The crusader armies that conquered large parts of the Byzantine Empire at the start of the thirteenth century found themselves facing forces that were much closer to themselves in terms of tactics and equipment than were the Muslim armies they faced in the Holy Land. Yet Byzantine armies were by no means identical to those of western Europe. The type of terrain in which the crusaders campaigned was, however, familiar, at least to those who came from or had served in Mediterranean regions such as southern Italy. The Frankish states established around the Aegean in the wake of the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) also existed in a state of almost permanent war, their foes including not only Byzantine Greeks, but also Bulgarians, occasionally Serbs, and of course the Muslim Turks who gradually took control of the Anatolian coast of the Aegean Sea. During the second half of the fourteenth century and after, the Ottoman Turks went even further, conquering the Balkans and what remained of Byzantine northern and central Greece, thus reaching the land frontiers of the now much reduced Frankish principalities in later medieval Greece.
The social and military organization of the short-lived Latin Empire of Constantinople and of the small Frankish principalities in Greece were practically identical to those of southern France and of the feudal (rather than urban-republican) states of thirteenth-century Italy. The only important difference was that the Frankish principalities in Greece soon enlisted local troops whose military traditions were those of the Byzantine world. Most of these men served as light cavalry or light infantry. Such similarities made it almost inevitable that, as far as the Franks in Greece were concerned, warfare was conducted in much the same manner as was seen in, for example, Italy. Offensive operations largely consisted of raiding and ravaging enemy territory to inflict as much economic damage as possible, or to take or recapture a fortified place. The latter ranged from isolated castles to small but strategically significant coastal towns. After the first rush of conquest in the early thirteenth century, the Frankish states on former Byzantine territory were usually on the defensive. The initiative had largely gone to the various rival Byzantine successor states, when these were not fighting each other. Major offensive operations by Frankish or crusade armies were almost always in the form of attacks from farther afield, most notably from southern Italy. Some of the latter were quite ambitious, but most ended in failure. This caused surprise and embarrassment in western Europe, which, with some justification, considered itself to be superior to the declining Byzantine world in military and economic terms.
Byzantine success in containing and, to a large extent, expelling the Franks is something of a paradox, for during these same centuries the Byzantine states suffered repeated and eventually complete defeat at the hands of the Muslim Turks. The Byzantine Greeks also suffered significant setbacks at the hands of their fellow Orthodox Christian (Bulgarian and Serb) neighbors in the Balkans. So how did the Greeks defeat the Latins?
Traditional Byzantine defensive strategy had failed against the Saljuq Turks in the eleventh century because these new invaders occupied the hills as well as the central plains. There is also evidence that Byzantine military morale had declined and that the old systems of defensive guerrilla warfare, or “shadow warfare,” were not attempted until too late. Once the richest western part of Anatolia had been regained by the Komnenian emperors in the early twelfth century, however, it was secured by a broad band of depopulated no-man’s-land with a series of impressive fortresses to the rear. The Byzantines had held on to the northern coastal strip along the Black Sea, and this area, though apparently narrow and vulnerable, was protected by densely forested mountains where raiders could be ambushed. It could also be reinforced by sea. Everywhere a first line of defense was provided by garrisons and local militias backed up by mobile central forces, a system that worked well until the second half of the thirteenth century. But then the Frankish occupation of Constantinople and much of the Byzantine heartland seriously weakened the ability of central armies to support the often rundown frontier forces.
After the Greeks of the Empire of Nicaea regained Constantinople from the Franks in 1261, they remained more concerned about western European invasions and consequently concentrated the better part of their forces in the Balkans, thus further weakening the eastern frontier, which increasingly relied on static defenses to plug the valleys against Turkish raiders. Meanwhile the success of relatively lightly equipped cavalry and infantry archers in defending places like Albania against Western heavy cavalry from southern Italy in the late thirteenth century suggests that the Byzantine army was not as enfeebled as sometimes thought. It apparently relied on guerrilla tactics, cutting enemy communications with the coast, then isolating and blocking enemy forces inland. A similar strategy was used against the Frankish states in southern Greece. Its ultimate failure against similar Serbian forces in the fourteenth century, and even more dramatically against Ottoman Turkish forces, probably reflected the greater economic, manpower, and moral resources of these enemies.
Western European prejudice concerning the supposedly superior strategy but inferior fighting skills of the average twelfth-fourteenth century Byzantine soldier may, in fact, have been based on reality, since the Komnenian emperors certainly tried to train their own heavy cavalry along Western knightly lines. In the event, this Western-style cavalry failed dismally against the Turks but may have been more effective against Western invaders.
Several sources provide interesting details about Byzantine tactics during this period. Attempts to fight the Turks in their own manner, with light cavalry horse-archers, failed and the Byzantines reverted to ambushing their enemies in mountainous or close country. Nevertheless they still made great use of archery. On one occasion a Byzantine force lit many campfires at night to make its numbers appear larger, then ambushed its disconcerted foes as the latter withdrew through a narrow mountain pass. Even against Frankish forces, the Byzantines used their armored cavalry to hold high ground while their light cavalry harassed the enemy in the valleys. Here they again used the ruse of lighting multiple fires, but also moved herds of cattle around to look like additional cavalry from a distance.
Otherwise Byzantine cavalry tactics remained very traditional. Cavalry still used the syntagma (a close formation) within a formation known as a parataxis, whose precise meaning is obscure, as had been the case since at least the tenth century. The taxis was probably one of three usual divisions. These divisions may have formed part of what the early thirteenth-century crusader observer Geoffrey of Ville-hardouin described as a bataille (“battalion,” or “division”), with archers and crossbowmen ahead of the cavalry, and infantry sergeants bringing up the rear. A battle line was theoretically formed of allagia (regiments or squadrons) divided according to ethnic origin or combat role.
At the battle of Peritheorion (1345) during a Byzantine civil war, some of the Byzantine cavalry, probably consisting of relatively heavily armored troops, were placed on the defensive left, with allied Turkish horse-archers placed on the offensive right, while the best troops, both infantry and cavalry, held the center. Somewhat earlier a Byzantine army had drawn up in five syntaxeis (divisions) with Alan cavalry (refugees originally from the northern Caucasus) and Tur-copole archers in the vanguard. Cavalry was still the dominant arm, though the pezoi (infantry) had an important role to play. These were often given classical titles, as, for example, the hoplitai (armored infantry) and psiloi (infantry archers).
By the fourteenth century, Byzantine armies were usually small, and this accords well with the assertion by the Italian-educated Prince Theodore Palaiologos that, if a force was caught by surprise, it should not waste time trying to form divisions. Instead it should gather into one large formation. Even so, the baggage animals and squires must remain at some distance to the rear where the squires could also catch riderless horses and hold any prisoners. Other interesting observations made by this Byzantine prince were that natural obstacles such as rivers and passes should be defended from a slight distance, rather than too close, and that some of the enemy should be permitted to cross such obstacles before being attacked, presumably before they had time to reform. Cavalry should not be divided into too small companies; the best should be in the vanguard with a division of inferior cavalry remaining a crossbow shot behind them. A third division should be to the left of the second, since this was where the enemy was most likely to launch a flank attack. The third division would also be able to hit the foe in the flank if the latter broke through the Byzantines’ own front line. If, however, the commander had sufficient infantry archers, crossbowmen, and spearmen, these, rather than the third cavalry division, should be on the left flank. In reality, however, such theories probably reflected northern Italian military practice as much as that of the fourteenth-century Byzantine world.
-David Nicolle
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