Tzachas: The Man Who Would Be Emperor

by the winter of 1090 Constantinople hung gone by a threat to say that times had been hard of late for the great city still the largest and arguably the most magnificent that the world had ever seen would be a colossal understatement ever since the catastrophic defeat at mans occurred in 1071 against the Seljuk Turks and the even more devastating two decades long civil war that had followed in its wake the Empire had lost the vast majority of its territory in Asia Minor lands that have been held by the Romans since the days of Julius Caesar over a thousand years before by 1080 an estimated 78,000 square kilometers of Imperial territory had gradually seen itself chipped away by the efforts of usurpers regional strongmen and invading Turkic tribesmen by 1090 just a scattering of mountainous holdouts in the interior and a few imperial enclaves on the Black Sea remained at an ever precarious bulwark against total Byzantine eviction from Asia Minor for the first time in close to 400 years the great city itself now stood on the very front line of enemy attack the only consolation being that for the very first time in five decades an effective military commander an able-bodied administrator sat on the imperial throne the young general Alexius Comnenus himself originally a usurper had successfully seized power in 1081 and since that time had made it his mission to save the Empire he'd been fighting the seljuqs in the field since the age of 14 the Normans since his early 20s and by 1090 he'd been forced to put down innumerable other internal rebellions and outside invasions for close to a decade yet despite all this hard work in keeping the Empire afloat all of his efforts would prove meaningless should he not be able to win the next battle coming his way in the spring of 1091 [Music] for some three years now terrified reports had flooded into the capital of yet another impending disaster not from the east this time but from the Imperial held lands to the west in Europe rumors of a vast horde of staff warriors riding down from the Pontic plains north of the Black Sea it was an entire nation on the move men women and children almost 80,000 people in all all of the males and many of the females expert horse warriors blooded from a harsh life on the Central Asian steppe and now seeking to capitalize on the growing Imperial weakness on their southern border much to the horror of the Byzantine citizens of the vulcans the pechenegs were on the warpath ordinarily an invasion of staff warriors from the Pontic steppe would have been made light work of innumerable armies of them had tried before many of them far more numerous and dangerous than the pechenegs the avars the vulgus and the Magyars to name a few yet this was no ordinary situation the long drawn-out conflicts of the ten seventies and ten 80s but arguably were in the worst catastrophe to ever befall the Empire in his 700 year long history due to a severe lack of manpower stemming from a severe hemorrhaging of territory suffered in recent years and the sheer number of different enemies to contend with the European domains of the Empire lay wide open to attack [Music] and just in case this deluge of humanity descending upon the Vulcans wasn't enough to bring down Constantinople once and for all two rebellious imperial governors grabbed some at ease in Cyprus and Cara Keys and Crete also seized the opportunity to go their own way at this time not only refusing to answer elecciones call for aid but entirely relinquishing any fealty that they had previously given to constantinople in the process Alexius might have been forgiven for giving up there and then faced as he was with the terrible and seemingly unassailable odds against him yet he isn't remembered as one of the greatest Byzantine emperors in history for no reason and besides an even greater threat than the pechenegs and the rebellious generals combined loomed large on his southern flank it was there at the city of Smyrna just to the south of Constantinople along the Aegean coast of Asia Minor a ruthless warlord has set himself up as a king there in the last year's of the 1080s like the to rebel generals in Cyprus and Crete and unlike the Pechenegs he was well versed in the ways of the Byzantine military machine having served as a general under Alexius his predecessor nikka forest botany Attis during the late 1070 s receiving the title noble usamos for his loyal service one of the highest Imperial ranks that could be given in the late Roman Empire when Alexius owl stood the age in nikka forests in 1081 however that general had been driven into exile and probably harbored a personal grudge against Alexius for the rest of his days to make matters even worse for Alexius that general who had set himself up in smyrna was an august turf his name as check ass and not only did he have the audacity to proclaim himself as the new byzantine emperor in 1019 and flagrant dismissal of Alexius his own legitimacy but it's also thought extremely likely that he had actually masterminded a multi-pronged assault on Constantinople in 1019 co-ordinating not only the passion eggs and the rebel Byzantine generals but also attempting to enlist the services of fellow Turkic mercenary commanders in the rest of Asia Minor in order to not only bring down Alexius but put himself on the imperial throne instead [Music] though scarcely remembered today for those Imperial citizens living through the dark days of the ten 80s and early 10 90s it must have seemed like the end for truly come and as soon as it did come Chuck ass the most powerful Turkic warlord of his day would be there to pick up the pieces and to build anew in his own image [Music] [Music] very little is known of chacas his early life most of what is known comes from a single literary source the alexey art written by an akan Nina the daughter of Alexius Comnenus a renowned scholar and historian an akan manor enjoys the distinction of being perhaps the only