Well, I suspect the first Caliphate likely ranges from at least mesopotamia to Egypt.
The Eternal Empire: Emperor Maurice dies before being overthrown
- Thread starter wcv215
- Start date
The most likely outcome is that the Romans beat the Arabs back without being in such economic problems as they were in our timeline
So basically this Heraklanos fellow abandoned the defense of Syria so that he could make it back to Constantinople and get acclaimed emperor. I‘d presume that his accession would not be uncontested to the nature of his conduct.Otherwise, I don’t see how the situation is unsalvageable. The amount of soldiers lost in Neapolis is nowhere near the amount lost at Yarmouk in otl, not to mention the empire was in a healthy position prior to the battle.
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That's exactly what he did. He also ditched a perfectly salvageable battle so that he could be elevated to the purple because he's an evil, greedy asshole. His men were naturally paid off to follow him, and they thought the situation was worse than it was.
Actually, its probably about the same. (I should note that I find the estimates of the Roman forces at Yarmouk OTL to be frankly utterly ridiculous. Heraclius had managed to grab a total of a few tens of thousands of men to invade Persia, and then was suddenly able to conjure up this massive army out of nowhere just a few years later...?)
The big difference here is that the rest of the army still exists, and can be moved to continue the fight against the Arabs. This will not lack consequences in other areas of the Empire.
That was almost a decade later though. A lot could happen in the time interval.I think the numbers at Yarmouk are plausible if one believed that the army at Yarmouk represented the bulk of the Imperial army as a whole just like Cannae represented the republic’s. You can’t really re-garrison the empire like Heraclius did with just 30k.
Very hard to imagine how Heraklanos could sit on the imperial throne right now. Even if he tried to legitimize his position by marrying his sister in law or one of her sisters, I’d think that most people, including other armies would have despised him for what he had done.
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Part 5: Heraclanos the Tyrant
Part V: Heraclanos the Tyrant
The annihilation of the Eastern army had left the entire Diocese open to Arab assault. The garrison of Jerusalem surrendered when news arrived of the Neapolis disaster. The soldiers and priests were given generous terms, and allowed to go away toward Egypt with their holy relics. The city was occupied by some portion of the Caliphate’s soldiers, and the rest turned north and pressed toward Syria.
Damascus surrendered without a fight three weeks after the Emperor’s defeat, and two weeks later Antioch itself was reached. The residents of the city, fearful of another battle and resentful at being abandoned threw open their gates as well.
Nisibis, Dara, and Edessa held out as the Roman strongpoints East of Antioch, guarding both Armenia and, ironically, the Persians. Al-Walid did not pursue them, and instead tried to force passage through the Cilician Gates, but local forces threw back his probing attacks, and the Arab general decided trying to force them would cost him too many men.
Instead he garrisoned Antioch and Adana heavily with soldiers and pulled back toward Palaestina, turning his attention on the greatest prize of all, Egypt.
Marching to Gaza he rapidly moved forces across the undefended Sinai peninsula, encountering only mild raiding by Ghassanids who had temperorarily into Egypt to regroup. These raiders were easily seen off by the victorious Muslim armies, and overran the northern coast easily. The first real resistance was met at the fortress of Pelusium, which was reached in November of 635. The garrison commander dispatched messages to other fortresses in Egypt, and most especially to Alexandria, then settled in for a siege. He held out for three months before an Arab force successfully slipped over the walls in the night and opened the gates for their fellows. The city was spared plundering, and many of the commanders of the Roman force were sent away unspoiled.
The long siege had given the Roman governor time to prepare the route however, and more raids hampered Walid’s supply lines, forcing the Arab general to turn back move on Clysma and lay it to siege as well. To his dismay however, the city stubbornly held out for far longer than he had hoped. Supplies flowed into the city from Axum to the south, where the Christian king had no desire to see his Roman neighbors to the north replaced. He would still be there when word came that Pelusium had fallen to Roman reinforcements, and the Emperor was on his way again.
