Walter Emil Kaegi, Jr.

Some Thoughts on Byzantine Military Strategy

© Hellenic College Press, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1983

 

Page 17

These extracts suffice to give some impression of the sophisticated mentality of the author's approach to war, which he regards as far more complex than the employment of sheer power. One of the most obvious characteristics of the Byzantine Empire was her long duration for which historians list many causes, such as the effectiveness of her bureaucracy and other institutions, the soundness of her coinage, and the astuteness of her diplomacy. I have become increasingly convinced, as a military historian, that her prevailing commitment to a military policy of generally avoiding decisive battle also contributed substantially to her long life as an empire. By that I do not mean merely her readiness to resort to diplomatic and financial devices of great variety to solve military threats. These were important but they have been extensively described and analyzed in many broad and specialized publications. Instead, I am referring to the tendency to avoid, in much of the empire's history, risking everything in one decisive battle. Byzantium's leadership was not always able to avoid battle -- the years 1071,1176,1204, and 1453 witnessed battles that were decisive for Byzantine history. Yet long periods elapsed without decisive battle.

Drs. Ralph-Johannes Lilie and John Haldon have discussed, in recent publications, the general characteristics of the Byzantine strategy in the seventh and eighth centuries, especially after Byzantium's loss of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt to the Arabs. They both rightly call attention to what they note as the basic avoidance of battle on the part of the Byzantines in their defense of the remaining Byzantine territories in Asia Minor against the Arabs, and they see in these efforts to create strongholds, close off mountain passes, an anticipation of the famous and better documented Byzantine tactics against Arab raiders of the ninth and tenth centuries. They are correct to point out these continuities. [26]

[26. Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Die byzantinische Realtion aufdie Ausbreitung der Araber (Munich, 1976). John Haldon and Hugh Kennedy, "The Arab-Byzantine Frontier in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries," Zbornik Radova, Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, Vizantoloski Institut 19 (1980) 79-116.]

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