Home › Forums › History › How could the Byzantine Empire fail with such a giant army and so much money?
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Anonymous.
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September 30, 2021 at 8:57 pm #117500
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September 30, 2021 at 9:01 pm #117501
Anonymous
GuestBecause they were literal scrotebrains who hired mercenaries
AKA THE LITERALLY BIGGEST ERROR TO DO
The most hilarious thing is when they hired turks……… to reconquer cities and lands…. FROM Qfreaking TURKS
Literally what were they thinking ?
Mercenaries have no loyalty and would betray you even when you have moneyBtw Manzikert and Fourth Crusade are disasters starded….. BY MERCENARIES
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September 30, 2021 at 9:02 pm #117502
Anonymous
Guestbut it worked for the Italians bro
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September 30, 2021 at 9:03 pm #117505
Anonymous
GuestExemple
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September 30, 2021 at 9:08 pm #117508
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September 30, 2021 at 9:14 pm #117510
Anonymous
Guestbullying Balkanoids and Gayreeks and then getting raped by Ottomans is not a good military record
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September 30, 2021 at 9:20 pm #117512
Svetovid
GuestVenetians never bullied anyone in SE Europe, at best, they took advantage of Ottoman invasions to undermine the native states, they were also trashed by the Narentines for several hundred years, while vastly outnumbering them.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:21 pm #117513
Anonymous
Guest>Venetians never bullied anyone in SE Europe
HAHAHAHA-
September 30, 2021 at 9:29 pm #117518
Svetovid
GuestName two SE European states they’ve bullied?
Your mother’s lips are engulfing my shaft as we speak, post your results.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:41 pm #117523
Anonymous
Guestschizoid and schizo are two wholly different things
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September 30, 2021 at 9:42 pm #117525
Svetovid
GuestThat’s what’s actual schizos says, now post them results, mutt.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:43 pm #117526
Anonymous
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September 30, 2021 at 9:47 pm #117531
Svetovid
GuestNot sure what’s more amusing, the fact that you consider Catholic crusaders treacherously sacking a Catholic city an example of Venetian bullying or the fact that the article lists the Croatian/Hungarian numbers as "unknown", even though we know that the garrison was only 1200 strong.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:51 pm #117533
Anonymous
Guestyeah and what about the local population scrotebrain. They were forced to flee while the Venetians and Crusaders gobbled everything left behind. The Venice defense force really needs to do a better job
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September 30, 2021 at 9:53 pm #117536
Svetovid
GuestHow am I the "Venice defence force", when I’m pointing out the absurdity of their claim? The ((Crusaders)) quite literally sacked a Christian city, and these mutts consider that a triumph.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:54 pm #117537
Anonymous
GuestVenice was the leader and directed the entire crusade
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September 30, 2021 at 9:59 pm #117538
Svetovid
GuestAnd?
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September 30, 2021 at 9:34 pm #117519
Anonymous
GuestWhat’s funny? Here in Montenegro, all they did was an attempt to assassinate rulers of Zeta or invade when our armies were busy with the Ottomans, that’s 9/10 of Venetian involvement on the peninsula, real history isn’t a EU4 run.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:44 pm #117527
Anonymous
Guest>Montenegro
no one cares about your tiny shithole-
September 30, 2021 at 9:50 pm #117532
Anonymous
GuestZeta, unlike whatever hole spawned you, had the world’s first state-owned printing state during its twilight years, and even if it were a shithole, how does it refute Venetians being garden gnome-born vermin? Why are you moving goal posts?
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September 30, 2021 at 9:22 pm #117515
Anonymous
GuestGetting strong schizo vibes from this user.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:38 pm #117520
Anonymous
GuestByzantium probably would have been able to hold its ground against the Turks, if the Venetians weren’t constantly stabbing them in the back. People who try to defend them are idiots.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:40 pm #117521
Svetovid
GuestI blame Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis for these obsessions with upstart merchant-states.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:42 pm #117524
Anonymous
GuestTheir only weapon against the Turks was to evangelize them and then cuck them, like they did to the pechenegs, bulgars, western kipchaks. They couldn’t do this to khazars or to Seljuks.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:46 pm #117529
Anonymous
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September 30, 2021 at 10:50 pm #117543
Anonymous
GuestAfter the Byzantines made the Pechenegs Christian, they were weaker and defeated. They couldn’t do this to Muslim Seljuks or gnomish Khazars.