To catch up to that however we turn back to the north.
While the East was falling Heraklonas made it back to Constantinople, and rapidly bought the support of the two Imperial armies kept near the capital. His escape had allowed him to bring back with him the Imperial paychests meant for the East, as well as significant amounts of gold stripped from Antioch when he withdrew from that city. Giving his younger brother Justinian, future Emperor Justinian II, significant amounts of gold Heraklonas sent him away east to Italy to raise ships and men from the recovered southern territories of the peninsula.
Only when all of this had been completed did he enter Constantinople. The city had only just learned of the Emperor’s death, and fears of Civil War ran rampant. Heraklanos stamped these out when he had the armies declare him Augustus, and paid out a large bonus for his ascension. More money built up in the treasury during the reign of his brother were paid out to soldiers on the Danube frontier to maintain their loyalty as well. News of Antioch’s fall was not a great surprise to the Emperor, and he did not concern himself overmuch about it.
Instead he prepared his marshaling fleet to move a large force to Cyprus, and from there to take Tripoli in a massive seaborne invasion that would trap the entire Arab force left behind, allowing them to be destroyed. Before that operation could be launched however word came of the invasion of Egypt. That news was more dire than any other. Egypt at the time was the wealthiest province in the Empire. Indeed, it was the wealthiest region in all of the ancient world, outside the lands of the Far East. Its grain fed the population of Constantinople, and it provided a third of all Imperial tax revenue. If it fell the Empire would fall with it.
So Heraklanos changed his plans. His great fleet sailed for Alexandria rather than Cyprus, and word was sent to Africa to raise further forces to reinforce him if needed. In a move guaranteed to make the population hate him, he also suspended the free grain dole for the duration of the emergency. It would not be until 743 that it would be restored.
The army arrived in Alexandria in July of 635, and caught up on the situation. The Emperor speedily turned his attention East and marched on Pelusium, at the head of an army of fifty thousand. His forces were fed by grain collected from local farmers, as their taxes for the year. As the Emperor passed across the Nile he was joined by seven thousand Ghassanid tribesmen, and a large number of local forces, swelling his numbers to sixty thousand. This army he split, sending a third to Heliopolis, and taking the remainder north to Pelusium, which he reached on 31 July, 635 and laid siege to it, while his navy blockaded the harbor.
Roman siegecraft was far superior to Arab, and the walls were rapidly breached, leading the Arab garrison to surrender on 31 July. The Emperor then turned his force south and drove toward Clysma, looking to annihilate the Arab army completely. Al-Walid however heard of the Emperor’s push and abandoned his siege, using his men’s experience with the Arabian Peninsula to press toward Heliopolis over the desert, where the Imperial army would be hard pressed to follow.
The Arab commanders hope was likely that the restless Egyptian province would result in a greater willingness of the local population to be ruled by a new religious sect rather than the Chalcedonian Romans. In this he was both right and wrong. Theodosius’s bishop had kept the Egyptians in communion with the Chalcedonian church, and by this point Miaphysitism was on the decline in Egypt.
Those who remained however, many of them wealthy Egyptians, were happy to assist the attempted conquest, largely to keep their own power intact. These men provided food, and even men from their own estates to join the Arab armies. Most importantly however, they betrayed the army at Heliopolis. The force was tricked out of position and into an Arab ambush. Twelve thousand were killed, and the rest scattered. Most made it to Babylon, but many were never seen again.
By now however Heraklanos had realized what had happened, and was pressing back into central Egypt, and his army was still more than a match for the Arab force, which itself had been reduced to only about fifteen thousand. Al-Walid tried to withdraw, but was cornered by the Emperor and forced to a battle.
This time, the Emperor positioned his heavy cavalry directly in the center of his army, holding back the horse archers as a reserve force. The Roman infantry advanced to engage the wings of the Arab army, and the cataphracts smashed through the center, scattering the Arab archers and infantry. Al-Walid was not a great commander for nothing however, and he managed to gather what remained of his force and retreat out of Egypt with part of his army intact.
