Download PDF | Dennis P. Hupchick (auth.) - The Bulgarian-Byzantine Wars for Early Medieval Balkan Hegemony_ Silver-Lined Skulls and Blinded Armies-Springer International Publishing (2017).
386 Pages
PREFACE
The history of the Balkans from the early ninth to the early eleventh century was dominated by a series of deadly conflicts between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire for hegemony in the region. As the direct continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, which had not succumbed to the inroads of migrating barbarians as had its sister half in the west, Byzantium laid claim to the Balkan Peninsula as an imperial birthright that could not be relinquished.
On the other hand, Bulgaria, a young “barbarian” state that was newly “civilized” along lines modeled after its Byzantine neighbor, viewed the Balkans as an arena for demonstrating youthful superiority over an elderly mentor by winning its possession from Byzantium. For much of the two-century-long period of generational conflict, youth appeared to hold the upper hand, with Bulgaria winning control of much of the peninsula. In the end, however, the resourcefulness and experience of age prevailed—the Byzantine Empire won an overwhelming victory and its upstart adversary was subjugated completely.
Few early medieval European military conflicts compared to the Bulgarian-Byzantine struggle in terms of scope, scale, and duration. The collective campaigns of the Frank ruler Charlemagne, extending from 772 to 812, came the closest. In territorial scope, both the BulgarianByzantine wars and those of Charlemagne ranged over vast areas with their resident populations. The former eventually drew in nearly all of the Balkan Peninsula while the latter encompassed most of Germany, parts of Italy, the Netherlands, Pyrenees Spain, western Hungary, and the northwestern Balkans. Regarding the scope of their historical implications, by the time they came to their ends, both the BulgarianByzantine and Charlemagne’s wars solidified the cultural configuration of two distinct European civilizations—Eastern and Western—that primarily were distinguished by their Christian religious beliefs (Orthodoxy in the East; Roman Catholicism in the West) and political mentalities (autocratic centralization in the East; individualistic decentralization in the West).
Although Charlemagne’s campaigns roughly were comparable in scope to the Bulgarian-Byzantine wars, such was not the case in terms of scale. The military forces involved in the wars of Bulgaria with Byzantium were larger, better organized, and more diverse than those of Charlemagne’s Franks and their assorted enemies. While Charlemagne’s main army in any given campaign numbered some 8000 men (mainly infantry, with some cavalry), the Bulgarians and Byzantines fielded forces averaging between 15,000 and 30,000 troops (with cavalry constituting a quarter to half of their number).
Moreover, Byzantium often made use of its fleet (some 200 available vessels with attendant sailors and marines) in operations against Bulgaria along the Black Sea coast and on the Danube River, adding a naval component that the Franks lacked. Also missing in Charlemagne’s operations were the kinds of military coalitions with outside forces either formed or attempted by both the Bulgarians and the Byzantines. Magyars, Pechenegs (Patzinaks), Serbs, Croats, Arabs, and Kievan Rus’ were recruited by one side or the other during the two-century-long conflict in the Balkans, lending it an international component not found in the west during early medieval times.
The Byzantine land army of the wars with Bulgaria was the best organized, armed, and supplied, as well as the most efficient, disciplined, and professionally led, military force in early medieval Europe. Its officers had available to them treatises analyzing military tactics, strategy, and intelligence information for use against enemies (real or potential), and they frequently drew on revered Roman military traditions to instill an unsurpassed esprit de corps among their troops. The Bulgarians, forced to face the Byzantine military machine for over two centuries, extensively borrowed from their enemy elements of organization, armament, and strategy that they added to their own original steppe tactical and disciplinary traditions, enabling them to survive and thrive for as long as they did.
Charlemagne’s military system, although more disciplined and organized than any that had emerged in the west since the Western Roman Empire’s collapse four centuries earlier, was crude by comparison with Byzantium’s and fell somewhat short of Bulgaria’s. While the Franks eventually placed great emphasis on maintaining a siege train in their field force, they never had to deal with the sort of extensive, strong, stoneand-brick fortifications faced by both sides in the Bulgarian-Byzantine wars. (The triple land walls of Constantinople, Byzantium’s capital, were the longest and strongest set of medieval fortifications erected in Europe and often played a crucial role in the wars with Bulgaria.)
The scale of violence involved in any early medieval conflict was frightful. Man-to-man combat with such basic but deadly hand weapons as swords, daggers, maces, spears, axes, bows, and even clubs, slings, and stones was bloody and brutal. In the heat of combat, emotions ran hot and the immediacy of the “kill-or-be-killed” instinct often led to atrocities. At times, however, commanders intentionally employed savagery against the enemy for psychological or propagandistic purposes. Perhaps surprisingly, given the fact that the contenders generally stood at an uneven but higher stage of “civilized” development than did the Franks, in the Bulgarian-Byzantine wars such “object lessons” were more common than in those of Charlemagne.
The subtitle of this book, although appearing grisly at first glance, actually refers to two “object-lesson” episodes that serve as figurative “bookends” to the period of the Bulgarian-Byzantine wars, emphasizing the continuous level of ferocity that characterized the conflict throughout. Early in the hegemonic struggle (811), after ambushing and destroying a large Byzantine army led by Emperor Nikephoros I (who perished in the fighting), Krum, the victorious Bulgar ruler, had the dead emperor’s head removed, the skull sawed off above the eye sockets and lined with silver, and then used it as his ceremonial drinking cup to proclaim Bulgar superiority over Byzantium. Two centuries later (1014), near the end of the protracted struggle, Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated a Bulgarian force and had hundreds of the surviving captives blinded and sent back to the Bulgarian ruler Samuil (led by one man out of every hundred who was spared an eye for the purpose) to demonstrate Byzantine superiority and to herald the ultimate fate of Bulgaria. It matters little that some modern scholars have cast doubt on the authenticity of both episodes; as circulating tales, they were known and believed in their times and achieved their intended psychological impact on foes and friends alike.
In terms of duration, Charlemagne’s wars were confined to his own lifetime (as was the relatively sophisticated level of his military system in the west)—some forty years, including intermittent bouts of peace. In contrast, the Bulgarian-Byzantine hegemonic wars stretched over two centuries and the reigns of a number of rulers on both sides. Although that long period was punctuated by interludes of peace, the cumulative extent of actual warfare totaled well over 60 years, and even the peaceful interludes were not free of recurring armed “incidents.”
Despite the obvious immensity of the Bulgarian-Byzantine wars for Balkan hegemony, their story has received scant coverage in western, most especially English-language, military histories of early medieval Europe. While the name of Charlemagne at least is familiar to most in the west, that of Krum, Simeon, or Basil II is known mostly to Bulgarian or Byzantine specialists and students. Why? The same reason for the short shrift often given by western authors of general medieval European histories to, for example, the Mongols or Moors applies to Byzantium and Bulgaria as well: They lay outside the cultural sphere of Western European civilization and thus frequently portrayed as either “foreign” or “threatening” to western historical development. Compounding the problem is the fact that most English-speaking Bulgarian or Byzantine experts have produced studies narrowly targeted at specialized audiences rather than a more general readership. The work that follows, although scholarly in nature, is a modest attempt to broaden awareness of the Bulgarian-Byzantine wars beyond the ranks of dedicated specialists and students alone.
Those English-language accounts of the early medieval struggle between Bulgaria and Byzantium for hegemonic control of the Balkans that do exist usually have appeared in works devoted to Byzantine political or military history. Rarely has the story of the wars been told in English from the Bulgarian perspective. The underlying reasons for such one-sidedness are many. Most of the primary sources treating the conflicts were Byzantine products. Another reason for the paucity of English-language accounts of Bulgaria’s early medieval wars with Byzantium is the scarcity of English-speaking historians working in the field of medieval Bulgarian history (or, for that matter, in the field of Bulgarian history in general).
That Bulgaria ceased to play a significant role on the world stage after the early medieval period, spent much of its history either subjugated or dominated by foreign world powers, reemerged in the late nineteenth century as a small modern state located in what most English-speakers consider a “fringe” area of Europe (the Balkans), and sports a localized language illuminates the reasons for this lack of professional interest. There is, of course, no lack of coverage of early medieval Bulgaria and its wars with Byzantium in Bulgarianlanguage historiography.
By drawing on the fruits of Bulgarian historians’ extensive research and integrating them with available English-language studies, the text that follows attempts to recount the drama and detail of the early medieval wars between Bulgaria and Byzantium for hegemonic control of the Balkans primarily from the Bulgarian side. The main emphasis is placed on military activities. Although military and political developments that are not specifically associated with the details of the hegemonic wars are included to provide the necessary setting for the conflict (as “prelude” to and “interludes” between the various stages of the conflict), the text does not pretend to provide a truly comprehensive history of the First Bulgarian Empire since important cultural (religion, literature, the arts, etc.) and economic matters are treated only when pertinent for the context.
Nor does the text venture into describing Byzantine military organization and tactics in minute detail (the recent works of military scholarship by such experts as Warren Treadgold, John Haldon, and others admirably have done so and need not be repeated). With the understanding of these qualifying statements, it is hoped that the following effort will find a receptive audience among those English-speaking specialists, students, and intellectually curious general readers interested in military, Balkan, and medieval history, and make some contribution toward broadening the awareness and appreciation of the important role played by Bulgaria in early medieval Europe.
Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA, 2017 Dennis P. Hupchick
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A number of institutions and individuals deserve thanks for supporting this book project. Research and writing of the manuscript were assisted through a sabbatical granted by the administration and trustees of Wilkes University. Brian Sacolic, chief reference librarian, and Heidi Selecky, acquisitions librarian, at Wilkes University’s Farley Library were instrumental in providing bibliographic assistance and access to source materials not readily available in Wilkes-Barre. Significant portions of the draft manuscript were read and commented upon by Dr. Michael Davidson and Henry Hunsinger, although their suggestions were not always followed. A particular debt of gratitude is extended to Vladimir Vladov of the Bulgarian Academy of Science’s Sociological Institute for his longstanding friendship, assorted aid during my numerous past visits to Bulgaria, and gifting me with a book that proved inspirational for undertaking this study.
Thanks also go to Deborah Arcavage, Wilkes history departmental administrative assistant, for her many acts of assorted support, and to Emily Russell, editor at Palgrave /Macmillan, for forcing me to tighten the prose of the manuscript to make it a better “read.” Lastly, I sincerely wish to thank my wife Anne-Marie for producing the final versions of the maps appearing in this volume as well as her often-strained tolerance of her husband’s self-absorbed preoccupations with drafting the book.
