The Mazdakite Wars, Part Five: The Campaigns of 531
The Roman reinforcements would arrive at Belisarius’ camp in May of 531, after a long march. The commander, now with 45,000 men under his command (three entire Imperial field armies), decided that now was the best time to split away from his Persian comrades, who, now commanded by Azarethes and reinforced to a much more stable 50,000, were still intent on retaking Shiraz from Perozes. Belisarius would take his command and try to push through the center.
The center of the battlefront between the Mazdakites and the Loyalists, stretching from Shiraz to the Harrirud, had been the site of very little fighting in the first year and a half of the war. There had been a few violent skirmishes, that was true- but the push from the North and South by the Mazdakites had taken precedence. The Loyalists had been forced to fight against the North/South advances, leaving the center dangerously low of Loyalist forces, beyond some peasant militias. The Mazdakites, however, seemed content to let this be- the campaigns to the north and south called their attention, and so they left a paltry number of regular soldiers in charge of the entire center, assisted by various Mazdakite irregulars.
The rebel in charge of this center was the one-eyed Baresmanes, a rather uninspiring general who had joined the Mazdakites only because they had promised him a higher command than he was likely to receive under the Loyalists. He spent most of his time at his headquarters in Ravar, surrounded by the main force of Mazdakite troops (25,000 regulars, and some 30,000 irregulars), content to while away his time torturing various Zoroastrian clerics who he accused to refusing to adopt the new Mazdakite theology and selecting the most beautiful of the local girls for his enjoyment. His men had settled down in the surrounding territory over the year, with no action than the occasional raid back and forth, some of them even bringing their families to Ravar. All in all, Ravar was a weak point in the Mazdakite line, and Belisarius planned to exploit it.
It was a fair distance from his headquarters three-days from Shiraz to Ravar- at least a 70 day march away. But Belisarius was determined to launch an attack on Ravar, come Hell or high water. It made tactical sense- a victory at Ravar against Baresmanes would be able to be capitalized on with ease, as there was a dearth of supporting Mazdakite armies nearby. A push by Belisarius deep into Mazdakite-held lands would also ease pressure on the fronts near the Harirud and Shiraz, allowing Khosrau and Azarethes more of an edge against their opponents, whose commands would be weakened in an attempt to stem the Imperial tide. Yes, it was a perfect plan- it would just take time.
The men set out in mid-May, and from the very beginning, the trip was fraught with delays. A dearth of Persian speakers in Belisarius’s army made procurement of supplies difficult, and it was not helped by the mistrust most Persians had of the Imperial soldiers (memories of the chaos Belisarius’s column had spread during their march into Persia the previous year still lingered). Some locals, perhaps Mazdakite sympathizers, would even give the Imperials false directions, leading to several instances of doubling back and slowing down. All in all, it ended up taking the Roman’s the equivalent of an additional month to reach striking distance of Ravar, arriving sometime in late August.
Their march did not go unnoticed by Mazdakite spies. They relayed words to their handlers, who then relayed the messages to Kawus and the High Command. Kawus was certain that they were making to reinforce Khosrau to deliver a blow against him; feeling his position vulnerable, Khosrau launched a brutal offensive over that summer against his brother’s troops, hoping to destroy his field army before the supposed arrival of the Romans. This would lead to several costly battles, with both sides taking a severe beating- but Khosrau’s force was not destroyed, and by August, the lines were still near to where they had been at the start of the summer.
Kawus could take comfort, though, from the fact that the Romans, despite marching for over 100 days, were still a fair distance away from his position near the banks of the Harrirud. He gave credit to his spies for a masterful job of delaying, and ordered reinforcements to be brought in to strengthen his position. It may have dawned on him to late that he was not the intended target- some messages sent from his headquarters in mid-August to Baresmanes hinted that there may be action on his position soon, and he encouraged him to prepare. Even if he had wanted to send reinforcements, Ravar was too far away, and his own force, badly bloodied in the unsuccessful attacks of that summer, needed the lion’s share of reinforcements if it was to survive another brush with Khosrau.
