Actually no. Changing battle tactics is the part that’s easy. It’s actively fighting the elite and getting the people to enforce your orders on the ground that’s the difficult part. Many of these elite have families in your army and government. You think they won’t rise up if you went against their families’ interests? Isaac was basically just another random usurper, backed up by the very same Anatolian elite. They want you to fix things without affecting THEIR interests.
i think the reason has to more with solidus than pride see The Debasement of the "Dollar of the Middle Ages" by Costas Kaplanis this also explains why Constantine disbanded the iberian troops not because he was an idot but to have money in the short term which had terrible consequences in the long term
Unlike Romanos IV Isaac did not have to deal with one strong family who was already in the throne
Finances have been terrible after a string of no name emperors lacking legitimacy had to cut taxes for the elite, let them gobble land and to bribe them with pensions etc. Theoretically a lot of cash also went towards the now much more expensive regular army. That said, where was much of this regular tagmata army during the Manzikert campaign? Much of Romanos IV's army consisted of mercs.
I mean, I would have assumed it'll be easy to get people back into manning forts when they're actively being raided. Like, obey my commands or deal with the Turks.
This, so much this. Identifying problems is easy, but finding effective solutions often requires a willingness to look for them and ask uncomfortable questions.
"Can we really afford to monetize military obligations?" "Are we really so much above any threat that we don't even need to man the forts?"
the elites actually being constantinople elite the roga was higher to them and is the reason why romanos IV was disliked is because he cut payments to the court of the capital but the issue was mostly started because 1050 the byzantines were dealing with normans pechenegs and seljuks and needed cash Isaac and Romanos IV were the only ones adressing the problem, but the tegmata was there its just the inflation that was killing the themata also affected them and mercenaries did not make up the majority of the army
not when the state does not have the money and the money it does have is loosing its value you can find solutions example Alexios made a new gold coin and Heraclius and the heraclians prevented total collapse of the roman economy by using silver and bartering, Isaac needs to adress this and his was doing it because you cant have defense system if you can afford it