NOTE ON SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION
An attempt has been made in the text to render most proper names and foreign terms in or near their native spellings. Exceptions to this approach are terms generally better known to English speakers in their anglicized forms (such as the names of states, certain cities, and various geographic elements) and the first names of certain Greek and most Western European individuals. Place-names (excluding the exceptions noted above) are given in their historical Bulgarian or Greek forms, with modern contemporary forms or historical variants provided in parentheses following their initial appearances in the text (identified by: B = Bulgarian; Gr = Greek; Sl = Slavic; L = Latin; m = modern).
Most geographic elements are identified by modern names (either anglicized or native). In the case of the Bulgarian and Russian languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet, a “phonetical” transliteration system, generally following that used by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, is employed, while for Macedonian, Serbian, and Croatian a “linguistic” system based on the Latin alphabet modified by diacritical marks is used. Dates following proper names are regnal.
A guide to the simple phonetical pronunciation of certain foreign letters follows.
Introduction: The Belligerents
For two centuries, from the early ninth to the early eleventh, Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire engaged in what ultimately proved to be a “life-and-death” struggle for hegemonic control of Europe’s Balkan Peninsula. The Balkans jut southward from the European landmass into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, bounded by the Adriatic, Aegean, Marmara, and Black seas. The peninsula’s location in the eastern Mediterranean makes it a strategic crossroads of three continents— Europe, Asia, and Africa—and a focus of human contention. This is so despite the region’s difficult terrain, sparse resources, and limited lines of communication.
Mountains—many of them densely forested—cover more than 70% of the peninsula, limiting and restricting habitation and agricultue, and posing difficult problems for conducting military operations, especially during the early medieval period. The available Roman road network was primitive and constricted by Roman standards, further limiting operational capabilities.! Climatically, the peninsula enjoys Mediterranean-type weather along its coasts and a continental one throughout its interior. Most campaigns during the hegemonic wars were conducted either in the peninsula’s interior, continental climate zone or in Thrace, which enjoys mixed continental-Mediterranean weather. “Campaigning season” during the wars usually extended from April through October, when climatic conditions posed fewer problems for troop movement and provisioning. Control of mountain passes, river valleys, mountain basins, and the few extensive lowlands in the eastern Balkans were strategically crucial for both sides in the conflicts, while the rugged, broken terrain restricted the number of set-piece battles fought and imposed specializd training requirements for troops (Fig. 1.1).
To gain a full understanding of the Bulgarian-Byzantine hegemonic wars, knowledge of the belligerents is useful. Simplistically, the wars pitted “Bulgarians” against “Byzantines.” While this rudimentary description generally is true, it cloaks a complex human reality. Modern notions of such group identities as ethnicity and nationalism cannot be read into depictions of pre-modern times. Some sense of ethnic awareness, based on vernacular language, existed among early medieval populations but it was rudimentary by today’s standards. Personal loyalty to the ruler or state largely was restricted to dominant social elites, with religion inculcating the allegiance of the subject masses.? Both protagonists in the wars were of mixed ethnicity, in modern terms, with the “Byzantines” enjoying the edge in group identity and state consciousness—they saw themselves as “Romans (Gr: Romaioi)” inhabiting a “Roman” empire. Only after their mass Christian conversion in the late ninth century did the “Bulgarians” begin acquiring a similar sense of identity and state affiliation.
THE BYZANTINES
An important component of the Roman institutional heritage in Byzantium was the military. Between the disappearance of the classical legionary forces in the late fourth century and the outbreak of the hegemonic wars with Bulgaria in 809, the imperial military underwent significant transformation. Part of that process was evolutionary, such as the shift in primary force makeup from infantry predominance to cavalry in the face of threats from mostly mounted enemies. Expediency in addressing catastrophic military developments during the seventh century, when the empire fought wars on two fronts against the Arabs in West Asia and the Avars-Slavs in the Balkans, also affected military change.*
Decisive military defeats by the Arabs and widespread devastation and demographic disruption in the Balkans caused by Avar-Slav incursions and extensive Slavic settlement shattered the empire’s military organization established by emperors Diocletian (284-305) and Constantine I (324-337) in the late third and early fourth centuries that in great part depended on foreign mercenary forces. By the opening of the hegemonic wars, a new military organization, grounded in regionally-based armies predominantly composed of native landed soldier-peasants and few foreign mercenaries, had replaced the old structure. This new organization became known as the “theme system,” which not only represented a basic military arrangement but also evolved into Byzantium’s fundamental provincial administrative structure.
A theme (thema; pl.: themata) designated a regionally based and recruited military force as well as the territory in which it was stationed. The thematic commander (strategos, pl.: strategoi) was endowed with military and civil authority, serving as both general and provincial governor. Most subordinate officers and the rank-and-file troopers resided within the theme’s territory on land plots intended for their support and designated “military properties,” the size and productive value of which varied by rank and troop type.> Throughout the hegemonic wars, the number of men serving in a militia-like thematic force varied from as few as 1000 to as many as 18,000, but individual thematic strengths of 2000-4000 men were the norm in the Balkans.°
Every theme consisted of one to three military divisions called tourmai (sing.: tourma), each divided into two to three brigades, or droungoi (sing.: drowngos), which in turn were generally composed of five regiments termed Janda (sing.: bandon). On active service the actual number of units in the tactical subdivisions, as well as troop strengths for all units, varied at the discretion of the commander, either because of the number of troops available for active service or intentional attempts to foil enemy intelligence regarding force size. If an average bandon consisted of 200 men, then a droungos might contain 1000 men and a tourma as many as 2000-3000 men. In the early stages of the hegemonic wars, Byzantium drew on six Balkan thematic armies—Thrace Macedonia, Hellas, Peloponnese Kephalenia and Thessaloniki fielding at most approximately 14,000 men.
The number of Balkan themes increased to nine by the final phase of the conflicts in the early eleventh century with the addition of the Strymon and Nikopolis themes, both created from existing themes, and that of Dyrrakhion, increasing the potential field force to perhaps 20,000 men. During the wars the Balkan thematic forces often were augmented by troops from the more numerous and larger Anatolian themes whenever circumstances permitted such transfers.”
Themes posed both advantages and disadvantages for Byzantium’s government. The recruitment of soldier-peasants holding land within the themes’ territories ensured the troopers had vested interests in fighting to protect their loved ones and properties against threats, thus producing highly effective and motivated regional defense forces. In addition, the dual military-civil nature of the themes provided a solid foundation for stable provincial administration. On the other hand, thematic militia-like soldier-peasants often proved reticent to participate in military activities such as offensive operations outside their home regions, campaigns during crucial phases of the agricultural cycle, and peacetime training.® Moreover, the regionally powerful military-civil position of thematic strategot made them susceptible to rebellion against the central government, of which there were numerous examples during the period of the hegemonic wars.
In response to the disadvantages posed by the themes, Byzantine emperors, starting with Constantine V (741-775), broke the originally large themes into increasingly smaller ones in efforts to minimize the strategoi’s military power. More important, they reestablished a separate professional military force subject to their own authority by transforming five old, essentially ceremonial guard units into combat-ready elite troops, to which a sixth was added at the opening of the hegemonic wars and a seventh in the third quarter of the tenth century.
Known collectively as the tagmata) (sing.: tagma), meaning the “regiments,” this elite force consisted of five cavalry units—the Schools (Skholai, the senior regiment), the Exkoubitoi (the Guards), the Vigla (or Arithmos—the Watch), the Hikanatoi (the Worthies), and the Immortals (Athanatoz)— which may each have numbered 4000 men, and two infantry units— the Walls (Tezkhistat) and the Nowmeroi—each enrolling 2000 men. All except the Noumeroi were garrisoned outside the capital, split between Balkan Thrace and Anatolian Bithynia. These units could be supplemented by about 1000 men of the emperor’s bodyguard composed mostly of foreign mercenaries—the Hetaireia (Retinue). All told, the imperial professional forces may have contributed as few as 4000 or as many as 24,000 troops.?
Thematic armies in the hegemonic wars were 20% cavalry and the rest infantry during the early stages, with the proportion of cavalry increasing to as much as one-third of thematic forces by their close in the early eleventh century.!° Most troops, both cavalry and infantry, were light or medium (regular) type in terms of armament, given the nature of the rugged Balkan terrain and the Bulgar-Slav enemy forces. Heavy thematic troops, including mounted cataphracts (kataphraktoi; klibanariot)— troopers armored from head to foot astride similarly armored horses— and professional theme tagmatic units, made their appearance by the 970s. The five elite tagmata were heavy cavalry.!!
Unlike their opponents in the hegemonic wars, the Byzantine military included a navy. It was organized similar to the land forces in that there existed both thematic and imperial constituents. The three thematic fleets sported both combat marines and sailors, with the former organized like land troops and the latter under the authority of ship captains. All were commanded by strategoi. Two themes in the Balkans—Hellas and Peloponnesemaintained naval squadrons as well as land forces. The thematic fleets screened the empire’s eastern Mediterranean coasts against Arab naval attack and played a scant role in the hegemonic wars. The imperial fleet, headquartered in Constantinople, protected the capital and conducted operations in the Black Sea and on the Danube River, seeing significant active service throughout the period of the wars. Because this fleet was crucial for the defense of the capital and supporting military operations in the eastern Balkans, its admiral (droungarios) enjoyed a higher status than the thematic naval strategoi.!?
During the hegemonic wars, the imperial fleet enrolled some 4000 marines and 19,600 oarsmen.!? These served on a variety of ships. A warship (dromon—“runner”) could range from a large vessel with 200 oarsmen and 70 marines to smaller ones with total contingents of 108-110 men each. The fleet usually comprised between 150 and 175 ships. There also were smaller pilot and support vessels as well as transport barges, many of which were requisitioned from merchant fleets as needed. The imperial fleet made its major contribution in the wars through its transport capabilities, either moving and landing forces along the Black Sea coast and the banks of the Danube or ferrying steppe allies across the Danube in strategic operations against Bulgaria. The fleet’s existence at Constantinople, which guaranteed uninterrupted supply of the capital, thwarted all Bulgarian plans to take the city by siege while it, in turn, could invest enemy strong points along the Danube’s banks or the Black Sea coast.!*
An advantage enjoyed by Byzantium over its enemies in the hegemonic wars was an intellectually sophisticated approach toward the military arts among its commanders. Emperors such as Maurice (582-602), Leo VI (886-912), and Nikephoros II Phokas (963-969) wrote, or had written for them, in-depth works of strategy and tactics, in which detailed attention was paid to such matters as troop types, formations, integrated force coordination, armament, order of march, logistics, encampments, discipline, training, security, and intelligence. Beyond strictly immediate campaign necessities, intelligence information often included extensive analyses of potential enemies’ general strengths and weaknesses for the purpose of extracting maximum strategic and tactical profit in any conflicts with them.!5 Despite the benefits enjoyed by the Byzantines, military success in the wars often boiled down to the personal abilities of individual field commanders. No amount of organization or access to theoretical resources could compensate for untalented, incompetent, or uninspiring commanders, a reality frequently exposed during the period of the hegemonic wars, especially in its first half.!
