Decisive Sassanid victory at Al-Qādisiyyah

ar-pharazon

Banned
So what if the Sassanids had decisively crushed the Arabs at the battle of Al-Qādisiyyah? Killing the main Muslim general's and breaking the Muslim armies in the Iraq region.

How much longer could the Sassanids have held out?

And would this lead to a Byzantine-Sassanid alliance perhaps after a Muslim victory like OTL at Yarmouk?
 
In and of itself it would probably just prolong the inevitable. At this stage the Sassanids were in terminal decline and had been in a near constant state of civil war for some time now (just look at the number of Shahs that are listed from 590 onwards). Their military was exhausted, Arab accounts of them marshalling hundreds of thousands of soldiers are likely self-aggrandisement, and the Shah was constantly putting down rebellions. The Sassanids were ripe for the taking which is why they collapsed so easily in the face of the Muslim conquests.

An alliance with the Byzantines might be able to stave off their total collapse long enough to stabilise. It's not likely, the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 was less than a decade ago, but desperation and mutual enemies have been known to turn sworn enemies into close allies.

It's hard to tell where things go from there. I think that the Sassanids would remain the sick man of the region for a while and will depend on Roman support whilst the Muslims will likely have the upper hand for a while. Once things stabilise they could either keep up the alliance with the Byzantines or attempt to play the Byzantines and Caliphate against each other.
 
So what if the Sassanids had decisively crushed the Arabs at the battle of Al-Qādisiyyah? Killing the main Muslim general's and breaking the Muslim armies in the Iraq region.

How much longer could the Sassanids have held out?

And would this lead to a Byzantine-Sassanid alliance perhaps after a Muslim victory like OTL at Yarmouk?

Since the battle of Al-Qādisiyyah was after Yarmouk, I assume that this mean that the Arabs won at Yarmouk. Hence, they control Syria. In this case, I would assume that the Byzantines would consider the Arabs more of a threat than the Persians and the Persians would probably also consider the Arab as more of an immediate threat, so an alliance against the Arabs would seem likely.
 
Al-Qādisiyyah was actually the second Arab assault against the Sasanids, and with Syria on their hands I don't think it'll be the last.
 

trajen777

Banned
There was already an alliance in place between the Byz and the Persians. The plan was to advance with both the Byz (Yarmuck) and with the Persians. However the Persians were not ready. What most people forget is the Arab forces were pretty small and the population density to add additional troops was minimal, until their conquests. The defeat by the Persians would have been a major defeat as far as materiel but even a much greater defeat from a moral standpoint. Much of the success of the Arab onslaught was based upon a constant string of victories over better or larger forces. It is true that the Persians had been in a state of turmoil since the Byz victory however they had finally stabilized their leadership per the battle. SO the outcome i think you would see would have been:
1. Persian victory( per the TL you have a major victory) -- here you would have lost the Arab army facing the Persians and also the 40 % of the forces who had fought at Yarmuck (these reinforcements were what tipped the balance to the Arabs). SO these losses would have set the Arabs back at least 3-5 years.
2. The loss of these hard core troops would have forced the Arabs to field a much smaller force of less capable troops4
3. The Arab forces would have had to withdraw their garrisons from conquered Byz territory to reconstitute a field force
4. The Byz had withdrawn to northern Syria at this time -- so they would have sent forces (they lost 30% of their Eastern field armies at Yarmuck) in a field army south. The losses would have been made up by the hiring of more mercs and taking experienced units from other areas (replacing with new forces)
5. After 1-3 years the combined Persian and Byz troops would have strong field armies in place as well as new garrisons
6. No invasion of Egypt.
7. Most likely the Byz and Persians could hold the border and the tax rev from the recovered areas would have (they were just taking over the admin in these valuable areas from the Persians so all of this additional rev would have tippled the Byz revenue - Egypt alone would have doubled it) allowed for a significant growth in the Byz armies
8. I see the Allied arabs again coming to the Byz to help control the border and strong border forces and field armies covering the borders
9. The Muslim faith would have to look in other directions to grow
 
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