Throughout the planet they extend battlefields that have gone down in history. It is estimated that there are some 12,000 localized battles Throughout history, being those of the twentieth century The bloodiest in history. Many of those ‘famous’ wars marked a turning point in one way or another, and the battle of Anzen between Byzantines and Muslims was one of them.
But not for being a deed or a great military strategy, but for being an absolute embarrassment in which his army defeated himself.
The legend. Between the eighth and twelfth centuries, the Arabo-Bizantine wars. It was a series of conflicts that, for almost 550 years, faced different Muslim caliphath with expansionist eagerness and the Byzantine empire. The conflict changed the political and military landscape in the Middle East and in a large part of the Mediterranean. Legend tells that one of the battles between the Byzantines and the abasi caliphate decided the … spirits.
As we read in National Geographicin one of the battles during the ninth century, the Byzantines managed to repel the Arabs, but did not have time to celebrate the victory. At nightfall, the Byzantine soldiers began to see lights moving in the fog, some ‘Fatuos fires‘(flammable gases generated by decomposition matter on the battlefield) that soldiers confused with wandering spirits and souls. In the confusion the Byzantines panicked, they began to attack between them and those who fled were clear by a cliff.
Anzen. As history, it is very good, but there are no documents that support it and it seems rather a story so that the soldiers do not get carried away by the Superstitions. The funny thing is that there was a historical episode in which the soldiers were dragged by fear, causing a humiliating defeat. It occurred in the same ninth century, specifically on July 22, 838. In the Anzen battle (current Dazmana, in Türkiye), the Byzantine emperor Teófilo He commanded between 25,000 and 40,000 men against an abasi force under the command of the Iranian Prince al-affshin.
The previous year, the Byzantines had made an incursion into the ground of the caliphate, and the Caliph sought revenge. Your goal? Love affairemblem, one of the largest cities in the Byzantine Empire. There are many factors that influence a battle, such as the size of the armies, their armament and even morality, but something definitive is the strategy. And Teófilo came up with a great idea that turned out to be decisive.
Galaxy brain. At one point in the battle, and at a point where their troops had the advantage, it occurred to Teófilo to reinforce one of the flanks personally. He took a group of soldiers and left the usual command place. Although in many films we see that leaders are the first to load, the common thing was that they stayed in a remote and privileged position. Not only saved their neck, but they could exercise military tactics in real time.
Teófilo sneak away after the defeat
Panic and unbalanced. He must have seemed a good idea, but this action was a turn in the dynamics of the battle. The Byzantine troops began to see that Teófilo was not in their command position and thought the most logical (sarcasm): “The emperor has died.” Without its leader, the troops are They demoralizedthey began to act indisciplinedly and there was a disruption in the ranks.
Historical chance or strategy, just at that time the Turkish cavalry, with its archers, made a counterattack, which exacerbated chaos in the Byzantine ranks. The attack of the archers mounted and that idea that its leader had died in combat, undermined the morals and cohesion of the imperial army, dynamiting any initial advantage in combat.
What do you do? Recall that Teófilo was still alive leading the attack in another area of the battlefield, but their forces had collapsed and the emperor, next to a group of soldiers from his personal guard and the Kurdish allies, was isolated in a hill, the Anzen hill. The Arabs surrounded them, but here there was a Deus Ex Machina de Manual: it began to rain, the strings of the Turkish arches were unused and, while the Arab troops waited for catapults to bombard the position, Teófilo and his personal guard slipped between the enemy lines.
Sitío de Amorio for Muslim troops
Fatal error. After that, the rumors of his death had already spread and the emperor not only had to fight against it, but against the Arab advance. The defeat in Anzen paved the way to Amorio for the Al-Afshin troops, where the looting of the city that had been a symbol of prestige and imperial power.
It was not a definitive blow in the war between Byzantines and Abasíes due to internal conflicts in the caliphate, but of course it was a defeat for the history of the uncoordination of the troops and how important the command figure is.
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