Byzantium using war as diplomacy

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Can anyone give me any good examples of Byzantium using war as diplomacy in the 9th-11thC? Anything is appreciated.

[matteus the inbred]

do you mean using the threat of war, or forcing people into diplomatic negotiations/concessions by military action? or actual military conquest with territorial acquisition and expansion as the end goal?
or, indeed, all of the above!
if i remember rightly, Byzantium produced a number of 'soldier emperors' during this period and expanded a lot into southern Europe and Asia Minor, finally being halted after the disaster of Manzikert in 1071, but i shall check and see if i have anything specific.

IIRC, there was one incident where the Byzantine Emperor (rather tactlessly) attempted to persuade the Pecheneg people (tribal horse types from around the Black Sea) to attack the Turks, but they refused.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

do you mean using the threat of war, or forcing people into diplomatic negotiations/concessions by military action? or actual military conquest with territorial acquisition and expansion as the end goal?
or, indeed, all of the above!

Particular emphasis on the first sentence I think mate.

[edyzmedieval]

Byzantines made large concessions in money and land. That's one of the reasons they survived so much.

And they got their payback with interest most of the time. ~D

Some of the Emperors though, did very bad things in diplomacy, and I don't wanna talk about the bad parts of my favourite kingdom/empire/people.

Need more in detail BKB?!

[nokhor]

i suggest starting with john tzimisces. he defeated and captured the russian monarch and used that to force a peace treaty. he conquered bulgaria and forced it's khan to become a patrician of the byzantine empire. his uncle, the emperor nicephorus II, took 60 cities from the abbasids and used that as leverage to force a favorable peace treaty.

[TinCow]

Well, the First Crusade was in 1095, which just squeeks in under your 11th Century limit. Emperor Alexius I requested military aid from Pope Urban II to assist the Byzantines in the conflict with the Turks. The result was the First Crusade which, while far in excess of what Alexius wanted, changed the political situation in the East for hundreds of years. Plenty of interaction between Alexius and the First Crusade to go into from there if you need more.

[Rosacrux redux]

The Byzantines had a notorious habit of playing one against the other. Very much in the fine Roman tradition, I might say (Rome's conquest was by large a product of the extraordinary implementation of the "divide and conquer" concept).

The first of those acts was the infamous "channeling" of the Hun expansion to the West rather than the East - Byzantine gold "persuaded" the Huns to aim at Rome instead of Constantinople. From there on, it was standard practice for the Byzantine rulers to play one enemy against the other. Byzantine diplomacy earned quite a reputation for this.

[silencio]

john tzimisces did no conquer the Bulgars. This was done by Basil II. However finding the Bulgar demands in the 960-970 for the annual tribute obnoxious (they were no the power they have been under Simeon I any longer) he led an army that defeated them Inorder to finish them off he bribed Oleg? (check again) (the Kievan prince) to attack the eastern lands of the Bulgars and crush them. This he did. However he liked the land and decide to stay. The byzantines then turned around and allied with the Bulgars, defeated Oleg. After besieging him in Druster (nowadays Silistra) they had enough and ofeered him free withdrawal, if he renounces his conquests. He did and left for Russia. What he did not know was that while they negotiated with him the Byzantines had send envoys to the Pechenegs. The Pechenegs ambushed Oleg on the way back and killed him, thus starting a series of Russo-Pechemeg wars.

So by playing Bulgars, Kievans and Pechenegs the Byzantines weaken the formerly powerfull Bulgar state (and took some territories, the two heirs to throne as hostages, etc), got rid of the powerfull Prince of Kiev and embroiled the Pechenegs in a protracted war without allies. At the end the threat from the North-East was removed for quite sometime. Something they have been trying to do for 4 centuries with disastrous consequences for the East Romans. Cool...

[nokhor]

john tzimisces did no conquer the Bulgars.

"Tzimisces led perhaps forty thousand men...John drove straight on the former Bulgarian capital of Preslav and defeated the Russians there...Next the Byzantines stormed Preslav, killing more Russians and freeing the Bulgarian emperor Boris II...He forced Boris II to abdicate and annexed most of Bulgaria outright. The emperor created six themes in western Bulgaria, all with new garrsons...In a single year's campaigning, John had gained the empire a vast and fertile territory, providing a deep buffer for Thrace and advancing the frontier to the lower Danube for the first time since the early seventh century."

Warren Treadgold "A History of the Byzantine State and Society" pg 509.

While I agree with you that most of John victories in Bulgaria involved defeating the Russians, I still stand by my initial statement that he did indeed conquer Bulgaria.

[Prince Cobra]

"Tzimisces led perhaps forty thousand men...John drove straight on the former Bulgarian capital of Preslav and defeated the Russians there...Next the Byzantines stormed Preslav, killing more Russians and freeing the Bulgarian emperor Boris II...He forced Boris II to abdicate and annexed most of Bulgaria outright. The emperor created six themes in western Bulgaria, all with new garrsons...In a single year's campaigning, John had gained the empire a vast and fertile territory, providing a deep buffer for Thrace and advancing the frontier to the lower Danube for the first time since the early seventh century."

Warren Treadgold "A History of the Byzantine State and Society" pg 509.

While I agree with you that most of John victories in Bulgaria involved defeating the Russians, I still stand by my initial statement that he did indeed conquer Bulgaria.

It is much more complicated-according to Byzantium formally Bulgaria was conquered in 971. However the Western part of Bulgaria survived and Bulgaria did exist 48years after that. Bulgaria was ruled by Samuel who even managed to defeat Basil II in 986(one interesting fact- from 976 to 996 the formal tzar of Bulgaria was the brother of Boris II Roman. However he had no real power and was an eunuch( I don't remember another case of crowned eunuch)) . That defeat led to a civil war (between Bardas Phocas and Bardas Skliros and B.II). B.II won and put the end of the Bulgarian empire in 1018. There is an interesting connection between blinding the Bulgarian soldiers (that's why he was called Bulgarooktonos or the Slayer of Bulgarians)- in his view the were rebels not captives.


Back on the topic. Another case. When the Bulgarian khan Boris decideded to convert the people of Bulgaria to christianity he wanted to be converted to chr. by Germans not by byzantines ( the influence of a rival is dangerous influence). Then Byz. declared war and forced Boris to change his decision (during the reign of that Bulgarian khan ( later prince or kniaz) Bulgarian military power was currently weak. However Boris had a perfect diplomacy.).So Bulgaria became Orthodox.