THE BULGARIANS
At the start of the hegemonic wars in the early ninth century, “Bulgarians” as a unique group of people did not yet exist, and neither did a unified state of “Bulgaria.” What did exist was a political entity dominated by a formerly semi-nomadic, Hunno-Turkic people—the Bulgars—who had established themselves astride the Danube River in the Balkans’ northeastern corner between 679 and 681. Within the borders of the lands controlled by the Bulgar ruler (4am), there lived a population mostly comprised of Bulgars, a small but dominant minority, and Slavs, the subordinate but undoubted majority. Holding separate pagan religious beliefs, speaking separate languages, and embracing different mores and attire, the two communities initially shared little in common other than obedience to the same /an and a perception of Byzantium as a threat to their continued independent existences. These two commonalities, combined with the forces of normal human sexual attraction, were strong enough to spark a gradual integrative process that progressed slowly throughout the eighth century and was advancing, but still incomplete, by the opening of the ninth.!7
The decisive step in the integration process that merged Bulgars and Slavs into “Bulgarians” occurred in the mid-ninth century with the conversion of the Bulgar state’s population to Orthodox Christianity and the creation of the Cyrillic Slavic literary and administrative language, which guaranteed that embracing Orthodoxy did not entail Byzantine subjugation. Any remaining Bulgar-Slav segregation thereafter rapidly disappeared. Christianity swept away the differing pagan beliefs of both peoples, and Orthodoxy’s widespread propagation in Slavic guise fashioned a common religion and language, ultimately creating a single people and culture—the Bulgarian.!®
Orthodox Christian conversion and the creation of Cyrillic Slavic entailed political ramifications. Just as Orthodoxy, the emperor, and the imperial state were inextricably joined in the minds of the Byzantines as crucial components of God’s divine earthly plan, a similar concept infiltrated among the emerging Christian Bulgarians. If the Christian Byzantine emperors could be proclaimed God’s viceroy on earth, so too could a Christian Bulgarian ruler claim similar status. By the opening of the hegemonic wars’ middle phase at the end of the ninth century, the Bulgarian ruler was a divinely-ordained monarch reigning over a culturally unified state with a loyal population and endowed with the adopted trappings of an Orthodox Christian autocrat, based on the only available model—the Orthodox Byzantine emperor. Borrowing the imperial raiment included borrowing the imperial ideology, resulting in a new, more intense level of combativeness in the hegemonic struggle for the Balkans. From the end of the ninth through the early eleventh centuries, the conflicts acquired the aura of struggles for imperial precedence within the Orthodox Christian world.!?
The Bulgarians emerging by the early tenth century were an ethno-cultural alloy of mostly Slavs and Bulgars, with the Slavic component decidedly predominant. The Bulgar contribution to the mix, however, was not insignificant. Although little in terms of their language and mores survived the merger with the Slavs, the Bulgars made a lasting contribution to the Bulgarian ethno-cultural alloy in the areas of administrative leadership and the military arts. The armies fielded by Bulgaria throughout the hegemonic wars reflected Bulgar more than Slavic military structures.
The Bulgars
The Bulgars emerged from the welter of nomadic Hunnic and Turkic tribal confederations that ebbed and flowed throughout Western Asia and the southwestern steppes during the fifth and sixth centuries. They held their origins to lay in the fifth-century Hunnic confederation and considered Attila (434-453) their first ruler.?2° After the fragmentation of the Hunnic coalition upon Attila’s death, the tribes that eventually coalesced into the Bulgars retreated eastward onto the southern steppes north of the Black and Azov seas. By the end of the sixth century the assorted Bulgar tribes were swept into new foreign tribal confederations, with the westernmost brought within the Avar kaganate (the state ruled by the Avar kagan [ruling prince]), centered on Pannonia, and the eastern tribes falling under Western (G6k) Turk overlordship. There matters stood until a revolt against the Western Turks in the 630s, led by the Onogur tribal chief Kubrat (or Kurt), resulted in the creation of a steppe state known to the Byzantines as “Great Bulgaria.
Kubrat’s state was wooed by Byzantine Emperor Herakleios (610-641) as an ally against the rising Khazar confederation situated to Great Bulgaria’s east. A treaty was signed and Kubrat granted gifts and the Byzantine title of patrician (patrikios.)?? Great Bulgaria did not long outlive the death of its creator (between 663 and 668), disintegrating under Khazar pressure. Kubrat’s sons scattered mostly westward, taking varying numbers of tribal followers with them. Two of the brothers—Kuber and Asparuh—ultimately established themselves in the Balkans at Byzantine expense by the 680s. Asparuh’s following constituted the main branch of the Onogur Bulgar diaspora. Their conquest of Byzantium’s northeastern Balkan territories (Dobrudzha and the Danubian Plain) signaled the beginning of a permanent and incrementally expanding Bulgar state.?*
Unlike previous Hunno-Turkic political entities, which were tribal confederations, Asparuh’s Danubian Bulgar state was a centralized monarchy from its inception. As head of the recognized dynastic clan (the Dulo [clan of the “War Horses”]), the /an reigned as hereditary head of state, supreme military commander, and probably high priest of the Bulgar god, Tangra (Almighty Sky-God). He exerted authority through a nobility divided in status between “inner” and “outer” members. The “inner” nobles were leading clan elders (boili; sing.: boil[a]; later bolyari; sing.: bolyar), a small number of whom acted as the /an’s governingadvisory council while the rest functioned as government officials. The more numerous “outer” nobles (lagaini; sing.: bagain), comprised of full-time mounted warriors, served as provincial officers. Because Bulgar society embraced a warrior culture, governing duties entailed military responsibilities. The an was supreme commander. The senior official of the governing council—the kavhan—ranked second-in-command, acted as chancellor, and served as army commander whenever the han did not take the field. There were a number of titled officers whose militaryadministrative functions are not clearly discernable, given the paucity of source information, although the title tarban was a military one, perhaps analogous to that of strategos.?*
There is little specific data concerning the structure of the Bulgarian army during the hegemonic wars.?> Since the Bulgars originally were steppe people, it can be assumed they contributed most of the cavalry arm to the military while the subjugated Slavs generally furnished infantry. Although initially comprised of all armed, able-bodied men fighting as light cavalry and organized along clan lines, by the opening of the hegeonic wars Bulgar cavalry entered the field as medium or heavy troops consisting of full-time warriors organized within a decimal system for regimental-like units (900-1000 men each). This core mounted force probably averaged between 10,000 and 15,000 men on a standing basis.?2° In traditional Turkic fashion, the entire army (sarakt) was divided into left and right wings, determined by the home regions of the various units relative to the /an’s capital (Pliska or Preslav). Similar to the Byzantine system, this regular force was bolstered by elite standing troops maintained at the /an’s expense, which constituted both his personal retinue and a pool of officers for other units.?”
In times of extensive military operations, the relatively small full-time Bulgar army was augmented by general levies of peasants and freeholders. These conscripted troops apparently were armed by the han’s government and remunerated by sharing in whatever booty was acquired during a campaign. No sources describe any system of military landholding to support such a militia force or the much fewer full-time troops. Although this expanded army could not be maintained at full force levels for lengthy stretches of time and generally lacked the training and equipment to fight successful set-piece battles on open ground with the more professional Byzantines, it was far from being a rabble led by a small group of diehard warriors. Discipline was strict and great care was taken to ensure that all weapons and armament were in effective order.?®
The Slavs
Originally a numerous subject population of Asparuh’s late seventhcentury Bulgar conquerors, the Slavs of the eastern and central Balkans evolved into the ethnic essence of the “Bulgarians” by the close of the hegemonic wars. Superiority in numbers, the forces of human attraction, a commonality of interests on the part of social leaderships, mass conversion to Orthodox Christianity, and the embedding of Cyrillic Slavic as the state’s common liturgical-literary-administrative language contributed to that evolutionary process, which concluded with the assimilation of the Turkic Bulgars by their Slavic subjects and the formation of a Slavic Bulgarian people and the state of Bulgaria.
The origins of the Slavs is wrapped in controversy. Prior to the 1990s Slavic origins were explained in terms of a migratory expansion of tribal groups during the fifth and sixth centuries from an original Slavic homeland variously thought located somewhere on the plains of eastern Poland, Ukraine, or Belarus. Since the 1990s an alternative theory has emerged disputing the migratory approach and substituting in its place the spread of “Slavdom” through a process of cultural accretion among widespread, ethnically indeterminate groups of people. According to this hypothesis, the process began in the sixth century among communities located on the Wallachian Plain whose continuous direct contact with the East Roman empire first shaped among them the cultural traits identified as Slavic. Those attributes then spread to other groups lying to their north and northeast.??
No matter which theory of origins is embraced, primitive communities first identified as “Slavs” (Gr: Sklavenoi) by the East Romans appeared as raiders into imperial Balkan territories during the early sixth century from settlements on the Wallachian Plain, north of the empire’s Danubian border. It is thought that they were loosely divided between two separate but related groupings—Antes and Slaveni—but that these displayed no sophisticated political organization.*° Although they conducted destructive raids into the empire, the Slavs remained disunited, posing more of a nuisance than a major threat until they fell under the control of the Avar kaganate in the late 560s. During the rest of the sixth and first two decades of the seventh centuries, those Slavs who had not fled southward into imperial lands as refugees joined the Avars in continuously raiding throughout the Balkans. Subjected to sophisticated Avar central administration and confronted by the highly developed East Roman/Byzantine defenses, the Avars’ Slavic allies experienced sociopolitical development elevating them to a more complex level of group social existence and cemented their ethnic self identity.?!
