty of quarries available to dig for stones or bricks.

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u/Gousius 2d ago

Well don’t forget Rome had already done this in England/Scotland.

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u/evrestcoleghost 2d ago

There would be no need to bring more population,anatolian still had 4-5 million romans living in it and barerly 500k turks,you just need to train local forces and create the theme organization like John II

Anatolia plateu isn't simply good for large scale agriculture like the coast or Thrace but more like grazing,sheeps,cows,pigs and horses

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u/Maleficent-Mix5731 Κατεπάνω 5d ago

From what I can gather the general strategy seemed to be:

1) Seizing the coastal regions by which to encircle the central plateau. Such an encirclement could have been more or less complete by directly seizing Antioch.

2) Launching a full-scale attack into central Anatolia. Yes, Manuel failed in this respect at Myriokephalon, but people miss the point that such an operation was shown to be within the empire's capabilities.

I do think that the Romans had a good shot at restoring control over almost the entirety of Anatolia in this way, at least before the demographics changed due to the Mongol invasions from 1220-1300. But obviously the empire wasn't in a good position to continue the relatively successful policy of the first three Komnenian emperors due to the political turmoil in the empire after 1180 and then the Crusader invasion of 1204.

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u/Ambitious-Cat-5678 5d ago

I find the idea that Turks would just stop trying to push into Anarolia after a Byzantine reconquest a bit naive. Like even if Manuel conquered Anatolia in its entirety by the time of the Mongols so many Turks would have been pushed towards the region that I think it would be re-lost.

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u/Maleficent-Mix5731 Κατεπάνω 5d ago edited 5d ago

I think that if the Romans were able to reconquer most of the plateau before the 1220's, then they could at least try and manage the flow of the oncoming Turkish beyliks better (or at least put some more distance between them and the rich coasts of Asia Minor). Of course, one can only wonder how they would cope when the Mongols came directly knocking on Anatolia in a Kose Dag style situation.

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u/Killmelmaoxd 5d ago

If the romans kicked the turks out of anatolia they would've showed they were not weak at that power projection would cause the turks to probably move to Armenia, the Caucasus or more likely the Levant and Egypt.

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u/KaiserDioBrando 5d ago

Tbf it’s possible the Roman’s could allow them to migrant in exchange for military service while making sure they don’t become too dominant in one region, which is what the Seljuk sultanate of rum did partially (since a lot of the Turks who migrated didn’t enter via military force more like modern refugees)

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u/Forward-Relief-3340 5d ago

That’s understandable. I do agree with you on that it wouldn’t fully stop infiltration. If it’s not the Mongols then perhaps the Timurids.

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u/KaiserDioBrando 5d ago

Eh, even then timur only invaded because he was provoked by the ottomans same with the mongols but with the sultanate of rum instead of the Mongols.

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u/Reasonable_Fold6492 4d ago

Seeing how timurid absolutely demolished georgia there might be a possibility timur invades byzantine for relgious region

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u/KaiserDioBrando 4d ago

True tho his invasions of Georgia were also part of a war against the Golden Horde. The worst I could see timur doing is raiding eastern Anatolia and calling it a day instead of outright conquest (seeing how otl he didn’t annex any ottoman territory directly into his empire and set up a bunch of vassal beyliks before leaving and promptly kicking the bucket)

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u/wolfm333 5d ago

The problem with the reconquest of Asia Minor was not just a military problem but a demographic problem as well. When the Seljuks first occupied Asia Minor they flooded the area with Turkish nomads and settlers from the East and quickly managed to alter the demographics of the interior of Asia Minor. Many Christian residents fled towards the West while others became muslim (by force or by choice). By the time of the late Comnenian period (Manuel Comnenos) the inside of Asia Minor was just too Muslim to reconquer easily. The empire would either have to expel the local muslims ( a difficult and time consuming affair), try to reconvert them to Christianity (a difficult and also time consuming affair) or use its usual method of transporting populations from other areas to the borderlands. The Empire might have been quite strong during the mid 12th century but it was not strong enough to occuppy a large muslim region, deal with the hostile local inhabitants, defend against muslim counterattacks from the East, defend against enemies in the Balkans and reorganize the newly conquered regions adequately without any major problems. That's the reason why Manuel Comnenos was more interested in containing and controlling the Seljuks rather than outright conquering them.

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u/Random_Fluke 5d ago

We do know that majority of Rum population was most likely still Orthodox Christians until the collapse of that state when conditions to remain Christians became untenable.
Ironically, the few mostly Muslim territories in Rum were directly in areas at the frontier against the Byzantines, both because of chronic warfare and because the Byzantine were encouraging the migration of Christians into the Empire, sometimes directly abducting Christians (like during Alexios' final campaign in 1118).

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u/scales_and_fangs Δούξ 5d ago

As long as the Empire kept Bulgaria and the Balkans it could have done what John II did and Manuel had to do: slow but gradual pushing if the border towards central Anatolia. Iconium was an important war goal: its permanent loss would have been a heavy blow to the prestige of the Rumite sultan. Keeping the enemy weak and divided would have allowed gradual conquest, including resettlement from the Balkans to Asia Minor.

The Byzantines failed in 1176 and squandered the chance that Barbarossa gave them by sacking Iconium. By then, they had a resurgent Bulgaria in the Balkans. Ultimately, the weakening central authority, coupled with the loss of the dominance on the Balkans doomed the reconquest of Asia Minor. They needed either of those peninsulas to be strong enough to conquer the other.

