The Battle of Klyuch

The Battle of Klyuch, or Belasitsa, was Tsar Samuel's final battle. After the defeat at Kreta, clashes between Samuel and Basil continued. The war initially favoured Samuel, but prolonged, constant fighting exhausted the Bulgarian army and forced him to switch from offensive to defensive tactics: digging trenches, setting traps, building fortifications and personally directing the country's military affairs and the defensive camp at Klyuch. In 1014, Basil learned Samuel's location and organised an attack. On 29 July 1014, the Byzantines attacked Klyuch.

The Bulgarians were routed, and more than fourteen thousand soldiers were captured. Basil II ordered the prisoners blinded, leaving one man in every hundred with one eye to guide them home. When Samuel saw the troops with whom he had fought shoulder to shoulder for decades in this condition, he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died on 6 October 1014. After his death, central authority weakened considerably under his successors Gavril Radomir and Ivan Vladislav. Peripheral regions dealt with Byzantium independently, falling under its rule either voluntarily or by force. After four years of unsuccessful resistance, the First Bulgarian Empire fell completely under Byzantine rule for the next two centuries.