Battle of Didgori

For decades Georgia had suffered Seljuk invasions, which grew in scale after the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071 and left the kingdom with little more than its western lands. David IV, who came to the throne at sixteen in 1089, took advantage of the decay of the Seljuk empire after Malik-Shah's death and of the arrival of the crusaders: in 1097 or 1099 (the sources differ) he stopped paying tribute to the sultan, then won back Kakheti and the fortresses of Lower Kartli. To match the Turkish armies he built a new force — a royal guard of some 5,000 horsemen and Kipchak (Cuman) warriors from the steppe, whom he settled on the depopulated southern borders in 1118. By then only Tbilisi, a Muslim city for some four centuries, and Dmanisi remained outside his control, and Tbilisi was paying him tribute.

The Muslims of Tbilisi and the neighbouring towns appealed for help, and a coalition gathered under the Artuqid Ilghazi of Mardin, fresh from his destruction of the army of Antioch at the Field of Blood in 1119, acting at the behest of the Seljuk sultan Mahmud II; with him came his son-in-law Dubays ibn Sadaqa of Hilla. Medieval chroniclers credited Ilghazi with hundreds of thousands of men — 600,000 according to Walter the Chancellor — and Georgian historians have proposed 100,000–250,000, while Alexander Mikaberidze considers about 30,000 the most plausible figure; all sources agree that the Muslims greatly outnumbered David's army, which Mikaberidze puts at 15,000–20,000. In August Ilghazi camped below Mount Didgori, a day's march from Tbilisi, apparently waiting for his allies. On 12 August David attacked from the west while his son Demetrius struck from the heights; according to Ibn al-Athir a band of Kipchaks posing as deserters entered the Muslim camp and turned on its commanders, and Walter and Matthew of Edessa mention a contingent of Frankish knights — 200 or 100 — in David's army. The coalition broke within about three hours; Ilghazi, wounded in the head, and Dubays barely escaped, and the Georgians pursued the fugitives for days. The sources date the battle to 12, 13, 15 or 18 August; historians accept 12 August, the date given in the 12th-century Armenian translation of the Life of the King of Kings David.

The victory shifted the balance of power in the Caucasus in Georgia's favour. In 1122 David took Tbilisi and gave it over to plunder, then, according to Ibn al-Athir, granted its Muslims guarantees for their prayers, Friday sermon and coinage; he moved his capital there from Kutaisi, ending the four-century-old emirate. The defeat was a bitter blow to Ilghazi, who died the next year, and it eased the pressure on the crusader states. In Georgian memory Didgori became the 'miraculous victory' that opened the golden age of David IV and Queen Tamar; it is still celebrated every 12 August as Didgoroba.