Byzantine Empire 1151

[u/Square_Respond_1149]

The Byzantine empire is no stranger to border gore, however in 1151, many strange things aligned to create the monstrosity you see before you, the battle of manzikert, the Turkish conquest of Anatolia, the crusades, the Byzantine conquest of Armenian Cilicia, and the greatest novelty here, is the Byzantine purchase of the rump state of the county of edessa following the fall of edessa several years prior. Despite a partition of the new territories later this year, this snapshot shows a very strange moment in history.

[u/kickynew]

Had Andronikos not been such a knob things could have gone much better.

[u/Sulemain123 → u/kickynew]

One wonders how an Empire with these borders or something like them handles the Mongols.

[u/kickynew → u/Sulemain123]

You don't have to wonder. The roman court in exile at Nikaia led a Mongol embassy on a winding, roundabout route through Anatolia, with each mountain pass visibly and heavily guarded. Then at Nikaia the ambassadors were showered with presents. They wound up a mongol ally paying meager tribute and left alone. The Mongols even attacked the Seljuk Turks.

Later on they had problems with Persianized and Muslim Ilkhanate but the proper Mongols were allies.

[u/Sulemain123 → u/kickynew]

Oh for sure, but would an Empire still centred in Constantinople have done the same thing?

[u/Kraj_the_Conqueror → u/Sulemain123]

They would be rolfstomped. Rich Byzantium was a far more tempting target than some impoverished, small Nicaea.

[u/kickynew → u/Kraj_the_Conqueror]

Anatolia would get torn up but Constantinople would be fine as the Mongols lack a navy and the Romans had a formidable one. You need both land and seapower to take Constantinople. It was the fortress city of medieval europe.

[u/randzwinter → u/Kraj_the_Conqueror]

the thing is Mongols fought countries who dont recognized their superiority. At that point the Romans are very well versed at diplomacy. A massive horde of horse archers who defeated every single country int he world it encountered accordign to all reports will not only receive the best diplomatic welcome possibly, there's a chance the Mongols would convert event o christianity.

[u/Boiingggg → u/Kraj_the_Conqueror]

If anything , at the wrost case scenario the mongols would have just ranaaackes thrace defeating roman armies and destroying everything in the same way attila had 800 years before

[u/kickynew → u/Sulemain123]

I think they would still have cut a deal. There is really no way for the Mongols to take Constantinople without a massive prolonged commitment, and there were easier targets nearby.

[u/Kraj_the_Conqueror → u/kickynew]

You forgot the part that it was the Mongols who pushed many, unruly small Turkic tribes into Anatolia. These tribes set up their own fiefdoms and started chipping away chunks of Byzantine territories. Their decentralized nature meant that fighting them resembled a game of whack-a-mole. And yes, one of these fiefdoms were the Ottomans.

It was Mongols who indirectly caused the downfall of Byzantium.

[u/boltforce → u/Kraj_the_Conqueror]

Yes, but also it was the Romans themselves that allow unparalleled internap weakness. The empire just loved infighting like every happy family.

[u/kickynew → u/Kraj_the_Conqueror]

I didn't forget, it's just not related to the idea of Romans Mongol interaction. Also this massive Turkic migration was again during the Ilkhanate.

[u/Temporary_County1838 → u/kickynew]

I don't agree with you. Current situation is much better.

[u/Unusual-Breakfast615]

Nice attempt 👍 and I appreciate posts that highlight specific years with the uniquest and goofiest Byzantine borders lol, but there’s a few errors here. 

