Border Fury! The Muslim campaigning tactics in Asia Minor through the writings of the Byzantine military treatise Περί παραδρομής του κυρού Νικηφόρου του βασιλέως
Border Fury! The Muslim campaigning tactics in Asia Minor through the writings of the Byzantine military treatise Περί παραδρομής του κυρού Νικηφόρου του βασιλέως
By Georgios Theotokis
ATINER Conference Paper Series (July 2012)
Abstract: In the beginning of the tenth century, with the power of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad in serious decline, regional Muslim dynasties began to emerge in the fringes of the Arab world. One of them was the Hamdanid dynasty of Aleppo that was established in 944 by Sayf-ad-Dawla. Consolidating his control over central and northern Syria and launching a longterm war of attrition against the Byzantine Empire, Sayf-ad-Dawla’s campaigns were to last for some two decades until the fall of Antioch in 969. The kind of warfare that dominated the region of Cilicia and Syria between the years 944-955 was characterised by the seasonal campaigning of Muslim armies just north of the Taurus Mountains, with small and medium sized raiding parties cutting deep into Byzantine territory looting and devastating the countryside. The Byzantine military treatise Περί παραδρομής (On Skirmishing) was written in this political and military context around the year 969, reflecting the reality of warfare in the region as seen by the eyes of a highranking and experienced general. These Byzantine military manuals formed the “legacy” of experienced and glorious generals in the warfare in the East and they reflect the practice of older and well-established strategies and tactics, along with a number of innovative ideas put into practice, and the task of the historian is to distinguish between the two.
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This paper will focus on the military treatise On Skirmishing – examining it strictly from a military perspective – and attempt to reconstruct the Muslim raiding tactics in south-eastern Asia Minor up to the mid-10th century. The major questions that will be examined are: What different types of raids are examined by our author? What were the categories of troops that filled the ranks of these Muslim raiding parties and in what numbers? What is the kind of warfare that dominated the geographical area under consideration and what does it entail about the strategy and the strategic goals of both the Muslims and the Byzantines? What information do we get about the topography of the operational theatre of the war and in what way is this linked to the battle tactics and marching formations applied by the Muslims in this period? What were the consequences of these razias for the Byzantine rural communities of Cilicia and Cappadocia and what were the measures taken by the local authorities to deal with them? Do we find any signs of religious motivation in our author’s work regarding these Muslim raids? What is the historical value of this military treatise compared to other Christian and Muslim chronicler sources that examine the region in this period?
Border Fury! The Muslim campaigning tactics in Asia Minor through the writings of the Byzantine military treatise Περί παραδρομής του κυρού Νικηφόρου του βασιλέως
By Georgios Theotokis
ATINER Conference Paper Series (July 2012)
Abstract: In the beginning of the tenth century, with the power of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad in serious decline, regional Muslim dynasties began to emerge in the fringes of the Arab world. One of them was the Hamdanid dynasty of Aleppo that was established in 944 by Sayf-ad-Dawla. Consolidating his control over central and northern Syria and launching a longterm war of attrition against the Byzantine Empire, Sayf-ad-Dawla’s campaigns were to last for some two decades until the fall of Antioch in 969. The kind of warfare that dominated the region of Cilicia and Syria between the years 944-955 was characterised by the seasonal campaigning of Muslim armies just north of the Taurus Mountains, with small and medium sized raiding parties cutting deep into Byzantine territory looting and devastating the countryside. The Byzantine military treatise Περί παραδρομής (On Skirmishing) was written in this political and military context around the year 969, reflecting the reality of warfare in the region as seen by the eyes of a highranking and experienced general. These Byzantine military manuals formed the “legacy” of experienced and glorious generals in the warfare in the East and they reflect the practice of older and well-established strategies and tactics, along with a number of innovative ideas put into practice, and the task of the historian is to distinguish between the two.
This paper will focus on the military treatise On Skirmishing – examining it strictly from a military perspective – and attempt to reconstruct the Muslim raiding tactics in south-eastern Asia Minor up to the mid-10th century. The major questions that will be examined are: What different types of raids are examined by our author? What were the categories of troops that filled the ranks of these Muslim raiding parties and in what numbers? What is the kind of warfare that dominated the geographical area under consideration and what does it entail about the strategy and the strategic goals of both the Muslims and the Byzantines? What information do we get about the topography of the operational theatre of the war and in what way is this linked to the battle tactics and marching formations applied by the Muslims in this period? What were the consequences of these razias for the Byzantine rural communities of Cilicia and Cappadocia and what were the measures taken by the local authorities to deal with them? Do we find any signs of religious motivation in our author’s work regarding these Muslim raids? What is the historical value of this military treatise compared to other Christian and Muslim chronicler sources that examine the region in this period?
Click here to read this article from the Athens Institute for Education and Research
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