princess in history to write a detailed historical work on her own father which remains one of the most important works of the Middle Ages according to her account Chaka's had originally been a Turco pol Raider one of the multitude that have ridden into Anatolia during the decade-long Civil War which followed the disaster at man's occurred in 1071 [Music] though officially and quite paradoxically the Seljuk Empire tended to have no quarrel with the Byzantines themselves facing what was generally perceived to be a far greater enemy in the form of the Fatima's of Egypt on their southern flank the new seljuq Sultan Malik Shah had no control over the tribesmen who lived beyond the official borders of his state on the fringes of seljuq society jackass seems to have been just one of these Raiders operating outside the remit of the Seljuk authorities notable others being Danish meant Ghazi who later formed his own independent state in the east of Anatolia a state that outlived the Seljuk Empire itself this was a time of chaos in Asia Minor as not only Turks but also regional Byzantine commanders Armenians and Normans all vied for a small slice of the crumbling state at times working as mercenaries for various claimants to the imperial throne and at others seeking to pursue their own ends with a nationalistic in the form Armenians or entirely for personal gain in the form of the Normans by the late 1070 s after an entirely unrecorded career in Asia Minor Jacques was taken as a prisoner by the new emperor Nikifor s Botanica s-- who had seized power from the ineffective Emperor Michael Ducasse in 1078 nikka for us already had a well established reputation for using Turks in his armies utilizing their mobility and mastery at horse archery to devastating effect thus after a short time in a Constantinople dungeon Jacques was not only released but entered into the service of the Imperial Army rapidly proving himself time and time again to be an invaluable asset to the Emperor Jacques rose through the ranks until he received the Emperor's personal favour and was endowed with rich gifts but 1081 however the aging nikka forests had also established a reputation of being a tyrant and was himself successfully deposed by the young general Alexius Comnenus for one reason or another Jacques lost his position in the army and fled Constantinople to take refuge to the south and rebuild his power just as Alexius was forced to concentrate all of his energies on a new Norman incursion on the Adriatic coastline led by the fierce mercenary commander Robert geese guard and his equally ferocious bastard son Boehm and of Toronto Jacques continued to amass more and more nefarious individuals around himself building an army by the mid 1080s though the exact date is unknown by 1088 before Alexius or any of his generals could do anything about it Jacques was not only in control of a substantial realm centered on the city of Smyrna halfway down Anatolia 's western coastline but he had also amassed himself a large fleet of ships employing Christian Greek craftsmen to construct vessels to the specifications of the Byzantine in Pierre Navy but the summer of 1090 through a combination of bribes masa Nations and warfare jackass successfully extended his power over the entire Aegean coast line by the autumn his fleet was ready and possibly with the acquiescence if not the direct support of the usurpers wraps a matiz in cyprus and carry keys increased he had little difficulty in seizing the key Byzantine islands of lesbos chioce Samos and Rhodes a Byzantine fleet and indicators casterman at ease were sent against him but jackass defeated it in battle by the end of 1090 just like geese guard before him over on the Adriatic coastline jackass had his sights firmly set on nothing less than the imperial throne itself and as his navy circled in on the great city it would take a huge amount of look for the Emperor to prevent this from happening fortunately for Alexius the winds of change began to blow his way in 1091 just as jackasses war galleys roamed the Aegean in preparation for the final assault on Constantinople the Pechenegs over in Thrace prepared themselves to descend upon the immediate vicinity of the great city itself on its European site in response Alexios amassed his entire military together through his cards on the table for one last decisive battle charging headlong directly towards the patch Enix workin at livonian near modern day a doner on Turkey's European site unfortunately for the pechenegs who had brought their entire nation with them on the move Alexius had a secret trick of his sleeve he brought with him his own nomadic steppe warriors in the form of the humorous [Music] [Applause] the humans and the Pechenegs were actually related people both being Turkic pastoralists originating in Central Asia and neither held any particular ill-will against the other Alexius had simply made the humans an offer that they couldn't refuse the plan worked perfectly and the Imperial Army bolstered a human auxiliaries took the pechenegs completely by surprise leading to a vicious bloodbath on the banks of the river maritza on April 29th 1091 Alexius was taking no chances he simply couldn't afford to and on that fateful day almost the entire pecheneg nation a mainstay on the political scene of Eastern Europe for over two centuries was wiped out under the full might of the Imperial Byzantine army as many as 80,000 people all in all the few survivors of the massacre were either taken into Imperial service or escaped into obscurity never to be heard of again the Battle of livonian was nothing less than the single most decisive victory achieved by a Byzantine army for more than half a century it marked a major turning point for the Empire having reached rock bottom over the last 20 years livonian signaled to the world that now at last the Empire was on the road to recovery the Pechenegs had been utterly destroyed and the Empire's European possessions were now secured once more