A Study On The Strategy Of Byzantine Danube Frontier In The Period Of Maurice(582-602)

At the end of Justinian’s reign,the military of the Avars and Turks crossed the Dnieper River one after another,which caused a great shock to the geopolitical pattern,and the forms of the areas along the Danube River became increasingly complex.At the same time,the overlord of the Balkans,the Byzantine Empire,under the wrong strategic guidance and blind optimistic judgment,regardless of internal pressure,began an military campaign against Persia.While the main energy of the Empire was attracted to the Persian border,the Avars and Slavs constantly expanded their influence at the north of the Danube and waited for an opportunity to permeate into the south of the Danube.The seemingly stable frontier defense left by Emperor Justinian was destroyed in a very short time,and the border defense of the Danube was eventually under great pressure.In the second half of the sixth century,the Avars came to Pannonia,established their dominant position in Pannonia by means of alliance and military conquest,and gradually became an important force affecting the Balkan region.The growth of their strength and ambition directly threatened the security of the Byzantine Danube defense.In the 580 s,the Avars conquered Sirmium,the key place of the Danube,thus opening the way to the Balkan provinces.Between 582 and 598,they launched a series of attacks on the Balkans,even approaching Constantinople for a time.At the same time,the scattered Slavic tribes,with the help of the Avars,took advantage of the weakness of the Danube defense and moved to the south of the Danube,which led to the collapse of Byzantium’s rural rule in the Balkans.In this situation,the Byzantine emperor Maurice used military attack as main means,supplemented by diplomatic alliance,to counter attack the invasion of the Avars,and finally regained the strategic initiative,and temporarily remitted the crisis of the western frontier of the Empire.However,a series of offensives by the Avars and Slavs have seriously endangeredthe security of the Empire in the core cities of the Balkans and even the Constantinople,and seriously affected the Empire’s control over Italy.It was the most dangerous frontier crisis faced by Byzantium after the collapse of the Attila’s empire.The Danube border war in Maurice period is the outstanding manifestation of the imbalance between the national strategic culture and the strategic reality of Byzantium in late antique times.It became also the direct cause of the military mutiny of the Danube in 602 and a series of major changes later.No matter the victory of Maurice in 599 or the glory of the Avars in 626,their achievements did not last for long,but their failure had more far-reaching impact.There are at least several aspects of Maurice’s consequence and follow-up influence on the Danube: first,he further worsened the financial situation of the Byzantine state,intensified the domestic contradictions of the Byzantine state,and finally led to the general outbreak of the Byzantine domestic problems in 602,and then led to a series of political earthquakes including the restart of Persian war;second,through the military attack on the Avars,the Byzantine Empire temporarily curbed the invading ambition of the Avars,weakened the strength,and enabled the Byzantine Empire to avoid the embarrassing situation of a two-line war at the beginning of at the beginning of the new Persian war,thus winning precious breathing time for themselves;third,the collapse of the Danube frontier blocked the Byzantine forces from passing through Illyria to reinforce Italy to contain the expansion of Lombards’ power,and further enhanced the independence of the Roman Pope.The alliance with the Frankish kingdom against the Lombards laid the ground work for the political alliance between the Frankish king and the Roman Pope in the future;fourthly,the chaos after Maurice’s death caused the overall collapse of the Danube defense line,and also made the Slavic migration to Balkan more unimpeded,eventually permanently changing the ethnic composition and politics on the Balkan.Maurice’s efforts to manage the Danube were the last attempt of the Byzantine emperor to protect Justinian’s political heritage,and his failure declared the complete end of the reconquest of Justinian.