Byzantines last chance...

[Hiroki]

Hello, I am currently studying both the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire. I am having problems pegging a precise "point of no return" for Byzantium, that is, the point at which saving, and even restoring the empire would have been possible. It is silly to think that by the 15th century the only reason it didn't recover was because of poor leaders. Manuel and Konstantinos weren't even that poor actually. But anyway, my question in this: What would you say was the last point of redemption for the last survivor of Antiquity? I appreciate your insightful responses.

[Seleukos]

Under a great leader. They may have recovered. But I think the point of no return for the Byzantines would have to be the defeat at the battle of Manzikert. At the battle they only lost ~2000 men. But the battle was lost because of miserable leadership and paranoia. At this time there was much strife in the internal polotics and many thought that there would be a coup of sorts.

The battle lost them any chance of retaining Asia Minor from the advancing Turks. If they have won, which they were sertainly capable, could have recovered.. Leaving the Turks very vulnerable. All it really took to win the battle would be a more compitant wing commanders. Ducas lost them the battle. Someone who could keep Ducas from running away and leaving the rear unprotected. Ducas, as an enemy of Romanus, deliberately ignored the emperor and marched back to the camp outside Manzikert, rather than covering the emperor's retreat.

Ducas had escaped with no casualties, and quickly marched back to Constantinople where he led a coup against Romanus. If Romanus managed to makeit back to Constantinople unharmed, with his army. He very well could have counter-attacked.

[Dromikaites]

I'd say emperor Manuel Comnenos (1143-1180 AD) is among the last emperors who had a real chance to regain control of Anatolia but screwed up big time. It's not the fact he lost the battle of Myriocepahlum (September 17th 1176) but that he wasted a lot of resources and time in Sicily and Italy, making lots of ennemies in western Europe. Focusing on fighting the Turks would have made him a hero of Christianity and therefore impossible to be attacked by any other Christian state.

[Hiroki]

I'm more leaning towards Droms theory. Acording to Seleucos, Byzantium would have gone from being at the height of its power, to the point of no return, It just seems slightly harsh if you ask me.

[The Knight 2100]

I think that the "point of no return" for Byzantium was when Constantinople was sacked in the Fourth Crusade. Although the Battle of Manzikert had been a devastating defeat, the empire could have still recovered under good leadership, and to an extent it did under the Comnenus dynasty.

After the sack of Constantinople though, there was really no turning back. Constantinople and a large amount of land was taken over by the Latins, and the empire split up into Epirus, Nicaea and Trebizond. The Empire of Nicaea was able to take Constantinople back, but the Byzantine Empire wasn't able to hold onto much of its territory for very long. The strength of the empire, and the city of Constantinople declining. There was even a point where the Byzantine Empire (Along with a few other Balkan states) were actually vassals of the Turkish Sultan.

[Iskender Bey]

Personally for me, it has to be the Arab conquest which made it impossible for Constantinople to recover, from then on, any thought of rebuilding the Roman Empire must have gone out the window. Had Manzikert been won, I still believe they would have lost it eventually and not far from then. Their leadership was lacking, their military was declining, Turkic power was high and they themselves had become numerous. With an empire as big as the Seljucs, what makes you think a defeat would have stopped them.

From what I understand, many believed Byzantum had a chance for survival during the Dusan era. He was about to take Constantinople and reinforce it. During that era, the Turks would have had a hell of a time cracking through the Serbian Empire under Dusan, even the Venetians could barely keep their small ground on the Balkans.

[MoROmeTe]

I'd go with the sacking of Constantinopole during the Fourth Crusade as being the 'point of no return"... But Manzikerk also meant a lot as did poor leadership and constant paranoia

[Dromikaites]

By the time Constantinople was sacked the Empire was already crumbling: most of the Balkan territories were gone and most of Anatolia was also lost. This was not the case in 1143 when Manuel Comnenos took over. However, instead of focusing on regaining Anatolia, Manuel tried to conquer the Kingdom of Sicilly. And he did so inspite of the marriage alliance offer made to him by the king of Sicilly. Even assuming he would have won, the only result of the victory would have been to get the Byzantine empire entangled in the Italian affairs (Pope vs. HRE conflict).

