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Battle of Anchialus
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The Battle of Anchialus took place on August 20, 917, on the Black Sea coast near the Bulgarian fortress Tuthom, which is now the town of Pomorie, between Bulgarian and Byzantine Empire forces.
The result of the battle was a decisive Bulgarian victory which not only secured the previous successes of Simeon I but made him de facto a ruler of the whole Balkan Peninsula excluding the well-protected Byzantine capital Constantinople and Pelopones. The battle of Anchialus in considered to be one of the largest battles in the Middle Ages and one of the greatest military successes of Bulgaria. Among the most significant consequences was the official recognition of the Imperial title of the Bulgarian monarchs, a humiliation the Byzantines never experienced as a result of an encounter with any other country.
BackgroundAfter the Bulgarian victory in the war between 894 and 896 the Byzantines were forced to pay tribute to Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria.
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The Battle of Anchialus took place on August 20, 917, on the Black Sea coast near the Bulgarian fortress Tuthom, which is now the town of Pomorie, between Bulgarian and Byzantine Empire forces.
The result of the battle was a decisive Bulgarian victory which not only secured the previous successes of Simeon I but made him de facto a ruler of the whole Balkan Peninsula excluding the well-protected Byzantine capital Constantinople and Pelopones. The battle of Anchialus in considered to be one of the largest battles in the Middle Ages and one of the greatest military successes of Bulgaria. Among the most significant consequences was the official recognition of the Imperial title of the Bulgarian monarchs, a humiliation the Byzantines never experienced as a result of an encounter with any other country.
BackgroundAfter the Bulgarian victory in the war between 894 and 896 the Byzantines were forced to pay tribute to Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria. In 912 when the Byzantine emperor Leo VI died, his brother Alexander refused to pay tribute to the Bulgarians. Simeon saw an opportunity to wage a new war and fulfill his ambitions to conquer Constantinople. Alexander died in the same year and the new government under the Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos made desperate attempts to avoid the war, promising that the infant Emperor Constantine VII would marry one of Simeon's daughters. After a plot in the Byzantine Court in 914, however, the new regent Zoe, Constantine's mother, rejected the marriage. In answer the Bulgarians conquered Eastern Thrace, and its population recognised Simeon as their ruler and in September 914 they captured Adrianople, while the Byzantine army was occupied in the east. In the next year the Bulgarian armies attacked the areas of Drach and Solun.
Preparations for battle Both sides carefully prepared for a decisive end of the conflict. Empress Zoe wanted to swiftly make a peace settlement with the Arabs and to engage the whole army of the East in a war with Simeon and destroy him. The Byzantines tried to find allies and sent emissaries to the Magyars, Pechenegs and Serbs but Simeon was familiar with the methods of Byzantine diplomacy and from the very beginning took successful actions to subvert a possible alliance between his enemies. Thus the Byzantines were forced to fight alone.
The Byzantine ArmyIn 917, the Byzantine empire had stabilized its eastern borders, and the generals John Bogas and Leo Phocas were able to gather additional troops from Asia Minor, perhaps as many as 110,000. This was an enormous army and its goal was the ultimate elimination of the Bulgarian threat from the north. The Byzantine commanders were convinced that their strategy would be successful. Morale was raised as the soldiers vowed by the miraculous Wooden Cross to die for one another. The spirit of the army was further raised as the troops were paid in advance and a fleet commanded by Romanus Lecapenus set off to the north at the mouth of the Danube. The Byzantines had tried to pay some Pecheneg tribes to attack, but Romanus would not agree to transport them across the Danube, and instead they attacked Bulgarian territory on their own.
The Bulgarian ArmyThe Bulgarians, under Simeon I of Bulgaria, had an army of only 70,000 men. Although they ruined the Byzantine negotiations, the Bulgarians were still afraid that the old allies of the Byzantines, the Pechenegs and the Hungarians, would attack them from the north, so two small armies were sent to protect the northern borders of the vast Bulgarian empire that spread from Bosnia in the west to the Dnieper River in the east. In addition Bulgarian forces under Marmais were deployed near the western borders with the Serb principalities to prevent possible unrest.
