Kilic Arslan II was planning his celebrations of 30 years as Sultan of the Rum and his 50th birthday.
His last conquest had been a dozen years earlier when he had extinguished the Emirate of the Danishmend. According to a treaty with the Byzantine Emperor another dozen years earlier, he was supposed to surrender the land to its rightful Roman owners. He had done no such thing. The Romans, as the Byzantines called themselves, had not conquered the land, shed their blood and had no right to the land as had he through marriage with the Emirs. The Sultanate quadrupled as a result of that conquest.
For a few years, he had maintained an army of 70,000 men just in case Manuel I chose to take him to task. That threat had not materialised. He had eventually let the army raid, plunder and seriously misbehave itself in the Christian land of Little Armenia.
Kilic Arslan II smiled at the memory of that campaign. He had spent the last few years sealing friendship and alliance with his cousin Saladin and more distant cousins, and less liked, of the Great Seljuks. The Great Seljuks were less great these days. Half the land they ruled had belonged to the Seljuks and lost after the debacle at Dorylaeum to those damnable Crusaders. The Seljuks had been driven from Nicaea and half the land they’d conquered in the West. That city, retaken, would be a really good birthday gift to himself. The City itself would be even better. He’d been there as a young boy and been impressed by its wealth, which was wasted on those Greeks. He would, before he died, liberate the City for the faithful and honour the jihad called by the Prophet Mohammed, Peace be upon Him.
Saladin was preparing a great campaign to drive the Crusaders into the sea and Kilic Arslan would drive the Greeks out of Anatolia. There was just one slight sting to that scorpion. He was nowhere near confident that he had enough troops to defeat the Byzantines and they were better fighters than the Crusaders.
A messenger hurled himself to the floor.
“Oh, mighty padishah ...”
“Get up off the floor. I’m no Greek, you know,” laughed Kilic Arslan II.
The messenger stood. “The legions guarding the Greek forts have gone. There is talk of an overthrow of an Emperor. Civil war is come upon the Greeks.”
“You have done well to bring me this message so quickly. Go, take water and eat.”
Kilic Arslan began calling his personal messengers and sent them off to bring his sons, nephew and brother to meet with him, here in Konya. He set about planning a different kind of celebration. Other messengers were sent out to mobilize the horde.
Three days later Kilic Arslan II and his ten sons, brother and nephew sat around a table with all sorts of maps and charts and little wooden figures representing troops.
“The Greeks are in Civil War. Our time has come.” Kilic began. Pandemonium erupted as thirteen voices tried to be heard at the same time. Order was eventually restored as a dozen trumpeters let loose blasts that normally signalled manoeuvres on battlefields.
The Sultan’s brother Suleyman spoke, “The War is declared. Now we must fight it.” Suleyman- Shah declared,”My loyalty is with the Sultanate, not my Komnenos family.”
“I plan to exploit your family ties, nephew,” gloated Kilic Arslan.
The two oldest sons declared, ”We don’t like this father. We’ll run smack into those elite legions and the forts can last a siege of a year a piece.”
“Key-Khusraw and Suleiman-Shah, do not be afraid. The legions have been withdrawn. The plan is to take three cities in the first week, three in the second and give up one as a feint. Our Black Sheep allies will patrol our southern frontier. We shall muster 100,000 men outside Nicomedia in two-ten days and drive on Pera.”
“That’s a tidy plan, father,” said Tughril. “Let us hope the Greeks will simply let us roll right over them. What forces do they have?”
Sultan-Shah replied, “Without the 24,000 our spies tell us they have no more than 66,000 troops.50, 000 peasant infantry and 16,000 akritai.”
Kaiser-Shah, Mesud, Berkyar-Shah, Arslan-Shah, Sancar-shah, Argun-Shah, Jihan-Shah and Malik-Shah all expressed comments to the effect that they had lead raiding parties against these akritai and had a healthy respect for them.
“4 ulema totalling 40,000 warriors will take the strategic fortress at Myriocephalon, proceed to take Smyrna where they will take the City, capture the fleet based there, leave 10,000 men as guards, and move at pace to Nicomedia.
4 ulema will proceed to take Dorylaeum, detach one to guard the conquests and move on to Nicaea.