The Battle of Babylon was a major Roman victory, leaving six thousand Arabs dead on the field, for only two thousand Romans. When counting losses sustained during his retreat Al-Walid had only about five thousand men when he reached the safety of Arab held lands. Heraklanos sent a force to pursue, but leveled his immediate wrath on the Miaphysite nobles who had not fled with the Arabs. Several were executed, and dozens had their lands seized by the Emperor, who showed no distinction between those who had actively betrayed him, and those who merely had followed the wrong Church.
The Emperor finished cleaning the house in Egypt as 636 dawned, and so turned his attention back toward Palaestina, moving a force of twenty-thousand to Pelusium. He then ran into the same problem his brother had in the march from Antioch however, supply. While his army had arrived in Egypt as the land was ready to supply his army, the same would not be true of a march across the Sinai. His fleet meanwhile was busy keeping the gold coming from Constantinople, as soldier pay had long since exceeded the gold that Heraklanos had brought with him. Despite these difficulties the Emperor was prepared to march back into Palaestina, but was distracted by an uprising back in Thrace. A noble claiming to be the illegitimate son of Theodosius had raised an army of Slavs from their settlements in Thrace and declared himself Emperor.
Heraklanos turned and went to Alexandria, preparing to meet the threat at Constantinople, but by the time he arrived a further message had been sent that Justinian had already made it back to the capital from Italy, and had scattered the attempted revolt.
Irritated Heraklanos turned back to Pelusium, and again prepared to march out, but was forced once again to turn back. This time Justinian himself had called the Emperor back to Constantinople, to deal with Senatorial plots.
The Emperor, at this point at the end of his patience set his troops to building more fortifications at Pelusium, and sent a detachment south to Clysma, which was heavily fortified as well. The two fortresses would form the strongest points of the Limes Aegyptus, and would stand as the border of the Roman Empire for the duration of the First Caliphate. Heraklanos would never again visit the province.
If you are wondering what the Arabs were up to during all of this, you aren’t alone. Our primary source for all of this is Manuel II, whose extensive histories of the Roman Empire are a great source from the time of Julius I all the way to the days of his own reign. But Manuel is silent on this period, and the Arab sources were destroyed. What little we have to work with is archeological data and guesswork. Most modern scholarship has come to the opinion that the Arabs had never been happy with Ali’s takeover of the title of Caliph, and some sort of civil war had broken out inside Arabia.
If Heraklanos had taken advantage of such a situation he likely could have reclaimed the entire East with minimal difficulty. Or possibly reunited the Arabs against the Romans. In either case, the instability in both Empires rendered neither able to take advantage of the other’s distraction, at least not yet.
In Constantinople, several members of the nobility were furious about the loss of their estates in Syria, and the Emperor’s seeming disinterest in retaking them, and had begun plotting his assassination. Justinian had uncovered evidence of six different plots, but was far less ruthless than his older brother. He had imprisoned those suspected of treason, but not brought them to trial. Heraklanos had no such compunction. He tried them all, and found them all guilty rapidly. Estates were seized and nobles executed in large numbers.
In his justice he revived a practice that had long ago fallen into disfavor in the Empire, proscription. Names of wealthy senators were posted in the city, and those who were named as traitors were seized and tried. Those who tried to fight back in the courts were found guilty and executed. Those who confessed were spared, and sent to monasteries. Their estates that remained in Imperial hands were seized regardless.
Unfortunately for the Emperor, his policies only made more enemies. In 638 another plot was hatched, this one led by Justinian himself, who had grown sickened by his brother’s policies. In March the plot went forward, Heraklanos was cornered by Excubatores who were loyal to his brother, and murdered. He was 27 years old, and had been Emperor for four years.
