That warmaking and all that it entailed were integral aspects of Byzantine culture and social-economic organization is undeniable. In the foregoing discussion I hope I have been able to demonstrate the extent to which this was the case, and to suggest that only by taking these factors into account can we properly comprehend the spirit as well as the structure of Byzantine civilization. In examining Byzantine military organization in its social and cultural context, we can perhaps perceive the solution to the paradox presented at the beginning of this volume. For here we have a society in which war was condemned, peace extolled, and fighting was to be avoided at all costs, but which was nevertheless the inheritor of the military administrative structures and, in many ways, the militaristic ideology of the expanding pre-Christian Roman empire in its heyday. Yet, through the blending of Christian ideals with the political will to survive, the late Roman Christian society of the eastern Mediterranean/south Balkan region generated a unique culture which was able to cling without reservation to a pacifistic ideal while at the same time legitimate and justify the maintenance of an immensely efficient, for the most part remarkably effective, military apparatus.
In its self-awareness and in its constant effort to present and rationalize this paradox, East Roman culture evolved what was, in many respects, a remarkably modern political-theoretical rationale, in which philanthropy merged with the practical demands of medieval Realpolitik to harness both the pacific and the militaristic elements of the society—reflected in the culture of monasticism on the one hand and of the provincial military elite on the other. The fact that retiring soldiers so frequently took up the monastic life as a means both of securing their future economically and physically, as well as of recovering spiritual well-being and working towards the remission of their sins, is an indication of this—however much, in reality, the individuals themselves may have harboured a less refined notion of their actions.
East Roman military administration remained, until the twelfth century, far in advance of that of its nearest neighbours, even though that of the Muslim states and principalities to the east was also very sophisticated. But the continued centralization of fiscal structures and consequent control over resources in materials and men (both politically and economically) gave the Byzantine government an advantage which none of its foes enjoyed. As long as the central government maintained its grip on the tax-extracting (or resource-extracting) machinery of the state, it was able to direct resources according to the requirements of defence or offence, and in accordance with the overall interests of the empire, to the best effect, in theory if not always in practice. Efficacious use of resources in men and materiel depended, of course, on those in authority recognizing where the priorities lay and not having to fight for their point of view to be implemented. That this was not always the case the political history of the Byzantine empire all too frequently shows.
Yet the organizational edge which Byzantine forces had over their enemies was maintained well into the twelfth century, when the predominance of nonByzantine mercenary forces becomes particularly clear. Attitudes also played an important part, and effective military organization owed something to the consciousness, not only of Byzantine military officers, but of civilians with no practical military experience as well, of a long and honourable tradition of military writing. This was in turn combined with the historical awareness, cultivated in the upper levels of literate Byzantine culture in both Constantinople and the provinces, of the past achievements of East Roman armies. But it was not just the knowledge of a catalogue of achievements. Much more importantly, the historical narratives and the military manuals offered reasons for these achievements: order, discipline and tactical cohesion in battle; well-planned logistical arrangements; and strict adherence to Orthodoxy and clear awareness of the crucial importance of divine support.
From Roman times on the values and the achievements associated with these characteristics are repeated time and again and, as we have seen, recur throughout Byzantine texts. And while it is clear that there were considerable periods when discipline, tactical order and competent field manoeuvres in combat situations were neglected, it is equally apparent that it was in particular the existence of this tradition of military writing and this sense of history which kept the precepts (and associated successes) of the writers of tactical and strategical treatises in mind, and which enabled commanders to revive, strengthen and enforce a code of military discipline, training and tactical skills.
The East Roman world was not alone in this element of literacy and historical consciousness, of course. The Islamic world, too, generated a complex, sophisticated and multi-faceted secular literary culture, in which the writing of military and tactical/strategical treatises also had a place; and from the twelfth century, western Europe began rapidly to evolve its own literary selfconsciousness and awareness and to rival and overtake the East Roman world in organizational and technical structures. But it was this factor in combination with its particular political and administrative contours which differentiated East Roman culture from its neighbours until that time. As long as the central government was able to control and direct the resources to maintain the defensive arrangements appropriate to the situation, and as long as the strategic arrangements were equal to the international military and political context, East Roman armies were able to maintain, however precariously at times, an effective control over their own territories. And there can be no doubt that central control of this sort, however modified and occasionally weakened by circumstances, was maintained more consistently between the sixth and twelfth centuries in the Byzantine world than in the caliphate, which already by the second half of the ninth century was beginning to fragment politically and ideologically.