In the early 580s Avar-Slav forces captured the imperial fortress of Srem (m: Sremska Mitrovica) on the Sava River, thus turning the empire’s defenses along the Danube. Throughout the rest of the decade, Avar-Slav warriors cut swaths of destruction deep into the Balkans, ravaging Thrace and the environs of Constantinople. Fortunately for the empire, its major Balkan urban centers withstood the assaults and, so long as these held out, the imperial authorities did not view the Avar-Slav menace as potentially fatal. What they found troubling, however, was the large number of the formerly disorganized and materially primitive Slavic intruders who sought new lands to settle as much as simple plunder.
The Slavs’ disunity and lack of state structures posed difficulties for the empire in treating them in traditional diplomatic or military fashion, and their primitive level of development permitted them to inhabit environments that more sophisticated populations avoided. Byzantium could not concentrate sizeable military forces to root them out because of Persian and Arab threats in West Asia. Following the ebb and rapid decline of the Avar kaganate after a failed assault on Constantinople in 626, the Balkan Slavs threw off Avar suzerainty. At that time their settlements were spread extensively throughout the Balkans’ interior and the territories in their hands were beyond the imperial government’s authority.*? Slavic settlement in the Balkans was aided by domestic developments in the region. Urban life had contracted and large swaths of rural land had become depopulated because of the devastating effects of the bubonic plague that ravaged the empire in the 540s and the empirewide economic disruption that accompanied the loss of West Asian and African territories to the Arabs in the seventh century.*?
Settled Slavic Balkan communities became grouped along tribal lines, with the leaders of each grouping exerting local control over followers inhabiting specific territories. Although some of these communities—in Thrace, Western Thrace, Thessaly, and much of the Peloponnese—were brought under Byzantine authority by the early ninth century, the majority remained beyond imperial control, existing as single-or multi-tribal territorial entities called Sklaviniai (sing.: Sklavinia) by the Byzantines. At the same time, newcomers to the Balkans were making efforts to win mastery over various of these Slavic communities. In the Balkans’ northwest during the seventh century, Croat and Serb invaders, two related but separate people of mixed Iranian/Sarmatian-Slav ancestry, established control over local Slaveni Slav settlements and formed two loosely structured tribal confederations.
Both of these intruders swiftly lost their Iranian/Sarmatian ethnic characteristics and underwent assimilation into the Slavic culture of their more numerous subjects.*4 The Antes Slavic tribes in the Balkans’ northeast were subjugated by Asparuh’s Bulgars in the 680s, after which the Sk/aviniai located in the central and southcentral Balkans became targets for Bulgar state expansion by the opening of the ninth century. Since Byzantine Balkan policy sought to reassert control over all lost former territories and their inhabitants, competition between Byzantium and Bulgaria for suzerainty over the Sklaviniai helped fuel the outbreak and continuation of the hegemonic wars.*°
Little is known about early Slavic social-political organization in the Balkans prior to the emergence of Slavic states in the ninth and tenth centuries. Apparently, the continuous interaction of Slavic primitive war bands, led by prestigious and renowned warriors, with sophisticated East Roman forces during the sixth century led to an amalgamation of those bands into larger, more socially stratified, multi-clan tribal entities commanded by chieftains. Unlike the former warrior leaders, these chiefs enjoyed institutionalized authority over respective tribal groups and the territories they inhabited. This process of tribal consolidation was furthered by Avar suzerainty over most of them during the late sixth and early seventh centuries, and in some cases during that time the process of Slavic social-political development reached a higher stage of multi-tribe organization led by an emerging elite of associated warriors and notables (zhupani; sing.: zhupan).*° Although much has been made of a statement by Prokopios in his Wars that the sixth-century Slavs lived “under a democracy,” the term as he knew it had nothing to do with the modern political concept. Instead, it meant that the Slavs possessed no central, institutionalized rulers or ruling elites.*7
As Sklaviniai were brought under Bulgar authority during the late seventh and eighth centuries, the consolidation of leadership among the Slavic entities progressed. While matters of military concern, security, and tribute payments were overseen by Bulgar Joi/z, mundane affairs within the Bulgar state’s Sklaviniai were handled by Slavic zhupani and village elders, thus demonstrating a dual administrative structure in which the emerging Slavic leadership initially played an independent role.*8 The hegemonic wars witnessed the progressive dismantling of such dual administration as, first, the Bulgar /ans, starting with Krum (803-814), imposed their own chosen officials (some of whom were Slavic zhupant) on the Sklaviniai under their authority, transforming the semiautonomous territories of Slavic settlement into centrally controlled provinces. Second, the process of the Bulgars’ cultural assimilation by the Slavs progressively merged their leaderships into a single ruling class and eliminated the underlying reason for dual administration. Last, mass conversion to Orthodox Christianity in Slavic form during the late ninth and early tenth centuries eradicated further need for separate political-administrative leadership in the Bulgarian state.*?
Little specific is known about the Slavs’ contribution to Bulgarian combat forces during the hegemonic wars. East Roman descriptions of the Slavic military from the early sixth and early seventh centuries paint a picture of a primitive, almost anarchistic force of light infantry sporting little or no armor and incapable of withstanding the East Romans in set-piece battles. Each tribe or tribal grouping fielded its own force comprised of all its able-bodied men. Although they were untrained in a sophisticated tactical sense, their physical toughness, skill with arms, and use of difficult terrain to their advantage instilled respect in their imperial opponents.*°
Slavic unit organization and size during the hegemonic wars remain matters of conjecture. Byzantine sources recorded that the Slavs often fielded tribal forces consisting of between 1200 and 3000 men.*! These were comprised of numerous war bands, numbering roughly 200 warriors each and representing the able-bodied men of a single large village or a group of neighboring small ones. The bands were led by local notables who accepted the overall command of some more widely renowned warrior. Originally, such agglomerations of war bands were circumstantial and temporary but, by the outbreak of the hegemonic wars, Slavic leadership within the Bulgar state had coalesced into a system of institutionalized chiefs (zhupanz) and notables (bolyari) whose individual personal retinues and war-band followers were integrated into the decimal unit structure of the Bulgar military organization.*”
Slavs have commonly been depicted as providing the infantry component in the early medieval armies fielded by their Avar and Bulgar overlords. While broadly accurate, such a characterization obscures the fact that Slavs also contributed cavalry or, at the very least, mounted infantry. Since both the Avars and Bulgars fielded highly mobile mounted forces, it did not take their Slavic tributaries long to appreciate such service. The breadth and depth of rapid Avar-Slav military operations in the Balkans during the late sixth and early seventh centuries would indicate that all the intruders were mounted, whether they actually fought that way or not. Sources from the period refer to named Slavic leaders being mounted or having mounted retinues. By the opening of the hegemonic wars, the Bulgar /an’s Slavic subjects not only furnished light infantry to his military but light cavalry troops as well, while Slavic leaders (zhupani and bolyari) and their retinues were armed similar to their Bulgar counterparts. With the assimilation of the Bulgar by the Slavic element in the state, Slavs thereafter conducted all the military functions formerly performed by Bulgars within the Bulgar military structure that they retained.*?
ALLIES
Both Bulgaria and Byzantium enlisted allies at various times during the hegemonic conflicts. Significant of these were two semi-nomadic peoples—the Magyars and Pechenegs—who in succession prowled the steppes to the northeast of Bulgaria, making them natural allies for the Byzantines. Despite this Byzantine advantage, the Bulgarians at times won the Pechenegs to their side for brief but crucial periods. Also important for the Byzantines were two Slavic peoples—the Serbs and the Croats—who lay to Bulgaria’s west and northwest. Similar to the Magyars and Pechenegs, these Slavs’ geographic location relative to Bulgaria rendered them militarily important enough for the Byzantines to court them as allies and for the Bulgarians to counter their threat through military action. Finally, there were the Kievan Rus’, located to the north of both the Bulgarians and Pechenegs, who first became involved in the wars as Byzantine allies during the mid-tenth century but, after defeating the Bulgarians, wound up allied with them against the Byzantines. Their subsequent defeat in the early 970s had lasting negative implications for Bulgaria in the final phase of the wars.
The Magyars and the Pechenegs
Both the Magyars and the Pechenegs emerged from the human cauldron that was the steppes north of the Caucasus and Black Sea during late antique and early medieval times. Both fell under the control or influence of the Khazar state that emerged on the Eurasian steppes in the seventh century.
Among the Khazars’ subjects were seven tribes that eventually constituted the Magyars. Their Neolithic ancestors originated in the Kama River region of Central Asia, adjacent to the Ural Mountains, and spoke a Finno- Ugric language unrelated to any other. These people’s descendants migrated southwestward onto the steppes, where they came into contact with the Iranian Alans and Sarmatians and with Skythian peoples, who exerted powerful formative influences on them, especially regarding horse culture. Following the collapse of Attila’s Hunnic confederation, the Magyars living on the steppes north of the Sea of Azov were submerged in the loose tribal confederations created in the sixth century by Bulgar peoples who had fled eastward from Pannonia and settled in the region. The Magyars suffered the same fate as the Bulgars in being incorporated into the Western Turk state by the late sixth century. Domination by Bulgar-Turk societies stamped Turkish cultural characteristics on the non-Turkic Magyars, particularly in personal and tribal names. By the mid-seventh century the Magyars were members of Kubrat’s Onogur Bulgar group and his state of Great Bulgaria, from which association they acquired the root for the name that most foreigners later used in referring to them—Hungarians.**
Following Great Bulgaria’s collapse, the seven Magyar tribes became tributaries of the Khazars, from whom they acquired the tradition of dual political rulers: A sacred, figurehead chief (kende, or kiindii) and a vice-chief (gyula), who was military commander and de facto leader. The gyula was seconded by an officer entitled horka (or karchas). The Magyars broke with the Khazars sometime in the early ninth century and established an independent tribal federation on the southern steppes north of the Sea of Azov, a region called Levadia by the Byzantines. They were joined by three breakaway Turkish Khazar tribes, the Kabars, who served as important military auxiliaries in the Magyars’ main mounted force, always positioned in the forefront during combat because of their recognized warrior ethos.*° Beyond this fact, little is known about early Magyar military organization. One can assume that, like most other steppe peoples, they fielded light and medium cavalry composed of all able-bodied armed men from the federation’s tribes, led by their tribal chiefs and formed into decimal-based sized units. These tribal units may have been structured along clan lines, with each under the authority of its respective clan leader. The gyula served as the overall force commander and led an elite retinue, as did each of his tribal chiefs. At the time of their participation in the hegemonic wars, the total Magyar military may have numbered some 20,000 warriors.*°
Sometime in the mid-ninth century the Magyars moved westward from Levadia to the steppe region lying between the Dnieper River and the mouth of the Danube that they called Etelk6z (or Atalkuzu), encompassing Bessarabia (m: Moldova). This action may have been forced on them by another steppe people pressing from the east—the Pechenegs.*”
Pecheneg origins lay in the heart of Central Asia, east of the Aral Sea. At first a loose nomadic Turkic grouping, the Pechenegs were brought within a large tribal conglomerate governed by the Western Turks, who constituted half of a large Turkic empire stretching from Mongolia to the borders of Sassanid Persia by the early seventh century. In the 550s that vast empire broke into western and eastern halves, with the former controlling much of Central Asia and the latter holding Mongolia and a large portion of northern China. By the middle of the seventh century China destroyed the Eastern Turkic state while the western one dissolved into intertribal warfare 48
In the chaos of the Western Turks’ internecine wars, the eight Pecheneg tribes were driven westward past the Aral Sea by the Karluk Turks, until they arrived on the steppes between the Ural and Volga rivers north of the Caspian Sea. By the late eighth century they were in contact with the highly developed and culturally refined Khazars, who viewed the Pechenegs as a barbarian threat. To deal with the menace, the Khazars allied with the Oguzes, a Turkic people lying to the Pechenegs’ east, attacked, and defeated the Pechenegs sometime between 830 and 860. The victory pushed the Pechenegs farther westward into Levadia, where they, in turn, displaced the resident Magyar allies of the Khazars. They remained in their newly won lands until circumstances arising out of the Bulgarian-Byzantine hegemonic wars opened further opportunities for territorial expansion. In 895, while serving as Bulgarian allies, they again defeated and displaced the Magyars. Occupying Etelk6z placed the Pechenegs directly north of the Danube, rendering them strategically important for both Bulgaria and Byzantium.*?