Baresmanes, for his part, brushed the late warnings aside. He felt he was in too strong of a defensive position for anyone to try to attack from the West- the terrain was quite uneven, mountainous even, and the only way an army could approach was from the north or the south. The approaching army, emerging from the hills onto some more level ground, would be spotted with ease, giving him and his men plenty of reaction time to get into battle order and prepare to receive their tired opponents.
Unfortunately for Baresmanes, his plan did not work.
The Romans, nearing Ravar towards the end of August, carefully scouted out their target. Most of Baresmanes’s regulars were camped towards the southern end of the town, living out of semi-permanent structures, while the irregulars were scattered throughout the region, some as far as three miles away. A daring plan was made by the Imperial’s- they would attack in the early morning semi-darkness, smashing through the regulars and capturing Baresmanes and the town before the irregulars could be summoned to the field. To this end, the Imperial’s emerged onto the flatland surrounding the town in the cover of darkness, hoping that Baresmane’s sentries wouldn’t notice.
They did not, for there were no sentries posted at all. There had been no action of any exciting note that entire year (and even the year before), and the vast majority of Baresmane’s men had relaxed to the point of laziness. Baresmanes himself had just arrived back from a hunting trip that day, and was spending the night carousing with his lieutenants and other officers in the hall. While they raucously drank and fondled serving girls, the Romans drew ever closer.
At around 4 o’clock in the morning, a Roman cavalry trumpet blared out a call to charge. The trumpets noise traveled into the camp, and a few early risers sought the origin of the sound. The sound of thundering hooves awoke many others, and as the men of Baresmanes stumbled out of bed, the Roman cavalry, led by Belisarius, made contact.
It was utter chaos in the Mazdakite camp. The Romans rode north, slashing and stabbing at anything that moved. Women and children of the soldiers screamed, cut down as well in the darkness. The cavalry burst clear through the camp, into the village, reaching the hall where Baresmanes and his men were finally bedding down to sleep after their revelry. The one-eyed commander blearily stepped from his hall to see what was going on, only to be confronted by a throng of Roman cavalrymen, swords and spears drawn. The commander frowned and shook a fist at the Imperials, famously declaring “Isn’t a bit too early for all of this?”
His men who had survived the strike, and were fully awake now, were reaching stages of readiness when the Roman infantry caught up with its cavalry contingent. A few clumps of Mazdakites would offer fierce, if futile, resistance, but many just threw down their weapons and gave up. The vast majority of the action was over before seven o’clock- a few irregulars would shuffle down from their camps to see what was going on, only to be scattered, while most turned tail and fled back East towards their homes.
It was an utter and complete victory for Belisarius and his Imperials. Receiving minimal casualties, they had knocked out an entire Mazdakite army and had captured their commander. Belisarius sent word to the nearest Loyalist forces to take possession of his prisoners, for he had plans to march further into Mazdakite territory, if he could. The Loyalists, at first, did not believe that the Romans had captured Ravar, but they eventually arrived on the scene in mid-September- a delay that angered Belisarius. After unceremoniously dumping the army of Baresmanes (as well as the man himself) on his allies, Belisarius and the Imperials continued their march east.
Kawus received word about the defeat around this same time, and was furious. He was furious, for one, that Baresmanes had allowed himself to be caught so totally with his pants down; but what was even more galling was the fact that an entire force of regulars had been taken out of the picture. The Mazdakites, at this point of the war, with the bloodletting in the North and continual clashes around Shiraz in the south, were hurting for trained troops, being forced more and more to rely on new recruits. While these recruits were often quite fanatical, they were poorly trained and lacked the military supplies needed to field an effective field army against the Loyalists. He sent what few forces he could spare to the Center, hoping to stave off the Roman advance before it got too far, but, as stated, he needed the vast majority of his troops to defend his position on the Harrirud.
