Paramessu and his troops moved north from Egypt through Retjenu before eventually reaching Naharin and meeting up with Shattiwaza’s Mitanni forces. “Men of the Two Lands” he began to speak “the King Smenkhkare has sent us to this foreign soil for what purpose?” “To defend Ma’at and repel Isfet![1]” his troops responded in unison. “That’s right! And who is the agent of Isfet upon Earth?” asked Paramessu, to which the Egyptian soldiers spat “Suppiluliuma, the accursed ‘king’ of Hatti!” “And who is the earthly vice regent of the Aten, who has been tasked with upholding Ma’at in the Two Lands?” Paramessu retorted, and just as quickly his troops exclaimed “the Lord of the Two Lands, Smenkhkare brother of Akhenaten!“ “And where have the frontlines of Ma’at and Isfet been drawn?” “In the land of Naharin, where the accursed Suppiluliuma assaults the land!” “Who has been tasked with expelling Isfet and it’s agents from Naharin?” “What nation has the Aten tasked with being his soldiers upon Earth, spreading Ma’at with every conquest?[2]” One by one the Egyptian soldiers clamored “EGYPT! EGYPT! OUR OWN TWO LANDS!” before they departed for battle.
Suppiluliuma had learned his enemy in the years since his last defeat. He paid attention to the differences between Hittite and Egyptian chariots; Egyptian chariots were faster but only had two people aboard them, while Hittite chariots were slower but sturdier, and could hold three people(allowing more spears and arrows to be thrown/shot from the chariot). Suppiluliuma’s plan was to encircle the Egyptian chariots and systematically pick them off, one by one. The Egyptian and Hittite forces met at Washukanni, the capital of the Mitanni Kingdom. Suppiluliuma’s Hittites feigned retreat before surrounding the Egyptians and reigning a fire of arrows upon them. It seemed that all hope was lost, until Paramessu came up with a last ditch plan to save the Egyptians from almost certain annihilation; he took advantage of the greater mobility allowed by Egyptian chariots by ordering his forces to run around in circles, distracting the Hittites. The less mobile Hittite chariots were unable to keep up with the Egyptians, and then Paramessu went on the offensive. The Egyptian’s battled cry of “Ma’at! Ma’at!” could be heard throughout the city. One by one, the scattered Hittite chariots were wiped out by the Egyptians. Seeing his inevitable fate, Suppiluliuma ordered his troops to retreat.
The Hittites regrouped outside the city, and once they had fully recovered they once again laid siege to it. The Egyptians now engaged the Hittites from a defensive position, volleying arrows as the Hittites laid siege. As the siege went on, a sense of hopelessness emerged amongst the Hittites; they had already lost, but Suppiluliuma was hellbent on revenge. The battle finally ended when Suppiluliuma was slain by one of his own charioteers. The Hittites then surrendered to the Egyptians, but soon came to faced with a conundrum of unimaginable significance. Not only had they lost the battle, they had killed their own king. Not only were they cowards and failures, but traitors and oath breakers as well. If they returned to Hatti, they would face execution followed by a cruel and destitute afterlife, paying for their crimes for all eternity. And so, one of the Hittites offered a proposal to Paramessu, translated by a Hurrian[3] soldier in the Egyptian army who spoke both Egyptian and Hittite; the Hittites would come with Paramessu to Egypt, where they would serve in the armies of the pharaoh.
Paramessu obliged, under the conditions that they committed themselves to the worship of only one god, a strange god whom until now the Hittites has never heard of. The Egyptian promised that this god, which he called “Aten” would forgive the Hittites for their misgivings and that, upon death, He would grant them entry into a paradisiacal realm of eternal bliss. The Hittites eagerly agreed, and Paramessu reported the news of his victory back to the King. In Egypt, Paramessu would return a hero, with Smenkhkare promoting him by making him his chief vizier. It seemed that this young man had a bright future ahead of him. In the land of Hatti, meanwhile, the young Prince Arnuwanda would ascend to the throne with a bitter vengeance in his heart. From that day forth, it had been set in stone that the Egyptians and Hittites would forever be the bitterest of rivals, with neither resting until they had achieved a complete victory against the other. The Near East was entering a new era, an era defined by something which the world had not yet seen; a conflict defined not just by geopolitical or dynastic rivalry, but by ideological competition. An era of holy war between the devotees of the Aten, backed by Akhet-Aten, and those who worshipped the old gods, backed by Hattusa. The coming years would see lines drawn in the sand, and the world would never be the same again.
[1]Akhenaten’s victory against Suppiluliuma the last time around has made the army a bastion of Atenism(some would say “fanaticism”)
[2]You can already see the beginnings of an imperial ideology to justify expansion
[3]Predominate ethnicity in Mitanni