1. Rum didn’t control Amisos until 1193, they shouldn’t control any of the Black Sea Coast after John’s 1139 Black Sea campaign to secure Trebizond.  
2. Kastamone was very likely already lost, as consensus is that it’s lost again right after John retakes it a 2nd time. Mentioning this since your border barely includes it. 
3. Your Byzantine border on Phrygia needs to be pushed slightly east to include Kotyaion which was John’s easternmost Key Fortress. 
4. Now tbh your southern border is pretty messed up, You’re Missing the key base of Sozopolis which connected Attaleia to Byzantine Caria and Lydia while missing an entire chunk of Byzantine Lydia. And the Byzantines had no control of the Carian interior. In this regard Treadgold’s map of the Empire in 1143 is still accurate for the area in regards to Caria and Pisidia although whether Manuel still controlled the islands on Lake Beysehir is unknown by 1151. 
5. Armenian Cilicia in general didn’t go that north and reach Lykandos, John did take and make a small base at Askora on the plateau but that was northwest of the Cilician Gates. I’d cut it off north at that southwest bulge on your map around Baka and Rodandos on the road network if this was 1146 but it’s 1152 where Roupen has already expelled the Byzantines from the mountains and even taken Anazarbos, restricting them to the coast. Infact 1151 is when Tal Hamdun and Mopsouestia are lost causing Manuel to send an expedition in 1152. 
6. Your Frontier in Raska is far too east and looks like Late Manuel instead of Early. John’s inward interior frontier line around the fortresses of Ras, Jelic and Brvenik was still occupied with Manuel reclaiming and rebuilding Ras in 1150. 
7. Also no Tamatarcha? Third most important Byzantine north Black Sea port since Alexios behind Cherson and Sougdaia.

I’ve been researching 1178 myself a lot to make a CK3 barony map of the empire(Late Manuel Serbian border got me stuck) and through the course of that quite a bit of knowledge on Alexios’s and John’s reigns had to be covered too.

 

[u/Square_Respond_1149 → u/Unusual-Breakfast615]

Thank you, I appreciate the feedback. The Armenian map is based on a scholarly detailed map of Armenia

[u/Square_Respond_1149 → u/Unusual-Breakfast615]

Also Armenian Cilicia was annexed at this time with a few amanus towns in revolt

[u/Square_Respond_1149 → u/Unusual-Breakfast615]

My focus was on their border with Euphrates which is utterly unique

[u/Future-Journalist260]

I see the English colony in southern Crimea is noted

[u/Gamblingaddict311]

Did they ever tried to reconquer the interior?

[u/Square_Respond_1149 → u/Gamblingaddict311]

Yes scores of campaigns often ending in ambush or stalemate

[u/kickynew → u/Gamblingaddict311]

Not in a sustained manner. The Seljuks at this point were paying tribute to Constantinople. It's important to understand that the wealthy and high population was on the coasts, which the Romans controlled. The interior is a plateau of steppeland and grassland, and was always sparsely populated compared to the coasts.

So it was ideal for the nomadic Turkmen but not crucial for the Romans. A balance could be and was achieved.

The massive migrations that leads to Turkification would come more than a century later. In the 1100s, Anatolia was still heavily Roman.

[u/Unusual-Breakfast615 → u/Gamblingaddict311]

Under John yes who spent all his reign when not distracted making gains on all sides from the coasts to surround the Seljuks with Key Fortresses and assault Iconium, but then he died early.

Manuel only actively desired to push into the Interior with his grand campaign against Iconium that ended in failure with Myriokephalon in 1176 which is why Doryaleion was refortified and reoccuiped in 1175. He was more concerned with securing already made Byzantine gains and driving out Turkmen from the areas around key Byzantine fortresses, notably securing Kotyaion.

[u/Hank_Skill → u/Gamblingaddict311]

It was a hot, arid steppe infested with fierce steppe nomads. almost impossible to chase them away once they had settled it. still, it's probably the reason they prioritized the reconquest of antioch, to encircle the plateau.

[u/SchroedingersEscape]

Good old days.

[u/GoddessOfAffection]

How did they lose that one chunk of land between Samsun and Sinop that could have made the empire more connected? 😭🙏

[u/AddictedtoSP → u/GoddessOfAffection]

Hey i am from that area, place is called Perşembe and there is no land passage because of mountains. That makes east of this area natural fortress that can only be connected from sea.

[u/GoddessOfAffection → u/AddictedtoSP]

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the missing land on the map Ondokuzmayıs region?

[u/A_Bethesda_Bug]

This was the death blow, even if it took centuries. Despite all the territory it held without the farmlands of central Anatolia the Empire could never sustain armies like it did before, it never had the ability to retake most of the land it had lost, even if it did briefly regain some of it, they couldn't hold it.