Heraklanos is hard to judge. He was by any reckoning a cruel tyrant. But he was also militarily successful, and laid the groundwork for the defense of Egypt against the Arab raids which would continue for the coming century. If he had not been assassinated it is likely that the Roman army would have swept back into the Diocese of the East, retaking the land rapidly and reestablishing the old order. Perhaps even extending control down into Arabia, as client kings at the very least.
But he was assassinated. By his own brother, who we know was a kind and generous man, which may say more than anything else about Heraklanos’s rule than anything else.
Regardless, Justinian II was declared Augustus quickly as had been planned, and he immediately put an end to the proscriptions, destroying the old records. As his the young man prepared to march against the Arabs, but even as he gathered a new army to march across Anatolia, hopefully joining one he planned to dispatch from Egypt news came that changed everything.
The Lombards had been united under a new king for much of the past decade, and had recovered from their defeats at the hands of the Avars earlier in the century. That king, Aripurt had died in 635, being succeeded by his young and energetic son Rothair. Rothair had a dream of conquering all of Italy, and expelling the Romans once and for all. With Constantinople distracted in the East he invaded Roman Liguria, and conquered it.
It is here that Justinian II made his most important contribution to Imperial history. He turned his attention away from the Arabs, concluding a quick peace that recognized the Caliph’s hold on the Eastern provinces. Rather than marching East his army would go west. With plans to conquer the Lombards, and bring Italy back under the control of its true masters.
The Arabs for their part would finish their civil war in 639, and then turn their attention on the other local power, the Sassanids.
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Just wanted to say I am really enjoying this timeline. Can't wait to see what happens next.
Part 6: Turning West
Part VI: Turning West
Justinian II’s turn toward Italy was, in hindsight, a great decision. Italy had fertile soil, was relatively easy to defend, and had significant infrastructure that could be repaired or rebuilt, even considering the terrible destruction left by the Gothic War. At the time however, the Emperor was hated for his decision. Italy was a backwater, a place no one in Constantinople really cared about, and had the Emperor not personally led the campaign, and left loyal retainers in the capital who were willing to undertake actions the Emperor himself would not have done, he would certainly have been overthrown.
As it was however Justinian II was the last member of his dynasty who would die of natural causes.
Looking at it from the situation of people alive at the time however, we have to wonder, why did Justinian prioritize holding, and reconquering, Italy over retaking Syria. Certainly Syria was a wealthier province, one which had been heavily fortified, and one in which significant Roman forces still held out in the Eastern sections, primarily around the twin fortresses at Nisibis and Dara.
Beyond Syria the loss of Jerusalem rankled the clergy of the Empire, and many priests gave long sermons demanding that the Holy Land be retaken from the Arab pagans. More than a few had discussions with Imperial soldiers. The Patriarch was among these priests, and he would eventually die of completely unsuspicious causes when he was found to have somehow confused a plate of fruit with poison. Quite mysterious. His appointed successor, an Imperial supporter, quickly set the record straight about the Empire’s spiritual priorities.
The only holy figure who whole-heartedly approved of the Emperor’s turn was, naturally the archbishop of Roma itself, the Pope. The Lombards were Arians, and did not recognize the Pope’s authority, and indeed may have killed him had Imperial protection been revoked.
Justinian’s decision however was based on one simple fact, he did not particularly care about the East. He had no lands there, and had not visited before the Arab invasion. Both of his brothers had at least been with their father when he was in the East after the Spanish Wars. But Justinian had only been born in 615, he was too young to have traveled there when his father died.
Instead he had lived his entire life in Africa, where his family’s holdings were. Before Constantine became Emperor, Justinian had traveled extensively in Africa, and then had gone to Italy for a time, traveling the old cities of the Empire, both those under Imperial control and under the Lombards. He had also, according to tradition at least, traveled into the Frankish kingdoms in 630, where he had met the future king Dagobert, and had formed a friendship with the young prince.
That said, this latter point is almost certainly an invention of later writers as a fanciful justification for the way Justinian’s campaign unfolded.