The Muslim Seljuks were hired as mercenaries to fight Byzantine civil wars, and that’s the first time a major contingent crossed into Europe from Gallipoli/Cannakkale. The Kantakuzene brought him over to fight his grandad I think.
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September 30, 2021 at 10:51 pm #117544
Anonymous
GuestAlso the Byzantine Tourkopole Pechenegs switched sides in Manzikert
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October 1, 2021 at 1:01 pm #117571
Anonymous
GuestNo it doesnt work scrotebrain
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September 30, 2021 at 9:18 pm #117511
Anonymous
GuestI said hiring mercenaries
Not being a mercenary
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September 30, 2021 at 9:52 pm #117534
Anonymous
GuestNo it literally didn’t. Mercenary use bit them in the ass
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September 30, 2021 at 11:00 pm #117550
Anonymous
GuestCroat and Iberian mercenaries often bonked over their adventures.
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October 1, 2021 at 1:52 am #117563
Anonymous
GuestThen why was Machiavelli so butthurt about them?
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September 30, 2021 at 10:09 pm #117540
Anonymous
GuestThe stereotype of the treacherous Greek was 100% justified.
Now, most of the time they were backstabbing each other, but also many times they betrayed their Christian, supposedly allied Western Latins. The first time they were called to act, the Latins assembled the largest army in Europe at Constantinople ready to help the Emperor reconquer Anatolia, but after more than a century of constant betrayal they stopped caring to help unless the Greeks payed them to do it.
Byzantiboos always ignore the times when the Greeks betrayed the Latins, but then cry nonstop about the Latin response.
Eg. 1:
>Alexios makes a deal with the infidels he’s supposedly fighting against during the siege of Nicaea, completely snubbing the Crusaders he himself asked for help
>in return, Crusaders consider the pact they made with the emperor to give him the lands they conquered in Anatolia to be forfeit, and go to create the Outremer kingdomsEg. 2:
>Deposed Greek prince asks excommunicated "crusaders" (aka mercenaries) to help him regain his throne, in exchange of a lot of money
>"crusaders" do just that, they put him in the throne
>Greek prince refuses to pay and tells crusaders to go away
>crusaders sack Constantinople and take their pay by force
>incessant screeching about muh perfidious crusaders and muh fourth crusade ensuesAnd don’t forget about the massacre of the Latins.
In the particular case of the Byzantines, Roger de Flor, Catalan mercenary, was very successful at driving back the early Ottoman Turks from Anatolia. The only problem is that the Greeks backstabbed him, literally.
After the death of their commander and 1,000 of their members, the remaining Catalans went on their own murder spree across Greece, which ended with them taking over Attica, which they ruled as the Duchy of Athens for almost 70 years until Attica was conquered by another group of Spanish mercenaries, which ruled it until the Ottomans conquered Greece.-
September 30, 2021 at 10:54 pm #117547
Anonymous
GuestWhat’s funny to me is the Greeks backstabbed Romans before Byzantium and the Greeks fell to Romans because they backstabbed each other and the Greeks fell to Persians because of betrayal as well.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:03 pm #117503
Anonymous
Guest>How could they fail with such a giant army and so much freaking money?
