-----------------------------
If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
-------------------------------
Anno Domini,833-December-4-14
"Would it not be wiser to stop and besiege the fortifications held by the men serving the Syrian pretender in Kilikia, rather than leave them behind and sail straight for his capital in Antioch?" asked one of my commanders as we stood aboard the ship bound for Syria.
"Winter is almost upon us. Although the climate in those lands is not particularly harsh, and the proximity of the sea would allow us to receive ample supplies from the imperial navy, those sieges would delay us far too long. I have very reliable information that Antioch will open its gates to me as soon as I appear with an army. The man who has proclaimed himself basileus Rhomaion is occupied in Beroia, defending himself against an Abbasid incursion. This maneuver will trap him between two large armies, which could allow us to dispose of the pretender swiftly" I said, my arms folded as I listened to the sound of the waves.
"But we have abandoned the northern campaign. We had almost surrounded the Armenian pretenders, Marinos and Bardas, and I do not understand why we stopped advancing against them. The Abbasids could have kept the Syrian pretender occupied while we dealt with the Armenians" said my commander, who seemed somewhat irritated at having abandoned the campaign in Anatolia.
"Continuing was not feasible. Those Armenian mountain passes are a nightmare. We were relying on snowfall remaining light enough to let our supplies through. If heavy snow blocked the roads, we would be isolated for months with no means of resupply. We could either wait to see what the harshest days of winter had in store for us or make use of the time and the fleet to strike at our enemies' rear and resolve a problem we would have to face sooner or later" I said, looking at the commander.
"Besides, we have good news from the south. With the reinforcements we sent, Andronikos managed to defeat one of the strategoi besieging him in his fortress. When our troops arrived by sea, he broke the siege and killed the strategos in battle. He is now besieging the other, who had shut himself inside his fortress to wait and see what happened while his stronger rivals fought one another. If the siege ends soon, we may be able to count on reinforcements from the south. They would be a great help in replenishing our ranks, since we have lost many men during the advance through Anatolia" said another of my commanders.
"Indeed. If necessary, I will try to muster the troops from Jerusalem. We will also attempt to intimidate the Abbasids, depending on the size of their army, though I do not yet know what we might achieve" I said thoughtfully, before finally catching sight of land, a sign that we were nearing our destination.
We docked at the port of Rosos, whose authorities sided with me as soon as they recognized my standard. Much of the population regarded me as their liberator from the oppression of the sarakenoi and still held me in great respect. Furthermore, many of Shimon's spy networks remained active in those lands, so I expected the fortresses of the region, whose inhabitants were Syriac, to open their gates to us and put the pretender's officers to death.
The first thing we discovered in Rosos was that the local guards had lowered the harbor chain and were handing over the imperial pretender's officers. I immediately ordered them beheaded and commanded that the same be done to anyone who had actively supported the rebellion of the strategos claiming the imperial crown.
We began eliminating the aristocrats and merchants involved while I sent advance detachments to the coastal fortresses to secure our support in the region and establish enough supply points in case the war intensified and forced us to depend on a lengthy supply route.
I sent a commander to each of the cities of Laodikea, Gabala, Balanaia, and Antarados to take possession of them, expecting them to open their gates and lower their harbor chains to welcome us as they had when we liberated them from the Abbasids. Meanwhile, I assembled my army and marched toward Antioch, taking advantage of the region's favorable weather.
The best time to fight in Syria was during autumn and winter, when the temperatures allowed us to deploy heavily armored troops and fight without roasting inside our armor.
Within hours, I reached Antioch with the Slavic cavalry vanguard. With little effort on our part, the gates of one of the empire's most important cities opened without resistance, allowing me to enter once again. This time, however, I did so in a far more honorable manner than when I had been forced to slip in through the sewers. Now the city welcomed me as its new lord.
What had happened in Rosos happened again. Much of the local garrison acknowledged my authority without resistance, largely because they fondly remembered the man who had granted land to the region's thematic soldiers. I also enjoyed the support of several merchants who belonged to Shimon's spy network. The other merchants, officers, and aristocrats involved in the rebellion, however, soon learned the consequences of their disobedience when a dagger was driven between their ribs. My men put the city's traitors to death and distributed their wealth among the army and the inhabitants, showing the population the price of treachery and the rewards of loyalty.
The treasury quickly came under our control, as did the armory, though the latter was almost empty. The city's coffers, however, held a considerable sum, enough to pay my troops and avoid constantly transporting gold and silver by sea while the empire continued to bleed.
