On the 9th of November, Romanos II, the legitimate Macedonian heir, ascended to the Purple. As I've mentioned previously, Romanos II took an arguably more expansionist policy than the "glorification-through-victory" policy of his father. Before his death, Constantine VII had been putting together a fleet and army to attempt another conquest of Crete; certainly the failures of his 949 expedition would have weighed heavily on the planning and execution of this attempt. The leadership of the role was desired, for example, Basil Lekapenos wrote a naval treatise (the Naumachika of Basil Lekapenos) on the specifications and capabilities of the ships of the Byzantine navy in an attempt to secure this amphibious action. However, this plumb job was given to Nikephoros Phokas. The choice seems obvious, as Nikephoros was the most experienced general of the Romans and the four previous failed expeditions were evidence that this was a job for a professional soldier, despite the risks of making one other man too powerful. Interestingly, Romanos II's promotion of Leo Phokas to Domestic of the West and the change of Nikephoros from Domestic to Domestic of the East could maybe be seen as a counterbalancing of power, but that doesn't really make sense, as the Phokas family loyalty would win out. Crete is the largest island in the Aegean, but to take Crete, you really had to just take its capital, Chandax, which was the only walled settlement of any strategic value - I make this statement based on the fact that nowhere else of importance is mentioned.
I could talk about the narrative events that occured throughout the siege, but, in a way, I've already done that. Below is the link to a video that I researched, animated, and narrated on this event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=264Kfd5g0IY
It's seven minutes long and called "The Byzantine Conquest of Crete, 960-961" for anyone who can't make the link work. Have you watched it? Good, so you're all up to speed on the events that happened in the siege.
(For anything further Wikipedia has some very good detail of what Leo the Deacon states too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Chandax )
I'll give a brief recap and then use it as a platform to talk around the subject. Crete had been taken from the emprie in the 820s and there had been four previous attempts to retake Crete between then and the 960s. Most notably, there was a failed attempt in 949 by Constantine VII, Romanos II's father. This attempt and the attempt in 911 are important as we have the full breakdown of the number of ships and soldiers from which Theme that the Byzantines used, which is interesting. Further, the failed 949 invasion would clearly have loomed large in the minds of military establishment. As we've said before, Bardas Phokas was Domestic of the Schools from 945 and Nikephoros was arguably second-in-command of the land armies, by heading the Anatolikon Theme. It seems that Nikephoros was able to secure more men and materiel from Romanos, whether from Nikephoros being a more competent administrator or from Romanos being more eager, and a large expedition was put together.
I've said in my video that this is likely 40,000 soldiers in total of whom 8,000 are soldiers and 32,000 supporting staff (e.g. rowing the ships, sailors for the blockade etc), let's talk about a comparison. When Justinian sent an invasion force to take North Africa in A.D. 533, there were around 20,000 soldiers and some 80,000 supporting staff. I personally haven't read the sources for the time period, but for Basiliscus' failed invasion of Africa in A.D. 468, with the utterly disastrous naval battle at Cap Bon, was meant to have 100,000 soldiers and 400,000 supporting staff. This is where I've taken the 4:1 ratio from that I used, but it's fundamentally a guess on my part so be aware of that. Let's talk about the numbers too. Basiliscus commanded reportedly many hundreds of thousands, which was essentially the combined force of the East and essentially the Italian peninsula - this bankrupted the East for a decade and was absolutely the point of no return for the West. Justinian with the resources of the East (at a fundamentally healthy time of its existence) could put together an expedition of a hundred thousand with a 1-2 years of planning. The diminished Byzantine state of essentially Anatolia and Greece again spent about 1-2 years planning and could put together forty thousand. I can accept these numbers as being intuitively consistent.
