It was the Christians of Western Europe who fought to regain the Holy Land from the Muslims during the Crusades. Yet for centuries before that the protection of the Christian holy places had been the task of the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople. The decisive defeat of the Byzantines by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071 changed all that. The Byzantine Empire lost its recruiting grounds in Anatolia and became too feeble to hold back the Turks. To save themselves the Byzantines were forced to call on the states of Western Europe for military help. And out of their appeals grew the Crusades - the great movement to free the holy city of Jerusalem.

Yet everything might have been different. The Seljuk leader, Alp Arslan, had no personal quarrel with the Byzantines. On the contrary he stood in awe of their military power and the prestige of their emperors. But his failure to restrain Turkish war bands from raiding and pillaging Byzantine territory in search of booty convinced the Byzantines that the Seljuks had to be stopped.

The ease with which these Muslim raiders captured city after city showed that the Empire was now only a shadow of its former self. Since the death of Basil II in 1025 stringent cutbacks in military expenditure and the collapse of the system of local defence meant that the Byzantines had to hire mercenaries to defend their lands. And with a series of emperors who were more administrators than warriors it became obvious that the Empire was becoming decadent. Strong government was imperative and when, in 1068, the feeble Constantine X Ducas died, his widow Eudocia chose as her husband and emperor a young general named Romanus Diogenes.

Romanus set about rebuilding the Byzantine army, aiming to recapture the strategic cities of Armenia lost to the Seljuks in the previous decade. But he faced strong opposition to his policies from the Ducas family, who saw him as a usurper and were determined to overthrow him. A more ruthless man than Romanus would have eliminated them. Instead he merely exiled his most bitter opponent, John Ducas, the dead emperor’s brother, hesitating to secure his throne by shedding blood.

In early March 1071 Romanus left Constantinople to rendezvous with the huge army assembling near Sebastea, numbering more than 100,000 combatant troops. His mind was set on regaining the strategic cities of Armenia and he had bankrupted the treasury to raise a force large enough to achieve this aim. Arab chroniclers wrote in astonishment of the huge siege engines, which needed vast teams of oxen to haul them. To lessen the rigours of campaigning Romanus took with him hundreds of mules laden with silver tableware, chandeliers, tapestries and silver ornaments, as well as his personal library and the extensive personal wardrobe expected of an emperor even on campaign. Nothing was overlooked - a complete pharmacy, Turkish baths made out of leather and a private chapel, complete with portable altars and icons, all found a place in the imperial baggage train.

Through the streets of the capital, crowded with cheering onlookers on that brisk March day, Romanus rode surrounded by the imperial cavalry of the Tagmata, regiments of cataphracts in all their regalia, which comprised the armoured fist of the Byzantine army. Following these knights on their mailed horses were the European mercenaries - clean-shaven Normans with conical helms and kite-shaped shields, and rough red-bearded Rus, clad in mail coats with fur cloaks and striped baggy trousers. And in pride of place rode the Varangian Guard, the emperor’s personal bodyguard, made up of axe-wielding Vikings and English housecarls.

Yet evil omens accompanied the start of Romanus’ campaign. When a grey dove alighted on the emperor’s hand during the brief sea-crossing of the Bosphorus it was felt by many to bode ill, and as the great army moved slowly through Anatolia it was dogged by bad luck. Near Dorylaeum the emperor’s accommodation caught fire, destroying some of his carriages and personal equipment, as well as killing his finest horses, which ran through the camp screaming and burning like torches. Near Coloneia the Byzantines came upon the scene of Manuel Comnenus’s defeat the previous year, and the troops became sullen and gloomy as they rode past the grisly evidence of a dreadful massacre, with the sun-bleached bones of old comrades lining their path for miles.

At Sebastea Romanus assembled his full army, which, besides his guards regiments and Varangians, included large numbers of Asiatic mercenaries from all over the Near East. Full-bearded Patzinaks in fur caps brushed shoulders with pigtailed Khazars, their faces hideously scarred from birth, while blonde-haired Alans in brightly coloured jackets and trousers mixed with Cumans in thick sheepskin jerkins and heavily armoured Georgian and Armenian knights. It was a colourful and warlike assembly, but it served only to emphasize how little unity there was in the Byzantine army by that date. There were pitifully few of the once-elite Anatolian soldiers who had formed the backbone of imperial armies for centuries. In fact there were far too many ill-trained levies and ill-disciplined mercenaries, who would break at the first clash of arms. More than ever Romanus would need to depend on the strength of the Tagmata and the Varangian Guard, as well as the loyalty of his commanders.

