Manzikert 1071

Manzikert 1071: The Breaking of Byzantium, by David Nicolle

Osprey (2013), Paperback, 96 pages

I am a great fan of these Osprey military history books, although some might dismiss them as potted, simplified “Military History for Dummies”, I find them to be carefully thought-out, succinct, and highly readable little books, which take often obscure, but significant and interesting military campaigns and make them accessible to the general reader. As a bonus they are always accompanied by high quality illustrations and excellent maps. That is certainly the case with this example, which deals with the battle fought on August 26,  1071, near the obscure Anatolian town of Manzikert, where the Byzantine army of Emperor Romanos IV was decisively defeated by the Saljuc Turkish army of Sultan Alp Arslan. Although largely unknown today, it was one of the significant battles of the Medieval era as it all but ended Byzantine control of Anatolia and is generally regarded as the beginning of the end for the Byzantine Empire, which had already lasted more then 600 years in its own right and more than 1500 years as part of the Roman Empire. The book carefully lays out the background to the battle and the reasons why it was fought, the make-up and tactics of both armies, the character and behaviour of both leaders, and why they made the decisions they did, and the consequences of those decisions. The aftermath of the battle is also summed up, and the fates of both leaders (neither living very long afterwards) and their respective empires. For myself, I’ve long been interested in the Byzantines, ever since reading the wonderful trilogy by John Julius Norwich on the history of the empire, and consider this little volume a worthy addition to my knowledge of this era. It’s not a thrilling read, its a technical book and makes no apology for that fact, but it is absorbing and informative, and by no means devoid of the emotion of the story. I’ll take little books like this, succinct and informative, over bloated, thousand page, self-important histories anyday. It’s simply a good little read.

8/10