The battleThe enormous Byzantine army marched northwards and set its camp in the vicinity of the strong fortress of Anchialus. Leo Phocas intended to invade Moesia and meet the Pechenegs and Lacapenus's troops in Dobrudzha. Simeon swiftly concentrated his army on the heights around the fortress.
On the morning of 20 August, 917, the battle between the Bulgarians and the Byzantines began by the river Acheloos near the modern village Acheloi, 8 kilometers to the north of Anchialos (modern Pomorie) on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. The Byzantine generals planned to outflank the right Bulgarian wing in order to detach Simeon's troops from the Balkan Passes. The Bulgarian ruler concentrated his most powerful forces in the two wings and left the centre relatively weak in order to surround the enemy when the centre would yield to the Byzantine attack. Simeon himself was in charge of large cavalry reserves hidden behind the hills who were supposed to make the decisive blow.
The Byzantine attack was fierce and it was not long before the Bulgarians began slowly to retreat. The enemy cavalry charged the infantry in the centre killing many Bulgarians. The Bulgarian position became desperate as they could not manage to hold the heights to the south of the river and began a hasty retreat to the north. Elated, the Byzantines started a bitter chase and their battle formations soon began to break. The battle was fought furiously. The decisive moment came when the heavy cavalry corps of Bulgarians, led by Simeon, attacked the Byzantine left wing from behind the hills. With an irresistible rush the cavaliers dashed down at the confused enemy who immediately bent under their attack, panicked and took on their heels.
Some Byzantines tried to repulse the cavalry charge but they were also attacked by the infantry. Tsar Simeon personally took part in the fight, his white horse killed at the height of the battle. The Byzantines were completely routed. Leo Phocas was saved by fleeing to Mesembria (modern Nesebar) in Bulgaria, but in the thick of the battle Constantine Lips, John Grapson and many other commanders (archontes) were cut down along with enormous number of soldiers and officers. By the end of the day the Bulgarians overwhelmed the defenders of Mesembria and captured the town. Leo Phocas barely escaped boarding a ship.
It is estimated that approximately 70,000 Byzantine soldiers died in this battle. The Byzantine historian Leo Diaconus says that 75 years after this military catastrophe the field at Anchialus was still covered with tens of thousands of Roman skeletons. With a total of 90,000 killed the battle was among the bloodiest in the whole Medieval history and some historians refer to it as "the battle of the century".
AftermathThe remainder of the Byzantine army fled all the way back to Constantinople, followed by the Bulgarians. Several days later Phokas was defeated once more at Katasyrtai where the last Byzantine troops were routed after a night fight. The way to Constantinople was clear. The Byzantines proposed a new peace treaty, and Simeon entered the imperial city and was crowned for a second time as "Tsar" (the Slavonic title for Caesar i.e. Emperor) "of all Bulgarians and Romans". Simeon also demanded that his daughter would marry Constantine VII, the son of empress Zoe Karvounopsina, but Zoe refused and allied with Serbia and Hungary against him. However in August of 918, the general Romanus engineered a coup to depose Zoe and confined her to the monastery of St Euphemia-in-Petrium, allowing him to assume the purple. The alliance with the Serbs postponed the decisive assault of Constantinople. Simeon decided to secure his rear and sent an army under Marmais and Theodore Sigritsa to destroy them. His generals captured the Serb prince but that gave the Byzantines precious time to recover.
Significance The battle of Anchialus was one of the most important battles for Bulgaria. It secured the Imperial title of the Bulgarian rulers of centuries which was a considerable humiliation for the Byzantine Empire whose rulers claimed to have been God's only representatives on Earth. The battle also secured the survival of the Bulgarian state as the main objective of the 110,000 enemy army was to eliminate its dangerous northern neighbour.
Sources- Theophanes Continuatus, The Byzantine Attack on Bulgaria, AD 917, Theophanes Continuatus, ed. Bekker, 388-90.
- John Skylitzes, Synopsis Historion, translated by Paul Stephenson.
- ????? ?. ?????????, ??????? ?? ??????????? ??????? ???? ???????? ??????, ???? I, II ???., ????? ? ????????, ????? 1970.
- ?????? ?????? ? ????????, 1300 ?????? ?? ??????, ?????? ???????????, ????? 1984.
- ?????? ???????, ????? ??????, ??????????? ?????? ? ????, ?????? ???????, 1996.
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