Medieval Warfare on the Grid: The Case of Manzikert

中世纪国家需要收集和分配资源来维持军队，这影响了政治组织的各个方面，在军队失败的关键时刻，可能会给整个社会带来灾难性的后果。尽管如此，军事研究很少超越现有文本来证明军事行为的实际后果，尽管在资源分配和消费方面的军事活动对形成前现代社会具有决定性作用。该项目的目标是设计一个基于网格的框架，以应对这些挑战，重点关注1071年曼齐克特战役的后勤背景。Manzikert是拜占庭历史上的一个重要历史事件。拜占庭军队被塞尔柱土耳其人击败，以及随后的内战，导致拜占庭在安纳托利亚中部的权力崩溃。这一事件给人们带来了巨大的创伤，被称为“可怕的一天”。考虑到这一事件在拜占庭政权崩溃中所处的关键地位，历史学家对参与曼齐克特战役的人数，甚至拜占庭军队到达曼齐克特的路线缺乏共识，意义深远。由于缺乏新的历史数据来解决这些问题，因此需要采用一种截然不同的方法来解决问题。该项目建议实施一个详细的建模项目，该项目有能力打破目前学术索赔和反索赔的循环。伯明翰/普林斯顿军事后勤小组的一系列讲习班审议了有关军事后勤研究的问题。这些研究得出的结论是，军事后勤过程的过程适合基于计算机的建模，但主题的复杂性要求使用基于代理的建模和大规模分布式仿真。网格技术经常用于解决当代物流问题，在这类研究中占据战略地位，允许通过分布式同时计算环境解决复杂问题。这些技术的普遍适用性支持多种模拟方法的发展，以探索军事部署的性质和选择在曼齐克特后勤环境方面的影响。它们还产生可重复使用的资源和工具，可应用于调查其他地区或时期的战争或后勤的类似研究。该项目得益于伯明翰为战争路线和安纳托利亚更广泛地整理的广泛的数字环境和历史数据库。作为伯明翰/普林斯顿后勤小组工作的一部分，这些数据可以用来创建一个支持网格的环境模型，该模型可以由代表军队团体和单位甚至士兵、指挥官甚至驮畜的对象填充。单个模型可以用行为和认知规则编码，并且可以多次重用。部队的组成是可以调节的，并且可以评估一系列部队在君士坦丁堡和曼齐克特之间的一些模拟路线上成功移动的能力。然后可以评估部队成功到达战场的可能性以及行军后军队在营养方面的状况，并将其与关于部队组成、所走路线和战斗前战斗人员状况的第一手和第二手资料中的证据或断言进行比较。在此过程中，该项目将从根本上重新评估这场战役以及导致这场灾难性战役的关键后勤决策。该项目有明确的研究问题，使用了对历史研究来说新颖的数字方法和工具。它将提供一个范例，展示大规模模拟对历史研究的价值，网格作为一种工具，使学者能够建立共同的、分布式的合成环境，以支持更广泛的历史研究。

The need for mediaeval states to collect and distribute resources to maintain armies affected all aspects of political organisation and at critical times, when armies failed, could prove disastrous to society as a whole. Despite this, military studies seldom progress past existing texts to bear out the pragmatic consequences of military behaviour, even though military activity in terms of resource allocation and consumption is decisive in shaping pre-modern societies.The objective of this project is to design a GRID-based framework to address these challenges focussing on the logistical context of the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Manzikert is a key historic event in Byzantine history. The defeat of the Byzantine army by the Seljuk Turks, and the following civil war, resulted in the collapse of Byzantine power in central Anatolia. An event so traumatic that it became known as 'The dreadful day'. Given the key position this event takes within the collapse of Byzantine power, the lack of consensus between historians on the numbers of men involved at, or even the route taken by the Byzantine Army to, Manzikert is profound. The absence of new historical data to resolve these issues demands a dramatically different approach to the problem. This project proposes the implementation of a detailed modelling project which has the ability to break the current cycle of academic claim and counter-claim.The issues surrounding the study of military logistics have been considered at a series of Birmingham/Princeton Military Logistics group workshops. These concluded that the processes of military logistical processes are amenable to computer-based modelling but that the complexities of the subject demand the use of agent-based modelling and large scale distributed simulation. GRID technologies, often used for contemporary logistics problems, occupy a strategic position for such research, permitting the resolution of complex problems through distributed simultaneous computing environments. The general applicability of such technologies support development of methodologies for multiple simulations to explore the nature of military dispositions and implications of choice in respect of the logistical context of Manzikert. They also generate re-useable resources and tools that can be applied to similar studies investigating warfare or logistics in other regions or periods.The project benefits from an extensive digital environmental and historic database collated at Birmingham for the route of the battle and Anatolia more generally. Created as part of the work of the Birmingham/Princeton logistics group, this data can be used to create a GRID-enabled environmental model which can be populated by objects representing army groups and units or even soldiers, commanders or even pack animals. Individual models can be coded with behavioural and cognitive rules and be reused multiply. The composition of forces can be regulated and the ability of a range of forces to move successfully across a number of modelled routes between Constantinople and Manzikert can be assessed. The likelihood of the forces successfully reaching the battlefield and the condition of the army, in nutritional terms, following the march, can then be assessed and compared to evidence or assertions within primary and secondary sources on the composition of forces, the routes followed and the condition of the combatants prior to battle. In doing so the project will provide a fundamental re-assessment of the campaign and the critical logistical decisions leading up to the disastrous battle.The project has clear research questions, using digital, methods and tools that are novel to historical studies. It will provide an exemplar demonstrating the value of large-scale simulation for historic research and the GRID as an instrument that enables academics to build common, distributed synthetic environments in supprt of historical studies more widely.