Regarding political-military organization, even less is known about the Pechenegs’ than of the Magyars’ at that time. There were eight Pecheneg tribes that contributed able-bodied, armed light (and perhaps medium) cavalrymen to the military force, with each tribe led by a warrior chief who was distinguished by having a colored horsetail banner.®° The tribes, three of which were considered senior and called the Kangars, were divided into 40 subunits, perhaps clans, which also had recognized leaders.5! Presumably the Pechenegs followed steppe tradition regarding military organization, with units structured on the decimal system and organized along tribal groupings under the authority of tribal chiefs, each tribal division comprised of pan-clan subunits. The recognized supreme ruler (khan) served as commander-in-chief. All of the leaders, from tribal level to khan, fielded elite units of armed retainers. Total force size of the Pecheneg military during the late ninth and early tenth centuries, when their real or threatened intervention in the hegemonic wars was significant, is unknown, but their army probably numbered more than 20,000 warriors, given their two consecutive defeats of the Magyars who fielded that number of horsemen.
The Croats and the Serbs
The Croats and the Serbs were two separate tribes of mixed Iranian/ Sarmatian-Slav ethnicity who entered the northwestern Balkans in the early seventh century, ejected any Avars living there, and brought the settled Slaveni Slavic communities in those areas under their authority.
Over time, the new conquerors suffered a fate similar to the Bulgars in that they both were culturally assimilated into their Slavic subject populations by the opening of the ninth century. Although both managed to create some sort of tribal associations under their respective control, these initially were politically loose and unstable. Facing continuous, direct pressures from societies more socio-politically advanced then themselves—the Franks of Charlemagne (768-814) and the Bulgarians for the Croats, and the Bulgarians and the Byzantines for the Serbs—the two were progressing toward political and state consolidation when the hegemonic wars erupted.
During the 790s forces of Frank King Charlemagne attacked and defeated the Avar kaganate, winning the Franks control of western Pannonia, northern Dalmatia, and Slavonia, which mainly were inhabited by Croats. During the ninth century two fluid Croat states in southwestern Pannonia (Slavonia) and northern Dalmatia arose out of what originally had been eleven tribes, whose rulers were Frank tributaries. Although Byzantium reestablished an active presence in the Dalmatian coastal cities during that period, Frank suzerainty over Croats inhabiting Dalmatia’s hinterlands, as well as those living in Slavonia, led to the Croats’ conversion to Roman Catholicism and their acquiring a Western cultural and political orientation.
A Dalmatian Croat rebellion in 875 ended Frank suzerainty and an independent state was created, although the Franks retained control of Pannonian Croatia for a while longer. The princely throne of the new state proved unstable, with occupants following one another in rapid succession, until Tomislav (910-928), an ally of Byzantium, gained the throne of Dalmatian Croatia. He consolidated his authority, liberated Pannonian Croatia from depredations inflicted by the Magyars, and incorporated it under his rule, creating the first united Croat state, which probably included Dalmatia, Croatia Proper, western Slavonia, and the greater part of Bosnia. In the early 920s Tomislav concluded an alliance with Byzantium against Bulgaria that sparked a Bulgarian invasion of his state, but the Bulgarians suffered a resounding defeat. With Tomislav’s death in 928, united Croatia disintegrated into civil war. Croatia’s internal political weakness during the rest of the tenth and early eleventh century, coupled with Byzantium’s inability to stabilize the situation, led to Venice’s intervention in the region and its insinuation into Croatian affairs. A game of competing nominal suzerainty over Dalmatian coastal cities ensued between Venice and Croatia, dying down only in 1019, when Byzantium reclaimed all imperial Dalmatia following Bulgaria’s fnal defeat in the wars, and Croatia became a Byzantine vassal.52 Turning to the Serbs, their original incursion into the Balkans resulted in their establishing themselves as the ruling elite in a number of Sklaviniai (which the Serbs called županije) located throughout the northwestern Balkans south of the Croats. Although there were interrelationships among the various rulers (župani; sing.: župan) and elites of those communities, there exists no evidence for serious state consolidation until after the opening stages of the hegemonic wars, when the Serbs of Raška were threatened by Bulgar expansionary efforts in their direction. The Bulgar threat, coupled with Byzantine attempts to stabilize organized Serbian anti-Bulgar resistance through large monetary inducements, encouraged some of the županije to unite under the leadership of one Vlastimir, who took the title of prince (knez) and withstood a Bulgar invasion of his territories sometime between 839 and 850. Despite Serbia’s division following Vlastimir’s death, the Serbs defeated a second Bulgar invasion in the mid-850s, but their inability to unite under a stable ruler transformed them into pawns of both the Byzantines and Bulgarians, who enthroned and dethroned each others’ puppet rulers throughout the rest of the ninth and early decades of the tenth centuries as part of the diplomacy tied to the middle phase of the hegemonic wars. In the 920s the Serbs were conquered by the Bulgarians. Although they soon won their freedom from Bulgarian rule, the Serbs played a marginal role in the later wars and rapidly fell under Byzantine vassalage.53 The organization of the Croatian and Serbian militaries resembled that of the Bulgarian Slavs, although the titles of offcers in some cases were different. One might assume that the Croats’ military exhibited some Frank infuences, given their lengthy association with the eastern Franks.
The Kievan Rus’
The origins of the Kievan Rus’ is one of the most heatedly argued topics in Russian historiography. At issue is the extent to which the earliest Russian state was the product of either invading Swedish Vikings (later called Varangians [Varangoi] by the Byzantines) or the efforts of Slavic tribes inhabiting the forested regions north of the steppes. The pro-Viking perspective, termed the “Normanist Theory,” credits them with founding the first Russian state in the far north around Novgorod in the early ninth century and then expanding its borders to the south and Kiev, in the process of which they created and dominated the state’s ruling elite. The pro-Slav perspective—the “Anti-Normanist Theory”— claims that the East Slavic inhabitants of the Novgorodian and Kievan regions were well on their way toward political consolidation by the time the Vikings arrived, and that those intruders simply became players in domestic developments as part of native Slavic leaders’ mercenary retinues (druzhini). Feeding the controversy is the fact that written primary evidence for the formative process is limited, the most extensive source available being the Russian Primary Chronicle, which is semi-legendary, compiled some two centuries after the fact, and probably had its own contemporary political agenda to support regarding state centralization. Even so, the Scandinavian names of early individuals mentioned in the chronicle, combined with similar notices in extant Byzantine sources, has led most scholars to accept that the Vikings played leading political, military, and economic roles in shaping the ninth-century Kievan state even if there were preexisting Slavic political entities.>+
That Vikings were present in the Finn-and Slav-inhabited north was the result of their insatiable economic ambitions. They strove to tap directly into the lucrative trade markets of Byzantium and the Islamic khalifate by pushing southward from the far north along the Dnieper and Volga rivers toward the wealth concentrated in those civilized societies lying south of the Black and Caspian seas. It is difficult to separate economic from military activity during the early medieval period. While securing their commercial routes to the south in the early and mid-ninth century, the Vikings gained control over the Slavic state at Kiev, located on the Dnieper above the northern edge of the open steppes, replacing the Khazars as the recipients of the tribute paid by local Slavs.
From their Dnieper base, the Viking Rus’ organized a series of assaults on Constantinople (860, 907, and 941) with forces drawn from their own numbers, subject or allied Slavs, and other mercenaries, who were transported down the Dnieper and across the Black Sea on hundreds of small-or medium-sized ships. Although they wreaked widespread devastation on the Byzantine capital’s environs and sparked dread among the empire’s population, they failed to capture the city. Nevertheless, the Byzantines felt compelled to buy them off with treaties (907, 911, and 945) granting the Rus’ (or Ros, to the Byzantines) commercial concessions within the empire. For the Rus’, such results probably were the goals of their attacks while, for Byzantium, the treaties established diplomatic relations with those warriors from the strategically important north. The organized savagery of the Rus’ attacks made enlisting them as mercenaries attractive to Byzantium’s military authorities, and Rus’ contingents participated in Byzantine expeditions against Crete and Italy during the tenth century. By the beginning of the next, Rus’ mercenary units were common components of all Byzantine military forces.>°
With growing diplomatic relations came Byzantine missionary efforts to convert the Rus’ to Orthodox Christianity, thereby drawing them more deeply into Byzantium’s cultural-political orbit. Although the widow of Kievan Prince Igor) (912-945), Princess Olga (945-968), converted, the new religion initially failed to take root and her son and successor, Svyatoslav, remained a staunch pagan. By her time, however, the ethnic assimilation of the Scandinavian Rus’ minority by the Slavic majority population was well underway—Olga’s son, and all succeeding Kievan princes, bore Slavic names. As in Bulgaria, Christian conversion in Slavic form (borrowed from Bulgaria) sped the completion of the ethno-cultural assimilatory process leading to the creation of “Russians.” Circumstances rooted in the Balkan hegemonic wars ultimately brought about that final development.
