When the news of the raid reached the general of the ‘Anatolic’ or ‘Armeniac’ theme, he had at once to collect every efficient horseman in his province, and strike at the enemy. Untrained men and weak horses were left behind, and the infantry could not hope to keep up with the rapid movements which had now to be undertaken. Accordingly, Leo would send all the disposable foot to occupy the ‘Klissuras’ of the Taurus, where, even if the cavalry did not catch the invader, his retreat might be delayed and harassed in passes where he could not fight to advantage.
In his cavalry, however, lay the Byzantine commander’s hope of success. To ascertain the enemy’s position he must spare no trouble: ‘never turn away freeman or slave, by day or night, though you may be sleeping or eating or bathing,’ writes Nicephorus Phocas, ‘if he says that he has news for you.’ When once the Saracen’s track had been discovered, he was to be pursued without ceasing, and his force and objects discovered. If all Syria and Mesopotamia had come out for an invasion rather than a mere foray, the general must resign himself to taking the defensive, and only hang on the enemy’s flanks, cutting off his stragglers and preventing any plundering by detached parties. No fighting must be taken in hand till ‘all the Themes of the East have been set marching;’ an order which would put some 25,000 or 30,000 heavy cavalry[39] at the disposal of the commander-in-chief, but would cost the loss of much precious time. These Saracen ‘Warden-raids’ (if we may borrow an expression from the similar expeditions of our own Borderers) were of comparatively unfrequent occurrence: it was seldom that the whole Byzantine force in Asia was drawn out to face the enemy in a great battle. The more typical Saracen inroad was made by the inhabitants of Cilicia and Northern Syria, with the assistance of casual adventurers from the inner Mohammedan lands.
To meet them the Byzantine commander would probably have no more than the 4000 heavy cavalry of his own Theme in hand; a force for whose handling Leo gives minute tactical directions[40]. When he had come up with the raiders they would turn and offer him battle: nor was their onset to be despised. Though unequal, man for man, to their adversaries, they were usually in superior numbers, and always came on with great confidence. ‘They are very bold at first with expectation of victory; nor will they turn at once, even if their line is broken through by our impact[41].’ When they suppose that their enemy’s vigour is relaxing, they all charge together with a desperate effort[42]. If, however, this failed, a rout generally ensued, ‘for they think that all misfortune is sent by God, and so, if they are once beaten, they take their defeat as a sign of divine wrath, and no longer attempt to defend themselves[43].’ Hence the Mussulman army, when once it turned to fly, could be pursued à l’outrance, and the old military maxim, ‘Vince sed ne nimis vincas,’ was a caution which the Byzantine officer could disregard.
The secret of success in an engagement with the Saracens lay in the cavalry tactics, which had for three centuries been in process of elaboration. By the tenth century they attained their perfection, and the experienced soldier Nicephorus Phocas vouches for their efficacy. Their distinguishing feature was that the troops were always placed in two lines and a reserve, with squadrons detached on the flanks to prevent their being turned. The enemy came on in one very deep line, and could never stand the three successive shocks as the first line, second line, and reserve were one after another flung into the mêlée against them. The Byzantines had already discovered the great precept which modern military science has claimed as its own, that, ‘in a cavalry combat, the side which holds back the last reserve must win[44].’ The exact formation used on these occasions, being carefully described by our authorities, is worth detailing, and will be found in our section treating of the organization of the Byzantine army.
There were several other methods of dealing with the Saracen invader. It was sometimes advisable, when his inroad was made in great force, to hang about the rear of the retreating plunderers, and only fall upon them when they were engaged in passing the ‘Klissuras’ of the Taurus. If infantry was already on the spot to aid the pursuing cavalry, success was almost certain, when the Saracens and their train of beasts, laden with spoil, were wedged in the passes. They could then be shot down by the archers, and would not stand for a moment when they saw their horses, ‘the “Pharii,” whom they esteem above all other things[45],’ struck by arrows from a distance; for the Saracen, when not actually engaged in close combat, would do anything to save his horse from harm.
