In the second half of the Seventh Century the
Byzantine Empire faced an increasing challenge at sea from the Arab invaders
who had swept into the Middle East, destroyed the tottering Persian Empire and
driven the Romans out of Egypt, Palestine and Syria.
With the
possession of these new lands came also the advantage of access to the
Mediterranean along with the vital infrastructure of ports, ships and sailors
with which to exploit it. Arabs were not natural seafarers and indeed the
Caliph Umar had advised against embarking on any nautical adventures but the
new governor of Syria Muawiya understood that Byzantine command of the sea made
his territory vulnerable and he was determined to challenge the Empire’s naval
superiority. He had begun in 649 with a raid on Cyprus, just a short hop across
the water from the Syrian coast. Muawiya led the raid in person and inflicted
considerable destruction on the port of Constantia which was of great strategic
importance to the Byzantine navy. Three years later he dispatched a highly
ambitious expedition comprising two hundred ships to attack the coast of Sicily
in a hit and run campaign. A second attack on Cyprus was followed up by an
attack on Rhodes. Amongst the plunder taken away were the remains of the fallen
Colossus, whose great bronze carcass was sold to a Jewish scrap metal dealer.
The Battle of the Masts 655 (from an 1889 engraving)
In 655 the
emperor Constans II had received intelligence that Muawiya was planning
something bigger; an attack on Constantinople itself. Determined to drive the
Muslims from the sea, the emperor took command of the Byzantine fleet in person
and set out confidently to bring Muawiya’s fleet to battle. Constans had reason
to be confident. His ships outnumbered those of the enemy by at least two to
one and the Byzantine crews were far more experienced at fighting at sea than
their Muslim enemies. The two fleets encountered each other in coastal waters
off Finike, roughly half way between Rhodes and Cyprus. The light was fading
and so both fleets anchored for the night, agreeing a truce until the morning.
The next day dawned with sea conditions calm which must have been a great
relief to the commander of the Arab fleet. The lack of wind had deprived the
Byzantines of the opportunity for swift manoeuvre which may have allowed them
to overcome their inexperienced opponents and instead the engagement known to
posterity as the Battle of the Masts would be fought hand to hand at close
quarters. The Arab ships closed with the Byzantine fleet and hurled grappling
lines to ensnare the enemy vessels and allow them to be boarded. Fighting with
their usual ferocity, the Arab attackers overwhelmed the Byzantine crews and
the battle began to swing in their favour as they hacked their way from ship to
ship until the imperial flagship itself came under threat. Fearing for his life
Constans persuaded one of his men to exchange clothes with him. Having switched
his distinctive imperial regalia for the nondescript outfit of an ordinary
sailor, Constans escaped to another ship which carried him to safety whilst the
defenders of the flagship fought furiously and were cut down protecting the
imposter.
It had
been a shameful defeat for the Byzantine navy, the remains of which limped back
to Constantinople, there to await the inevitable attack on their capital by the
victorious Arabs. The expected attack did not come however for the Muslims, who
had until now remained united, were about to be plunged into the uncharted
waters of civil war, thereby granting a welcome respite to their enemies.
Following
the death of Ali the Fourth Caliph and son-in-law of the Prophet in 661,
Muawiya found himself as ruler of the Muslim world. With his empire secure he focussed
his attention once more on the final defeat of Byzantium. In 672 his fleet
seized and fortified the peninsula of Cyzicus on the eastern shore of the Sea
of Marmara, from where Constantinople itself could be directly threatened. His
son and heir Yazid was sent to command the attack on the city. Victory seemed
assured. The fleets and armies of the Byzantines had been decisively beaten by
the Muslims and all the great cities of Persia had fallen to their arms. What
Muawiya did not know however, was that the Byzantines had developed a new
secret weapon.
Greek Fire as depicted in the Madrid Skylitzes
This was a witch’s brew of all the flammable
and sticky substances known to the Byzantines and its constituents most likely
included sulphur, pine resin and crude oil sourced from the Caspian Sea region.
The concoction was perfected in time to prove crucial to the defence of
Constantinople from the attack of Muawiya’s fleet. Its precise make up has
remained a matter of much speculation since this was the Byzantine Empire’s
most closely guarded state secret which would guarantee centuries of naval
supremacy. The man credited with its invention was one Kallinikos of
Heliopolis; a Syrian Greek inventor who had rather fortuitously made his way to
Constantinople in time to deliver the means for the city’s salvation. Greek
fire had several properties which made it particularly effective in naval
combat. Once alight, the burning liquid was impossible to extinguish with water
and stuck to any surfaces it came into contact with such as ships’ hulls,
rigging and the clothing of the unfortunate sailors. Being oil based it also
floated upon the surface of the water, surrounding the enemy ship in a lake of fire.
