Road to Manzikert

“ Take[s] us through 500 years of conflict from Justinian through the rise of Islam to the coming of the Turks . . . good chapters on Islamic warfare.”— Balkan Military History In August 1071, the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV Diogenese led out a powerful army in an attempt to roll back Seljuk Turkish incursions into the Anatolian heartland of the Empire. Outmaneuvered by the Turkish sultan, Alp Arslan, Romanus was forced to give battle with only half his troops near Manzikert. By the end of that