Battle of Manzikert
The Battle of Manzikert or Malazgirt was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Empire on 26 August 1071 near Manzikert, theme of Iberia (modern Malazgirt in Muş Province, Turkey). The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes played an important role in undermining Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Armenia, and allowed for the gradual Turkification of Anatolia. Many Turks, travelling westward during the 11th century, saw the victory at Manzikert as an entrance to Asia Minor.
| Battle of Manzikert | |||||||||
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| Part of the Byzantine–Seljuk wars | |||||||||
15th-century French miniature depicting the combatants in contemporary Western European armour | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Seljuk Empire
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Romanos IV (POW) Nikephoros Bryennios Theodore Alyates Andronikos Doukas |
Alp Arslan Afshin Bey Artuk Bey Suleiman ibn Qutalmish | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
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c. 40,000 (Close to half deserted before battle. Turkic mercenaries defected to the Seljuk side.) 200,000 (according to Turkish and Arabic sources) | 30,000–50,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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2,000–8,000 killed 4,000 captured 20,000 deserted | unknown | ||||||||
The brunt of the battle was borne by the Byzantine army's professional soldiers from the eastern and western tagmata, as large numbers of mercenaries and Anatolian levies fled early and survived the battle. The fallout from Manzikert was disastrous for the Byzantines, resulting in civil conflicts and an economic crisis that severely weakened the Byzantine Empire's ability to defend its borders adequately. This led to the mass movement of Turks into central Anatolia – by 1080, an area of 78,000 square kilometres (30,000 sq mi) had been gained by the Seljuk Turks. It took three decades of internal strife before Alexius I (1081 to 1118) restored stability to Byzantium. Historian Thomas Asbridge says: "In 1071, the Seljuqs crushed an imperial army at the Battle of Manzikert (in eastern Asia Minor), and though historians no longer consider this to have been an utterly cataclysmic reversal for the Greeks, it still was a stinging setback." It was the only time a Byzantine emperor became the prisoner of a Muslim commander, and the first time since Valerian that a Roman emperor was captured alive by an enemy force.