Svyatoslav was courted as an ally by Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (963-969) to attack the Bulgarians from the north in the late 960s, creating the conditions that sparked the final phase of the hegemonic wars. Later, during those last Balkan conflicts, Svyatoslav’s successor, Vladimir I the Saint (980-1015), provided important military assistance to Emperor Basil II in the guise of 6000 Rus’ mercenaries, who became known in Byzantium as the Varangian Guard. As part of that deal in 988, Vladimir requested Basil’s sister Anna as his wife, but the marriage required that he convert to Orthodox Christianity. To avoid becoming a Byzantine dependent, he did so on his own terms by attacking and capturing Byzantine Kherson (m: Kerch) in the Crimea. Vladimir then was baptized and literally forced his subjects to follow his lead. Later he built a large cathedral in Kiev for his new wife that was furnished with items looted from churches in Kherson. Thus the Russians became Orthodox Christians and Vladimir earned the posthumous sobriquet of “Saint.”°°
The forces fielded by the Rus’ in the Balkans during their 960s and 970s interventions against Bulgaria are considered the last retaining significant traces of Viking organization. When they first appeared in the far north during the early ninth century, the Vikings were armed infantry transported by boats along the many rivers cutting paths through the dense northern forests. Each boat held on average 40-60 men who served as crew while aboard and infantry when disembarked. Slav-built, single-tree dugout boats (Gr: monoxyla), holding from 40 to 50 men, frequently were used for river traffic of all kinds. A boat’s crew constituted the smallest distinct military unit and its ranks were filled by either the retinue of a local leader or a levy of able-bodied freemen. During the early stages of their presence in Russia, the Vikings exhibited little centralized military organization and appeared to conduct operations in an almost anarchistic fashion, motivated more by a collective sense of greed than anything else.°”
Although their political leader originally used the Scandinavian title of jarl, once the Vikings settled permanently in the Kievan region close to the steppes, he acquired the Khazar-derived princely title of chaganus, which later changed to knez as the Slavicization of the Vikings grew complete. He commanded a mercenary retinue (/i70, later druzhina) initially comprised of dependent fellow Vikings complemented by Slavs and foreigners (Khazars and Pechenegs), who constituted the standing military force and the leader’s administrative officers. His second-in-command maintained a retinue of his own, as probably did other top commanders within the leader’s druzhina. Originally small in number (perhaps 400 men), as the chaganus solidified his state authority and his territories and subject population expanded, the character of his druzhina changed from a predominantly Viking to a mostly Slavic standing military, and its numbers may have grown into the thousands (perhaps 12,000-20,000 men) by the time the Rus’ invaded Bulgaria in the late 960s. In periods of emergency this elite standing force was augmented by a general levy of rural and urban freemen organized into units by village or town, but these levies were ill armed, undisciplined, and of limited military value other than “arrow fodder.” The Rus’ eventually embraced the Slav-based decimal system of unit organization but little specific evidence exists regarding it until after the period of our study.5®
While close proximity to and endemic warfare with mounted steppe peoples probably led the Rus’ and their Slavic subjects to adapt to mounted warfare, the Rus’ forces that intervened in the Balkans consisted of infantry transported by ships to the mouth of the Danube. According to Byzantine accounts, their cavalry was comprised of allied Bulgarian and hired Magyar and Pecheneg mercenaries, all of whom deserted the Rus’ infantry force by the closing stages of the campaign. In the final pitched battles with the Byzantines, the Rus’ were portrayed as fighting savagely and effectively on foot, while their lone attempt at mounted combat exposed an amateurishness that placed them at a distinct disadvantage.*?
ARMAMENT, FORTIFICATIONS, AND TACTICS
The Byzantine military was the best trained, most highly organized, and well-equipped force fielded by any of the belligerents during the hegemonic wars. Its combat performance varied, however, from poor to excellent over the course of those conflicts depending on the quality of its leadership, its overall morale, the nature of the terrain over which it operated, the capabilities of its foes, and the mix of its units relative to tactical circumstances faced at any given time. Intangibles that had little to do with armament and tactics could trump seeming advantages and often proved decisive on a battlefield or in a campaign. The same can be said for the Bulgarian forces. Since all belligerents employed relatively similar force types (cavalry and infantry), armament, and basic tactics, it is the intangibles that make the historical narrative of the wars so interesting. Nevertheless, a brief overview of the armament and tactics employed is in order.
Armament
Armament—body armor and weapons—was the second most fundamental factor, after mode of mobility, in determining the functional classification of troops in the belligerents’ armies. First, troops were either cavalry or infantry and, second, they were either light, medium (regular), or heavy. This second category was determined by the amount of body armor worn and the weapons employed. Byzantium was the only belligerent that consistently fielded armies with a mix of all troop categories, although Bulgaria managed that feat at times. The steppe allied forces were almost exclusively light or medium cavalry, while the Balkan Slavic forces may have included cavalry but were mostly light to medium infantry.©?
Light troops were weighted down with little or no body armor or helmets, making them ideal for conducting military operations in the mountainous, wooded, and broken terrain of the Balkans. Battle clothing for light troops consisted mostly of linen, woolen, or leather tunics and trousers, with leather boots. Fur, leather, or felt caps also were worn, and in cold seasons woolen or fur tunics and cloaks were substituted for linen garments. Byzantine regulations for light troops mentioned them carrying a small target-shaped, wooden or leather shield for protection while Slavic light troops sometimes resorted to larger rectangular- or oval-shaped wooden shields. Often light troops, both mounted and on foot, engaged in combat without the encumbrance of a shield, leaving their hands and arms free to use their primary weapons, which for cavalry consisted of bows, javelins, lassoes, and lances, and for infantry bows, javelins, and single-or two-handed slings. Secondary weapons, carried attached to waist or shoulder belts, included swords, daggers, and axes.
The mobility of its light troops was a strategic and tactical asset for any force operating in the Balkans. When the army was on the move, light troops were sent ahead of the main body to gather intelligence, capture and secure strategic objectives (i.c., mountain passes, river fords or bridges, and camp sites), secure terrain ideal for ambushes or traps into which the enemy could be lured, or simply guard the army’s flanks during marches. When combat was joined, light troops were used as skirmishers ahead of the main battle lines (to either harass or soften the enemy for attack or dampen an enemy assault), served as flank guards and outriders, filled the gaps between the heavier units in battle lines, acted as reserve support in melees, guarded the baggage train or encampment in the rear areas, and played a leading role in ambushes. No matter which function (or combination thereof) the light troops were assigned, their principal weapon—the reflex composite bow, with an effective range of over 880 ft. (250 m) and an utterly deadly range of 330 ft. (100 m)—made them versatile and highly effective components of any army.°!
Medium (also called regular or ordinary) troops formed the bulk of most forces fielded by the primary belligerents. These troops wore armor protecting their torsos (including their groin area and upper thighs) and heads, and carried shields for primary coverage. Torso armor consisted of a chain mail, scale, lamellar, quilted, or leather corselet worn over a thick or padded undergarment. For infantry, this corselet generally resembled a cuirass in form, although elbow-length sleeves or hanging strips (Gr: pterouges) were common, while for cavalry it extended down to protect much of the thighs by being split up the front and back. Because of its expense, mail armor generally was restricted to the leadership and members of elite units, enjoying broader use among Byzantines than their enemies. Scale and lamellar armor was most popular among all of the belligerents since it was manufactured from commonly available materials like bone, leather, or wood, as well as metal. Of the two forms, lamellar armor was used more extensively than scale. The least expensive and easiest to manufacture were simple, thick leather or quilted corselets made from padded silk or wool. For those who could afford both, the quilted garment served as an underlay for the armored corselet.°?
Head protection was provided by helmets, caps, or hoods. Similar to chain mail, metal helmets were expensive and initially restricted to the leadership and elite troops. Looting the battlefield during or after a battle, however, spread their possession more broadly within armies than otherwise might have been the case. A variety of helmet types and shapes were used, the most common being single-piece and riveted multi-piece types in conical, bowl, and casque forms. Some sported additional neck and face protection through mail, lamellar, or leather attachments, but there is no extant evidence for helmets with full visors. Caps made of thick felt enjoyed widespread use, often reinforced with bands of additional felt or strips of heavy linen or silk wrapped around them like turbans. Some Bulgarian and steppe troops who had no helmets or felt caps wore thick fur busbies or leather caps. A felt or leather cap often served as the underlay for a hood made of mail or lamellar, which frequently covered the face, except for the eyes. Metal helmets, hoods, and fur busbies were characteristic of cavalry while caps were common among infantry.°
The most important item of protective armor was the shield. Those used by medium troops, which were generally constructed of wood or leather stretched over a wooden frame, ranged from small, target-type ones to large, and were variously shaped. The most common large shield, used by both infantry and cavalry, was circular, with an average diameter of 30 in. (77 cm). Rectangular and oval shields, averaging some 4 ft. (1.2 m) in height and 2.5 ft. (77 cm) in width, also were carried, mostly by infantry. The exterior surfaces of some shields were reinforced with attached metal plates, and the famous kite-shaped shield first made its European appearance in Byzantine ranks.°+
Regular troops carried an array of lethal weaponry. Iron-tipped lances (about 12 ft. [3.7 m] long) were used by cavalry as well as shorter spears (some 9 ft. [2.75 m] long) and javelins. The latter two also were primary weapons of regular infantry. The composite reflex bow was a weapon used by both infantry and cavalry, with that of the foot troops being slightly larger than the bow used while mounted. Byzantine infantry at times reportedly employed something akin to a small crossbow but its usage may have been limited or intermittent. In addition to these primary arms, troops of both types carried secondary weapons girded to waist or shoulder belts or strung on saddles, if mounted. Such arms included straight or curved single- (for cavalry) and double-edged (for both cavalry and infantry) swords, curved sabers (for cavalry), iron- or stone-headed maces, daggers, single-or double-bladed axes, and caltrops.°>
The Byzantines possessed one frightening weapon that none of the other belligerents had in their arsenals, a weapon so devastating in its effects that even the ferocious Rus’ cringed at the thought of facing it. That weapon was “Greek (or liquid) fire” (Gr: lampron or igron pyr). Invented in the seventh century by Kallinikos, a Syrian engineer, “Greek fire” was the medieval equivalent of napalm, the composition of which is still debated but the ingredients probably included crude petroleum mixed with resin, sulphur, and other components. The liquid concoction was housed in a container under slight pressure and, when used, was pumped out through a swivel-mounted siphon tube and ignited, similar to a modern flamethrower, spewing out a flaming substance with adhesive properties that burned even on water and was difficult to extinguish. Originally designed to be mounted on ships for naval combat, in the tenth century Byzantine engineers created a small, portable version for land use by infantry. Despite its notoriety, there exists little evidence that “Greek fire” was used during the hegemonic wars beyond the siege of Vidin (1002) and Byzantine fleet operations on the Danube against the Rus’.°6
Medium troops would be deployed either as entire units in battle line formations or mixed with heavy troops in combat units. All units were formed for battle with a depth of multiple ranks. In the case of mixed units, heavy troops were stationed as the first couple of ranks and usually as the last one, while medium troops filled the ranks in between, providing archery and melee support for the unit as a whole. Such deployment held for both infantry and cavalry.°”
Heavy troops were the elite in the Bulgarian, Byzantine, and Rus’ armies and were the combat shock troops par excellence, despite the fact that the Balkans’ terrain limited the number of set-piece battles fought.