Reaching Ezurum, Romanus divided his army. He sent the Normans under Roussel of Bailleul and the infantry under Joseph Tarchaniotes to lay waste the territory west of Lake Van, while with the remainder he successfully stormed the city of Manzikert. But Romanus had miscalculated how soon the Turks would be ready to face him; sending out thousands of his men to scour the region in search of food, he left himself seriously depleted in numbers.

The first that Alp Arslan had heard of Romanus’ advance into Armenia was when he was near Aleppo in Syria with his mind firmly on his campaign against the Egyptian Fatimids. He reacted with lightning speed, moving north towards Lake Van with the 4000 men of his bodyguard, calling in troops as he went. By the time he reached Khoi, to the east of Lake Van, he had perhaps 40,000 horsemen, less than Romanus, but still a substantial army. He sent the emir Sundak with a strong force of horsemen to reconnoitre the Byzantine position. Unexpectedly Sundak’s men encountered the Byzantine scouting group of Roussel and Tarchaniotes and routed them, sending them fleeing in panic towards the west. How strongly they had resisted the Seljuks is open to doubt, and the suggestion of treachery by their commanders cannot be overlooked. Sundak now began skirmishing with Romanus’ main force, and when Nicephorus Bryennius was sent to drive him off he found himself facing Seljuks in overwhelming numbers.

With Bryennius facing destruction and urgently demanding reinforcements, the thought must have briefly crossed Romanus’ mind that perhaps he had misjudged his enemy. But he soon dismissed the idea. Alp Arslan could not have assembled his army so quickly or reached Manzikert in so short a time. Bryennius must be exaggerating the danger. Refusing to be ruffled by such alarmist reports and listening instead to the boasting of the Strategos Basiliakos that he could soon defeat these nomad vagabonds, Romanus foolishly gave the Armenian commander his chance, sending him out with a force of cavalry to rescue Bryennius. In the event the headstrong Basiliakos rode straight into an ambush and saw his entire command wiped out. At least Bryennius took the opportunity to disengage his forces and return to camp, bloodied but undefeated. News of the setback lowered morale in Romanus’ camp. Many felt they had been defeated already, and confidence in the emperor fell. The Uz mercenaries, kin to the Seljuks and unwilling to be on what seemed likely to prove the losing side, deserted to the enemy en masse.

The next morning an embassy from the caliph of Baghdad came to the Byzantine camp to beg the emperor for a truce. Romanus foolishly assumed that this was a sign of weakness and refused to negotiate, insisting the Turks withdrew from the territory they held in Armenia. Having emptied his treasury to raise such a powerful army Romanus knew he would have to use it. If he returned home without a victory his throne and his life might well be forfeit.

With his peace offer rejected Alp Arslan was left with no option but to fight or withdraw in shame. In his war tent he assembled his emirs and asked them to swear allegiance to his son Malik-Shah, in case he himself fell in the fight. Then, handing over command of the army to the eunuch Tauraug, he took up the mace, the weapon of close combat, as a symbol that he would not leave the battlefield unless victorious.

The Byzantine army, meanwhile, was being drawn up in two lines, each several ranks deep. In the centre Romanus commanded his guards regiments, while on his left Nicephorus Bryennius led the troops of the European themes, and on the right were the mercenaries and the levies from Anatolia, under Alyattes. The crucial reserve line was commanded by Andronicus Ducas, son of the exiled John Ducas, a fine commander but a bitter enemy of Romanus. The battle began with Romanus charging the Seljuks with the heavy cavalry of the Tagmata, trying to use his armoured knights to smash the Turkish centre. Amidst supplications to Allah the Almighty the Seljuks rode straight towards the Byzantines, firing their arrows, but at the last moment swinging away and riding out of range, using their favourite tactic of the feigned retreat. The air was filled with a cacophony of sound. In the front rank of each Seljuk regiment rode men clanging with all their might on timbrels, rattles, gongs and cymbals while others blew loudly on trumpets. These were the men whose duty it was to terrify the enemy with their noise and to inflame the passions of their own warriors.

