The Battle of Manzikert was a historically pivotal battle that pitted the forces of the Seljuk Empire, who were under the command of the ingenious Turkish leader Alp Arslan, against the Byzantine Empire, who were under the command of their Emperor, Romanos IV. In what turned out to be a catastrophic defeat for the Seljuk Turks, the Byzantines routed the Seljuks and were triumphant. The political and financial fallout from the battle was a major contributing factor to the fall of the Seljuk Empire in 1092 due to a succession crisis following the death of Sultan Malikshāh I and prevented further Seljuk expansion westward.
After the Battle, the Turks retreated back to Persia. The Turks, without having the plains to settle in and Turkify the native Pontic Greeks of Anatolia, slowly were assimilated into the native Iranian population, becoming a mostly culturally Iranic/Persian ruling class in the same way the Mongols, Hephthalites, and Parthians became.
Background[]
In the mid-1040s, the Byzantines invaded Armenia. The conquest was brief and successful, however, the conquest also brought the empire within contact of a new empire, the Seljuk Turks. Through a series of conflicts, they had become the predominant power within the eastern Middle East. War soon erupted between the two empires. The conflict began with Seljuk Campaigns into the Byzantine city of Trebizond which were followed by a further invasion by the new Turkish sultan, Alp Arslan, who used the weakness created by the previous raid to capture the city of Ani. With the fall of Ani, the Eastern Byzantine defensive system was penetrated and this opened up new territory that could be conquered and subdued by the Turks. This included cities such as Antioch and Melitene, Caesarea, and Manzikert.
Baselius Constantine X Doukas expired in 1067. His wife, Eudokia Makrembolitissa, now a widow, realizing how precarious the empire was in and thus married the Cappadocian General, Romanos IV Diogenes. The new Baselius was quite ambitious, and war soon erupted.
Romanos IV intercepted the Seljuk army at Tephrike 1068, annihilating the Turkish forces. Despite this, raiding parties continued to pressure deep into Eastern Roman territory. Meanwhile, a Seljuks emissary to Constantinople was sent by Alp Arslan, weary of fighting a two-front war (he was battling the Fatimids in the south). The promised to cease raiding, but with so many vassal tribes, minor unauthorized raids continued.
Romanos IV continued to prepare for an all-out conflict with the Seljuk Turks. He continued to acquire more men and hire mercenaries. 20,000 remained in Trace and Constantinople due to conflict with the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. In 1071, after fooling Alp Arslan into renewing the aforementioned treaty, he embarked on a campaign against the Turks, targeting Manzikert and Alat, near Lake Van. Ignoring suggestions to await reconnaissance on Seljuk troops and marched his armies towards Manzikert and sent a small party of Byzantine troops to blockade the Western passage route at Lake Van. The emperor believed that was were the Seljuks would pass through, only to realize later that they had instead pursued a route along the Eastern Banks of the lake, with aid from the Mountains that gave them cover, allowing them to hide and sneak past the man Byzantine contingent. Proclaiming to the small Byzantine party at Ablat that the Byzantine emperor had already surrendered, the small army withdrew to central Anatolia.
The Battle[]
Manzikert fell to the Byzantines of August 23rd, and Romanos IV and his army began marching south towards Ablat. The Romans still suffered from a lack of reconnaissance, and on the 24th, a small party of Byzantine troops sent to scout ahead was obliterated by Alp Arslan, who moved around the mountains in the east to get a more favorable position for is the army (which mainly consisted of heavy cavalry).
A Seljuk emissary was sent to the Byzantines when they finally met on August 25th, negotiating for peace. Confident in his numbers and falsely believing that the small party from Ablat would return, he declined, stating that he would only negotiate peace in Isfahan, the capital of the Seljuk Empire at the time. He sent a messenger to the second army while he ordered his troops to set up camp and build up fortifications around it. Seljuk Horse archers relentlessly harassed the camp during the night. The 50,000 strong Byzantine Army was divided into 4 groups: The Nordic Varangian Gaurd and Armenians, who were under the Emperor's command and were situated in the front, Foreign mercenaries who formed the banks, and the Byzantine feudal-levy, under the command of Andronicus Doukas, were in the reverse. The latter were ordered to aid the army that was in the gravest of danger.
The smaller Seljuk Army formed a crescent protruding forward. Alp Arslan was in the army furthest from the Byzantines. They Seljuk umbers accumulated to around 30,000.
