Battle of Kleidion - Prelude

Prelude

The origins of the conflict date back to the 7th century, when the Bulgarians under Khan Asparukh established a state along the Danube in one of the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire. As a result, the Bulgarian state was forced to fight a series of wars with Byzantium in order to secure its continued existence.

In 968, Bulgaria was invaded from the north by the Kievan Prince Sviatoslav. By that time, the Bulgarian Empire, which had once threatened the existence of Byzantium under the reign of Simeon, had lost much of its power. During the conflict, the Kievan raids were repeatedly defeated by the Byzantines, who were also at war with the Bulgarians, a continuous conflict since the fall of the Bulgarian capital Preslav in 971. This war had resulted in the Bulgarian Emperor Boris II being forced to renounce his Imperial title in Constantinople, and eastern Bulgaria came under Byzantine rule. The Byzantines assumed that this act would signify the end of independent Bulgaria, but the western Bulgarian lands remained autonomous and under the Comitopuli brothers David, Moses, Aaron and Samuel, resistance against the Byzantines emerged.

When the Byzantine emperor Basil II ascended the throne in 976, he made the destruction of independent Bulgaria his first ambition. Opposing him were the Western Bulgarians, now led by Samuel of Bulgaria. Basil II's first campaign was disastrous, the emperor barely escaping with his life when the Bulgarians annihilated the Byzantine army in the Gates of Trajan Pass in 986. Over the next fifteen years, while Basil was preoccupied with revolts against his rule and the Fatimid threat in the East, Samuel retook most of the previously conquered Bulgarian lands and carried the war into enemy territory in a series of campaigns. However, his invasion of southern Greece, that reached as far as Corinth, resulted in a major defeat in the Battle of Spercheios in 996. The next phase of the war began in 1000, when Basil, having secured his own position, launched a series of offensives against Bulgaria. He secured Moesia, and in 1003, his forces took Vidin. The next year, Basil inflicted a heavy defeat on Samuel in the Battle of Skopie. By 1005, Basil had regained control of Thessaly and parts of southern Macedonia. Over these and the next few years, a regular pattern emerged: the Byzantines would campaign in Bulgaria, laying siege to forts and pillaging the countryside, while the numerically inferior Bulgarians, unable to offer direct opposition, launched diversionary raids in Macedonia and Greece. Despite some successes, these did not achieve any permanent results, nor did they force Basil to abandon his campaigns in Bulgaria. A counter-attack in 1009 failed at the Battle of Kreta, and although the Byzantines themselves did not achieve any decisive success, their methodical war of attrition deprived the Bulgarians of their strongholds and gradually weakened their forces. In the words of Byzantine historian John Skylitzes: "The Emperor Basil II continued to invade Bulgaria each year and destroy and devastate everything on his way. Samuel could not stop him in the open field or engage the Emperor in a decisive battle, and suffered many defeats and began to lose his strength." The culmination of the war came in 1014, when Samuel, at the head of his army, resolved to stop the Byzantine army before it could enter the Bulgarian heartland.