4 ulema will proceed to take Ankara, detach one ulema as guards and move onto to Nicomedia.
1 ulema will move to Kastamuni to try to prevent its fall. They will arrive too late and sign a local peace agreement with the local Greek commanders and proceed to Nicomedia.
25,000 Greeks are expected to garrison the fort. We expect each of our first 3 targets to have defenders numbering 2,000 cavalry and 5,000 infantry. We expect two flank forces to have armies of a similar size, but not to interfere with our mission. We expect the three second line targets to have defenders each numbering only 2,000 cavalry.” Kilic Arslan concluded his briefing. He thought that his sons would unanimously agree how sage a plan this was.
Malik-Shah said, “What are we doing? Why are we taking 100,000 men to sit under the walls of Pera? A suburb of the City we cannot take without artillery. This plan assumes that the contenders to the throne will agree to cede all of Anatolia to us. They won’t. We can’t pay or supply our armies very long. Then they take back what we have taken. You have assumed that nearly 50,000 troops will stay in their forts or not invade the Sultanate. Only 3 ulemas are to be left behind to keep them out of the way and I wouldn’t trust the Black Sheep to defend anything of ours.”
Arslan-Shah piped up, ”We should use all 14 ulemas to attack 14 border cities and forts. In our raids, we have seen no traces of any peasant infantry. All it takes is for those dukes to realise that we’re not just raiding and we’ll find one of our armies facing 40,000 troops and not the 7,000.”
“We should keep all our troops together and strike at Nicaea,” said Arslan-Shah.
“We can’t do that, son. The land can’t support us. We‘d receive no messengers for they’d be nothing for them or their horses to eat.”
“We can take no city that is garrisoned and provisioned against us. They all are. The forts cover the river crossings with ballistae. We have to fight the forts.”
“If we move quickly enough, Berkyar-Shah, they will not have time to get into the forts before I, Suleyman, will lead 4 ulema against their forces at Ankara.”
“Can’t we claim to support Suleyman-Shah as the rightful Komnenos Emperor?” asked Kaisar-Shah. ”He wouldn’t be the first claimant to be supported by Seljuk bows.”
“Why don’t we strike at the north and south coasts, at Attaleia and Sinope?” inquired Tughril.
“We must not forget Trebizond,” added Sancar-Shar.
Kilic Arslan II pondered the question whether he was the Patriarch Jacob leading his sons to glory or the Prophet Jesus wondering which of his disciples would betray him. It was only natural that everyone wanted to take as much land as they could. The idea of putting forward Suleyman-Shah as Emperor had its advantages. Some of those accursed border nobles would join the cause and cities would open their gates. Sultan Kilic Arslan II wanted to crush the Empire, not rule it. If he diverted troops off to the flanks, he’d be vulnerable to whatever large army the Emperor, whoever he was, put into the field.
“The Seljuk Turks would ride in support of Emperor Suleyman Komnenus.” Kilic Arslan II declared. Cheers greeted his announcement. “I shall lead 4 ulema on Myriocephalon. Key-Khusraw will lead the ulema that will protect our conquests. Kaisar-Shah and Mesud will lead the other two ulema. We’ll move onto Smyrna and then Nicaea and Nicomedia.
Suleyman will lead 4 ulema on Ankara. Suleiman-Shah will lead the ulema that holds our conquests. Berkyar-Shah, Arslan-Shah will lead his other two ulema. AfterAnkara, the force will drive on Dorylaeum and then Nicaea and Nicomedia.
Jihan-Shah will lead the two ulema attacking Attaleia. Sancar-Shah will command the second ulema. They will secure the squadron based there and thence the coast around to Prusa
Suleyman-Shah will lead two ulema to take Kastamuni and Sinope. They will take the coastal areas around to Nicomedia. Malik-Shah will lead his second ulema.
Argun-Shahh will take a single ulema to take Trebizond.
There will be at least 13,000 available to the Greeks to defend Nicaea and the other Bithynian cities. This strategy will involve a lot more fighting than my original plan, but we Seljuks thrive on fighting. With Greek help, Suleyman-Shah will sit upon the throne of Konstantiniyye and the Sultanate of Rum will rule Anatolia.
In three days our armies cross the frontier.”