Alexius had proved himself as the savior of Byzantium in its hour of need and a new spirit of hope began to arise in the war weary Byzantines yet of course the threat of chacas still remained in the south fortunately for the Byzantines Alexius had also been building up his navy over the years within the confines of Constantinople protected Harbor and in early 1091 Alexius his trusted kinsman constantine de la Sano's broke out of the Bosporus to drive jackasses Navy away from the Sea of Marmara even going so far as to take back the island of Chios yet jackass was by no means beaten and everyone in the city knew that he would return after word spread of the destruction of the entire pecheneg nation however a fearsome foe for over 200 years even amongst the various tribes of steppe nomads of the Pontic steppe Alexius his reputation grew immeasurably he was no longer simply a young upstart usurper he was now a proven and capable military commander and more and more usurpers and rebels began to fall in line behind him accordingly in 1092 Alexius again sent Constantine del Asano's along with another General John Ducasse on the offensive against chukkas together they attacked the fortress of morality on the island of Lesbos where the Turkish fleet was based at the time Chaka's resisted for 3 months but finally reluctantly agreed to negotiate a surrender of the fortress as he began to run out of supplies almost as soon as the Turkish fleet left the island however on their way back to Smyrna de la Sano's launched an ingenious ambush attacking the Turkish fleet with everything that he had perhaps utilizing Greek fire to set the Turkish war galleys aflame completely destroying most of jackasses ships sending their unfortunate occupants to the bottom of the Mediterranean [Music] within just a handful of months however quite astonishingly and much to the horror of de la Sano sin his man jackass was seemingly back at full strength descending once more upon Constantinople ruthlessly attacking the port of Abydos in the sea of Marmora once again Alexius was going to have to think outside of the box to deal with the threat from Smyrna and once again an opportunity arose in the form of a third party coming to his rescue events in the rest of the Seljuk Empire had come to a head around this time after the death of the Sultan Malik Shah plunged the once mighty empire into internal discord never again would assault and rule over the entire Seljuk Empire it had burned brightly and would now collapse in on itself just as quickly and for the most part fall into the hands of regional warlords and relatives of the Sultan the already overextended state based far to the east in modern-day Syria and Iran had long exercised little serious control over its territories in Asia Minor and now the young son of the Sultan of rûm kilij arslan whose father Suleiman urban cattle Maj advised with the previous Sultan ALP Arslan and his successor Malik Shah for his own independence losing his life in the process but passing on this struggle to his son was finally able to exert his own authority as the independent Sultan of Rome that is the Seljuk territories in Asia Minor that had been conquered from the Byzantines his name was kilij arslan and though he himself was a force to be reckoned with he was a different character altogether from Jacques in short Alexius could deal with him diplomatically and he did so for the rest of his career [Music] chuk ass was a potential threat to both kilij arslan and Alexius Comnenus and before long the two conspired to put an end to their Mayor of Smyrna once and for all even though kilij arslan was married to chuck as his daughter and was thus his son-in-law as kilij arslan approached Jacques his position at Abydos he invited his father-in-law to join him at a banquet jackass accepted and having no idea of the plan he was murdered there in early 1093 once again against all the odds Alexius had used masterful diplomacy to win the day and thus assure the survival of the empire in the years ahead Byzantium would go on to stage a remarkable recovery under Alexis and his descendants known as the Canadian restoration [Music] within just a year or two of check asses murder Byzantine armies again returned to the shores of Asia Minor reconquering much of the lost territory there including the Fertile coastal regions along with many of the most important cities just as killer Joslyn solidified his hold over the turkic tribes of the Interior establishing a firm power base of the city of Iconium with the restoration of a firm central government at Constantinople and the establishment of the Crusader States in the Levant taking some pressure off from potential attack from the east the Empire became rich again and once more the great city became the foremost metropolis of the Christian world [Music] [Applause] they're in truth by the time the Warriors of the First Crusade arrived in Anatolia in the late 1090 s much of the worst had already come to pass in 1097 when the city of Smyrna was finally retaken by a Byzantine army under John Ducasse the city was still held by a warlord named jackass probably the son of the ruthless Amir who've just might become an emperor at events played out slightly differently [Music] [Laughter] [Music]

Channel: History Time

Views: 116,618

Rating: 4.9095292 out of 5

Keywords: iMovie, tzacha, tzachas, chaka bey, alexios komnenos, komnenian restoration, history documentary, history, documentary, byzantine, byzantine history, byzantium, byzantium history, pechenegs, normans, seljuks, seljuk turks, sultan of rum, sultunate of rum, manzikert

Id: 2okaZhJbYl4

Length: 23min 20sec (1400 seconds)

Published: Tue May 29 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/bolzano_]

Εξαιρετική δουλειά, συμπεριλαμβάνει όχι τόσο γνωστούς παίκτες και την ιστορία τους. Λόγω ημέρας παραθέτω επίσης για την άλωση της Πόλης το βίντεο από κανάλι Kings and Generals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W0OTGQEY8E