Basil II - Byzantine Conquest of Bulgaria

Byzantine Conquest of Bulgaria

Basil also wanted to restore to the Empire territories that it had long lost. At the start of the second millennium, he took on his greatest adversary, Samuel of Bulgaria. Bulgaria had been partly subjugated by John I Tzimiskes, but parts of the country had remained outside Byzantine control, under the leadership of Samuel and his brothers.

Since the Bulgars had been raiding Byzantine lands since 976, the Byzantine government sought to cause dissension amongst them by first allowing the escape of their captive emperor Boris II of Bulgaria.

This having failed, Basil used a respite from his conflict with the nobility to lead an army of 30,000 men into Bulgaria and besiege Sredets (Sofia) in 986. Taking losses and worried about the loyalty of some of his governors, Basil lifted the siege and headed back for Thrace but fell into an ambush and suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of the Gates of Trajan.

Basil escaped with the help of his Varangian Guard and attempted to make up his losses by turning Samuel's brother Aaron against him. Aaron was tempted with Basil's offer of his own sister Anna in marriage (the same Anna wed to Vladimir I of Kiev, two years later), but the negotiations failed when Aaron discovered that the bride he was sent was a fake.

By 987 Aaron had been eliminated by Samuel, and Basil was busy fighting both Skleros and Phokas in Asia Minor. Although the titular emperor Roman of Bulgaria was captured in 991, Basil lost Moesia to the Bulgarians.

In 992, Basil II concluded a treaty with Pietro Orseolo II by the terms that Venice's custom duties in Constantinople would be reduced from 30 nomismata to 17 nomismata in return for the Venetians agreeing to transport Byzantine troops to southern Italy in times of war.

In the years of Basil's distraction with internal rebellions and recovering the military situation on his eastern frontier Samuel had extended his rule from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea, recovering most of the lands which had been Bulgarian before the invasion of Svyatoslav I of Kiev. He also conducted damaging raids into Byzantine territory as far as central Greece. The turning of the tide of the conflict occurred in 996 when the Byzantine general Nikephoros Ouranos inflicted a crushing defeat on a raiding Bulgarian army at a battle on the River Spercheios (Sperchius) in Thessaly. Samuel and his son Gabriel were lucky to escape capture.

From 1000, Basil II was free to focus on a war of outright conquest against Bulgaria, a war he prosecuted with grinding persistence and strategic insight. In 1000 the Byzantine generals Nikephoros Xiphias and Theodorokan took the old Bulgarian capital of Great Preslav, and the towns of Lesser Preslav and Pliskova. In 1001 Basil himself, his army operating from Thessalonica, was able to regain control of Vodena, Verrhoia and Servia. The following year Basil based his army in Philippopolis and occupied the length of the military road from the western Haemus Mountains to the Danube, thereby cutting off Samuel's communications between his Macedonian heartland and Moesia. Following up this success he laid siege to Vidin, which eventually fell following a prolonged resistance. Samuel reacted to the Byzantine campaign with a daring stroke; he launched a large-scale raid into the heart of Byzantine Thrace and surprised the major city of Adrianople.

On returning homeward with his extensive plunder Samuel was intercepted near the town of Skopje by a Byzantine army commanded by the emperor. Basil's forces stormed the Bulgarian camp, inflicting a severe defeat on the Bulgarians and recovering the plunder of Adrianople. Skopje surrendered shortly after the battle; its governor, Romanos, was treated with overt kindness by the Emperor. In 1005, the governor of Durazzo, Ashot Taronites, surrendered his city to the Byzantines. The defection of Durazzo to the Byzantines completed the isolation of Samuel's core territories in the highlands of western Macedonia. Samuel was forced into an almost entirely defensive stance and he extensively fortified the passes and routes from the Byzantine held coastlands and valleys into the territory remaining in his possession. During the next few years, the Byzantine offensive slowed and no significant gains were made, though in 1009 an attempt by the Bulgarians to counterattack was defeated at the Battle of Kreta, which was fought to the east of Thessalonica.

In 1014 Basil was ready to launch a campaign aimed at destroying Bulgarian resistance. On 29 July 1014, Basil II and his general Nikephoros Xiphias outmanoeuvred the Bulgarian army, which was defending one of the fortified passes, in the Battle of Kleidion. Samuel avoided capture only through the valour of his son Gabriel. Having crushed the Bulgarians, Basil was said to have captured 15,000 prisoners and blinded 99 of every 100 men, leaving 150 one-eyed men to lead them back to their ruler. Samuel was physically struck down by the dreadful apparition of his blinded army, and he died two days later after suffering a stroke. Although the extent of Basil's mistreatment of the Bulgarian prisoners may have been exaggerated, this incident helped to give rise to Basil's Greek epithet of Boulgaroktonos, meaning "the Bulgar-slayer", in later tradition. The first recorded coupling of the term Boulgaroktonos with Basil II dates from a number of generations after his death, when it is used in a poem from the reign of Manuel I Komnenos dating to around 1166.

Bulgaria fought on for four more years, its resistance fired by Basil's cruelty, but it finally submitted in 1018. This submission was the result of continued military pressure and a successful diplomatic campaign aimed at dividing and suborning the Bulgarian leadership. This victory over the Bulgarians, and the later submission of the Serbs, fulfilled one of Basil's goals, as the Empire regained its ancient Danubian frontier for the first time in 400 years. Before returning to Constantinople, Basil II celebrated his triumph in Athens. Basil showed considerable statesmanship in his treatment of the defeated Bulgarians; he gave many former Bulgarian leaders court titles, positions in provincial administration, and high commands in the army. In this way he sought to absorb the Bulgarian elite into Byzantine society. Bulgaria did not have a monetary economy to the same extent as was found in Byzantium, and Basil made the wise decision to accept Bulgarian taxes in kind. Basil's successors reversed this policy; a decision which led to considerable Bulgarian discontent, and rebellion, later in the 11th century.