[Iskender Bey]

Ay, too many people think that had the Crusaders not wnt for Constantinople, it would not have fallen. But by then it was just another nail in the coffin. It was far too down to be saved. But the interesting thing is that the Ottomans exploited a damaged section left by the Crusaders.

Heh, this reminds me of an occurence. By 1425, the Ottoman Empire had already revived itself in the Balkans since its defeat to Timur and its civil war. Murad began taking quite teh offensive role around Constantinople. But one of his armies was ambushed and defeated by an Albanian prince named Arianiti. After hearing of the victory, people in Constantinople started parading and mentioning the fact that part of his family came from the Comnenus dynasty, it gae them a feeling that maybe things were going to improve.

[Hiroki]

Heh, if Albania, Wallachia, Moldova, Bosnia, and Serbia sided with the Byzantine Empire against the Ottomon turks, they might have had a chance together.

[Poltemly]

i belive the death blow to the byzantines was their failed war against sicily. it just ****** off the catholics and made them look just as evil as they saw the muslims. if they hadnt have wasted resources against sicily, they could have in theory, held the turks back and eventually beat them. but with the waste of money, weopons, reputation, and man power against sicily, they were doomed to a slow and painful downfall. did i metion it was slow

[Count of Montesano]

If I may join the discussion, I've never understood why the Byzantine empire never played a larger role in the first crusade. Why were there no Greek Outremer states and why did the Byzantine emperor not offer more help during the campaign of Richard the Lionhearted against Saladin (perhaps the extra troops could have turned the tide).

There was also, if I'm not mistaken, a power vaccuum left when the Mongols overran central Asia. Why didn't the Byzantine empire take advantage of this time to make a landgrab? Where they too busy keeping peace in the Balkans?

[Dromikaites]

If I may join the discussion, I've never understood why the Byzantine empire never played a larger role in the first crusade. Why were there no Greek Outremer states and why did the Byzantine emperor not offer more help during the campaign of Richard the Lionhearted against Saladin (perhaps the extra troops could have turned the tide).

There was also, if I'm not mistaken, a power vaccuum left when the Mongols overran central Asia. Why didn't the Byzantine empire take advantage of this time to make a landgrab? Where they too busy keeping peace in the Balkans?

Technically, the Outremer states were supposed to be vasals of the Byzantine Empire. This was part of the treaty between the crussaders and the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Comnenos at the begining of the first crusade. Things worked well till the siege of Antiochia: the crusaders were trapped inside by a big Muslim army, Alexios marched to relieve them but before entering Cilicia some crusader desertors told him that the city had fallen and the crusaders were killed. So Alexios turned back home. However the desperate crusaders sallied out of Antiochia and crushed the larger besieging army. Most of the crusaders leaders decided that Alexios hasn't fulfilled his obligation to support his vasals and therefore the treaty was void. A minority of the crusaders, like Raymond de Saint Giles respected the treaty. The decision of the crusaders to dump the treaty created a conflict with the Byzantines which was still going on by the time Richard arrived in Palestine.

For the other part of your question, the power vacuum wasn't a vacuum at all. The Byzantines were too weak to fight against the various Turkish chieftains of Anatolia and so were the Outremer states.

The first crusade was a result of Alexios I request for help. His empire was so weak when he took over in 1081 that it barely managed to survive the Normand/Sicilian attacks in Albania and Greece, the Pecheneg attacks in Bulgaria and the Turkish ones in the Anatolian possesions of the empire. Manuel I Comennos inherited a strong empire which controlled the Balkans, the richest part of Anatolia and which had several of the Outremer states as vasals. Yet he wasted his empire's resources in Italy.

[SovietDoom]

The point of no return was Manzikert, which triggered all the events that lead to the fall of the Empire.

