Siege of Sinope
Siege of Sinope | |
---|---|
Part of the Asia Minor | |
Result | Seljuq victory, fall of the city |
The siege of Sinope in 1214 was a successful
Overview
According to Ibn Bibi's account, Kaykaus I embarked on the conquest after receiving reports from the frontier that Alexios' troops had been violating Seljuq territory. Upon this, he and his beys gathered those who had been to Sinope and drew up a plan for the conquest, deciding that a long siege would be required. However, a group of scouts (or, according to another version of the story, nomads) captured Alexios when he was hunting with a company of 500 men. Upon receiving the captured emperor, Kaykaus I asked for the city's surrender in the emperor's name but received a negative response. According to Selçuk-nâme, 1000 troops led by a commander named Behram cut off the city from the sea, burning ships and killing several Greeks and Western Europeans in the process. Upon this, the city surrendered.[3]
Although the primary sources consistently named the leader of the Trapezuntine forces as Alexios, beginning with
The Seljuq capture of Sinope had important consequences: apart from a short period of Trapezuntine recovery in 1254–1265, the city henceforth remained in Turkish hands, cutting the small Trapezuntine state off from overland contact with the metropolitan Byzantine lands of the
The Russian Byzantinist Rustam Shukurov argues that the consequences were even more severe for the Byzantine successor states. The loss of that part of northwestern Anatolia, writes Shukurov, "meant in fact that the Byzantine Greeks lost forever the possibility of a strategic initiative in the northern part of the Byzantine front."[6] The sphere of Byzantine control was split into two enclaves, each blockaded by the ujs: a western Anatolian enclave that was destroyed and almost entirely assimilated by the 14th century, and an eastern enclave consolidated by the Empire of Trebizond that survived much longer, into the 15th century. Further, the capture of Sinope provided the Seljuks access to new strategic routes of conquest, one aimed at Constantinople and the other at Crimea and the south Russian steppes.[7]
References
- ^ a b Savvides (2009), pp. 55–56
- ^ a b Treadgold (1997), p. 718
- ^ Turan (2004), pp. 383–385
- ^ Vasiliev, "The Foundation of the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1222)", Speculum, 11 (1936), p. 26
- ^ Savvides (2009), p. 38 (Note # 39)
- ^ Shukurov, "Trebizond and the Seljuks (1204–1299)", Mesogeios 25–26 (2005), p. 89
- ^ Shukurov, "Trebizond", pp. 90f
Sources
- Savvides, Alexios G. K. (2009). Ιστορία της Αυτοκρατορίας των Μεγάλων Κομνηνών της Τραπεζούντας (1204–1461). 2η Έκδοση με προσθήκες [History of the Empire of the Grand Komnenoi of Trebizond (1204–1461). 2nd Edition with additions] (in Greek). Thessaloniki: Kyriakidis Brothers S.A. ISBN 978-9604671212.
- ISBN 0804726302.
- Turan, Osman (2004). Selçuklular Zamanında Türkiye [Turkey at the Time of the Seljuqs] (in Turkish). Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat. ISBN 978-6051552330.