Battle of Demetritzes

Battle of Demetritzes
Part of the Norman invasion of the Balkans of 1185–1186
Date 7 November 1185 Location Demetritzes (Sidirokastro, Greece) Result Decisive Byzantine victory
Belligerents
Byzantine Empire	Kingdom of Sicily
Commanders and leaders
Alexios Branas	Count Baldwin  (POW) Count Richard of Acerra  (POW)

The Battle of Demetritzes in 1185 was fought between the Byzantine army and the Normans of the Kingdom of Sicily, who had recently sacked the Byzantine Empire's second city, Thessalonica. The Norman army advanced east and met the Byzantine field army under Alexios Branas near Demetritzes (modern Sidirokastro). A period of confrontation and virtual truce between the two armies followed, but on 7 November Branas launched a sudden attack on the Norman army and routed it. Pursued by the Byzantines, the surviving Normans fled to Thessalonica, which was abandoned without battle; the remnants of the Norman army fled to Dyrrhachium on the Adriatic coast, effectively ending the attempted Sicilian conquest of the Empire.

Sources

• Brand, Charles M. (1968). "The Norman Threat: 1185". Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180–1204. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 160–175.
• Magoulias, Harry J., ed. (1984). O City of Byzantium. Annals of Niketas Choniates. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-1764-2.
• Stephenson, Paul (2000). "The Norman Invasion, 1185–1186". Byzantium's Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 284–288. ISBN 0-521-77017-3.