Battle of Manzikert

(noun)

A major battle between the Byzantines and the Turks which ended in a Byzantine defeat and ushered in the decline of the Byzantine Empire.

Related Terms

Examples of Battle of Manzikert in the following topics:

  • The Double Disasters

    • In 1071, the Byzantine Empire suffered two important defeats, against the Turks in the Battle of Manzikert and against the Normans in Bari, sometimes called the Double Disasters.
    • At the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 CE, the Byzantine army was totally wiped out by the Turks.
    • The brunt of the battle was borne by the professional soldiers from the eastern and western tagmata, as large numbers of mercenaries and Anatolian levies fled early and survived the battle.
    • Historian Thomas Asbridge says: "In 1071, the Seljuqs crushed an imperial army at the Battle of Manzikert (in eastern Asia Minor), and though historians no longer consider this to have been an utterly cataclysmic reversal for the Greeks, it still was a stinging setback."
    • In this 15th-century French miniature depicting the Battle of Manzikert, the combatants are clad in contemporary Western European armour.

  • The Crusades

    • The heart of Western Europe had been stabilized after the Christianization of the Saxon, Viking, and Hungarian peoples by the end of the 10th century.
    • The Seljuq Empire had taken over almost all of Anatolia after the Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071; however, their conquests were piecemeal and led by semi-independent warlords, rather than by the sultan.
    • A dramatic collapse of the empire's position on the eve of the Council of Clermont brought Byzantium to the brink of disaster.
    • In response to the defeat at Manzikert and subsequent Byzantine losses in Anatolia in 1074, Pope Gregory VII had called for the milites Christi ("soldiers of Christ") to go to Byzantium's aid.
    • Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, where he gave speeches in favor of a Crusade.

  • The Norman Invasion of 1066 CE

    • The Norman Invasion of England was led by William II of Normandy, who defeated Harold II of England in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
    • Learning of the Norwegian invasion, he rushed north, gathering forces as he went, and took the Norwegians by surprise, defeating them at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25.
    • Harold's army confronted William's invaders on October 14 at the Battle of Hastings.
    • Here, a figure some think to be Harold Godwinson is shown falling at the Battle of Hastings.
    • Evaluate the extent to which Harold's loss at the Battle of Hastings was due to the fact that he was ill-prepared for battle and whether it might have been possible to mitigate the circumstances that led to that fact

  • The Battle of Stalingrad

    • The Battle of Stalingrad has been described as the biggest defeat in the history of the German Army and a decisive turning point in the downfall of Hitler in World War II.
    • The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Southern Russia, on the eastern boundary of Europe.
    • Stalingrad's significance has been downplayed by some historians, who point either to the Battle of Moscow or the Battle of Kursk as more strategically decisive.
    • At the time, however, the global significance of the battle was not in doubt.
    • Argue for or against the categorization of the Battle of Stalingrad as a turning point in the war

  • The Battle of Midway

    • The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, won by the American navy after code-breakers had discovered the date and time of the Japanese attack.
    • The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II.
    • The Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal Campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War.
    • HYPO was also able to determine the date of the attack as either 4 or 5 June, and to provide Nimitz with a complete IJN order of battle.
    • The Japanese, by contrast, remained mainly unaware of their opponent's true strength and dispositions even after the battle began.

  • The Battle of Britain

    • The Battle of Britain, when the British Royal Air Force defended the UK against the German Air Force attacks, was the first major Nazi defeat and a turning point of World War II.
    • The Battle of Britain was a combat of the Second World War, when the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom against the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attacks from the end of June 1940.
    • What General Weygand has called The Battle of France is over.
    • The battle of Britain is about to begin.
    • Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation.

  • Islam Ascendant

    • The Muslims set an ambush for the caravan at Badr, but a Meccan force intervened and the Battle of Badr commenced.
    • Although outnumbered more than three to one, the Muslims won the battle, killing at least forty-five Meccans.
    • Muhammad led his Muslim force to the Meccans to fight the Battle of Uhud on March 23, 625 CE.
    • For the Muslims, the battle was a significant setback.
    • Muhammad defeated the Hawazin and Thaqif tribes in the Battle of Hunayn.

  • Swedish-French Intervention

    • Bernhard's victory in the Battle of Compiègne pushed the Habsburg armies back towards the borders of France.
    • The two Swedish armies combined and confronted the imperialists at the Battle of Wittstock.
    • After the battle of Wittstock, the Swedish army regained the initiative in the German campaign.
    • In the Second Battle of Breitenfeld in 1642, outside Leipzig, the Swedish Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson defeated an army of the Holy Roman Empire led by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and his deputy, Prince-General Ottavio Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi.
    • The Battle of Prague in 1648 became the last action of the Thirty Years' War.

  • The Persian Wars

    • Athens and other Greek cities sent aid, but were quickly forced to back down after defeat in 494 BCE at the Battle of Lade.
    • After being delayed by Leonidas I, the Spartan king of the Agiad Dynasty, at the Battle of Thermopylae (a battle made famous due to the sheer imbalance of forces, with 300 Spartans facing the entire Persian Army), Xerxes advanced into Attica, where he captured and burned Athens.
    • But the Athenians had evacuated the city by sea, and under the command of Themistocles defeated the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis.
    • Following the Battle of Plataea and the Battle of Mycale, the Persians began withdrawing from Greece and never attempted an invasion again.
    • The Battle of Mycale was in many ways a turning point, after which the Greeks went on the offensive against the Persian fleet.

  • Conflict in the Atlantic

    • The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945.
    • The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war.
    • The name "Battle of the Atlantic" was coined by Winston Churchill in February 1941.
    • It involved thousands of ships in more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters, in a theatre covering thousands of square miles of ocean.
    • Officers on the bridge of a destroyer, escorting a large convoy of ships keep a sharp look out for attacking enemy submarines during the Battle of the Atlantic, October 1941.