Portal:Bulgarian Empire/Selected article/5

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The Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Byzantines and Bulgarians that began when the Bulgars migrated to the Balkan peninsula in the 8th century, and were successful enough to create their own kingdom. The Byzantines and Bulgarians continued to clash over the next century but often lost, until under the Khan Krum the Bulgarians managed to recover. After Krum died his son Omurtag negotiated a 20 year peace treaty with the Byzantines. The fighting was renewed under the Byzantine emperor Theophilos, but quickly another peace treaty was created. Then, in 893 another war was fought in which the Simeon the I, the Bulgarian emperor, defeated the Byzantines, which ended under his son Peter I, although a few brief battles occurred later in his life.

Under Peter I’s son Boris II, much of the Bulgarian Empire was subjugated, defeated by John I Tzimiskes and the Byzantine empire, and further brought under Byzantine control by his successor, Basil II. Finally in 1018 the entire nation of Bulgaria was ruled by the Byzantines. There were rebellions against Byzantine rule in 1040-41, the 1070s and the 1080s, but these failed, but in 1185 Peter and Asen started a revolt, and the weakening Byzantine empire was unable to stop them, and it stopped the fighting after little more than a year.