Gustav Weil, Édouard de Muralt and Ali Sevim date the Battle of Manzikert to 26 August 1071; J. Laurent argued for a week earlier. The Byzantine emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, who had just retaken the fortress of Manzikert north of Lake Van, faced the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan. At dusk, as the army withdrew toward its camp, the rear line under Andronikos Doukas marched off on its own, which most authorities, Oman says, put down to deliberate malice. Romanos was wounded and captured. The sultan treated him with honor and freed him for ransom and tribute, but at home he had already been replaced. He was later blinded and died, and Turkish raiders spread across Asia Minor.
The Battle of Manzikert, 1071: the day Byzantium broke
26 August 1071 · 955 years ago
On 26 August 1071 the Byzantine emperor Romanos IV Diogenes met the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan near Manzikert in eastern Anatolia. Betrayed by a rival general whose troops abandoned the field, the emperor was defeated and taken prisoner, the first Byzantine emperor captured in battle in centuries.
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Romanos IV Diogenes became emperor in 1068 by marrying Eudokia, the widow of the emperor Constantine Doukas. Charles Oman called him “a gallant hot-headed soldier with a doubtful title and many secret enemies”, “nervously anxious to justify his elevation by military success”.1
Seljuk raiders had already struck deep into Asia Minor, and both Oman and Gustav Weil mention their raid on Iconium. In March 1071 Romanos set out from Constantinople. His large army was drawn from many peoples, among them German mercenaries and Turkic Uzes and Pechenegs.2