Justinian’s initial army landed at Ravenna, as a force of about twenty-thousand. He gathered the soldiers of the Exarchate which could be spared and marched out immediately for Liguria. He had hoped to move swiftly enough to take the Lombards by surprise while they were still besieging Genoa, but this hope was not to be. Genoa had already surrendered when the Emperor landed, and Rothair turned his army to face the Romans, meeting them near Florenti. A brief battle was fought, with light casualties on both sides. His attempt to ambush the Lombards foiled however Justinian withdrew south. Rothair followed him, but his less professional army wasn’t able to keep up with the Roman pace. Instead Rothair turned and marched on Rome itself, hoping to draw the Romans back into a pitched battle.
Justinian did not take the bait. He instead invaded the Duchy of Beneventum. Duke Arechis, who had previously raided Roman territory, made a token showing of resisting the Romans, but after retreating from the field after a brief combat he instead opened talks with the Emperor. Justinian’s force made it clear what his objective was, and Arechis chafed under the authority of the greater kingdom to the North.
In mid-639 a treaty was signed between the Duchy and the Emperor, under which Beneventum would bow to Constantinople, but keep virtually all of his priveleges intact. His heirs would retain the Duchy as well, though their authority would be reduced. In exchange Arechis would be a tax totaling ten Nomismata to the Imperial treasury per year, and would enforce Imperial tax collection in the province.
The Duke of Spoleto, not wanting to be thrown under the cart to his southern neighbor did likewise in early 640. It may seem odd that the two most powerful Lombard dukes would switch allegiance so rapidly, but the reality is that neither expected Imperial control to last through their own lifetimes. The previous Roman attempts to hold Italy had been dismal failures, and both men likely expected this time to be no different. A bit of gold paid, a few soldiers provided, and in exchange they spared their realms the ravages of an Imperial war being waged on their soil.
The Romans now had, at least theoretical, control over the boot of Italy. His rear secured Justinian moved back toward the north. It was too late for the pope however, Rome had held out for almost a year under the Lombard siege, but gave up in April 640. The city was sacked, and the pope himself was killed by the Arian Rothair.
The Lombards retreated with the treasure they had taken, leaving behind a garrison in the city. Knowing the force was small however Justinian left a force of Bulgar mercenaries to harass any Lombard force that emerged from the city and instead turned north to pursue the Lombard king. A series of skirmishes ensured as both sides tried to lure the other into traps, but neither leader was tricked. The countryside of Tusci was ravaged by the fighting. A full year passed with no progress being made.
With the war having already lasted longer than he’d intended Justinian looked for a solution and found one in the north. Dagobert, the Frankish king, was an active monarch, and devoted Nicean, and had been outraged by the murder of the pope during the Lombard attack on Rome. With promises of Roman gold that outrage turned to action, and Dagobert invaded northern Italy in May 642.
The Franks smashed through what little resistance remained in the north, besieging Pavia in July. Rothair had to race north to try and drive the Franks away from his capital, with the Roman army hot on his heels.
The Lombard king likely meant to defeat the Franks in battle, then make a quick peace and return to the war of maneuver with Justinian. If so, he overestimated his army. The men were exhausted and angry from the long campaign, and with their homes in the north under attack they began to desert. When the Lombard army did reach the Franks it was a demoralized and reduced force. The subsequent battle of Pavia saw the Lombard army decisively beaten by the Franks, and then as they retreated the Romans fell upon them. Most of the soldiers surrendered, and Rothair was captured alongside many of his nobles. These wealthy men expected execution, but Justinian granted most of them clemency, requiring only that they renounce their territories in Italy and go to Constantinople for new land grants, far away from their bases of power. The nobles and their families were loaded onto ships and sent to the capital. Somehow Justinian’s strict instructions that they be granted new lands were misinterpreted by his bureaucrats however, who had most executed or tonsured.