Belisarius’ next move was to march south to take the city of Kerman, which had been captured by Perozes in the opening months of the conflict. Kerman, located only an eleven days march south of Ravar, had been left with a paltry garrison of irregulars after the Battle of Shiraz the year before, the regulars that had been stationed there summoned to reinforce the army of Perozes. The irregulars, after a brief struggle in early October, were routed and Kerman returned to Loyalist hands.
With the fall of Kerman, the line of communication between Perozes in Shiraz and Kawus in Aria grew ever more threatened, and Belisarius’ next planned move would push it back further still. Abandoing his intention to push into the Mazdakite center (a decision that would be much debated by alternate historians in the future), the thought occurred to him to drive to the coast, trapping Perozes and his troops in a pocket near Shiraz, and the next target on this road was Sirjan, which was merely another fifteen days march away or so. Sirjan was dangerously close to Perozes rear, and when news of the Roman heading reaching the Mazdakite commander, he was a bit closer on the uptake than his fellow, Baresmanes. With great reluctance, Perozes withdrew from Shiraz and began to pull his troops back towards Hormirzad; Shiraz was re-occupied by Loyalists in late October, with many of the leaders of the town summarily executed by Azarethes for their actions the previous year.
Sirjan fell without a major fight around the time that the Loyalists entered the streets of Shiraz, and Belisarius, being apprised of Perozes’ fleeing towards the coast, was determined to cut him off. He spurred his troops on south, knowing he was closer to Hormirzad and thus more likely to reach it first. He barreled on South, forcing his ways through what ineffectual resistance the Mazdakites could throw at him. After nearly a month of hard marching, his troops reached Hormirzad, which was surrounded and cut off by land.
Perozes, some twenty days still from Hormirzad, cursed his ill luck- cut off by the Romans to the West, with Azarethes hot on his tail, he only had one way out- the sea. Force marching his men south to the coastline to the settlement of Charak; there, with Azarethes only a day or two behind him at that point, Perozes commandeered every boat he could in the surrounding area. Piling his men on the vessels, they struck out into the sea just as the Loyalists caught up to them. It was not a clean getaway, as they had to leave their horses, elephants (most of which were killed), and supplies in Charak; in addition, some men were unable to get onto boats in time and were captured, and several boats were overfilled and sank, but around 30,000 veterans of the campaigns around Shiraz that year escaped, landing in Harmozeia, just beyond the reach of Belisarius.
Belisarius, wanting to leave the siege to Azarethes and push on towards Harmozeia, which was only a short distance relatively from Hormirzad, asked his Persia counterpart to assist in the matter; but Azarethes informed Belisarius that he was unable to assist, being forced to subdue Mazdakite irregulars and sympathizers in order to secure the chunk of territory Belisarius had cut off. Belisarius, disgusted by this, remained encamped outside Hormirzad, setting up siege camps and doing his best to cut off the supply route by sea (a task he accomplished in mid-December), while reports came in of Perozes strengthening his surviving force in Harmozeia.
And thus, the year turned, with many of the initial Mazdakite gains in the south recaptured by government forces. Kawus felt he was very near a collapse, his men pinned down now by the Loyalists. However, one of his attending commanders proposed a radical plan of subterfuge, reflecting back on the success of the peasant rising in Shiraz the year before. This commander, whose name has been lost to history, declared that many of the lower class in Loyalist territories were loyal to the Mazdakite cause. If they were able to convince them to arise and revolt against their overlords, he reasoned, and if they were able to get groups from across the country to rise up, than the Loyalists would have to divert their forces towards stamping out these revolts, allowing the main body of Mazdakites to regroup, train, and, perhaps, reverse the momentum.
Kawus at first wasn’t too pleased with this idea. He had jumped on the Mazdakite bandwagon at first just to gain power- he feared that if the lower class realized that they had some semblance of power, they would never allow themselves to be governed again. However, in desperation, he agreed to the plan.
This would prove to be a fateful decision, the repercussions of which would affect the region in the coming centuries…
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Another long update! I hope you enjoy!