Battle of Akroinon

Coordinates: 38°45′N 30°32′E / 38.750°N 30.533°E / 38.750; 30.533
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Battle of Akroinon
Part of the
Afyon, Turkey)
38°45′N 30°32′E / 38.750°N 30.533°E / 38.750; 30.533
Result Byzantine victory
Belligerents Umayyad Caliphate Byzantine EmpireCommanders and leaders Abdallah al-Battal †
al-Malik ibn Shu'aib † Leo III
Constantine VStrength 20,000[1][2] unknownCasualties and losses 13,200[1][2] unknown

The Battle of Akroinon was fought at Akroinon or Akroinos (near modern

Abbasid Revolt
, this put an end to major Arab incursions into Anatolia for three decades.

Background

Since the beginning of the Muslim conquests, the Byzantine Empire, as the largest, richest, and militarily strongest state bordering the expanding Caliphate, had been the Muslims' primary enemy. Following the disastrous Battle of Sebastopolis, the Byzantines had largely confined themselves to a strategy of passive defence, while the Muslim armies regularly launched raids into Byzantine-held Anatolia.[3]

Following their

central Anatolian plateau (chiefly its eastern half, Cappadocia), and only rarely reached the peripheral coastlands.[4][5]

Under the more aggressive Caliph

Ancyra. For the year 740, Hisham assembled the largest expedition of his reign, appointing his son Sulayman to lead it.[9][10]

Battle

According to the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, the invading Umayyad force totalled 90,000 men. 10,000 lightly armed men under al-Ghamr ibn Yazid were sent to raid the western coastlands, followed by 20,000 under Abdallah al-Battal and al-Malik ibn Su'aib who marched towards Akroinon, while the main force of some 60,000 (this last number is certainly much inflated), under Sulayman ibn Hisham, raided Cappadocia.[1][11]

The Emperor Leo confronted the second force at Akroinon. Details of the battle are not known, but the Emperor secured a crushing victory: both Arab commanders fell, as well as the larger part of their army, some 13,200 men. The rest of the Arab troops managed to conduct an orderly retreat to

Agapius records that the Byzantines took 20,000 prisoners from the invading forces.[13]

Effect and aftermath

Akroinon was a major success for the Byzantines, as it was the first victory they had scored in a major

Melitene. In 742 and 743, the Umayyads were able to exploit a civil war between Constantine V and the general Artabasdos and raid into Anatolia with relative impunity, but the Arab sources do not report any major achievements.[16]

The Arab defeat at Akroinon has traditionally been seen as a

E.W. Brooks to more recent ones such as Walter Kaegi and Ralph-Johannes Lilie, have challenged this view, attributing the reduced Arab threat after Akroinon to the fact that it coincided with other heavy reversals on the most remote provinces of the Caliphate (e.g. the battles of Marj Ardabil or The Defile), which exhausted its overextended military resources, as well as with internal turmoil due to civil wars and the Abbasid Revolution.[19][20] As a result, the Arab attacks against the Byzantine Empire in the 740s were rather ineffectual and soon ceased completely. Indeed, Constantine V was able to take advantage of the Umayyad Caliphate's collapse to launch a series of expeditions into Syria and secure a Byzantine ascendancy on the eastern frontier which lasted until the 770s.[21][22]

In the Muslim world, the memory of the defeated Arab commander, Abdallah al-Battal, was preserved, and he became one of the greatest heroes of Arab and later Turkish epic poetry as Sayyid Battal Ghazi.[23]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Turtledove 1982, p. 103.
  2. ^ a b c Blankinship 1994, pp. 169–170.
  3. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 104–105, 117.
  4. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 117–119.
  5. ^ Treadgold 1997, pp. 349ff.
  6. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 119–121, 162–163.
  7. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 149–154.
  8. ^ Treadgold 1997, p. 353.
  9. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 168–173.
  10. ^ Treadgold 1997, pp. 354–355.
  11. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 169, 330 (note #14).
  12. ^ Blankinship 1994, p. 169.
  13. ^ Blankinship 1994, p. 170.
  14. ^ Treadgold 1997, p. 355.
  15. ^ Morrisson & Cheynet 2006, p. 14.
  16. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 200–201.
  17. ^ Foss 1991, p. 48.
  18. ^ Herrin 1977, p. 20 (note #36).
  19. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 145–146, 167–168, 330 (note #14).
  20. ^ Kaegi 1982, p. 167.
  21. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 20, 201, 223ff..
  22. ^ Morrisson & Cheynet 2006, pp. 14–15.
  23. ^ Lilie et al. 1999, 'Abdallāh al-Baṭṭāl (# 15).

Sources

  • ISBN 978-0-7914-1827-7
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  • Foss, Clive F.W. (1991). "Akroinon". In
    ISBN 0-19-504652-8
    .
  • Herrin, Judith (1977). "The Context of Iconoclast Reform". In Bryer, Anthony; Herrin, Judith (eds.). Iconoclasm. Papers given at the Ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, March 1975. pp. 15–20.
    ISBN 0-7044-0226-2
    .
  • Kaegi, Walter Emil (1982). Army, Society, and Religion in Byzantium. London: Variorum Reprints.
    ISBN 978-0-86078-110-3
    .
  • ISBN 978-3-11-015179-4
    .
  • ISBN 978-2-13-052007-8
    .
  • ISBN 978-0-8122-1128-3
    .
  • ISBN 0-8047-2630-2
    .
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