The liquid was stored on board ship in canisters which could be catapulted onto
the decks of enemy vessels or dropped from cranes which swung out over the side
if the ships were in close proximity; smashing on impact and requiring only a
hurled ignition source to engulf the enemy in flames. Greek fire was at its
most lethal when deployed using a siphon and the Chronicler Theophanes the
Confessor tells us that the Byzantine fleet was well equipped with this
apparatus. The most convincing modern reconstructions of what this might have
comprised feature a pre-heating chamber in which the liquid was heated and
pressurised by means of an air pump and a brazier before being forced out
through a nozzle mounted in the bow of the ship and ignited by a flame
positioned in front of the nozzle. The result was a terrifying eruption of
flame against which there was no defence and from which there was no escape as
the sea itself turned to fire around the doomed enemy vessel.
The Arab
plan to take Constantinople was entirely dependent on a naval assault, which
would overcome the Byzantine navy and then move in against the sea walls. Siege
artillery had been mounted on the ships to allow them to batter their way into
the city. In the event the Arabs simply had no answer to the destructive power
of Greek fire and four successive expeditions mounted against Constantinople
from 674 to 678 met with utter defeat and eventually the battered remains of
the Arab fleet turned for home, only to be wrecked in a storm on the return
journey; an event which further convinced the Byzantines that their city
enjoyed divine protection. In the following year Muawiya renewed the peace
treaty with Constantine IV, who had succeeded his father Constans. The Caliph gave
up the recently conquered islands and resumed tribute, accepting for the time
being that there was no way to overcome the great bastion city of Christendom,
protected by its fire breathing ships.
Greek
Fire had played a decisive role in the defence of the city of Constantinople in
the face of the greatest threat to its existence that it had ever encountered.
It would remain the most valuable weapon in the Byzantine armoury for centuries
to come and would repeatedly safeguard the capital from attack. When the Arabs came against the city in force once more, it would again prove decisive.
In 717
the second great siege of Constantinople by the Arabs began. The Caliph Suleiman
had amassed a fleet of over a thousand ships which sailed up the Marmara whilst
the Caliph’s brother Maslama marched through Anatolia and then ferried his army
across the Hellespont to invest the city from the landward side. Emperor Leo
III immediately ordered an attack against the Arab fleet in which the power of
Greek fire once more took a terrible toll on the Arab shipping and most of the
supplies for the army were sunk to the bottom. The Arabs had no better answers
to the problems of besieging Constantinople this time around than they had the
last. The Theodosian Walls remained impregnable and they had nothing with which
to counter the wonder weapon of Greek fire. Short of food, clothing and
shelter, the besiegers endured a miserable winter outside the walls. When a
second Arab fleet arrived from Egypt bringing much needed new supplies they
anchored in a bay further down the coast in the hope of avoiding attack by the
Byzantines. A mass desertion of Coptic Christian sailors who made a break for
the city in the ships’ boats betrayed the presence of the fleet however and the
fire breathing ships of Constantinople set out once more to inflict terror and
destruction.
Failure of Second Siege of Constantinople from the Manasses Chronicle
The
situation for the besiegers was looking hopeless. Theophanes, exercising his
vivid imagination, delights in relating the depths of their privations. Once
they had slaughtered every horse, ass and camel, he tells us, they were forced
to knead the flesh of dead men and their own faeces together and eat it.
Presumably as a result of these desperate culinary measures a terrible plague
then swept through the Arab camp and carried off thousands. Still they did not
heed the judgement of God and Theophanes has no hesitation in attributing the
timely arrival of a Bulgar army which fell upon the wretched and starving Arabs
to further divine assistance. This final calamity, Theophanes declares, at last
convinced the besiegers of the futility of attacking Constantinople and they
understood that the city enjoyed the protection of God.
The
death of Suleiman mercifully brought the expedition to an end as his cousin
Umar who had succeeded him recalled the battered remains of the fleet and army.
Theophanes rejoices further that many ships were wrecked in a storm on their
way home in further evidence of God’s wrath. The city had survived the gravest threat to its existance in a century and would continue to resist all comers for centuries to come. There were to be no further large scale Arab attacks upon the city itself but others would try in their turn. That is a story for another day however.
Fantastic model reconstruction of Greek fire apparatus
http://gilbert1986.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/bizantine-greek-fire-syphon.html
First Siege of Constantinople
http://byzantinemilitary.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/siege-of-constantinople.html
To continue the story go to
http://slingsandarrowsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/iconoclasm-byzantine-tragedy-part-one.html
I was lazy for this article and reused material from my own book The Battles are the Best Bits, but if you liked it please check out the book.
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