mercenary armies are good for short term gain nothing else-
September 30, 2021 at 9:04 pm #117506
Anonymous
GuestThey have literally no advantage
Mercenaries are literally bandit who want easy money
Thats why everybody and their mothers became mercenaries in middle ages/antiquity -
September 30, 2021 at 9:46 pm #117530
Anonymous
GuestBtw Manzikert and Fourth Crusade are disasters starded….. BY MERCENARIES
>Muh mercenaries
You do know that’s pop history, right? They didn’t use mercenaries as often as pop history makes you think. They only stopped having a large-ish professional army by the time of the Komnenos, hence why Alexios called in the crusaders and started using mercenaries.-
September 30, 2021 at 9:53 pm #117535
Anonymous
Guest>You do know that’s pop history, right? T
You do know it’s historical fact right? Alexios was dependent on Turk mercenaries in his balkan wars-
September 30, 2021 at 10:17 pm #117541
Anonymous
Guest>Alexios
Mate, I mentioned Alexios
>They only stopped having a large-ish professional army by the time of the Komnenos, hence why Alexios called in the crusaders and started using mercenaries.At least read the entire 3 sentence response before posting. By the time Alexios becomes emperor, Anataloia is flooded with the Turks, Normans have crushed their armies in the West, Pechenegs and Magyrs are becoming more of a threat. Between 400 AD to 1071, they weren’t relying heavily on mercenary forces. They only started doing so when the game was more-or-less over. They lost their recruiting territories (and tax revenue territories) in the Balkans and in Anatolia, so they had to rely in mercenaries.
In short, they didn’t fail because of mercenaries, they used mercenaries, because they failed. This is where my pop history comment comes into play.
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September 30, 2021 at 10:19 pm #117542
Anonymous
Guest>This is where my pop history comment comes into play.
and that’s why you’re still wrong. The Byzantines employed Norman mercenaries decades before Alexios as well-
September 30, 2021 at 11:49 pm #117554
Anonymous
GuestNot in large quantities.
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September 30, 2021 at 11:54 pm #117558
Anonymous
Guestyeah right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roussel_de_Bailleul
This dude was a major thorn on the side of the byzantines and he’s just one example
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September 30, 2021 at 10:52 pm #117545
Anonymous
GuestHow are you contradicting anything? Frankish type mercenaries aka Normans or Catalans ended up going on their own tangential conquering sprees.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:03 pm #117504
Anonymous
Guestthey were too busy doing roman things (backstabbing each other) to actually realize that their country is pooping the bed
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September 30, 2021 at 9:05 pm #117507
Anonymous
GuestAlso this
Too much Civil wars
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September 30, 2021 at 9:14 pm #117509
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September 30, 2021 at 10:05 pm #117539
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October 1, 2021 at 7:56 am #117568
Anonymous
Guest>The numbers, dedication and discipline of troops who feel invested in a Republican form of government far dwarfs, for almost 2000 years, the level of dedication a repressed peasantry has towards an arrogant and explotative system of aristocrats who treat human beings as nothing more than animals and beasts of burdens with no rights.
Shocking. Who could have possibly forseen a lack of commitment by the people to a system which went from existing to guarantee the rights of Romans citizens, to exploiting them as serfs as just another medeval kingdom, the kingdom of the greeks mark 1000, torn apart by trechery and civil war, which can’t come close to meeting the standards of the Republican SPQR.
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October 1, 2021 at 8:02 am #117569
Anonymous
Guest>The numbers, dedication and discipline of troops who feel invested in a Republican form of government far dwarfs, for almost 2000 years, the level of dedication a repressed peasantry has towards an arrogant and explotative system of aristocrats who treat human beings as nothing more than animals and beasts of burdens with no rights.
Shocking. Who could have possibly forseen a lack of commitment by the people to a system which went from existing to guarantee the rights of Romans citizens, to exploiting them as serfs as just another medeval kingdom, the kingdom of the greeks mark 1000, torn apart by trechery and civil war, which can’t come close to meeting the standards of the Republican SPQR.
>The Roman Republic, with it’s resources almost entirely limited to that of the Italian peninsula, lost more soldiers in 3 battles with Hannibal in the second punic war, and still fielded a larger army in total, than the Kingdom of the Greeks was able to field in the last 1000 years of it’s existence.