Heavy troops were little used in the opening phase of the wars, with both sides fielding forces composed of medium and light troops.°* By the middle phase in the late ninth and early tenth century, heavy cavalry and infantry grew more common, and by the closing phase at least the Byzantines deployed them consistently. All mounted Byzantine tagmatic units were heavy, as most likely were the mounted retinues of the Bulgarian ruler and the Slavic zhupani. The retinues of the steppe allies were more medium than heavy cavalry, and the Rus’ druzhina that operated in Bulgaria was heavy infantry.
As their name implies, heavy troops sported a great amount of body armor. Their armored corselets covered not only their torsos but also their upper arms to the elbows and their thighs to the knees. Forearms and lower legs were covered with splinted wooden or metal vambraces, and heavy gloves and boots were also worn. Helmets were metal, often with lamellar or mail attachments protecting the neck and face. Heavy infantry carried large shields while the cavalry used smaller ones, including the target type. Primary weapons for heavy cavalry included lances, spears, bows, and iron maces, with swords and sabers as secondary arms. Heavy infantry wielded spears as primary weapons, supplemented by swords, daggers, maces, and axes. Since cavalry could be incapacitated on the battlefield by having their horses killed or crippled, heavy cavalry frequently rode horses wearing body armor. Horse armor commonly consisted of a skirt (carapace) made of thick quilted felt, leather, scale, or lamellar that draped over the front portion of the animal, reaching to below its knees. Horses’ necks and hindquarters also could be covered. In the mid-tenth century Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros IH Phokas reintroduced a super heavy cavalry troop type, originally known in late antique times—the cataphract. Cataphracts wore full mail or lamellar body armor, metal helmets, and gauntlets; carried shields; wielded either iron maces or sabers as primary weapons; and rode fully armored horses. Used more in the east against the Arabs than in the Balkans, no specific mention of cataphracts operating during the hegemonic wars is extant, although the tagmata thrown against the Rus’ in 971 may have included them,*”
Both the Byzantines and the Bulgarians employed specialized troops to man siege weapons against enemy fortifications. These troops resembled light infantry in their attire and often manufactured much of their weaponry and machines on site, carrying with them only crucial component parts. Siege artillery included rope-pulled, stone-throwing trebuchets and torsion-powered, large arrow-or stone-firing ballistae. Other siege equipment included rams, hide-covered protective tortoises, ladders, borers, and large mounted masonry picks. The troops routinely used an array of axes, shovels, and hand picks, which could double as weapons, along with daggers and swords, if needed. The Byzantines enjoyed a long Roman tradition in siegecraft but the Bulgars and Slavs proved equally adept in that field, having benefited from longstanding associations with the Avars.”°
Fortifications
Initially, the Byzantines held the advantage regarding fortifications, in terms of material technology and sheer numbers. having inherited such a tradition from their classical Roman predecessors. By the beginning of the hegemonic wars, virtually every Byzantine urban settlement in the Balkans was protected by rubble-filled, stone-and-brick-faced walls and a defensive perimeter. The more important administrative and commercial centers, such as Constantinople, Adrianople (m: Edirne), Thessaloniki, Serdika (B: Sredets, m: Sofia), Philippopolis (m: Plovdiv), and Dyrrakhion (m: Durrés), possessed strong walls with defense towers and moats. Others, usually smaller towns or larger-sized villages, were surrounded by simple curtain walls with few or no towers or moats. Such a small fortified center was known as a fort (kastron) rather than a town (polis).7!
In the late sixth century, before the onset of the Avar and Slav incursions into the Balkans, the Eastern Roman Empire depended on an in-depth system of fortified frontier positions to protect its agricultural population, its vital trans-Balkan lines of overland communication, and its important coastal port-cities against threats emanating from beyond the empire’s Danubian border in the north. This fortification system consisted of three concentric zones of positions stretching from the Danube River to Thrace, with the first situated along the southern bank of the river itself and anchored by such fortified towns as Belgrade, Vidin, and Dorostolon (B: Dristtr; m: Silistra). The fortresses immediately adjacent to the river were backed by fortress towns and forts scattered over the Danubian Plain and Dobrudzha. These supporting positions mostly lay at important road intersections or defended passageways through local valleys (the fort at Belogradchik, in the western Balkan Mountains [B: Stara Planina (Old Mountains); Gr: Haimos] south of Vidin, is a naturally spectacular extant example).
The second zone encompassed fortified positions in the Balkan Mountains, the Sredna Gora, and the Dinaric Alps guarding the primary and more well known secondary roadways. These either commanded existing mountain basins through which those routes ran (Serdika was a prime example in the Sofia Basin) or defended the more accessible passes. The third zone of fortifications covered Thrace and the Western Thracian- Macedonian coastal plain. This belt was anchored by the extensive city fortifications of Adrianople, Philippopolis, and Thessaloniki, but forts and fortified towns were scattered throughout the two lowlands. The final Thracian defense line was the Long Wall, erected 40 miles (64 km) west of Constantinople by Emperor Anastasius I (491-518), which ran for 30 miles (48 km) from the Black Sea coast, in the north, to the Sea of Marmara, in the south. All port-cities lying on the coasts of the Black, Marmara, and Aegean seas were heavily fortified, including the imperial capital at Constantinople.72
Constantinople, then the largest city in Europe, was founded on the site of the ancient Greek colonial port of Byzantion by Roman emperor Constantine I and dedicated as his imperial residence in 330. It was situated in the extreme southeastern corner of Thrace on an easily defensible triangular bit of land lying on the western shore of the Bosphoros, at the point where that strait emptied into the Sea of Marmara. Directly on the city’s north was the large, crescent-shaped mouth of a small river called the Golden Horn, which emptied into the Bosphoros. On its south stretched the Sea of Marmara, which found access to the Mediterranean through the Dardanelles Strait. By heavily fortifying the triangle of land on which the city sat, the Romans transformed Constantinople into an impregnable fortress-city, able to withstand any of the siege and assault technologies available during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. For over a 1000 years the impenetrable land walls of Constantinople often saved both the city and the empire from defeat and, in some cases, from utter destruction at the hands of its enemies.
A single curtain sea wall, interspersed with hundreds of defense towers and built along the water’s edge, girded the southern and northern sides of the city. Protecting the wide western land base of the triangle was the most extensive, and strongest, set of medieval walled defenses erected in Europe. Traditionally attributed to the year 413 during the reign of Emperor Theodosius II (408-450), but renovated and expanded by succeeding rulers (including Leo V [813-820] during the first decade of the hegemonic wars), the land walls’ construction incorporated a series of three successively higher and thicker stone ramparts protected by a wide moat. Standing at the inner lip of the moat was a simple curtain wall. Behind it lay a higher and thicker wall reinforced with 96 towers, and to its rear rose the last, which was even higher and thicker and also had 96 towers placed to cover the battlements between those of the wall to its front.78
The traditional East Roman strategy for defending the empire’s Balkan possessions depended on frontier forces, using the extensive fortifications and mountain defenses, slowing enemy incursions and dampening any devastation that they might cause until provincial mobile field forces, often reinforced by the emperor’s own elite units, could deal decisively with the intruders. Should the strategy of defense in depth prove insufficient, and an enemy broke through and defeated or evaded the mobile forces, then Constantinople became the empire’s defensive position of last resort. By the opening of the hegemonic wars, however, all of the Danubian and Dobrudzhan fortifications, as well as most of those in the Balkan Mountains, were lost to the Bulgarians. Only the fortresses in Thrace and Western Thrace-Macedonia wholey remained in Byzantine hands. Despite changes in Byzantium’s military organization, those fortified positions retained by the empire were expected to perform their traditional function. Constantinople frequently was called on to fulfill its role as the ultimate defensive position, especially during the opening and middle phases of the wars.”4
Regarding fortifications, the Bulgarians originally relied on Bulgar traditions developed in the steppe country. Heavily influenced by Persian, Armenian, Sarmatian, and Alanic techniques, the Bulgars were adept at constructing earthworks capped by wooden or stone ramparts to protect both the territories under their control and their important administrative and military centers. Everywhere the Bulgars settled during their migration to the Balkans, they built such works, many of which stretched for extensive distances, and they continued the practice after crossing the Danube and establishing themselves in the northeastern Balkans during the late seventh century.”°
Those lengthy fortifications erected to defend the Bulgars’ frontiers characteristically consisted of four components: A palisade faced with wood or stone on both surfaces and filled with either dirt or stone rubble; an earthwork embankment on which the palisade sat; a berm at the exterior foot of the embankment; and a ditch protecting the entire front of the works, which might be filled with water if a source were available.
Such frontier fortifications were built in Bessarabia and Wallachia facing northward, to protect the early Bulgar Balkan state from threats off the Eurasian steppes. A series of westward-facing earthwork defenses were erected in the western Danubian Plain, running north-south between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains, to guard against potential Avar attacks from Pannonia. Another line of southward-facing, east-west works was built across Dobrudzha, extending from the elbow of the northern bend of the Danube to the Black Sea, as protection for the Bulgars’ earliest Balkan conquests from the Byzantines.