However, the Fourth Crusade was almost as important. I know a person who teaches Byzantine and Turkish history. He recognizes the vast importance of the Fourth Crusade. He even said himself that without the Fourth Crusade, Byzanium would not have fallen for another 400 years.

[VandalCarthage]

I believe the point of no return was Justinian the Great's launching of the reconquest of the old African and Italian provinces. After this, the most compitent emperors, and even the least, because obsessed with the western theater of combat. When Alexious spoke with Pope Urban II about a crusade, it was his creative solution to the problemd of the Eastern theater. Alexios was compitent enough to deal with the Crusaders marching through his lands in a productive fashion, but as his dynasty went on, it became gradually less and less capable (as far as military and intellectual resources) to deal with the situation.

Later on, Reynald of Antioch's incompitent scheming against all of those who might have been his allies, cursed not only the Outremer states, but any chance Byzantium might have had to deal with their potential agressors in the East via the Frankish states.

But, I essentially think that if the Byzantines had taken the approach they had used with Sicily, ie using subtle machinations to destabilize potential enemies, would have left the West beyond the Balkans in good stead, allowing the army to dedicated itself to reinforcing a new frontier in Asia Minor and even expanding it. Byzantium had fairly well secured itself against the Serbs, and yet Emperors persisted in putzing around in the West, while the situation in the East spiraled out of control. To me it seems that it all began with the mindset propogated by Justinian's campaigns under Belisarius. A well fortified frontier and a solid military institution, as opposed to a campaign of Western reconquest, would have held them in much greater stead.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Manzikert wasn't significant for its losses on the battlefield, but strategically.

Loss of the plains of Anatolia meant the loss of the area where the Byzantines recruited a large portion of their soldiers - and a large portion of their better soldiers I might add.

[Dromikaites]

Manzikert wasn't significant for its losses on the battlefield, but strategically.

Loss of the plains of Anatolia meant the loss of the area where the Byzantines recruited a large portion of their soldiers - and a large portion of their better soldiers I might add.

The accent should be on better because the Anatolian plateau wasn't the most populated part of the Empire (at it is not today either for Turkey). But since the life was tougher, so seemed to be also the men recruited from that area.

[QuackyNC]

I dont think Manzikert was the point of no return for the Byzantine Empire, but there loss at Yarmuk in 636 was.

Yarmuk was the first time that the Arabs were able to beat the Byzantines in battle and it would foreshadow events to come in later years, like Manzikert.

As a result of Manzikert the Byzantines loss Antolia but because of Yarmuk they lost Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa. Yarmuk determined that these places would become Arab lands as they still are today.

[Blaven]

From what I understand, many believed Byzantum had a chance for survival during the Dusan era. He was about to take Constantinople and reinforce it. During that era, the Turks would have had a hell of a time cracking through the Serbian Empire under Dusan, even the Venetians could barely keep their small ground on the Balkans.

Regarding Dusan about to take Constantinople: could you provide a source for that? The contemporary sources state that he died in Serbia, and don't make mention of him going off on campaign agains Byzantium. He needed a fleet to take Constantinople; he had none. Plus, the Turks were nearby. Now assuming he did end at the walls of Constantinople, do you think that the Turks would have sat idly by twidling their thumbs? If anything, not wanting a strong, powerful Serb empire to completely supersede a weak, dying Byzantine one, they would has most likely attacked Dusan, and he would've definitely been screwed.

And assuming he did take Constantinople, he wasn't anywhere close to being out of the woods. He still would've had the Turks to the east, Bosnia to the west, and Hungary to the north. And if he got into a war with one of those powers, the others would have definitely jumped in. He could not have won a three front war.

[Iskender Bey]

Now assuming he did end at the walls of Constantinople, do you think that the Turks would have sat idly by twidling their thumbs? If anything, not wanting a strong, powerful Serb empire to completely supersede a weak, dying Byzantine one, they would has most likely attacked Dusan, and he would've definitely been screwed.

Henry Hodgskinson on Scanderbeg stated he died in Serbiua before he could go on his next campaign