This happened remarkably often under Justinian II’s reign, which is why his reputation as such a kind man is suspect. He was openly generous, but few of these generous claims were ever actually followed. The generous actions he did follow through on, such as the grants to the Italian dukes would be reneged on by his successors within a century, and were made from pragmatism more than anything else.
The Italian conquest however had no been completed, mostly. Some holdouts remained, but most of Italy was now back in Roman hands. The Franks would hold the Po Valley and other sections of the Peninsula for several centuries, but instability in the Frankish kingdom would keep a large-scale threat from appearing in the West for a long time. Additionally, Justinian married one of his cousins to Dagobert’s oldest son, cementing an alliance, and signing a treaty promising that Rome would not interfere if the Franks were to invade Gothic Spain while the alliance lasted.
This clause of the treaty was a cause of alarm for the Goths, who now had to worry about the possibility of Frankish conquest. A string of forts would be built along the northern border with Frankia, but they fell into disuse as the decades passed without incident.
Apart from the two duchies which were under Roman control the new Italian territories were granted to the Exarch of Ravenna, who was tasked with making sure the newly reconquered population of Italy did not try for independence. In this the Exarchate was mostly successful. There would be a few revolts that broke out, but Italy would be peaceful for a long time, shielded from the North by the Frankish territories.
The Emperor returned to Constantinople and celebrated a triumph. The victory however had been expensive. After effectively a decade of constant war the treasury was empty, and further campaigning was out of the question.
That however would not be the only bad news for the Empire. For the past fifty years the Romans had been free to concentrate on only one foe at a time. This breathing room had allowed them to destroy the Avars, decisively defeat the Persians, hold the Arabs out of Egypt, and finally retake Italy.
But as 643 began the Bulgars launched a raid across the Danube into Moesia. They were rapidly driven off by the local army, but not long after word came that the Sassanids and the Arabs had made peace in the East, and Arab raids into Egypt, and to a lesser extent Anatolia began.
The coming century would be one of conflict and hardship for the Romans, which would see the Empire stretched to the brink on more than one occasion. It would however be one that Justinian did not see. The plague had returned, and in its 643 sweep across the Empire the Emperor became sick, and died.
Justinian II was 28 years old, and had been Emperor for 5 years. Justinian II was a bad Emperor. His conquest of Italy was a move that would pay enormous dividends in the coming centuries. When the peninsula recovered it would become one of the most important sources of tax revenue, and more importantly one from which tax money could be relied upon, much like Sicily and Africa. With Egypt and Anatolia hit by Arab raids, Thrace and Greece raided by Bulgars, and even Armenia raided by the Khazars on occasion, the Romans needed the steady stream of currency from the West to keep the army function, and the grain to keep the Empire fed. All of that said however, the conquest Italy was a mistake. Retaking Syria and Palaestina would have resecured the far more valuable territories of Egypt and Anatolia, sparing both from the battles to come. Furthermore, with a weakened Arab caliphate the Empire would have been able to afford more troops along the Danube, holding off the Bulgars more effectively.
When both threats were weakened in the coming centuries then perhaps Italy could have been retaken, but Justinian’s obsession weakened the Empire he left behind too much. He conquered Italy yes, but he left behind an overstretched army, and an empty treasury, much as his namesake had. But he also left behind a four-year old heir.
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Its only terrible luck from their own perspective. From OTL's the Empire is actually in relatively good shape. Egypt and Armenia are still held, North Africa, Italy, and Sicily are secure, Anatolia is far more protected, and the Arabs are far, far weaker than they were OTL. The OTL equivalent of these last three Emperors reigned for short periods of time as well, and Heraclian dynasty (here just the last group of the Justinian dynasty) had a bad habit of leaving a successor who was young. What's about to happen is more or less the OTL Twenty Years' Anarchy half a century early.
Well personally I would find it interesting if Italy and north Africa became a new western roman empire
If it wasn't for the tendency of the Franks to divide their realm upon the king's death and the songs war amongst each other, I'd say the Franks would've been a good candidate to form a new western empire.
