Wojsko pogańskiej Bułgarii w opinii bizantyńczyków. Wybrane aspekty

The present text focuses on presenting opinions of the Byzantines about the rulers of pagan Bulgaria as military leaders and reasons given by Byzantine authors explaining mishaps of their troops in battles against Bulgaria. The author concludes that, in general, the Byzantines did not allow for a thought that they could be defeated by any external power, in the least by the barbarian Mysians/ Bulgarians. However, if such occurrences took place, they were considered to be caused by divine intervention or negligence of the Byzantines themselves (i.e. disloyalty, lack of cooperation between commanders, low morale of the army etc.) and never result from genuine capability of the enemy, actual courage of the hostile forces or the adversaries’ leadership skills (which were generally discounted).