,
Protaton in
Karyes (early 14th century) The Byzantine Empire's main strategy aimed to make maximum use of an often outnumbered army. The key behind this approach was the use of border fortifications that would impede an invading force long enough for the main Imperial army to march in to its relief. and therefore the destruction of their army on the field left their castles defenceless – as was seen in Constantinople in 1261, where only a skeleton force was left to defend the Capital due to the Latin Empire's lack of manpower. Reconnaissance and ambushing enemy columns remained a favorite Byzantine tactic. At the Battle of Pelekanos, the Ottomans were successfully spied upon by the opposing Byzantine troops. Prudence remained an admirable virtue (as can be seen by John Cantacuzenus' advice to withdraw from Pelekanos). depicting him with archaizing armour and a
kite shield (14th century) More serious shortcomings in Byzantine strategy occurred in Asia Minor, particularly against the Ottoman Turks who would raid Byzantine lands and then retreat before any serious resistance could counter. The local population endured heavy burdens in providing officials with food and matériel, but such burdens were too difficult to bear, as the ravages of warfare were brought home by the Ottomans and their
ghazi followers. At Magnesia, Nicomedia and Pelekanos the Byzantines suffered serious defeats at the hands of the Turks; since there were few troops to spare, the Empire was brought one step closer to peril with each defeat. After the Imperial army suffered defeat in Asia Minor, Andronikos III saw Anatolia as a lost cause and began reorganizing the Byzantine fleet; as a result the Aegean remained an effective defense against Turkish incursions until Gallipoli was at last captured by the Turks in 1354. From then on, the Byzantine military engaged in small scale warfare against its weak Crusader opponents, mixing in diplomacy and subterfuge, often exploiting civil conflict amongst their Ottoman opponents. In the Peloponnese, territory continued to be re-conquered by the Byzantines against the weak crusaders until the mid 15th century, when the Byzantine enclave in Morea was finally conquered by the Ottomans. of Byzantine provenance, late 13th–14th century. Now in the
Kremlin Armoury.
Alliance with the Mongols Until 1269 the Turks conquered the southern coast of the theme of
Mylasa and Melanoudion in
Caria as far west as the
Cnidian Peninsula, while the northern part of the theme likely followed soon after. This territory eventually came to constitute the
Beylik of Menteshe. Around the same time the Turks also encroached on the port towns of Paphlagonia. Michael VIII Palaiologos was anxious to establish an alliance with the Mongols, who themselves were highly favourable to Christianity, many of them being
Nestorian Christians. He signed a treaty in 1263 with the Mongol Khan of the
Golden Horde, and he married two of his daughters (conceived through a mistress, a Diplovatatzina) to Mongol kings:
Euphrosyne Palaiologina, who married
Nogai Khan of the
Golden Horde, and
Maria Palaiologina, who married
Abaqa Khan of
Ilkhanid
Persia. In 1282, Nogai Khan provided Michael VIII with 4,000
Mongols whom he sent against
Thessaly. His alliance with the Mongols would also benefit his son Andronicus II; in 1305
Ilkhan Oljeitu promised Andronicus II 40,000 men, and in 1308 dispatched 30,000 men to recover many Byzantine towns in
Bithynia.
Weapons Weapons amongst the Byzantine army varied greatly, as did the composition of the army. Shields and spears were as always the most common weapon. The
crossbow was adopted by the Byzantine infantry in the 13th century, although the
Cypriote rebel
Isaac Komnenos is recorded to have used crossbowmen as early as 1191. 13 years later they were used during the defense of Constantinople. Associated primarily with western Europeans, the crossbow or
tzangra remained of secondary relevance and was mostly restricted to naval combat and sieges. Soldiers wielding this weapon were known as
tzangratoroi. Despite their relative rarity,
John Kantakouzenos approvingly referred to their efficiency in siege battles, while a new military office was also created, the
stratopedarches ton tzangratoron. s (mid-14th century)
Gunpowder weapons were spreading in the Balkans from the second half of the 14th century and were well established by the 15th, but the Byzantines failed to adopt them on a larger scale because of the lack of money. While the sources are limited and the terminology is often unclear, the only gunners fighting for Byzantium seem to have been Genoese mercenaries. Gunpowder artillery in the form of primitive
bombards is attested for the sieges of Constantinople in
1422 and 1453. Indeed, the city had an own arsenal of bombards, although its walls proved incapable of sustaining their recoil, especially that of the largest ones. Additionally, their effectiveness was limited by a lack of understanding of their proper deployment as well as a shortage of gunpowder and ammunition. As there is no evidence that the Byzantines ever manufactured cannons themselves it seems most likely that they were imported from Italy.
Fortifications and siege warfare Byzantine military strategy relied heavily on fortifying towns and cities. Walls consisted of stonework with layers of thick bricks in between, perhaps allowing for absorption of an attack. Later, as artillery became increasingly more effective, sloped walls came into play. The walls would be augmented by towers, evenly spaced out and running the length of the walls. The walled towers were designed to cover the entire town. ,
Laconia Supplying towns and forts became Byzantium's worst problem and, though the Turks initially lacked the expertise to take walled towns, they could not be defeated on land nor their blockade broken. Cities such as Nicaea and Nicomedia fell after a few years or more. Even so, this was a longer period of time than the Crusaders in the Levant were able to hold out where impressive forts such as Krak des Chevaliers surrendered relatively quickly. Worse still were the Crusader forts in the Aegean, which often surrendered to the Byzantines and the Turks without a fight. a lack of manpower and multiple pressing fronts relegated these castles to abandonment. Some of the castles captured in Greece were used to control the local hostile Greek, Albanian, Vlach or other tribal peoples that opposed Frankish rule and since the Byzantines were both Greek and Orthodox, the threat that the Crusaders had to contend with existed on a lesser scale for the Byzantines, giving them another reason not to repair them. Constantinople's fortifications remained formidable, but repairing them proved impossible after 1370 due to the destructive nature of an
ongoing civil war. By the time the Byzantines emerged from it, they were forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Ottoman Sultan, who threatened military action if any repairs were made to the
millennium-old
Walls of Constantinople. Heavily outnumbered, the walls of the capital provided the defenders in 1453 with 6 weeks of defense. ==Navy==