The situation changed however with the rise to power of Michael II in 820. Period of 780–842 Michael II vs Caliph Al-Ma'mun īetween 780 and 824, the Arabs and the Byzantines were settled down into border skirmishing, with Arab raids into Anatolia replied in kind by Byzantine raids that "stole" Christian subjects of the Abbasid Caliphate and forcibly settled them into the Anatolian farmlands to increase the population (and hence provide more farmers and more soldiers). Nonetheless, these conquests were temporary the Iconoclasm controversy, the ineffective rule of Irene and her successors coupled with the resurrection of the Western Roman Empire under the Frankish Carolingian Empire and Bulgarian invasions meant that the Byzantines were on the defensive again. Constantine V, the son of Leo III (who had led Byzantium to victory in 717 and 740) continued the successes of his father by launching a successful offensive that captured Theodosioupolis and Melitene. With these reforms, the Byzantines were able to inflict a number of defeats against the Arabs twice at Constantinople in 674 and 717 and at Akroinon in 740. Despite having lost two-thirds of its land and resources (most of all the grain supply of Egypt) the Empire nonetheless retained 80,000 troops, thanks to the efficiency of the Thema system and a reformed Byzantine economy aimed at supplying the army with weapons and food. By 642, the Empire had lost Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia. Having recently converted to Islam and unified by the Islamic Prophet's call for a Jihad (struggle) against the Byzantine and Persian Empires, they rapidly advanced and took advantage of the chaos of the Byzantine Empire, which had not fully consolidated its re-acquisitions from the Persian invasions in c. 620. In 629, conflict between Byzantine Empire and Arabs started when both parties confronted in the Battle of Mu'tah. The death of Manuel Komnenos in 1180 ended military campaigns far from Constantinople and after the Fourth Crusade both the Byzantines and the Arabs were engaged in other conflicts until they were conquered by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th and 16th centuries, respectively. The Crusaders took the city back for Christendom in 1097 and established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader Kingdoms in Jerusalem and Antioch under Manuel I Komnenos. Syria would cease to exist as a Byzantine province when the Turks took the city of Antioch in c.
Byzantine attempts to stem the slow but successful Arab conquest of Sicily ended in a dismal failure. And while Byzantium took large parts of Palestine, Jerusalem was left untouched and the ideological victory from the campaign was not as great as it could have been had Byzantium recaptured this Patriarchal seat of Christendom. 970 had the potential to reverse many of the earlier victories. Nonetheless, the Arabs remained a fierce opponent to the Byzantines and a temporary Fatimid recovery after c.
In addition to the natural gains of land, and wealth and manpower received from these victories, the Byzantines also inflicted a psychological defeat on their opponents by recapturing territory deemed holy and important to Christendom, in particular the city of Antioch-allowing Byzantium to hold two of Christendoms' five most important Patriarchs, those making up the Pentarchy. Ĭonsequently, large parts of Syria, excluding its capital city of Damascus, were taken by the Byzantines, even if only for a few years, with a new theme of Syria integrated into the expanding empire. After a period of indecisive and slow border warfare, a string of almost unbroken Byzantine victories in the late 10th and early 11th centuries allowed three Byzantine Emperors, namely Nikephoros II Phokas, John I Tzimiskes and finally Basil II to recapture territory lost to the Muslim conquests in the 7th century Arab–Byzantine wars under the failing Heraclian Dynasty.
Manpower of ann arbor series#
Parts of Syria, Crete, Cyprus, parts of Anatolia and Mesopotamia were temporarily recaptured during the Byzantine reconquest.īetween 780–1180, the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid & Fatimid caliphates in the regions of Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia and Southern Italy fought a series of wars for supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. Byzantine victory over Abbasid Caliphate.Anatolia, Sicily, Southern Italy, Egypt, North Africa, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine.
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