Byzantium at War AD 600-1453（战争中的拜占庭：公元600-1453年）（4）
A brief survey of Byzantine history
拜占庭的历史简述 （第二部分）
（接上）
The defeats and territorial contraction which resulted from the expansion of Islam from the 640s in the east, on the one hand, and the arrival of the Bulgars and establishment of a permanent Bulgar Khanate in the Balkans from the 680s, on the other, radically altered the political conditions of existence of the east Roman state. The Balkans up to the Danube were claimed by the empire, and when imperial armies appeared, the local, predominantly Slav, chieftains and leaders acknowledged Roman authority. But this lasted only as long as the army was present. The Bulgars were a new element whose nomadic military organisation and technology enabled them quickly to establish a political hegemony over the region south of the Danube delta, from which their Khans rapidly expanded their power, so that by the end of the 7th century they were a substantial threat to imperial claims in the region.
（从640年代开始伊斯兰教在东部的扩张导致了战败和领土收缩，一方面，保加尔人的到来以及从680年代开始在巴尔干半岛建立了永久的保加尔汗国，另一方面，从根本上改变了东罗马国家的政治状况。巴尔干半岛到多瑙河都是罗马帝国的领土，当帝国军队出现时，当地主要是斯拉夫人的首领和领导人承认了罗马的权威。但这种情况只持续到有军队在场的时候。保加利亚人是一个新民族，其游牧军事组织和技术使他们能够迅速在多瑙河三角洲以南地区建立政治霸权，他们的可汗由此迅速扩大了他们的权力，因此到7世纪末他们成为对该地区的帝国权力构成重大威胁。）
The resulting transformation of state administrative structures produced an army that was based almost entirely on defensive principles, for which offensive warfare became a rarity until the middle of the 8th century, and which was encouraged by the imperial government to avoid pitched battles and open confrontation with enemy forces wherever possible. The field armies of the late Roman state were transformed in effect into provincial militias, although a central core of full-time 'professional' soldiers seems always to have been maintained by each regional military commander. A strategy of guerilla warfare evolved in which enemy forces were allowed to penetrate the borderlands before being cut off from their bases and harried and worried until they broke up or were forced to return to their own lands. Byzantine officers conducted a 'scorched earth' policy in many regions, and local populations in endangered regions were encouraged to keep lookouts posted, so that they could gather their livestock and other movable possessions and take refuge in mountain fortresses, thereby depriving enemy units of forage and booty. Although individual emperors did launch offensive expeditions in the period c,660-730, these were generally designed to forestall a major enemy attack into Roman territory in Asia Minor, or had a punitive nature, designed more as ideologically motivated revenge attacks on important enemy targets, and with no lasting strategic value {although they did have implications for military morale). Although a few notable successes were recorded, many of them failed and resulted in substantial defeats and loss of men and materials. The differentiation between different arms at the tactical level between light arid heavy cavalry or infantry, archers, lancers or spearmen - appears to have lessened, surviving only in a few contexts, associated with imperially maintained elite units. Byzantine armies and Arab armies looked very much the same.
（国家行政结构的转变使得帝国产生了一支几乎完全基于防御原则的军队，直到8世纪中叶，进攻战争才变得罕见，帝国政府鼓励尽可能避免与敌军激战和公开对抗。罗马晚期国家的野战军实际上转变为省级民兵，尽管每个地区军事指挥官似乎始终保持着全职“专业”士兵的核心。游击战的战略演变为，允许敌军在被切断基地之前渗透到边境地区，并在他们解体或被迫返回自己的土地之前焦急不安。拜占庭军官在许多地区实行“焦土”政策，鼓励濒危地区的当地居民设置瞭望台，以便他们可以收集牲畜和其他可动财物，并在山上避难，从而剥夺敌方部队的粮食和战利品。尽管个别皇帝确实在 660-730 年期间发动了进攻性远征，但这些通常旨在阻止敌人对小亚细亚罗马领土的重大进攻，或者具有惩罚性质，更多地设计为出于意识形态动机对重要敌人目标的报复性攻击 ，并且没有持久的战略价值（尽管它们确实对军事士气有影响）。尽管记录了一些显着的成功，但其中许多失败并导致重大失败和人员和物资损失。在战术层面上，轻重骑兵或步兵、弓箭手、枪手或长矛手之间的不同兵种之间的差异似乎有所减少，仅在少数情况下幸存下来，与帝国维持的精英部队有关。拜占庭军队和阿拉伯军队看起来非常相似。）
Only from the 730s on, during the reign of Leo III (717-41), an emperor from a military background who seized the throne in 717, and more particularly that of his son and successor Constantine V (741-75), a campaigning emperor who introduced a number of administrative reforms in the army and established an elite field army at Constantinople in the 760s, does this situation begin to change. Political stability internally, the beginnings of economic recovery in the later 8th century and dissension among their enemies, enabled the Byzantines to re-establish a certain equilibrium by the year 800. In spite of occasional major defeats (for example, the annihilation of a Byzantine force following a Bulgar surprise attack in 811, and the death in battle of the emperor Nikephoros I) and an often unfavourable international political situation, the Byzantines were able to begin a more offensive policy with regard to the Islamic power to the east and the Bulgars in the north — in the latter case, combining diplomacy and missionary activity with military threats. By the early 10th century, and as the Caliphate was weakened by internal strife, the Byzantines were beginning to establish a certain advantage; and in spite of the fierce and sometimes successful opposition of local Muslim warlords (such as the emirs of Aleppo in the 940s and 950s), there followed a series of brilliant reconquests of huge swathes of territory in north Syria and Iraq, the annihilation of the second Bulgarian empire, and the beginnings of the reconquest of Sicily and southern Italy. By the death in 1025 of the soldier—emperor Basil II 'the Bulgar-slayer' (976-1025) the empire was once again the paramount political and military power in the eastern Mediterranean basin, rivalled only by the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt and Syria.