The geographical situation of the empire offered, in this respect, both disadvantages and advantages. In the former case, the fact that potentially hostile powers were to be found on at least two, and usually three, fronts (Balkan, Syrian/Anatolian and maritime) meant that resources were always spread very thinly. In the latter, the mountain ranges which protected the Anatolian territories of the empire, together with the associated climatic conditions, appear to have discouraged attempts from the Arab Islamic powers to the south to occupy the areas beyond the Taurus-Anti-Taurus frontier zone, except very occasionally and, ultimately, unsuccessfully. And even when fortresses on the Byzantine side of this zone were seized and occupied, the Byzantine riposte was usually rapid and effective, inhibiting any longer-term build-up of military strength on the part of the invaders. In the Balkans, the situation was by no means so clear cut, but on the other hand neither the empire nor its closest powerful neighbour, the Bulgar state, enjoyed a natural boundary (until the empire extinguished Bulgar independence and recovered control of the regions up to the Danube in the late tenth century), and the political imbalance between the two was never as marked as between the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates at the height of their power (c. AD 660-740 and 780-840) and the empire.
This difficult strategic situation encouraged an extremely close involvement with the demands of international diplomacy, of course, without which the empire would quickly have foundered. In turn, this stimulated the consolidation fairly early on of a relatively consistent, albeit conjuncture-bound, general strategy for the empire. Naturally, this was not written down, nor was it necessarily constantly present in the thoughts of the empire’s political leaders and their advisers. But it possessed a certain momentum and direction of its own. Complex institutional arrangements, particularly those with which we are concerned here, evolve certain well-worn methods for achieving certain ends, and it is usually only in times of major crisis and organizational upheaval that such methods can be substantially altered. This is what happened during the seventh century, of course, and again, although on a more gradual scale, from the middle of the eleventh and into the early twelfth centuries. The ramified relationships between armed forces and their requirements, the resources available in different regions of the empire at any given time, as well as important features of the practice of diplomacy (such as time required for the diffusion and transmission of information, for example, or in respect of the movement of soldiers and materiel), as well as the psychology of the situation, these are all factors which played a role, and of which the government at Constantinople had to be aware in order to make any meaningful calculations of its own when confronted by a threat. Such factors in turn imposed their own demands—in time, in resources, in the pace of recruitment and dispositions of troops, and so forth—upon the state, operating in effect according to their own, institutionally determined agenda. Thus, while the administration and rulers at Constantinople acted according to their own, context-bound understanding of the political and strategic needs of the moment, they also worked within a framework which imposed itself upon them in respect of how policy and strategy were realized in practice.
One of the most important aspects of Byzantine diplomatic and military manoeuvring—thoroughly legitimated in all the military treatises—was the avoidance of fighting wherever possible, as we have seen. Strategy was designed not just to protect the state with physical force; a primary feature of imperial strategic thinking was to deter possible aggression by making the potential losses on the part of the aggressor appear unacceptable before the first blow was struck. The policy of avoidance which characterizes warfare in Asia Minor in the period c. 650—730 was certainly forced upon the empire by the situation, but the empire’s political and military leaders were able over several generations to turn this into a positive feature, so that regular raids and invasions became less and less profitable, to the point indeed where, by the later eighth century, they had as much a symbolic significance for the Arabs as any worthwhile political or even economic value. This was not necessarily a reflection of a continuity in strategic decision-making over the longer term (although it may have been—there is no real evidence), but it certainly represented the ways in which the empire’s military and fiscal structures responded, the methods through which individual emperors and their military commanders were able in the circumstances to exploit the resources at their disposal, and the realization that it was an appropriate way of defending the state’s territorial integrity. In the Balkans, displays of imperial military might served similarly to dissuade planned hostile attacks, or to encourage—as in the situation during the 860s— the development of a particular political-cultural alliance. Such a policy was encouraged by the fact that, in contrast to the situation in the east, it was the empire which, generally, had a greater availability of resources, even if manpower was always a problem. This relative superiority—expressed both tactically on the battlefield and in terms of logistical arrangements—was frequently employed to discourage aggressive action.