The most important Bulgar frontier earthwork fortification of the hegemonic wars was the “Great Fence of Thrace” (B: Erkesiya [“The Cut Place,” a much later term derived from Turkish roots]; Gr: Megali souda), built in the second decade of the ninth century following a treaty with Byzantium (816) ending the first phase of the wars and settling the two states’ common border at the time. Stretching northeast-southwest from a bit north of the town of Debeltos (m: Debelt) near the Black Sea to the Maritsa River near Konstantsiya (m: Simeonovgrad), the fortification ran for 81 miles (131 km) through northern Thrace.”°
Within its frontier entrenchments, Bulgaria exhibited a less sophisticated and extensive system of defensive fortifications than did Byzantium. Although the Bulgars acquired the old Byzantine forts and fortress cities of Dobrudzha, the Danubian Plain, and the northern Balkan Mountain foothills by the late seventh century, most of these were abandoned or sparsely populated when they were captured. Throughout the eighth century the Bulgar state depended more on its frontier earthworks than on rehabilitated former Byzantine fortifications for protection against outside threats, although its capital at Pliska and some other administrative-military centers, called aus ([princely] halls [palaces?]), were fortified.7”7 With the opening of the hegemonic wars, the Bulgarians began constructing additional fortifications to supplement or supplant their border entrenchments.
Bulgarian fortifications underwent a transformation from the traditional earthwork type to more Byzantine-like stone works during the hegemonic wars’ first century.”® Illustrating the transformation from earthworks to stone fortifications were those of Bulgaria’s two early medieval capitals, Pliska and Preslav.”?
Pliska, the Bulgars’ first Balkan capital, was founded in the late seventh century on the site of an abandoned East Roman city and evolved into the state’s capital by the close of the eighth century. Situated where the Danubian Plain met Dobrudzha, Pliska was a large fortified encampment similar in configuration to nomad winter camps found on the steppes. It was protected by a high, generally rectangular outer earthwork that ran a total of 13 miles (21 km), encompassing an area of 8.9 square miles (23 km?) and delineating the so-called “outer city,” which was sparsely populated on a continuing basis. In the center of the “outer city” was a small inner, citadel-like, trapezium-shaped fortification consisting of 1.79 miles (2.87 km) of walls enclosing an area of 124 acres (50 ha), within which were housed the important administrative structures and personal residences of the Bulgar rulers and their high officials, termed the “inner city.” The original inner fortifications were typical earthworks capped with a strong wooden palisade much like the outer works, but the exact nature of their construction currently is unknown. After the wooden structures of the “inner city” were burned during the opening campaigns of the hegemonic wars, they were later rebuilt in stone, resembling the walls of typical Byzantine provincial fortresses.®°
Preslav, lying 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Pliska near the foothills of the eastern Balkan Mountains, became Bulgaria’s capital at the end of the ninth century. From its origin as an early ninth-century az, Preslav essentially was an important administrative-military center for Bulgarian rulers. Similar to Pliska, Preslav’s encircling fortifications delineated a small, citadel-like “inner city” protected by a larger, surrounding “outer city.” Unlike Pliska, where the outer and inner fortifications initially were traditional earthworks with crowning wooden palisades, at Preslav they were Byzantine-like stone ramparts strengthened by towers from the beginning. Since Preslav existed as a specialized administrative and military center, its population always remained limited to those who either served in or serviced the rulers’ court (whereas Pliska provided a residence or refuge for a large general population and its animals), and its relatively small size reflected that situation. The outer defense walls ran for a total of only 4 miles (6.5 km) in a rough pentagonal configuration, enclosing an “outer city” of some 865 acres (350 ha) in area while the inner citadel walls’ circuit of 1.24 miles (2 km) protected an “inner city” merely 62 acres (25 ha) large, which was centered on the rulers’ palace. All of Preslav’s stone walls and towers, built during the ninth and early tenth centuries, followed typical Byzantine provincial models.®!
When it came to dealing with their enemies’ fortifications during the hegemonic wars, both sides shared similar siege weapons technologies (projectile-firing artillery pieces and assault equipment) and similar tactics (e.g., undermining walls through tunneling; inducing garrisons out of their fortifications for battle or ambush; or cutting off the garrison’s supplies to force a surrender through actual or threatened starvation).8* On the whole, they demonstrated relative parity in conducting both offensive and defensive siege warfare, if the number of successes enjoyed by both during the wars is used as the comparative barometer. Such is not surprising because numerous Byzantine engineers served in Bulgarian forces throughout the wars, either voluntarily or as captives given no choice by their captors. Ultimately, the impregnability of Constantinople’s fortifications significantly contributed to Byzantium’s total victory in the wars by ensuring that the Byzantines possessed an utterly secure military base for preserving their empire and organizing military countermoves against their enemies, no matter how dire the situation in the Balkans appeared at any given time. The Bulgarians enjoyed no comparable advantage in the fortifications of their capitals (Pliska, Preslav, and, later, Ohrid), all of which were captured or sacked by the Byzantines at least once during the wars. Except for the fall of Pliska in the earliest stage of the conflicts, those events generally spelled disaster for the Bulgarian state.
Tactics
Tactics—the planned effective implementation of troop types, armament, unit formations, and maneuver in combat to bring about the enemy’s defeat—were viewed as a science in Byzantium. Extant Byzantine treatises on tactics and strategy dating from the seventh through the early eleventh centuries provide a wealth of information about the Byzantines’ approach toward conducting warfare. No other belligerent in the hegemonic wars took such a studied approach to the art of war. Much of our present knowledge about their Slavic and steppe enemies comes from the intelligence reports contained in many of the treatises, although, surprisingly, they include little specific information regarding their primary enemy—the Bulgarians. What is known about the Bulgarians’ mode of operations during the wars has largely been extrapolated from the vague and frequently antiquarian accounts found in extant Byzantine sources.
Pitched battles were infrequent during the hegemonic wars both because of the Balkans’ broken terrain and because the outcome of such engagements could rarely be predicted with any certainty. The Byzantines explicitly and the Bulgarians implicitly tried to avoid battles by resorting to maneuver, flanking or surprise attacks, setting traps and ambushes, and breaking their enemy’s morale through ravaging their territories. When a set-piece battle proved unavoidable, the armies faced each other in lines of battle. During the early and middle phases of the wars, both sides used similar two-line battle formations. Medium or heavy infantry or cavalry units were stationed in the center of the front line with cavalry deployed on the flanks. Light troops were scattered in advance of the line to act as skirmishers. The second line could mirror the first or be comprised exclusively of cavalry. A small reserve force would be stationed behind the two lines. Light cavalry units were placed beyond each flank of the first line to serve as flank attackers against the enemy’s lines or as flank guards for their own, while other light units guarded the force’s rear areas. Once combat commenced, the light troops serving as skirmishers retired to their own lines, where they served as a reserve or filled gaps between the line units.
Although little is known specifically about Bulgarian infantry formations during the wars, Byzantine infantry during the ninth and early tenth centuries fought in something akin to a traditional phalanx formation when drawn up in line of battle. Presumably, the Bulgarians did the same. The Rus’ employed a phalanx-like shield-wall formation during their tenth-century interventions in Bulgaria). Most combat was undertaken by opposing cavalry units while the infantry served as reserves. By the mid-tenth century the Byzantines, starting with Nikephoros II Phokas, implemented new tactical formations reflecting a turn toward a more aggressive imperial policy, which emphasized coordinated cavalry and infantry attacks in battle. This new approach elevated the combat role of heavy troops and resulted in the creation of cataphract cavalry, who attacked in a triangular formation protruding forward from the regular line of battle, and a novel infantry formation. The infantry was drawn up in large, multi-unit squares resembling the form of the army’s mandatory campaign encampments. Cavalry units initially were stationed within the square, from which they sallied forth to form line and engage in battle, and to which they could retire for protection or to reform during combat. The infantry was trained to maneuver quickly from square to line formation as needed for any given situation during the battle.®*
Archery played a leading role in combat. Clouds of arrows were used to “soften” enemy ranks in preparation for assaults against them, to disrupt or blunt attacks by the enemy, and to harass and cow the enemy.
Until the final stages of the hegemonic wars, the Bulgarians and the steppe forces generally “out-bowed” the Byzantines. Archery harmonized well with their mounted warrior ethos, grounded in speed and mobility on the battlefield, while the Byzantines seem to have permitted the bow to lapse as a primary weapon after the early seventh century, relying instead on steppe or Arab mercenaries to supply archery firepower. With the turn toward more aggressive, offensive warfare in the mid-tenth century, archery was reintroduced among Byzantine troops on a wide scale, becoming a crucial weapon used by most infantry and cavalry units.85
Both sides during the wars avoided pitched battles by resorting to maneuvers that would tilt the scales of combat in their favor once any fighting began. Such maneuvers included feigned retreats, in which all or some of the enemy units were lured by retreating units into a prearranged trap sprung by concealed units that, taking advantage of terrain, fell on the flanks or rear of the unsuspecting and often disorganized enemy pursuers. Another common ploy was the ambush, in which one force occupied commanding terrain (usually narrow or wooded mountain passes or river fording sites) through which the unsuspecting enemy must march and then launching a surprise attack from advantageous ground. Often ambushes were combined with traps by throwing obstacles in front or behind the enemy once they entered the designated terrain. Smaller scale ambushes were sprung on enemy detachments (e.g., foragers or horse herders) to shake enemy morale or disrupt their operations. Also used were night attacks, surprise flanking attacks, and encirclements.
Early medieval combat was a vicious, bloody, and messy business. Eyes were gouged out by arrows; skulls were crushed and bones shattered by iron maces; bodies were gashed and slashed by swords and sabers; heads and limbs were lopped off by axes; torsos were skewered by spears or javelins; gore and blood splashed everywhere. Given such scenarios, and numerous additional variants, one might ask why men willingly subjected themselves to such unimaginable enormities. There exists no pat answer to the question. To claim that human animal instinct was the motivator would be trite but not altogether inaccurate. Another possible reason was loyalty to or dependency upon the leader or commander.
The prospect of winning recognized honors or acquiring a higher social standing through battlefield performance was a factor, but one can suspect that the baser desires to rape, pillage, and plunder also played a part. A strong sense of defending one’s home or religious belief was present among some. Whatever the participants’ underlying motives, they required nurturing and maintenance by the commanders to ensure a high level of morale among the troops when deadly combat erupted. During the wars both sides attempted to achieve this by imposing discipline on their troops and by conducting pre-battle religious rituals, whether pagan or Christian, with the implied message that imminent death or mutilation bore spiritual rewards. Whatever the motivations, troops of both sides braved the terrible carnage throughout two centuries.
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