I mean, they kind of did, and the HRE was essentially a Frankish successor state to boot.
Right now they aren't really in any shape to do so. Italy is under Roman "control", but its going to be a long time before Imperial authority even starts to approach what exists in Anatolia or Greece. North Africa is far more solid, but even then Imperial money and support is needed to keep the Moors from overruning the territory, not to mention the Goths are still up in Spain eyeing territory across the Straits of Gibralter. That said, the Western territories are going to be the most untouched places in the decades to come, which will have consequences.
Part 7: Turning East
Part VII: Turning East
Before we reach the tragic end of the Justinian dynasty, and the decade of anarchy and usurpation which followed however we must turn our attention back to the East. When we last were in the Caliphate Khalid ibn al-Walid had returned to Arab lands with the remnant of his Eastern army to fight a civil war.
Probably. No Arab or Persian records of this period survive, and the Roman records come from centuries afterward. What we know of this period stems mostly from archeological findings. Sometime in 637-638 A major battle was fought near Medina, in al-Walid’s veteran army marching out of Syria routed an opposing force.
A second battle was then fought near Mecca, with al-Walid’s army again proving victorious. So the battles definitely happened. Of that we have no doubt. What we are left to ponder however is why they were fought, and against whom. We only know of al-Walid’s army’s involvement from following their trail during the advance down toward the Islamic Holy Cities.
Ali died at some point here, and it seems plausible that al-Walid was either on his way to depose the Caliph, or avenging him. Either could be completely true. We do know however that Ali’s successor was no a relative of Muhammud, but was instead a man named Umar, a former advisor to the Caliph and a man who was probably the most capable administrator of his age. He was also one of the most pious, a point which immediately turned dark as he had al-Walid dismissed from military service, and quite possibly executed, claiming that God brings victory rather than man.
Al-Walid was the most capable commander the Arabs had, and his loss was dearly felt in the coming campaign.
One of Umar’s first official acts however was to free captives taken from Arab tribes during the wars that had initially united the peninsula, winning loyalty and affection for himself. He also officially moved the capital north to Damascus, and set up the administration which kept the Caliphate functioning.
The jizya tax was introduced across the entire swathe of conquest now. The jizya was a Muslim innovation in which people who were not members of their faithful would pay extra taxes into the state, but otherwise be left largely undisturbed. It was one of many items which the Romans would keep when the lands were retaken. Although naturally, aimed in a different direction.
Soon however, resistance began building to Umar’s reign, and he turned the resistance toward more productive ends, pushing the powerful men in Arabia into an invasion of Lakhmid territory, previously ignored by the Arabs. Umar believed, rightly, that military victory would quiet those who doubted his reign. Lakhmid territory was overrun by June of 640, but this pulled the attention of the Sassanid Empire.
The Sassanids by this time had had room to recover, at least some, from the disastrous first quarter of the century. The Arabs had been forced to focus on the far stronger Romans first, and then one another, and only now could put their forces against the Persians. The Persian army was still weak, but when the Arabs crossed into Mesopotamia Shahriyar gathered a force and moved to oppose them.
The Arabs invaded from the south, taking town along the way, until they had effectively conquered the territory West of the Euphrates River. This force met and joined a second army marching out of Syria, and the two pressed down toward the old capital at Ctesiphon, now replaced by Esfahan deeper in core Persian territory.
More of less all of this had been unopposed, as Shahriyar had learned the lesson of the last Roman war, and so was against splitting up his forces in any way. Armies that might have stood and fought the Arabs instead had been ordered to retreat rather than be defeated piecemeal. This plan paid off when Shahriyar finally gave a battle, northeast of Seleukia. The Arab force numbered about 30,0000 and they faced off against forty thousand Persians.
