This battle between the Roman Empire (Byzantine) and the Seljuk Turks was probably one of the dozen decisive battles of history. The battle itself is unremarkable but its consequences were dire. In 1071 the Byzantine emperor Romanus IV Diogenes led an army of 40,000 soldiers to relieve the city of Manzikert (located near the present day border between Turkey and Iran.) Manzikert had been captured by Turkish forces led by Alp Arslan. When the two armies met, Romanus ordered a charge into the center of the Turkish line. The Byzantines drove the Turks back but the Turks counter-attacked late in the day and routed Romanus. The Turkish victory at Manzikert further limited the decreasing power base of the Byzantine empire. The Turks occupied most of Anatolia, the heart of the Roman Empire. Anatolia is today Asiatic Turkey. The Armenian and Isaurian districts in Central and Eastern Anatolia were the main recruiting grounds for the Romans of those days. The permanent loss of these areas fatally weakened the Roman Empire although it took four more centuries to die. The fall of the Eastern Roman Empire was completed by the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in May, 1453. The destruction of this bulwark opened the Balkans, Southern and Central Europe to four hundred years of Islamic tryranny and cultural darkness.