Battle of Levounion The Battle of Levounion was the first decisive Byzantine victory of the Komnenian restoration . On April 29 , 1091 , an invading force of Pechenegs was crushed by the combined forces of the Byzantine Empire under Alexios I Komnenos and his Cuman allies . Background . On August 26 , 1071 , a Byzantine army under Romanos IV Diogenes was defeated by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in eastern Asia Minor . The defeat caused the emperor to be deposed and replaced by the ineffectual Michael VII Doukas , who refused to honour the treaty that had been signed by Romanos . In response , the Turks began to move into Anatolia in 1073 , meeting no opposition . Chaos reigned as the empire ' s resources were squandered in a series of disastrous civil wars . Thousands of Turkoman tribesmen crossed the unguarded frontier and moved into Anatolia . By 1080 , an area of had been lost to the empire . It is almost impossible to overestimate the significance of these events , as within less than a decade more than half of the manpower of the empire had been lost , along with much of its grain supply . Thus the battle of Manzikert resulted in the greatest blow to the empire in its 700 years of history . It is against this backdrop of defeat and disaster that Alexios Komnenos , a successful young general who had been fighting against the Turks since the age of fourteen , ascended the throne on Easter Sunday , April 4 , 1081 . According to John Julius Norwich , the significance of Alexios ' rise to power was that " . . . for the first time in over half a century the empire was in capable hands . " Alexios determined to restore the fortunes of the Byzantine Empire , whatever the cost . Around 1090 or 1091 , Emir Chaka of Smyrna suggested an alliance with the Pechenegs in order to completely destroy the Byzantine Empire . Pechenegs invade . In the spring of 1087 , news reached the Byzantine court of a huge invasion from the north . The invaders were Pechenegs from the north west Black Sea region ; it was reported that they numbered 80 , 000 men in all . Taking advantage of the precarious situation of the Byzantines , the Pecheneg horde headed towards the Byzantine capital at Constantinople , plundering the northern Balkans as they went . The invasion posed a serious threat to Alexios ' Empire , yet due to years of civil war and neglect the Byzantine military was unable to provide the emperor with enough troops to repel the Pecheneg invaders . Alexios was forced to rely on his own ingenuity and diplomatic skill to save his empire from annihilation . He appealed to another nomadic tribe , the Cumans , to join him in battle against the Pechenegs . Battle . Won over by Alexios ' offer of gold in return for aid against the Pechenegs , the Cumans hurried to join Alexios and his army . In the late spring of 1091 , the Cuman forces arrived in Byzantine territory , and the combined army prepared to advance against the Pechenegs . On Monday , 28 April 1091 , Alexios and his allies reached the Pecheneg camp at Levounion near the Maritsa river . The Pechenegs appear to have been caught by surprise . At any rate , the battle that took place on the next morning at Levounion was practically a massacre . The Pechenegs had brought their women and children with them , and they were totally unprepared for the ferocity of the attack that was unleashed upon them . The Cumans and the Byzantines fell upon the enemy camp , slaughtering all in their path . The Pechenegs quickly collapsed , and the victorious allies butchered them so savagely that they were almost wiped out . The survivors were captured by the Byzantines and taken into imperial service . Significance . Levounion was the single most decisive victory achieved by a Byzantine army for more than half a century . The battle marks a turning point in Byzantine history ; the empire had reached the nadir of its fortunes in the last twenty years , and Levounion signalled to the world that now at last the empire was on the road to recovery . The Pechenegs had been utterly destroyed , and the empire ' s European possessions were now secure . Alexios had proved himself as the saviour of Byzantium in its hour of need , and a new spirit of hope began to arise in the war - weary Byzantines . In the years ahead , Byzantium would go on to stage a remarkable recovery under Alexius and his descendants , the Komnenoi . Byzantine armies returned to Asia Minor , reconquering much of the lost territory there including the fertile coastal regions , along with many of the most important cities . With the restoration of firm central government , the empire became rich during the course of the next century , and Constantinople once more became the metropolis of the Christian world . Thus , the battle at Levounion in 1091 marked the beginning of a resurgence of Byzantine power and influence that would last for a hundred years , until the demise of the Komnenian dynasty at the close of the 12th century .