Before long, reports arrived that almost every city in the region had sided with me, abandoning the Syrian pretender, who did not even know what was happening in his rear as he fought the Abbasid army at Beroia.
Furthermore, the wealth confiscated from those who had died for supporting him swelled my coffers and allowed me to fund new levies in the region. These would not be particularly large; the purpose was to begin reorganizing Syria and turning it into a province, implementing the administrative system we were extending across the other territories. This would allow them to send me troops every four months and maintain a steady flow of reinforcements for the duration of the civil war.
I also needed to dismantle the thema system, but those lands had demonstrated their loyalty, and their inhabitants had opened their gates to us. Betraying them by stripping them of their possessions under the pretext of reorganizing the region would have been absurd. I therefore decreed that the lands assigned to the thematic soldiers would become their outright property, rather than remain subject to an obligation of military service. At the same time, we began establishing imperial army training camps in the cities and requesting administrators from Crete. The island was running out of the educated men the empire needed, to the point that they had already begun sending some with less than a year of training. The civil war left us no choice but to rely on them.
I spent several days in the region establishing the new administration and left several capable commanders in charge. Then I sent letters to my commander in Jerusalem, ordering him to leave a small garrison in the city and march north to join his forces with mine. I then set out for Beroia, where the confrontation would take place.
Our march began well, with eight thousand Syriac soldiers joining our ranks. They were thematic troops who had just been transferred to the imperial army system and were still awaiting a shipment of weapons to equip themselves like the rest of our forces. Nevertheless, they would make excellent garrison troops and were loyal enough that I did not have to worry about betrayal.
We advanced along the newly built road toward Beroia and, after several days, reached the fighting.
The city was under siege by an Abbasid army flying its customary black banners. Apparently, the caliph himself was leading his forces to reclaim those lands, taking advantage of our divisions just as we had taken advantage of theirs.
Near the besiegers' camp stood another Roman camp, where the pretender had stationed himself. His forces were harassing the Abbasids, since their considerable numerical inferiority prevented them from offering battle. The Abbasids, however, had made no attempt to engage them directly either.
That suggested there must be a substantial garrison inside the city, large enough to deter them from concentrating their forces against the troops outside.
Our presence did not go unnoticed by either side. The Syrian pretender began sending out scouts as soon as we cut off his supplies, while the Abbasids became aware of our arrival when we appeared before their positions.
We directed our advance toward the Syrian pretender's camp, since his was the smaller force and we could defeat it before the Abbasids attempted to intervene. Their troops were still dispersed around Beroia to maintain the siege.
We advanced swiftly toward the camp, whose defenders had already prepared for battle before our arrival. Ahead of us stood a diminished but still substantial force, drawn up to resist us.
We deployed for battle, and as soon as my standards flew before their ranks, some of the Syrian pretender's units began breaking away from his army and advancing toward us to change sides.
It was mainly the Syriac units that began coming over to us en masse. Others held their positions, though it soon became clear that much of the army drawn up before the camp was falling apart as its men deserted.
Many of those local troops had already been informed of my arrival by Shimon.
Our ranks swelled as more units arrived, while others joined under pressure from their comrades. Once our numerical superiority became overwhelming, we advanced toward the pretender's camp, and he soon fled in desperation. I sent the cavalry in pursuit and entered the camp almost unopposed as the rest of his men laid down their weapons.
Thus, we absorbed almost all his troops and obtained what I needed most: soldiers to man the garrisons. Furthermore, the Syrian's claim to the throne had all but collapsed now that his army had abandoned him.
We took up positions inside the strategos's camp and reorganized our ranks, preparing to fight the Abbasids. They had attempted to form up to intervene in the battle they expected to witness, only to discover, to their displeasure, that it had ended almost before it began.
We now held a clear numerical advantage over the Abbasids, whose forces were divided between us and the garrison of Beroia. I soon sent envoys to speak with their caliph, for I needed to heed Theophilos's old advice: it was better to negotiate than to risk a battle that could go either way.
I dispatched messengers while our forces maintained pressure on the Abbasids, who eventually agreed to a meeting between the basileus and the caliph.
As had happened once before, a tent was erected between the camps, and the guards made sure neither of us carried concealed weapons.
"Ha, ha, ha… This brings back memories… You missed this one" I said, drawing the dagger concealed against my leg and tossing it to the guard after he had removed the other five hidden beneath my clothes.