Deterrence could also take a more militarily active role, however: punitive expeditions, intended to destroy the opponent’s will to fight in the future as well as his resources and his organization for warfare, were also a feature of Byzantine strategy—most obvious, perhaps, in the Bulgarian expeditions of the emperor Constantine V, but evident also in the raiding which Byzantine commanders carried out along the eastern frontier at various times. The dangers inherent in this approach, however—that an equally powerful response might be provoked, with consequences for the empire’s own military and economic situation—meant that such action was usually undertaken only when the enemy was in no condition effectively to respond. The intelligent exploitation of political difficulties inside the hostile polity, and the crucial importance of the various means for collecting and assessing information at the government’s disposal, becomes especially clear here.
Byzantium thus possessed an effective military organization, based upon an efficient and, above all, highly centralized fiscal system. An intelligent, effective and flexible diplomatic and political strategy, combined with a powerful sense of its own identity and the values it represented, enabled it to survive, even flourish, in a highly disadvantageous strategic situation for some six centuries. Its political and military demise followed inevitably from the combination of a series of factors during the twelfth century and after: first, a long-term change in the international political situation, which saw the appearance to the north and west of a number of rival, and often hostile, political formations of equivalent technological, organizational and, above all, economic potential, a situation that had not arisen before this time; second, the loss of the Taurus-Anti-Taurus ranges as a natural political barrier in the southeast, as it was outflanked by the Turkish occupation of Asia Minor from the east in the later eleventh century; third, and perhaps most importantly, major changes in the distribution of political and economic power within the empire, as the growth of a self-aware political, economic and cultural elite challenged the government’s absolute authority over the distribution and consumption of provincial resources. Together, these factors weakened the military organization of the state in the short term, reduced the government’s ability to respond to external threats by an appropriate manipulation of resources in both the short and long term, and created a competition for central power within the elite— with consequent consumption of precious resources in internecine conflicts— which fatally weakened the government’s ability to maintain a consistent foreign policy and defensive strategy. Most of the results of these developments become apparent only during the thirteenth century, but the last fifteen or so years of the twelfth century, culminating in the Fourth Crusade and the partition of the empire, point the way of things to come.
The effects of constant warfare, of the ever-present need to maintain a substantial military force with which to defend itself, were felt directly by the mass of the ordinary people of the empire in particular, and especially by the peasantry who constituted the greater part of the population. For it was they who bore the burden of maintaining these forces, whose lives were in part regulated by the timetable and often exceedingly oppressive, if not ruinous, demands of the state’s fiscal apparatus, quite apart from the effects of warfare and raiding on the provincial economies of the empire at different times. Byzantine society was thus moulded in its institutional forms and in the ways in which it could evolve and develop by factors associated with warfare, and this gives the study of its military and corresponding fiscal organization a particular importance. Byzantium was a society organized for war, yet it was not, in its general aspect, a warlike society, at least not in any traditional sense. It was a society in which the language and vocabulary of warfare permeated both secular and religious literature as well as oral culture in various ways, yet in which warfare was universally seen as evil, even by the soldiers most actively involved. It was also a society which knew what it was defending, and why; and herein, perhaps, is to be found the psychological aspect of its success. The strength of the imperial ideology, in the various forms through which it was effective in society as a whole, was crucial. The certainties which this system of beliefs and values presented to the literate cultural and political elite, the close relationship between the church, as the formal representative of Orthodox Christianity—firmly rooted in the hearts and minds of the ordinary population—and the emperors, and the ideological motivation thus generated to maintain the state in existence, certainly bear some of the credit for the survival of the East Roman empire. Together with the factors already outlined, this made the East Roman state, with its armies, its military administration and its methods of waging and avoiding warfare, such a significant actor on the medieval historical stage for so long.
World History