Shahriyar hoped the Persian cavalry would give him a decisive edge against the Arabs and it well might have. But, the nobles were over-eager to crush the Arabs, and charged too soon. Rather than crushing the Arab armies the Persian cavalry was surrounded and destroyed. Seeing this disaster play out Shahriyar made a choice that Khosrow had refused to, he withdrew from the field. More than that he withdrew from Mesopotamia. The Battle of Seleukia had effectively been the defining battle of the war, much as Neapolis had been for the Roman loss of he East.
Retreating to the Zagros Mountains Shahriyar had his men begin construction of forts that would give the Persians a defensive position from which to resist Arab incursions into Persia proper. At the end of 640 the Arabs ruled Mesopotamia. The Persians would never again control the area.
I know what you are thinking. Is that it? The Persian Empire just lost its best territory in a single battle, and gave up?
Well, no. Persian soldiers raided across the border regularly through 641 and 642, while the Arabs set about actually conquering the area. Even though the Persian government had withdrawn the region wasn’t actually under Arab control yet. The fortified cities still had to be taken, or negotiated into surrender, and that took time. The Arabs were still conquering and holding a huge section of land. But if things had gone differently, there’s every chance the Persians would have won the war. The Arabs were overstretched, and Shahriyar was rebuilding an army to go on the offensive again.
But, those plans were canceled in 642 due to that old foe of the Romans and the Persians. The Black Death had finished its circuit, and was back in Persia decades after the last outbreak, and it swept through the cities and army camps, killing tens of thousands.
Of Shahriyar’s new army its estimated that somewhere between a third and half were dead of plague at year’s end, rendering any further plans he might have made pointless. On the positive side for the Persians, the disease cared little about national boundaries, and so it swept on through Persia, and into Mesopotamia, where it devastated the completely unprepared Arab armies as well.
From there it went on through Syria, and Palaestine, into Egypt and Anatolia. In 643 it reached Constantinople, where it killed the Emperor and twenty thousand people before reaching Italy. Here the still intact south was hit hard, and it spread north, ultimately reaching the territory of the Franks, and from there the Goths.
The 642 outbreak of Plague wasn’t as bad as the initial outbreak in Justinian I’s day, but it hit the Mediterranean badly, rendering any chance of external war out of the question for several years. Armies had to be rebuilt, and finances had to recover.
Quite by accident then the status quo going forward had been established. The Romans in Anatolia and Egypt, the Persians behind the Zagros Mountains, and the Arabs in the middle.
I should also note now, that when the Persians retreated so did the Nestorians, who set up their headquarters in Susa. As the Church of the East will be so important in the coming centuries, I thought it was important to mention that now was when it really established what would become the modern form.
The Arabs were, without a doubt, the strongest in the region. They controlled a large, and by now highly skilled and veteran army. The finances of the Arab state were strong, both because of the territory controlled, but also because of the structure of its empire. The Caliph was the dominant force of the old tribes, who still provided much of the pay and equipment of their soldiers.
The Sassanids were the weakest, both militarily and financially. The reserves of cash that Shahriyar had built up had been expended trying to rebuild his army after the defeat at Seleukia, and on his fortresses. The aswaran had been virtually destroyed as well, leaving the nobles who made up the elite Persian cavalry severely depleted. Its rather similar to the Roman situation after Cannae. The nobles and their sons were dead. New nobles would have to rise to take those positions, but for now there were simply none left. The elite Persian cavalry, which was such a fixture of the wars between the Romans and the Sassanids, was fundamentally dead.
The Romans, were the strongest on paper. The Army still numbered some two hundred thousand all told, but most of these were garrison forces. Of the five old field armies only three remained. One of these had to be stationed in Egypt at all times, and one in Anatolia. The last was near Constantinople. That left only garrison forces for Greece, the Balkans, Italy, North Africa, and Armenia. The Roman state was financially drained after a decade of war, and its finances were in shambles. We’ll discuss this after the coming civil war. Oh yes, and the Romans are also about to fight a civil war.
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