（只是从730年代开始，在利奥三世(717-41)统治期间，这位有着军事背景的皇帝于717年夺取了王位，尤其是他的儿子和继任者康斯坦丁五世(741-75)，他在军队中推行了许多行政改革，并在君士坦丁堡建立了一支精英野战部队，这种情况开始改变了。拜占庭内部政治稳定，8世纪后期经济开始复苏，以及敌人之间的不和，使得拜占庭人在公元800年重新建立了某种平衡。尽管偶尔有重大的失败(例如，811年拜占庭军队在保加利亚奇袭后被歼灭，皇帝尼基佛洛斯一世在战斗中死亡)，国际政治形势往往不利，拜占庭人开始对东方的伊斯兰势力和北方的保加利亚势力采取更具进攻性的政策，后者将外交和传教活动与军事威胁结合起来。到了10世纪初，哈里发因内乱而被削弱，拜占庭人开始建立起某种优势;尽管当地的穆斯林军阀(如20世纪40年代和50年代的阿勒颇埃米尔)进行了激烈的、有时甚至是成功的反抗，但随后出现了一系列对叙利亚北部和伊拉克大片领土的辉煌收复，第二保加利亚帝国被歼灭，以及重新征服西西里和意大利南部。1025年，“保加利亚杀手”(976-1025)军人皇帝巴兹尔二世(Basil II)去世，罗马帝国再次成为东地中海盆地的最高政治和军事力量，只有埃及和叙利亚的法蒂玛王朝(Fatimid Caliphate)能与之匹敌。）
But the offensive warfare that developed from the middle of the 9th century had important effects upon the organisation of the armies. The provincial militias became less suited to the requirements of such campaigning, tied as they had become to their localities and to the seasonal campaigning dictated by Arab or Bulgar raiders. Instead, regular field armies with a more complex tactical structure and more offensive elan developed, partly under the auspices of a new social elite of military commanders who were also great landowners, partly encouraged and financed by the state. Mercenary troops played an increasingly important role as the state began to commute military service in the provincial armies for cash with which to pay them. By the middle of the 11th century, a large portion of the imperial armies was made up of indigenously recruited mercenary units together with Norman, Russian, Turkic and Frankish mercenaries. The successes achieved between r.900 and 1030 were thus based on effective organisation and better resources than in the preceding period. Morale and ideology also played a key role, while the increase in the tactical complexity of Byzantine field armies played a significant part, with the various different types of arms familiar from the late Roman period, which had all but vanished in the period of crisis of the 7th and 8th centuries, reappearing once more. Arab commentators remark on the effectiveness of the Byzantine heavy cavalry 'wedge', employed with, literally, crushing effect in the Byzantine wars with both Muslims and northern foes such as the Bulgars and the Rus' of Kiev.