Cold and rainy weather was also distasteful to the Oriental invader: at times, when it prevailed, he did not display his ordinary firmness and daring, and could be attacked at great advantage. Much could also be done by delivering a vigorous raid into his country, and wasting Cilicia and Northern Syria, the moment his armies were reported to have passed north into Cappadocia. This destructive practice was very frequently adopted, and the sight of two enemies each ravaging the other’s territory without attempting to defend his own, was only too familiar to the inhabitants of the borderlands of Christendom and Islam. Incursions by sea supplemented the forays by land. ‘When the Saracens of Cilicia have gone off by the passes, to harry the country north of Taurus,’ says Leo, ‘the commander of the Cibyrrhœot Theme should immediately go on shipboard with all available forces, and ravage their coast. If, on the other hand, they have sailed off to attempt the shore districts of Pisidia, the Klissurarchs of Taurus can lay waste the territories of Tarsus and Adana without danger.’
Nothing can show more clearly than these directions the high average skill of the Byzantine officer. Leo himself was not a man of any great ability, and his ‘Tactica’ are intended to codify an existing military art, rather than to construct a new one. Yet still the book is one whose equal could not have been written in Western Europe before the sixteenth century. One of its most striking points is the utter difference of its tone from that of contemporary feeling in the rest of Christendom. Of chivalry there is not a spark in the Byzantine, though professional pride is abundantly shown. Courage is regarded as one of the requisites necessary for obtaining success, not as the sole and paramount virtue of the warrior. Leo considers a campaign successfully concluded without a great battle as the cheapest and most satisfactory consummation in war. He has no respect for the warlike ardour which makes men eager to plunge into the fray: it is to him rather a characteristic of the brainless barbarian, and an attribute fatal to any one who makes any pretension to generalship. He shows a strong predilection for stratagems, ambushes, and simulated retreats. For an officer who fights without having first secured all the advantages to his own side, he has the greatest contempt. It is with a kind of intellectual pride that he gives instructions how parlementaires are to be sent to the enemy without any real object except that of spying out the number and efficiency of his forces. He gives, as a piece of most ordinary and moral advice, the hint that a defeated general may often find time to execute a retreat by sending an emissary to propose a surrender (which he has no intention of carrying out) to the hostile commander[46]. He is not above employing the old-world trick of addressing treasonable letters to the subordinate officers of the enemy’s army, and contriving that they should fall into the hands of the commander-in-chief, in order that he may be made suspicious of his lieutenants. Schemes such as these are ‘Byzantine’ in the worst sense of the word, but their character must not be allowed to blind us to the real and extraordinary merits of the strategical system into which they have been inserted. The ‘Art of War,’ as understood at Constantinople in the tenth century, was the only scheme of true scientific merit existing in the world, and was unrivalled till the sixteenth century.
(2) Arms, Organization and Tactics of the Byzantine Armies.
The Byzantine army may be said to owe its peculiar form to the Emperor Maurice, a prince whose reign is one of the chief landmarks in the history of the lower empire[47]. The fortunate preservation of his ‘Stratêgikon’ suffices to show us that the reorganization of the troops of the East was mainly due to him. Contemporary historians also mention his reforms, but without descending to details, and inform us that, though destined to endure, they won him much unpopularity among the soldiery. Later writers, however, have erroneously attributed these changes to the more celebrated warrior Heraclius[48], the prince who bore the Roman standards further than any of his predecessors into the lands of the East. In reality, the army of Heraclius had already been reorganized by the worthy but unfortunate Maurice.
The most important of Maurice’s alterations was the elimination of that system somewhat resembling the Teutonic ‘comitatus,’ which had crept from among the Foederati into the ranks of the regular Roman army. The loyalty of the soldier was secured rather to the emperor than to his immediate superiors, by making the appointment of all officers above the rank of centurion a care of the central government. The commander of an army or division had thus no longer in his hands the power and patronage which had given him the opportunity of becoming dangerous to the state. The men found themselves under the orders of delegates of the emperor, not of quasi-independent authorities who enlisted them as personal followers rather than as units in the military establishment of the empire.