Battle of Demetritzes, 1185

In 1185, the Normans of Sicily invade Byzantium after being provoked by the 1182 Massacre of the Latins in Constantinople. The Norman army thus laid siege to and sacked the 2nd Byzantine city Thessaloniki and according to the historian and the city's bishop Eustathios (1115-1195) who was present chronicling the Norman attack, the Normans when plundering the city did not care much about the perfumes and medicines and their value, they used scented wood for kindling, believed that spiced resins were coal, and did not understand the use of rose water, instead they only wanted building supplies like iron rings, nails, and knives. After capturing Thessaloniki, the Normans then divided their army in 3 with one division staying behind in Thessaloniki, one heading towards the cities of Amphipolis and Serres in Thrace, and one headed for Constantinople itself.
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In the imperial capital, news of Thessaloniki's fall to the Normans led to the downfall of the emperor Andronikos I Komnenos who was then beaten to death in public by the same people that put him in power 3 years earlier now losing their faith in him for the incident of the Norman invasion, but also because of his atrocities as emperor. The young aristocrat Isaac II Angelos, a relative of the Komnenos Dynasty then took over the throne with popular support despite being backed by the corrupt aristocrats Andronikos I sought to destroy. Although lacking experience in running an empire, Isaac II when coming to power immediately turned to the Norman threat sending the experienced general Alexios Branas to deal with them, also sending 4,000 pounds to pay as a donative.
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As the Normans feeling confident of winning a victory laid waste to Byzantine Thrace, Branas and his army first defeated them in a surprise attack at Mosynopolis wherein the Normans defending the town were routed, thus the Byzantines stormed in and captured it. Following this, Branas and his forces won a larger victory against the Normans at the Battle of Demetritzes (at today's Sidirokastro, Greece), fought on November 7 wherein he managed to defeat them again in a surprise attack as the historian Niketas Choniates mentions, as the other Norman division still feeling confident of capturing Thessaloniki were caught off guard by the Byzantines' surprise attack. Though many Normans were slain, the surviving Normans then fled by sea while many were taken as prisoners by the Byzantines. The Norman forces that captured Thessaloniki too fled when hearing of the defeat at Demetritzes, thus Thessaloniki was returned to Byzantine rule. Although this Norman invasion was taken care off in very little time resulting in a great success for the Byzantines, Byzantium is to face a series of disasters in the years to come including the Bulgarian uprising and Fall of Jerusalem in 1187 leading to the 3rd Crusade, and only 19 years later (1204) would Constantinople fall to the 4th Crusade. Now the emperor Isaac II Angelos may have been successful here for defeating the Normans and prior to this overthrowing the bloody tyrant emperor Andronikos I, but what is to come in the next 10 years of his reign would be a series of mixed results.
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©Art by myself, 2021