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Battle of Shirimni

Battle in Turkey in 1021

Summary

Battle in Turkey in 1021

Field	Value
conflict	Battle of Shirimni
partof	the Byzantine–Georgian wars
image	Skylitzes. Basil II vs Georgians cropped.jpg
caption	The Skylitzes Chronicle. George I is shown as fleeing on horseback on the right and Basil II holding a shield and lance on the left.
date	September 11, 1021
place	Shirimni, at the Lake Palakazio, now Childir, Turkey
coordinates
map_type	Georgia#Turkey#Caucasus mountains
map_relief	yes
result	Byzantine victory
combatant1	Byzantine Empire
combatant2	Kingdom of Georgia
Kingdom of Armenia
commander1	Basil II
commander2	George I

strength1	Unknown, probably large
strength2	Unknown, probably fewer
image_size	350px

Kingdom of Armenia

Battle of Shirimni (შირიმნის ბრძოლა) also known as the Battle of Palakazio was fought between the Byzantine and Georgian armies at the place of Shirimni at the Palakazio Lake (now Childir, Turkey; then part of Georgia) on September 11, 1021.

Background

King George I, still young and proud of his few exploits, decided to rekindle the old tensions between his nation and the Byzantine Empire, which had experienced imperialist surges in this region of the Caucasus since at least the reign of Justinian I (527-565). Moreover, he truly considered himself the successor of the one who tried to unify the Georgian lands, and the loss of the Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti led him to seek new domains in the southwest. This is how he thinks of the Tao, ancient Kingdom of the Georgians and hereditary domain of the first Bagrations, which had been bequeathed by will to Emperor Basil II by David III Kurapalates as the term of a punishment due to the support of the latter for the rebel Bardas Phokas, and part of which was offered by Byzantine Empire to Bagrat III.

Since the year 1000, Basil II has been in total war against the Bulgarians, and therefore has little time to take care of Georgia. For this reason, George I invaded the contested heritage for the first time in 1014/1016, without receiving a direct military response from the emperor. However, Aristakes Lastivertsi reports an epistolary exchange between Basil and the Georgian king. In it, it says:

Battle

Following this refusal, Basil II intervened directly, despite his difficulties in Bulgaria, but the renewal of the alliance between Georgia and the main enemy of Byzantine Empire, the Fatimid Caliphate (against whom the Byzantine emperor had led a war between 992 and 995), repels the Greek troops for the first time. However, in 1018, Bulgaria was completely subject to Byzantine Empire. The Bulgarian Tsar Prousjanos II was dethroned and Bulgaria was made a province of the Byzantine Empire. A little later, the Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah died and his son Al-Zahir li-I'zaz Din Allah, too inexperienced to think about Georgia, succeeded him. George I found himself alone again in the international framework and the Basileus sent all his troops against him. The two armies then meet on the plains of Basiani, in Tao, but George I retreats, burns the town of Oltisi to divert the path of the Greeks, before being caught at Cola. Not far from there, at the village of Shirimni, the Georgian rearguard was attacked by the Byzantine vanguard, following which a fierce battle ensued on September 11, 1021, a battle won with difficulty by Basil's troops II, who is also present himself at the heart of the battlefield, after the death of the greatest Georgian generals of the time. The Georgian troops quickly left the region to take refuge in Samtskhe, but the Byzantines still pursued them and ravaged Javakheti, before burning the town of Artaani.

References

Bibliography

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

battles-involving-the-byzantine-empire battles-involving-the-kingdom-of-georgia 1020s-in-the-byzantine-empire conflicts-in-1021 battles-of-basil-ii byzantine–georgian-wars 1021-in-asia 1021-in-europe 11th-century-in-the-kingdom-of-georgia battles-involving-bagratid-armenia battles-involving-armenia

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