With all that said, Nikephoros reached the island, setting up a naval blockade of Chandax, as its on the coast. From there, he may have had to fight his way off of the ships or not, depending on which sources you believe. There's a curious anecote in Leo the Deacon about Pastilas, an officer of the Nikephoros Phokas' army, leading some "picked men" and attempting to secure the island, but becoming drunk and being ambushed. Then, Nikephoros is said to have done what they couldn't and successfully secure the island. This story could be almost entirely made up for literary effect or it could be true - more likely, it's there to highlight Nikephoros Phokas' positive characteristics that he was always vigilant and sober and able to control his men, unlike the scoundrel Pastilas. As it happens, this isn't entirely made up, Theodosius the Deacon describes Pastilas, at a later point in the siege, being dispatched by Phokas to deal with Cretans outside the walls, but he's ambushed and killed - no getting drunk this time. Nikephoros was said to have built a comprehensive circumvallating wall with a ditch and palisade around Chandax to protect his forces and really tighten the noose on the siege. I must admit that I've not seen this happening in Byzantine histories before or after this event, but I'm not an expert; it's certainly a product of the instilled disclipline and size of this force that this was done. Sort of reminds me of the good old fashioned Roman times...
I'd like to emphasise the effort that Nikephoros put in to training and encouraging his men throughout the eight months of siege,. All of the sources describe his attention to detail, vigour, and care for the common soldiery, keeping them active, partly by building that aforementioned wall, and letters between Crete and the capital are mentioned by Pseudo-Symeon and Theodosius. This was especially useful as grain ships were needed to support the forces over the 960-961 Winter, which was bitterly cold.
On March 6th 961, Nikephoros launched a massive assault. Using stone-throwing equipment (meaning proto-trebuchets) to suprress defenders on the wall and presumably to have damaged any cladding beforehand, siege engineers sapped underneath portions of the wall and burnt out the supports leading to a collapse of a long section of wall. The extensive training worked, as the army was not repulsed before this could happen. The army stormed the city and Nikephoros did what he could to prevent uncessary civillian deaths - the success of this action isn't recorded by Leo the Deacon. Regardless, Nikephoros' retainers secured the Emir of Crete and his son, Anemas, who would convert to Christianity and die fighting for John I Tzimiskes in 971. Chandax was taken and Crete was reconquered for the Byzantine Empire.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Sunday, June 2, 2019
On Sieges and Warfare
I've been doing some thinking and what I want to do is discuss the topics broadly and stay tightly focussed to the narrative. This is like mixing custard and port, maybe a very good chef could make it work, but I don't think I'm up to it. You might be able to tell that this specifric blog will be more conversational, in an attempt to less conversational in the narrative blogs.
This blog will be a deeper dive into warfare and Nikephoros. How does one carry out a siege? There are a time-tested few methods to carry out a siege.
The first is to break in before the enemy know that the siege has started, which is effectively the optimised outcome and something that Nikephoros would pull off at least once, at Manbij/Hierapolis. This is sort of the finesse move and it requires aggressive officers, a fast-moving army, and to actually visit the city/fortress in question. That's a one trick pony and can hardly be relied upon, although it's never hurts much to try it.
The second approach is probably Nikephoros' favourite strategy; I jokingly think of it as the "one-week-wonder"; take your army and rock up to a city, spend a week patrolling around the walls and look for weak spots, and, if you find a weak spot, take the city with an assault (e.g. Aleppo 962). But this is where it gets clever in the horrifyingly awesome way that medieval warfare often is. If you fail to take the city, you loot and burn the suburbs (the city outside the walls), displace the citizenry, cause mayhem, but you take measurements of the walls, notes on specific equipment that you may not have, but could the next time. The sources somewhat suggest that this happened at Mopsuestia from 964 to 965, but as, William Garrood writes about the conquest of Cilicia, the sources become confused by the intensity of Byzantine activity so there are also vagueries. Regardless, the next time that you come back, the city should be a bit easier to take; to some extent, sieges can be split over multiple seasons or even years. I suggest looking into the 1148 Siege of Damascus for an example of where one week of prior scouting would have changed the course of events. If you're interested in the "short-format" siege, the fortified hillside city of Carcasonne was impenetrable; I've been there and those walls simply could not be stormed by anything other than tens of thousands. During the Albigensian Crusade, the city lasted no more than two weeks because their internal water source was incapable of sustaining them.
Implicitly, cities are tough nuts to crack and not all cities are created equal; the best commanders in history still took many months to resolve some sieges. Occasionally, the best action to take when besieging is to sit there for months and to starve out the defenders. Simultaneously, the attacker can use this time to prepare siege works - Nikephoros Ouranos describes tunneling under walls as the most effective way to take cities, which is how the histories describe Nikephoros Phokas' actions. The prolonged siege isn't a disaster for an attacker, as long as they take the city. If one spends five months and fails to take the city, then that sets up a much poorer situation.
