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| Battle of Rusion | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofBulgarian–Latin wars | |||||||
 Bulgaria under Kaloyan | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Bulgarian Empire | Latin Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Kaloyan | Thierry de Termonde † Guillaume de Loos † Thierry de Loos † | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 7,000 | Unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Heavy, 120 knights and thousands of soldiers | ||||||
Thebattle of Rusion (Bulgarian:Битката при Русион) occurred in the winter of 1206 near the fortress ofRusion (Rusköy contemporaryKeşan) between the armies of theBulgarian Empire and theLatin Empire of Byzantium. The Bulgarians scored a major victory.
The great victory in thebattle of Adrianople was followed by otherBulgarian victories atSerres andPlovdiv. The Latin Empire suffered heavy casualties and in the fall of 1205 theCrusaders tried to regroup and reorganize the remains of their army. Their main forces consisted of 140 knights and several thousand soldiers based in Rusion. This army was led byThierry de Termonde andThierry de Looz who were among the most notable nobles of the Latin Empire of Constantinople.
In mid January 1206 theBulgarian army marched southwards. Part of the troops besiegedAdrianople and the others under the personal command ofKaloyan headed to Rusion. According to his battle plan he had to force the Latins to leave the fortress and, to attract them, he sent a small company ofCuman raiders to seize a small and insignificant castle in the vicinity. Kaloyan presumed on the ignorance and lack of discipline of the Crusaders. The maneuver worked - in the evening of 30 January the Crusaders marched from the city gates. Thierry de Loos had been recalled toConstantinople and now Thierry de Termonde, who was known as a recklessly brave man, remained in charge. TheByzantine historianNiketas Choniates wrote that his troops were the bravest in the whole Latin army. Around 120knights and many cavalrymen set off from Rusion and rode the whole night. In the morning of 31 January they reached the castle, but found it deserted and headed back to Rusion. In the meantime 7,000 Bulgarians went round the Crusaders and took positions at 7 km before the walls of Rusion. The defenders of the fortress were few and could only watch from the towers. From there they could see the approaching Latin army divided into four detachments. The advanced guard was led by Charles de Fren, then followed the troops of Termonde and the detachment of Andres Deboas and Jean de Choasy who were the first knights to climb the walls of Constantinople in 1204. The last detachment was under the command of Guillaume de Loos, brother of Thierry de Loos.
The battle began in the rear-guard. The detachment of Guillaume de Loos was attacked by another Bulgarian force and, despite a desperate resistance, was routed. The survivors mixed up with the troops in front of them, but soon the next two Crusader detachments were also defeated. The battle was fought while the armies were on the march and the masses of fighting soldiers were slowly moving to Rusion. At about 2 km from the fortress the Crusader battle formation finally collapsed under the Bulgarian assaults from both sides. The knights fought bravely, but most of them perished: only ten out of the initial 120 managed to reach Rusion. Thousands of ordinary soldiers were killed in the battle or captured. All Crusader commanders including Thierry de Termonde perished. The remains of the crushed army abandoned Rusion and sought refuge to the nearby town ofRodosto.
Rodosto was well-fortified town with a large garrison ofVenetians consolidated by the survivors from Rusion and a company of 2,000 men who arrived later. However, when Kaloyan arrived the defenders panicked and after ashort battle were completely defeated and Rodosto was looted. Many more towns were soon seized such as Perint,Chorlu,Arkadiopolis, Messina and Daonion. The Bulgarians besieged the important town ofDidymoteicho which was taken in the following year.
In the whole military operation the Crusaders lost more than 200 knights, many thousands of soldiers and several Venetian garrisons were completely annihilated. The new Emperor of the Latin EmpireHenry of Flanders had to ask theFrench King for another 600 knights and 10,000 soldiers.Geoffrey of Villehardouin compared the defeat with the disaster at Adrianople. However, the Crusaders were lucky - in 1207Tsar Kaloyan was killed during the siege ofThessaloniki and the new EmperorBoril who was ausurper needed time to enforce his authority.