（但是从9世纪中叶发展起来的进攻战对军队的组织产生了重要影响。省级民兵变得不太适合这种战役的要求，因为他们已经与当地以及阿拉伯或保加利亚袭击者所要求的季节性战役联系在一起。取而代之的是，具有更复杂的战术结构和更具进攻性的常规野战军队发展起来，部分是在新的社会精英军事指挥官的支持下，他们也是大地主，部分由国家鼓励和资助。雇佣军扮演着越来越重要的角色，因为国家开始用现金支付省级军队的兵役费用。到11世纪中叶，帝国军队的很大一部分是由本土招募的雇佣军以及诺曼、俄罗斯、突厥和法兰克雇佣军组成。 因此，900和1030之间取得的成功基于有效的组织和比前一时期更好的资源。 士气和意识形态也起到了关键作用，而拜占庭野战军队战术复杂性的增加起到了重要作用，罗马晚期熟悉的各种不同类型的武器在罗马危机时期几乎消失了。7 世纪和8世纪，再次出现。阿拉伯评论家评论了拜占庭重骑兵“楔形”的有效性，在拜占庭战争中，它在与穆斯林和北方敌人（如保加利亚人和基辅的俄罗斯人）的战争中发挥了毁灭性的作用。）
This expansionism had its negative results, however. Increasing state demands clashed with greater aristocratic resistance to tax-paying; political factionalism at court led to policy failures, the overestimation of imperial military strength, and neglect of defensive structures, When Seljuk Turkish raiding parties were able to defeat piecemeal a major imperial force in 1071 and capture the emperor Romanos IV, the empire could offer no organised counter-attack, with the result that central Asia Minor was lost permanently to the empire. Major military and fiscal reforms under the emperors of the Komnenos dynasty (a military aristocratic clan) from 1081 re-established stability and, to a degree, the international position of the empire. While foreign mercenary units continued to play a prominent role, the recruitment of indigenous Byzantine units specialising in a variety of arms restored the ability of the imperial armies to fight external enemies on their own terms. This was partly based on a reformed fiscal administration, on the one hand, and the raising and maintenance of troops on the basis of grants of revenue to certain individuals in return for the provision of trained soldiers, both infantry and cavalry. Increasing western influence, in the form of the introduction of weapons such as the crossbow and the adoption of western heavy cavalry tactics, differentiate this period from the preceding century. But the successes of the new dynasty were relatively short-lived: overexpansion, the loss of Bulgaria and much of the Balkans to what might be called 'nationalist' rebellions, and the collapse of the empire into renewed factional strife in the 1180s and 1190s, laid it open to external threat. This materialised in the form of the fourth crusade. The capture and sack of Constantinople in 1204 and the subsequent partition of the empire among the Venetian and western victors ended the empire's role as a major political and military power, although it survived after the recovery of Constantinople in 1261 and re-establishment of an imperial regime, on an ever smaller territorial scale, until only Constantinople and a few Aegean islands remained. And in 1453 the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet 11 extinguished even this remnant.
（然而，这种扩张主义也有其负面结果。日益增长的国家需求与贵族对纳税的更大抵制发生了冲突；宫廷的政治派系主义导致政策失败，高估帝国军事实力，忽视防御结构，当塞尔柱土耳其在1071年能够零碎地击败一支主要的帝国军队并俘获罗马诺斯四世皇帝时，帝国无法提供任何有组织的反击，结果中小亚细亚永久地被占领了。1081年在科穆宁王朝（一个军事贵族氏族）的皇帝领导下进行的重大军事和财政改革重新建立了稳定，并在一定程度上恢复了帝国的国际地位。虽然外国雇佣军继续发挥着突出的作用，但招募专门从事各种武器的本土拜占庭部队恢复了帝国军队以自己的方式与外部敌人作战的能力。这在一定程度上是基于改革了的财政管理，一方面是基于向某些人提供训练有素的步兵和骑兵的收入，以提高和维持部队。随着弩等武器的引进，以及西方重装骑兵战术的采用，西方的影响越来越大，这一时期与上个世纪有所不同。但新王朝的成功相对来说是短暂的:过度扩张，保加利亚和巴尔干大部分地区被所谓的“民族主义”叛乱夺走，帝国在11世纪80年代和19世纪90年代因派系斗争而崩溃，这些都让帝国面临外部威胁。这以第四次十字军东征的形式实现。1204年君士坦丁堡被占领和洗劫以及随后的帝国在威尼斯和西方胜利者之间的瓜分结束了帝国作为主要政治和军事力量的角色，尽管它在1261年君士坦丁堡收复和重建帝国后幸存下来。政权，领土规模越来越小，直到只剩下君士坦丁堡和一些爱琴海岛屿。1453年，奥斯曼帝国苏丹穆罕默德11世甚至将这些残余物都熄灭了。）
There are, very roughly, five phases of military development in the history of the Byzantine empire: reconquest and expansion under Justinian in the 6th century; contraction, localisation and a primarily defensive character in the 7th and 8th centuries; consolidation, recovery and a more offensive approach in the period from the 9th to the early 11th century; the breakdown and reform of the structures inherited from the late ancient period during the 11th and 12th centuries, with a brief expansion back into Asia Minor under the emperors Alexios I, John 11 and Manuel until the 1170s; and a final, slow decline as the empire shrank under the effects of, first, the partition which followed the fourth crusade; second, the growth of the power of Serbia in the 14th century; and third, of that of the Ottomans in the 14th and 15th centuries.
（拜占庭帝国历史上的军事发展大致分为五个阶段：6 世纪查士丁尼统治下的重新征服和扩张；7世纪和8世纪的收缩、本土化和主要防御特征；从9世纪到 11世纪初期的巩固、恢复和更具攻击性的方法；11世纪和12世纪从古代晚期继承的结构的分解和改革，直到1170年代，在亚历克西斯一世、约翰11和曼努埃尔皇帝的统治下短暂扩张回小亚细亚；第一，随着帝国在第四次十字军东征之后的分裂的影响下逐渐萎缩，最终的缓慢衰落；第二，14世纪塞尔维亚实力的增长；第三，是14和15世纪的奥斯曼帝国。）
未完待续
