Qualla: Battle of Constantinople (922)

Battle of Constantinople (922): Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original: Constantine Manasses, Public domain. The Bulgarian army had been to the walls of Constantinople before. By June 922, it had become almost routine. Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria had spent a decade humiliating Byzantine generals, annexing Byzantine territory, and proposing himself as the rightful emperor of a combined Bulgarian-Byzantine realm. His forces dominated the Balkans. What they could not do — the one thing preventing Simeon from converting military supremacy into the crown he craved — was cross water. Constantinople was a peninsula, and without a fleet, it was unreachable. The Battle of 922 is a story about that strategic ceiling, and about how close Simeon came to breaking through it.

Image: Original: Constantine Manasses | Public domain

Battle of Constantinople (922): The Decade That Led Here

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original: Constantine Manasses, Public domain. The war between Simeon I and the Byzantine Empire had begun, almost accidentally, in 913, when the Byzantine emperor Alexander died and left a child — Constantine VII — on the throne. Simeon seized the moment. His forces reached Constantinople's walls that same year and extracted...

Image: Original: Constantine Manasses | Public domain

Battle of Constantinople (922): The Secret Alliance

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cplakidas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Simeon knew what he lacked. In 922 he sent envoys secretly to the Fatimid caliph Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi Billah in Mahdia, in what is now Tunisia, proposing a joint assault on Constantinople. The terms were audacious: the Bulgarians would keep Constantinople itself; the Fatimids wou...

Image: Cplakidas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Constantinople (922): The Battle and Its Cost

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original: Constantine Manasses, Public domain. The Byzantine attack began well. Saktikios's forces stormed the Bulgarian camp and initially drove the enemy back. Then they encountered the main Bulgarian army. The result was swift. The Byzantines were defeated, and in the retreat, Saktikios was mortally wounded. He died the fo...

Image: Original: Constantine Manasses | Public domain

Battle of Constantinople (922): The Wall He Could Not Climb

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original: Constantine Manasses, Public domain. The Fatimid alliance never materialized. The ship carrying the Fatimid caliph's emissaries back to Simeon was intercepted by the Byzantines, who — in a diplomatic coup — outbid the Bulgarians and neutralized the threat. Without a fleet, Simeon could not take Constantinople. The w...

Image: Original: Constantine Manasses | Public domain