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Despite their heroic effort, the Armenians' resistance against the Turanians, compensating the Byzantine incompetence 94, was doomed to fail.

After Torgoul's death, his brother and successor Alp Arsalan conquered the city of Ani in 1064. The old and magnificent capital of the Bagratouni was plundered and levelled to the ground; the majority of the population were massacred or taken prisoner and sold as slaves. Chronicles relate that the attackers had a sword in one hand and a dagger in the mouth and that "the population was reaped like grass."

"The massacre and destruction were so enormous that no word can describe it. The blood ran in streams in the streets and the town-squares. Thousands and thousands of people were murdered and those who searched for shelter in the sanctity of the churches died under the burning ruins." 95

As soon as Ani, this bastion protecting the west, fell, the Turanians poured into Asia Minor. Emperor Romanus IV tried in vain to withstand them. In 1071, he advanced all the way to Manazkert, where his army engaged in a decisive battle with the Seljuk Turks, who were led by Alp Arsalan. In the absence of the Armenians, whose power had been eradicated by the blind hatred of Byzantine, it was inevitable that the battle end in the defeat of the Byzantine army. The Byzantine army was defeated and Romanus IV was taken prisoner.



In this way, the Seljuk Turks were able to conquer the whole of Asia Minor and transform one of the most fertile regions in the world, on which the Byzantine Empire was built and was regarded as the source of its wealth and its army, into a desert area by murdering its population and destroying civilisation. Over just a few decades, this flourishing and fertile land was decimated to such an extent that even now, almost 1000 years on, it has not fully recovered. 30 years after the battle in Manazkert, the Turkish rampage had advanced to such a level that the European crusaders, passing through Asia Minor en route from Nicea to Tars, once the bread-bowl of the world, were close to perishing from thirst and famine.

The attacks of the Seljuk Turks and the destruction of Greek Asia Minor during the 11th century was a blow from which the Byzantine Empire never recovered. Nonetheless, Byzantine continued its tenuous existence for another 400 years, holding on to the mere shell of its power. The subsequent Turkish invasion of the Balkans was a direct consequence of this power deficit.

The attacks of the Seljuk Turks brought to a close the independence of Armenia. The country subsequently experienced several centuries of horror and difficulties caused by other Turanian tribes, first by the Mongols of Genghis Khan and Emir Timur. Finally, in the 16th century, the Turkmens, brought the country under the rule of the Ottoman Turks.

Nevertheless, a portion of the Armenian population refused to accept this destiny. These people, under the leadership of certain Armenian princes, and with the weapons in their hands, would cross Asia Minor to Cilicia, to found a new government. (That history of New Armenia (1080-1375) is discussed further on).