As the Turks raced back and forth across the open plain, drawing ever closer towards the distant foothills, Romanus became desperate to come to close quarters with them. He knew there was a likelihood of ambushes yet he could think of no alternative but to press on. The Turks kept up a barrage of arrows on the Byzantines from long range to which Romanus could only respond with his Patzinak and Cuman mercenaries, as fast and as mobile as the Seljuks, but incapable of delivering a telling blow. Hour followed hour as the Byzantines pressed on with their advance, periodically halting to fight off the swarms of Seljuk horse-archers, until they reached the now-abandoned Seljuk camp. With dusk falling Romanus decided that he had come far enough for one day. He had left his camp undefended and was afraid that the enemy might capture his baggage train. He therefore called a general halt and ordered his commanders to reverse the imperial standards as the sign for an orderly withdrawal. But on a battle-front stretching perhaps five or six miles from right to left and in the heat of battle, parade-ground manoeuvres were almost impossible to interpret. On both flanks the Byzantines were heavily engaged with the enemy, and seeing the standards reversed men began to cry that the emperor had been beaten and was retreating. Panic spread all along the line and the Byzantine flanks started to waver.

Watching from the hills, at the edge of the plain, Alp Arslan could hardly believe his eyes. The huge Byzantine army was beginning to break up in confusion. He sent for his horse and rode out at the head of his reserve cavalry. In a great sweep of colour the Seljuks burst upon the Byzantines from the surrounding heights, the yellow standards of the royal Mamluke regiments easily identifiable, each bearing the insignia of its commander. Behind them came the horse archers, in silk tunics over their cuirasses, darting in and out, filling the air with their arrows, which thudded into the round shields of the Varangian Guards or ricocheted away from the lamellar or plate armour of the cataphracts. But the horses of the Byzantines were the Seljuk’s main target, and the screams of these animals, bucking and tipping their riders, mixed with the cries and curses of men and the infernal noise of naqqara, horns and cymbals.

The Seljuks circled around Romanus’ division in the centre, cutting it off from the wings. The emperor was trapped and fighting for his life. In this moment of crisis Romanus called on Andronicus Ducas to lead the reserve to his aid - but Ducas took no notice and continued retreating, unmolested by the Turks. Seeing that the emperor was in difficulties he had set up the cry that Romanus was dead and ordered his men to retreat to the camp. He had chosen his moment supremely well: the Ducas clan was avenged - but at what cost to his people and nation. With both Byzantine wings in full retreat pursued by thousands of triumphant Muslim warriors, Alp Arslan concentrated his attacks on the cream of the imperial army, which was trapped and fighting desperately around the emperor. Pouring volleys of arrows into the fast-diminishing circle of defenders, the Seljuks soon identified Romanus himself, surrounded by a ring of Varangian Guards in their scarlet cloaks and swinging their deadly axes. Some of them were replaying the tragic scene of five years before when they had fought around Harold Godwinson’s banner of the Fighting Man at Hastings.

Romanus himself fought furiously until his horse was killed by an arrow and fell, pinning him to the ground. A Mamluke warrior dragged him clear, taking prisoner for the first time in the history of the Empire a living Byzantine emperor. As Romanus was led away from the carnage the last remnants of the Byzantine regular army were being routed by the Turks. Some mercenaries fought to the end, but others, like the Uzes, had deserted to the enemy or joined Ducas in his treacherous flight. Alp Arslan treated the captive emperor with more kindness than his own people were to show him. When news of the disaster reached Constantinople the exiled John Ducas seized power, deposing Romanus in favour of the young Michael VII. Shortly afterwards Romanus was released and allowed to return home, but the traitor Andronicus Ducas led an army against him and, in spite of giving him a guarantee of safety, seized the ex-emperor and blinded him so horribly that he died from his wounds. It is said that Alp Arslan wept at the news.

But the damage was done. The Byzantine empire had been fatally weakened, and Turkish freebooters raided openly even up to the outskirts of Constantinople. Christian pilgrims were prevented from visiting the holy places and Jerusalem was now more firmly than ever in the hands of Islam. Only a great response by the Christians of the West - by people and princes - could reverse the consequences of the battle of Manzikert.

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