Spring 971
Tzimiskes takes Preslav
Emperor John I Tzimiskes spends 970 putting down the revolt of Bardas Phokas in Asia Minor. In early 971 he moves his troops to Thrace and gathers supplies and siege engines for a campaign against Sviatoslav that he leads in person. Leo the Deacon gives him 15,000 foot soldiers and 13,000 horsemen. A fleet of 300 ships armed with Greek fire sails for the mouth of the Danube to cut off the Rus' retreat across the river.
The army of John Tzimiskes storms Preslav, a miniature of the Madrid Skylitzes, 12th centuryWikimedia Commons, unknown artist, Public domain (The Chronicle of Ioannis Skylitzis Preslav Attacked.jpg)
In Easter week the army crosses the passes of the Balkan Mountains, which the Rus' have left unguarded, and reaches the Bulgarian capital Preslav without meeting resistance. The Rus' are beaten in a battle before the walls, and the town is stormed on 13 April. Its garrison of Rus' and Bulgarians under the Rus' noble Sphangel resists hard, and Tsar Boris II and his family are taken prisoner.
Sviatoslav and the main Rus' army fall back to Dorostolon on the Danube. Fearing a Bulgarian rising, he has 300 Bulgarian nobles executed and many others imprisoned. The Bulgarian garrisons on the emperor’s way surrender, and on 23 April the Byzantine army comes up to Dorostolon.
The Gunthertuch, a Byzantine silk of an emperor on horseback greeted by two crowned women, often taken for Tzimiskes after his victory of 971, Bamberg Cathedral treasuryWikimedia Commons, unknown Byzantine weaver, Public domain (Bamberg Gunthertuch.jpg)
Dorostolon, the Roman Durostorum and modern Silistra, is a walled town on the right bank of the Danube. Leo the Deacon, writing in Constantinople two decades later, and John Skylitzes a century after him describe the siege in detail. Leo sets the Rus' army at 60,000 men, while the historian Julian Romane estimates 30,000.
Sources
- Leo the Deacon, The History, translated by Alice-Mary Talbot and Denis F. Sullivan (2005).
- Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (1997), p. 509.
- John Haldon, The Byzantine Wars (2001).
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