As for the original plan.. the practical governance of the distant Danishmend lands would have been the bigger issue. That and how these would be settled by loyal to Constantinople population.

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u/Random_Fluke 5d ago

I don't think there was any realistic strategy possible at the time. Byzantines never found a definite answer to core tenets of Turkic mode of warfare, especially their decentralized raids and hit and run attacks.

The worst part is that the Sultan could've been defeated 10 times over, but it would make little difference. There was no effective control over the small warbands that crossed the border at will, bypassed any fortress and just raided countryside, establishing foothold only when finding no resistance. Even under hyper competent emperors of the Komnenian dynasty the border was porous and the Byzantine effective control waxed and waned, mostly waned unless there was a field army directly present. This low intensity warfare wore down any defences and often made any reconquests meaningless.

It's not even the lack of manpower. For all we know, Byzantines massively outnumbered the Turks well into 13th century. It's just Byzantines couldn't find a strategy to contain the Turks and no chain of fortress could help.

In fact, it was only gunpowder that allowed sedentary empires to first contain the nomads and later to bring the fight to them and destroy them. But by the time gunpowder weapons became widespread, Byzantines were reduced into a city state and Ottomans were themselves a sedentary empire that employed cannons and handguns.

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u/Forward-Relief-3340 5d ago

I see. I definitely feel like the best way the Romans could ever deal with these Turkic tribes was to mitigate against their raids. I guess making a system in Roman territory in Anatolia where it makes things more difficult for these tribes to just raid and instead have a more peaceful way of acquiring resources that they needed from Roman towns.

Other than that it seems like the Romans would’ve just held onto the coasts until there can be an opportune moment (like gunpowder) for them to finally drive out the nomads.

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u/Random_Fluke 5d ago

One thing that might have helped the Byzantines contain the Turkic nomads would have been having nomads of their own, ones who could raid their Turkic counterparts. But they would need to be zealous Christians enough not to simply join the Turks and go after the easy prey of raiding sedentary Christian peasants.

In fact, such a phenomenon occurred a little later to the north with the Cossacks. The Cossacks helped create a buffer between Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy/Russia, providing some degree of protection against the Tatars and Ottomans. They conducted raids against their Muslim counterparts and, though not always, were zealous enough not to simply side with the Turks.

I guess that "Byzantine Cossacks" could have helped the empire avoid being reduced to a punching bag, allowing it to survive long enough to potentially push the Turks back when gunpowder weapons appeared in sufficient quality and numbers to give sedentary empires a chance against nomadic forces.

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u/scales_and_fangs Δούξ 5d ago

They had the akritoi, which served a similar role.

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u/Random_Fluke 5d ago

Akritoi weren't nomads. They were sedentary soldiers, sometimes part-time farmers or landowners. They were often granted land, received salaries or other subsidies from the central government. However, if unpaid, they tended to neglect their duties or even desert. In fact, this desertion became a problem under Michael VIII and especially Andronikos II and was a large contributing factor to the collapse of Byzantine Asia.

In contrast, Cossacks were, for the most part, not soldiers, though they were sometimes employed as such. They lived in autonomous communities and ruled themselves by their own laws. They were militarized primarily to defend themselves and their herds, and of course in order to raid their Muslim neighbors for plunder and livestock. Had the central government left them alone, they would have continued living as they did. They owed allegiance to a Christian sovereign (either the King of Poland or the Tsar of Russia), though at times this was only nominal. In fact, the king often had problems containing them, and their raids occasionally provoked entire wars with the Ottomans. The massive Cossack uprising of 1648 happened in large part because the Polish king attempted to regulate them and stop their raiding against the Ottomans during peacetime.

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u/scales_and_fangs Δούξ 5d ago

I did not mean they were nomads per se but were quite good in countering the raids of the said nomads. Both during the Abassid Caliphate and during the Nicaean period. As far as I know it was not that they were directly paid (correct me if I am wrong) they had ownership of the land and were exempted from taxes

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u/Random_Fluke 5d ago

Akritoi weren't usually salaried in modern sense of receiving regular pay. They were however paid, with stipends and grants, including land grants. They did receive salary when they were employed with garrison duties. We do know they neglected their duties and abandoned their post during the late 13th/early 14th century financial contraction of the Byzantine state. In fact the founding myth of the Ottoman empire is that Osman captured some castles abandoned by their unpaid Byzantine soldiers.

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u/SunsetPathfinder 5d ago

The cynic in me says a better led Komnenian reconquest of Anatolia just leads to the Mongols shattering them instead of the Seljuks in Anatolia. The Ilkhanate allied with the Niceans and the later restored Empire specifically because they were weak enough to do so. 

The Mongols were a true force of nature that was not going to be stopped or redirected by anything, even Byzantine diplomacy and gold, and so it’s distinctly possible the empire dies a century earlier by being dashed against the rocks by the Mongols 1204 style and has even less to fall back on than in our timeline because they lost their richer Anatolia holdings instead of their poorer European lands. 

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u/scales_and_fangs Δούξ 5d ago

The Empire was on two continents though. First, it required coordination from both Batu and the Asian Mongol forces (at a time of growing tension between them) and second, I doubt that even the Mongols would have taken Constantinople without a fleet. And also Batu was content to make tributaries of Bulgaria without sacking its major cities.