Accordingly, what's the most important aspect of a protracted siege in pre-modern times? I argue that it's the season the siege starts in because you want to have access to the surrounding harvest to feed your army and deny your opponents their ability to store their harvest inside walls. The Siege of Chandax started in July 960 and harvest season is roughly Autumn, which sounds like appropriately good planning.
The final method for sieges works better during civil wars, due to the similar cultures and/or languages, which is bribing locals/defenders to open gates.
Let's flip this, what does a defender see. A defender sees that they have soldiers, morale, water, food, and let's call it the strength of the barrier between them and the attackers. If any one of those five hit zero, the city will surrender or be taken (the attackers usually heavily outnumber the defenders so when the walls are breached then the attackers take the city almost every time). The reverse is true though. If the attacker's morale, water, food hit zero (or the number of soldiers drop to below the level of the defenders), then they will abandon the siege. This explains why defenders sally during sieges, as usually there comes a point where there's an excess of defenders for the quantity of (usually, but not exclusively) food in the city and lives are risked to sure up one of the city's failings. It's obviously why sallies are taken and siege towers/trebuchets are burnt because it's more valuable to risk lives than it is to allow the walls to be overcome.
Sometimes, cities surrender earlier. At Tarsos 965, Nikephoros crushed the undoubtedly smaller army the Tarsiots put on the field to prevent him from besieging the city. Nikephoros then attempted to storm the walls, but was repelled. Only after that did the city sue for peace on not unreasonable terms, which was that the citizenry could choose to leave with their belongings. What essentially happened here was that the morale of the city dropped to zero - they could have held out for a month or two more probably, but to what end? For the record, I don't hold it against a general for attempting to storm the walls and failing once, I will begin to hold it against them if they continue to dripfeed their forces into unfavourable situations, such as Witiges early during the 537-538 Siege of Rome.
Leo the Deacon, if I'm not mistaken, claims that he had taken sixty cities and fortresses by the time he became emperor in 963. John Skylitzes claims that, by the time Nikephoros died in 969, he had taken one hundred. It was a lot of grueling work to invert the border region, but one that Nikephoros shined at. The Caliphal border region were known as the "thughur" and the Caliphate, before the start of its collapse had fortified those border cities far beyond the resources of the individual cities - Tarsus is describe as having a double-wall.
To put it simply why I think Nikephoros Phokas was the best commander of his age is because he trained and equipped the armies to a much higher standard than any of his recent predecessors and appropriately selected aggressive and competent officers who he could work with. Whether he was present or not, he set up a system that drew out the forces of Sayf al-Dawla or the Tarsiots or any number of other small emirates and cities and eliminated them at a low cost to his armies. His aggressive year-round multi-year campaigns turned a semi-professional force into a crack military that was unrivalled even after his time for some thirty years. He could wield this incredible army, in a landscape where the enemy forces had been wiped out, to start cracking cities and fortresses open, a task that so many commanders struggled at, but one that Nikephoros had the mindset for.
This blog will be a deeper dive into warfare and Nikephoros. How does one carry out a siege? There are a time-tested few methods to carry out a siege.
The first is to break in before the enemy know that the siege has started, which is effectively the optimised outcome and something that Nikephoros would pull off at least once, at Manbij/Hierapolis. This is sort of the finesse move and it requires aggressive officers, a fast-moving army, and to actually visit the city/fortress in question. That's a one trick pony and can hardly be relied upon, although it's never hurts much to try it.
