![]() ![]() It was likely that the battle was lost by the Byzantines due to treachery, because units commanded by generals belonging to alternative court factions in Constantinople simply never showed up for the battle, despite being in the vicinity, and returned home afterwards. This is arguably one of the most decisive battles in history, as it resulted in the eventual establishment of Turkish power in Asia Minor. ![]() The Seljuk and Byzantine armies met at Manzikert in eastern Turkey, where the Byzantines were crushed. Thus, the Byzantines, by diverting the Turks’ attention from Egypt, brought a Turkic army to Asia Minor from Persia and Central Asia. Romanus IV Diogenes, the Byzantine Emperor, created a previously non-existent threat for the Seljuks by moving some 40,000 troops to his eastern border, thus alerting the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan to the threat from Asia Minor. Their state apparatus was directed against Egypt it was only tribes that were barely under central Seljuk control that were raiding the Byzantines. Just $5 a month.įurthermore, the Seljuk Turks did not want to antagonize the Byzantines. ![]() By attempting to fight a pitched battle, they also risked total defeat.Įnjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Unfortunately, this was not a particularly good idea, because their strength lay in manning border forts against lightly armed tribal warriors. Eventually, by 1071, the Byzantines, exasperated at constant Turkish raiding, decided to move a large army to their borders to eliminate the Turkish threat once and for all. Additionally, many Armenians did not like the Byzantines and did not help them resist the Turkish raids. Their frontier with the Seljuks was not particularly strong or pacified as a result of the intermittent warfare there. In 1045, the Byzantines conquered Armenia. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific. Turkish raids into Asia Minor commenced, greatly annoying the Byzantines. As a result, many of the Turkic tribes and families were placed on the frontiers of the Seljuk Empire, including on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire. Thus, many of the Turkic tribes under Seljuk rule actually posed a problem for the Seljuks since they were restless and sometimes raided settled populations ruled by the Seljuks. As was the case of many empires, many problems arose due to the conflicts between nomadic rulers and a sedentary population. By this time, the Caliph had ceased to exercise any political role while the Seljuk sultans held the reigns of power. The Sunni Caliph in Baghdad was their puppet. The Fatimids were Ismaili Shia and ruled over Jerusalem and Mecca at that time while the Turks upheld Sunni Islam. The main strategic threat to the Turks was the Fatimid Caliphate based in Egypt. It should be noted that the Turks were a minority, ruling a Persian, Arab, and Kurdish majority. By the 1060s, the Seljuk Empire bordered Byzantine Asia Minor. In 1037, the Seljuk Empire, a Turkic state, was founded northeast of Iran in Central Asia and quickly overran much of Persia, Iraq, and the Levant. Many of the Turks were mercenaries in the employ of local Arab and Persian rulers to the east of the Byzantine Empire and Armenia, the dominant states in Asia Minor. In the 11th century, Turks began appearing at the edges of Asia Minor (Anatolia), which was then controlled by the Greeks. But how did they get all the way to Turkey, which has the largest concentration of Turkic peoples today? They gradually displaced or assimilated both the settled and nomadic Iranian-speaking people. In the second half of the first millennium CE, Turkic peoples were gradually streaming into most of Central Asia from their original homeland in the Altai mountains of western Mongolia. After the conquests of Alexander the Great, Asia Minor was mostly Hellenized and remained solidly Greek until the 11th century, with Armenians forming the majority in the eastern parts of the region, as they had since antiquity. Most of these people spoke Indo-European languages and included the Hittites, Phrygians, and Luwians (Troy was probably a Luwian city). Lovers of antiquity and the classical world know very well that Asia Minor–modern Turkey–was formerly inhabited by a variety of non-Turkic peoples. ![]()
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