Romanos marched forward, but the Seljuks, still carrying their nomadic tradition, used the traditional hit-and-run tactic. The Seljuk center continued to move south, while the Seljuk flanks attempted to encircle the Byzantine flanks to no avail. By evening, Romanos IV had seized the Turkish camp and (unlike in OTL) pursues Alp Arslan. It looked as if the more mobile Turkish army was going to evade the Byzantines. Alp Arslan ordered a retreat after hearing that the Seljuk left and right had been crushed by the Byzantines., but with the chaos that was occurring, some soldiers took it as an order to hit-and-run the Byzantines or even an all-out attack. The Turks pursued the Byzantines, halting the Byzantine advance. They fought hard, and soon Romanos IV was issuing orders to Andronicus Doukas for aid. However, a part of the reason for the marriage between Eukodia and Romanos IV (and thus his coronation as emperor) was due to the fact that Eukodia was anxious to limit Doukid power. The Doukas had been feuding with the Emperor ever since, and Andronicus, being apart of the Doukid family, refused to provide assistance and instead withdrew, planning to start a civil war to depose the emperor (like he did in OTL). Needless to say, the Seljuk assault was an absolute failure, with its only upside being that it gave Alp Arslan time to regroup what remained of the Seljuk left and right and flee.
The Byzantines were triumphant and the Seljuks had been humiliated.
Aftermath[]
The Turks were utterly humiliated. Alp Arslan attempted vengeance for the battle later during the war but his already decimated army was malled again at Ablat and Ani. The reconquest of Ani by the Byzantines finally reunified the empire's eastern defensive system, which served as a bulwark against future Turkish invasion (or frankly, any invasion from the east). This also allowed for further Byzantine incursions eastward into the Seljuk territory. The Romans stod advancing when they hit the Zagros mountains, preventing further conquests (including a Byzantine conquest of Isfahan) and their supply and communications lines were stretched to the absolute limit. However, the damage had already been done. Countless men had been lost, so much so that even the Seljuk chroniclers compared the size of the Seljuk Army to an average household, and the Byzantine ones even more so and of course in more mocking and insulting tones and words.
Territorial Concessions made by the Seljuk Turks in the aftermath of the war. The three major battles of the conflict are labeled on the map.
This catastrophic defeat also didn't bode well for the Seljuks when they were reportedly begging for mercy to the supreme Byzantines (according to certainly exaggerated Byzantine chroniclers). Regardless of those claims, the Seljuks gained further humility from the peace treaty. The terms stated that Seljuks be forced to pay 2.5 million pounds of gold pieces and 1.5 million silver pieces (to place an even greater burden on the Seljuks). Transcaucasia, modern-day East Azerbaijan, and Ardabil were proposed to be ceded, though the latter proposal would later be dismissed. Both sides (like in OTL) agreed to a dynastic marriage between the Sultan's son and Emperor's daughter.
Andronicus Doukas returned to Constantinople, proclaiming a rebellion against Romanos IV, but before Romanos IV had even embarked on his journey home (in fact, the dates stated in the chronicles reveal that Romanos IV was still negotiating with the Turks when the following occurred), the co-rebels, Andronicus and Michael III Doukas began feuding over who would be emperor. Civil War soon erupted between the two former brethren. The Doukid Family (and anyone involved in the conflict) was split between the pro-Andronicus faction and the Pro-Michael III faction, plus a third faction calling for co-emperorship like those of the late Roman Empire (as in the late unified Roman Empire). In the end, Michael III was triumphant, but he had exhausted himself so much that Romanos IV just rolled over his armies like nothing ever happened.
The political and financial fallout caused by the war was also enormous. Alp Arslan returned to Isfahan as a fool, with even the lowliest of peasants mocking him. He had damaged the empire's reputation and prestige and realizing that people out there were certainly plotting and conspiring against him, abdicated the Turkish throne. Malik Shah came to power like in OTL, but with the Turkish army practically destroyed and with the empire becoming the laughing stock of the Middle East, his minor conquests were nowhere near as great as in OTL. The empire endured a devastating civil war following Malik Shah's abdication and the empire still collapsed after a succession crisis that followed his death.
In OTL the Turks became the predominant group in Anatolia because the climate and terrain of Anatolia are actually extraordinarily similar to the grasslands of the Turkish homeland, Central Asia, meaning that the Turks were able to breed and succeed and assimilate the local Pontic Greeks and Greek Mountain tribes of the area. Furthermore, the collapse of the Byzantine Orthodox Church Bureaucracy meant that nothing prevented the Anatolians from converting to the Shamanic Sufi version of Sunni Islam that the Turks originally brought.
That would not occur in this timeline. The Turks would already be stuck in the heavily populated desert Mountains of Iran. The Turks became like every other nomadic invader of Persia, slowly getting assimilated into the native culture and becoming a ruling class, therefore mimicking the Parthians, Hephthalites/White Huns, and Mongols who did the same. By the 13th century, they had been relegated to the pages of History, being just a minor ethnic group that would only the majority in Khorasan. The Mongols restored their glory somewhat, but they still faded away and were once again relegated to the pages of History.
Meanwhile, the Byzantine Empire, without a massive defeat at Manzikert wouldn't have to call on the Crusaders to help them aid them in the reconquest of Anatolia, which would mean that the disastrous Fourth Crusade wouldn't kill the empire since it wouldn't occur (at least in the way it did in OTL).
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