The second approach is probably Nikephoros' favourite strategy; I jokingly think of it as the "one-week-wonder"; take your army and rock up to a city, spend a week patrolling around the walls and look for weak spots, and, if you find a weak spot, take the city with an assault (e.g. Aleppo 962). But this is where it gets clever in the horrifyingly awesome way that medieval warfare often is. If you fail to take the city, you loot and burn the suburbs (the city outside the walls), displace the citizenry, cause mayhem, but you take measurements of the walls, notes on specific equipment that you may not have, but could the next time. The sources somewhat suggest that this happened at Mopsuestia from 964 to 965, but as, William Garrood writes about the conquest of Cilicia, the sources become confused by the intensity of Byzantine activity so there are also vagueries. Regardless, the next time that you come back, the city should be a bit easier to take; to some extent, sieges can be split over multiple seasons or even years. I suggest looking into the 1148 Siege of Damascus for an example of where one week of prior scouting would have changed the course of events. If you're interested in the "short-format" siege, the fortified hillside city of Carcasonne was impenetrable; I've been there and those walls simply could not be stormed by anything other than tens of thousands. During the Albigensian Crusade, the city lasted no more than two weeks because their internal water source was incapable of sustaining them.
Implicitly, cities are tough nuts to crack and not all cities are created equal; the best commanders in history still took many months to resolve some sieges. Occasionally, the best action to take when besieging is to sit there for months and to starve out the defenders. Simultaneously, the attacker can use this time to prepare siege works - Nikephoros Ouranos describes tunneling under walls as the most effective way to take cities, which is how the histories describe Nikephoros Phokas' actions. The prolonged siege isn't a disaster for an attacker, as long as they take the city. If one spends five months and fails to take the city, then that sets up a much poorer situation.
Accordingly, what's the most important aspect of a protracted siege in pre-modern times? I argue that it's the season the siege starts in because you want to have access to the surrounding harvest to feed your army and deny your opponents their ability to store their harvest inside walls. The Siege of Chandax started in July 960 and harvest season is roughly Autumn, which sounds like appropriately good planning.
The final method for sieges works better during civil wars, due to the similar cultures and/or languages, which is bribing locals/defenders to open gates.
Let's flip this, what does a defender see. A defender sees that they have soldiers, morale, water, food, and let's call it the strength of the barrier between them and the attackers. If any one of those five hit zero, the city will surrender or be taken (the attackers usually heavily outnumber the defenders so when the walls are breached then the attackers take the city almost every time). The reverse is true though. If the attacker's morale, water, food hit zero (or the number of soldiers drop to below the level of the defenders), then they will abandon the siege. This explains why defenders sally during sieges, as usually there comes a point where there's an excess of defenders for the quantity of (usually, but not exclusively) food in the city and lives are risked to sure up one of the city's failings. It's obviously why sallies are taken and siege towers/trebuchets are burnt because it's more valuable to risk lives than it is to allow the walls to be overcome.
Sometimes, cities surrender earlier. At Tarsos 965, Nikephoros crushed the undoubtedly smaller army the Tarsiots put on the field to prevent him from besieging the city. Nikephoros then attempted to storm the walls, but was repelled. Only after that did the city sue for peace on not unreasonable terms, which was that the citizenry could choose to leave with their belongings. What essentially happened here was that the morale of the city dropped to zero - they could have held out for a month or two more probably, but to what end? For the record, I don't hold it against a general for attempting to storm the walls and failing once, I will begin to hold it against them if they continue to dripfeed their forces into unfavourable situations, such as Witiges early during the 537-538 Siege of Rome.
Leo the Deacon, if I'm not mistaken, claims that he had taken sixty cities and fortresses by the time he became emperor in 963. John Skylitzes claims that, by the time Nikephoros died in 969, he had taken one hundred. It was a lot of grueling work to invert the border region, but one that Nikephoros shined at. The Caliphal border region were known as the "thughur" and the Caliphate, before the start of its collapse had fortified those border cities far beyond the resources of the individual cities - Tarsus is describe as having a double-wall.
To put it simply why I think Nikephoros Phokas was the best commander of his age is because he trained and equipped the armies to a much higher standard than any of his recent predecessors and appropriately selected aggressive and competent officers who he could work with. Whether he was present or not, he set up a system that drew out the forces of Sayf al-Dawla or the Tarsiots or any number of other small emirates and cities and eliminated them at a low cost to his armies. His aggressive year-round multi-year campaigns turned a semi-professional force into a crack military that was unrivalled even after his time for some thirty years. He could wield this incredible army, in a landscape where the enemy forces had been wiped out, to start cracking cities and fortresses open, a task that so many commanders struggled at, but one that Nikephoros had the mindset for.
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