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October 1, 2021 at 10:23 am #117570
Anonymous
Guestthat’s more the result of ancient historians claiming 5 billion people killed in every battle
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September 30, 2021 at 9:21 pm #117514
Anonymous
GuestThey got bonked by Italian traders, Norman mercenaries, Turkish mercenaries.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:22 pm #117516
Anonymous
GuestAre Chinese particularly interested in byantines? Lol just curious.
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October 1, 2021 at 1:55 am #117564
Anonymous
GuestThere’s a bit of interest online
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September 30, 2021 at 9:26 pm #117517
Anonymous
GuestBy being greek.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:41 pm #117522
Anonymous
GuestIncompetence
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September 30, 2021 at 9:45 pm #117528
Anonymous
GuestThey didn’t have a large army, had to deal with multiple rising powers on all sides.
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September 30, 2021 at 10:53 pm #117546
Anonymous
GuestDespite what many anons say, Byzantium had constant steppe nomads pouring into Anatolia and Bulgaria and when they’d defeat one another would appear. They also had constant infighting.
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September 30, 2021 at 10:55 pm #117548
Anonymous
Guesthttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_civil_war_of_1352–1357
Also they started the crusades after Manzikert in 1071, so they can’t really complain that the crusaders turned on them in 1204, or really, from the start when they refused to hand over the territories in the Levant.
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September 30, 2021 at 10:56 pm #117549
Anonymous
GuestAre the Chinese Byzaboos or Ottoboos?
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September 30, 2021 at 11:03 pm #117551
Anonymous
GuestI’d say they had a good run, nothing lasts forever.
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September 30, 2021 at 11:35 pm #117552
Anonymous
GuestDecadence and corruption, the later period byzantine empire was ran like a sicilian mob outfit
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September 30, 2021 at 11:42 pm #117553
Anonymous
GuestBecuase instead of doubling down after Manzikert and raising more, larger armies they spent the next 300 years fighting civil wars. They also put 0 effort into improving defenses for their new adversaries. This included the use of turkic mercenaries who were then allowed to settle even closer to the Aegean. Rinse, repeat, game over
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September 30, 2021 at 11:51 pm #117555
Anonymous
GuestAfter Manzikert (1071) they begged/bribed the Western Latin Franks to send help, and they did, in the form of the First Crusade (1091).
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September 30, 2021 at 11:53 pm #117557
Anonymous
GuestThe initial crusades were successful. They just decided the problem wasn’t worth pursuing to an actual conclusion
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September 30, 2021 at 11:56 pm #117559
Anonymous
GuestYes. The Byzantines called for the First Crusade, and the Crusaders succeeded in pushing back the Turks from the Marmara Sea to Konya/Kayseri. And then the Byzantines said: we will keep the Levant for ourselves, starting with Bohemond in Antioch (Siege 1097-98), and set up their own Latin Frankish Crusader Kingdoms (capitalized to refer to a specific phenomenon). Eventually the Byzantines won 382 from their gambit of calling for Western help, but in 1204 one of these Crusades sacked the Byzantine capital itself, so you can think for yourself whether it was really worth it.
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September 30, 2021 at 11:59 pm #117561
Anonymous
Guest> And then the Byzantines
Correction, this should state: and then the Crusaders said…*>382
382 years*, calculated from 1453-1071
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September 30, 2021 at 11:58 pm #117560
Anonymous
GuestThe latter crusades lost not because the Turks adapted, regrouped, and won. Every inland crusader army would face 10-20% losses by Skirmishing Anatolian Seljuk Turks, another 10-15% by Syrian Seljuk Turks, and then face a combined Muslim army to finally lose the rest of their soldiers.
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October 1, 2021 at 12:00 am #117562
Anonymous
Guest**Lost because the Turks adapted…. **
Sorry lads. So many typos today.
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October 1, 2021 at 4:49 am #117567
Anonymous
GuestYes, but that’s a lack of focus. The crusaders primary goal was always the Levant and Byzantine leaders post 1100 were very stupid
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September 30, 2021 at 11:52 pm #117556
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