Upon entering the tent, I found Caliph Al-Mu'tasim, who, unlike his predecessor, did not seem particularly old. He looked more like a warrior than a weary ruler.
"Salam aleikum" I said, bringing my fingers to my forehead as I sat down opposite the caliph, who regarded me with a puzzled expression.
"You speak Arabic?" the caliph asked.
"Yes… I learned it many years ago, so we can converse in your language if you prefer" I said, showing little concern.
"Aleikum salam… From what I see, the renowned Roman general who did so much to wrest my territories from me decided to seize the throne… and sparked quite a civil war" said the caliph, fixing his gaze on me.
"A civil war that will soon end, while the necessary reforms are carried out. Aegyptus, the empire's granary, is about to be recovered. The Syrian pretender has fallen, since he could not even rely on the loyalty of his Syriac troops. Only Armenia remains, and then the east will be secure… But my question is why we find you besieging an imperial fortress when we had a peace treaty, signed after I defeated you during your attempt to lift the siege of the capital of Aegyptus" I said, reminding him of my campaign in Egypt.
"But I imagine you still have serious problems in the west… And just as you took advantage of our civil war, I intend to recover my lost territories" Al-Mu'tasim replied, seemingly ready to begin dictating his terms.
"You will get nothing from us… If you think we will cede territory to you, you are mistaken. I am not a man you can intimidate. If you know anything of what happened in Constantinople, you will understand that I am not here merely to save the empire, but to reform it or die trying… And if I am to die trying, perhaps I will decide to march my army into Mesopotamia and kill every last inhabitant, burning and destroying every settlement until I force you to take refuge in Persia. I will order my men to march on your sacred mosques and destroy them utterly… You, too, have everything at stake here. A defeat could bring down your rule, which does not seem particularly secure after losing the revenues and grain of Aegyptus. So withdraw and promise never to return, or I will march into Mesopotamia and will not stop until every city has been reduced to a heap of skulls" I said, clenching my fists as I leaned forward.
The caliph looked somewhat taken aback and moistened his lips after taking in my words.
"You must be joking… You would be destroying the Roman Empire if you allowed others to take advantage of your absence" said the caliph, shaking his head.
"I have already defeated you once, outnumbered and with troops who were less well trained and equipped… What do you think I will do now that I have a properly prepared army? I will win this battle, and while you flee once again, I will order your holy places destroyed, and you will be powerless to prevent it… Or you can swear never to attack the Empire of the Romans again for as long as you live. Because if you have seized any of my lands by the time the civil war ends, I will return to reclaim them with a veteran army. With the men of Aegyptus, my foederati, and the other troops currently holding defensive positions, I could assemble an army easily exceeding two hundred thousand men. Do you have the means to defend yourself against such a force? All under my command, with the sole purpose of turning Mesopotamia into an open grave so that it can never again serve as a staging ground for invasions of Roman territory" I said, gripping my chair tightly as I watched the caliph's reaction.
"So forget the western territories, take your followers of Allah east, and stop harassing Rome. If I have to return to those lands, I will give the Arabs the same fate as the Bulgarians: those who are not scattered as refugees serve as slaves in Rome's mines and fields" I said, staring straight at the caliph.
"I suppose… that… tribute from Rome could help finance… the rebuilding of my territories after all the turmoil they have endured" said the caliph, looking tense and somewhat nervous.
"How much?" I asked, regarding him sternly.
"Five hundred thousand nomismata… each year, for five years" the caliph replied, holding my gaze.
"I will not haggle… I will pay it from my personal treasury, but only once the civil war is over. You have my word that you will receive all that gold in a single payment… Now withdraw from my lands" I said, making to rise.
"What guarantee do I have that you will pay?" asked the caliph, raising a hand.
"I am a man of my word. This civil war will not last much longer. In spring, I will crush the Armenians, and by then my commanders will surely have subdued the remaining rebels. So warn your men: if they are still fighting in these lands in April, in defiance of our agreement, I will return and carry out my threat" I said, rising and leaving the tent, though not without making sure my daggers were returned to me this time.
I returned to my camp and watched the Abbasids break camp. After several hours of preparation, they began their retreat, and the siege of Beroia was lifted. Meanwhile, my Slavic horsemen brought me the lifeless body of the Syrian pretender, who had apparently been killed by one of his own men.
-----------------------------
If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
-------------------------------