User:Mohammad adil/sandbox16

Prelude

Prophet Mohammad died in June 632, and Abu Bakr was appointed Caliph and his political successor. Troubles emerged soon after Abu Bakr's succession. Several Arabic tribes revolted against Abu Bakr. This was the start of the Ridda wars (Arabic for the Wars of Apostasy). Abu Bakr declared war against the rebels, The Campaign of the Apostasy was fought and completed during 632, and by 633, with Arabia united under the central authority of the Caliph at Medina. Once the rebellions had been put down, Abu Bakr began a war of conquest, Abu Bakr began with Iraq, the richest province of the Persian Empire. He sent his most brilliant general Khalid ibn al-Walid to invade the Sassanid Persian Empire. After successful campaigns against Sassanid Persians and conquest of Iraq, Abu Bakr's confidence built up, once Khalid established his stronghold on Iraq, Abu Bakr issued a call to arms for the invasion of Syria in February 634. The muslim invasion of Syria was a carefully planned, coordinated and organised series of military operation using strategy well able to deal with Byzantine defensive measures. Abu Bakr organised the army in to four corps, each with its own commander and objective, this tactics of penetrating by several self-sufficient armies eliminated the traditional distinction between "front" and "rear". These armies soon proved to be small, and called for reinforcement when when Byzantine emperor Heraclius, disturbed by this Arabian movement, ent in a foray, his brother Theodore to lead an army of Syrian garrisons against the invaders. Khalid was sent by Abu Bakr from Iraq to Syria with reinforcement and to lead the invasion. The battle thus fought was at Ajnadayn, were byzantines were decisively defeated. Damascus fall in september 634, followed by Battle of Fihal were the last strong garrison of Palestine was defeated and routed. Caliph Abu Bakr died in 634, making Umar his successor. While Abu Bakr had been successful in invading Syria, Umar was determined to extend the reach of his kingdom and continued the conquest deeper into Syria. Though previous campaigns led by Khalid ibn al-Walid were successful, he was never in the good books of Umar and was replaced by Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah. The Arabs had already secured southern Palestine now advanced up the trade route that went east of Jordan and over to Damascus and Orontes valley. Tiberias and Baalbek fell into the hands of the Arabs without much struggle and the Muslims Conquered Emesa later that year. From there on, the Muslims continued their conquest across the Levant.

I have edited the prelude section, read my edits and hope you will not disagree with them, the main reason to edit it is that the starting of invasion was not discussed and the conquest during abu bakr's reign were not discussed as well, i have divided them firt hafl under abu bakr and the second half under umar

damascus was captured in 634 not in 635 and it was during the siege of damascu that abu bakr died and khalid was dismissed from command by umar. there are sources which mixup all the dates, like few says that damascus was captured in 635 which is normally rejected by authentic historians. similarly many says that yarmouk was fought in 634, which inturn is rejected by majority of historians, Akram suggest that this mixxing of the date of yarmouk is due to battl of Yaqusah fought in the same region and early historians may therefore have mixed there dates. my edits explains the event a little bit in the sequnce they actually happned. if there are any issues please let me know.

Byzantine counter-attack

By 635, Muslims had conquered most of Palestine and southern Syria and with Emesa under their power, the Muslims were just a march away from Aleppo, a Byzantine stronghold and Antioch where Heraclius resided. Now seriously alarmed by this debacle and holding a personal vendetta against the Muslims, Heraclius started to plan for a counter-attack to roll back the lost region. Emperor Heraclius assembled large army in northern Syria and Antioch in late-635 to halt the Arab invasion. Preparations started in late 635, and by May 636, a large force was put under arms and was concentrated at Antioch and northern Syria. The assembled army consisted of contingents of Byzantines, Slavs, Franks, Georgians, Armenians and Christian Arabs,. This force was organized into five armies, Joint leader of which was Theodore Trithourios the Sakellarios, and Vahan, the king of Armenia — who commanded a purely Armenian army, was the field commander, Buccinator (Qanateer), a Slavic prince commanded the Slavs and Jabalah ibn al-Aiham, king of the Ghassanid Arabs, commanded an exclusively Christian Arab force. The remaining contingents (all European), were placed under Gregory and Dairjan.. Heraclius himself supervised operation from Antioch. Byzantine sources tells about the presence of Niketas son of Shahrbaraz among the commanders but it is not certain which army he commanded.

The plan for battle

At this time, the Rashidun army was split in four groups: one under Amr ibn al-Aas in Palestine, one under Shurahbil in Jordan, one under Yazid ibn Abu Sufyan at Damascus-Caesarea region and the last one under Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah along with Khalid ibn al-Walid at Emesa. Being geographically divided up in each direction, Heraclius sought to exploit this situation and planned to attack and destroy each of these Muslim corps separately by putting a large concentration of troops against each of them in turn. Thus, reinforcements were sent to Caesarea under Heraclius’s son Constantine, probably to tie down Yazid's forces there, which were besieging Caesarea, so that it would not move to join other Muslim corps to help them. The rest of the Imperial Army was to operate on the following plan:

• Jabla would march from Aleppo on the direct route to Emessa via Hama, and hold the Muslims frontally in the Emessa region. The lighter-armed but faster moving Christian Arabs would thus be the first to contact the Muslim Arabs.
• Dairjan would move between the coast and the Aleppo road and approach Emessa from the west, thus striking the Muslims in their flank while they were held frontally by Jabla.
• Gregory would advance on Emessa from the north-east and attack the Muslims in their right flanks at the same time as they were struck by Dairjan.
• Qanateer would move along the coastal route up to Beirut, then approach Damascus from the west and cut off Abu Ubaidah.
• Mahan’s army would advance behind the Christian Arabs and act as a reserve.

The imperial army was launched from Antioch and northern Syria some time in the middle of June 636.

Armies

In most Muslim accounts the size of the united forces was stated between 24,000 and 40,000 and the number of Byzantine forces at between 100,000 and 200,000. Size of Byzantine army is highly exaggrated. Modern estimates of the sizes of the respective armies vary: between 80,000 - 120,000 for the Byzantine army, and 25,000 - 40,000 for the Rashidun army, with exaggerations on both sides by older historians. These figures come from studying the logistical capabilities of the combatants, the sustainability of their respective bases of operations, and the overall manpower constraints affecting the Romans and Arabs. Most scholars, however, agree that the Byzantine army and their allies outnumbered the Muslim Arabs by a sizeable margin.

Rashidun

It was at Shaizar, through Roman prisoners, that the Muslims first came to know of the preparations being made by Heraclius. Alert to the possibility of being caught with separated forces that could be destroyed in detail, as Heraclius indeed planned, Khalid, in a council of war, advised Abu Ubaidah to pull back from northern and central Syria, as well as from Palestine and concentrated the entire Rashidun army at one place. Abu Ubaidah ordered the concentration of trops in the vast plain near Jabiya which was suitable for cavalry charge and from there it would be easier for the caliph to send reinforcements and thus a strong, united force could be fielded against the Byzantine armies. The position also was beneficiary, due to its close proximity to Najd (a Rashidun stronghold), in case of retreat.[19] Ibn al-Jarrah, Muslim's commander in chef, thus ordered the commanders to surrender the territory under their control and withdraw the army to Jabiya. In addition, he ordered the commanders to return the jizya (tribute) to the people who had paid it. At first muslims concentrated at Jabiya, but were subjected at raids from pro-Byzantine Ghassanid forces, the region was also not suitable to camp as there was a strong byzantine garrison in Caeseara that could attack Muslims from rear while they were frontly held by the Byzantine army. On Khalid’s advise they retreated to Dara’ah and dayr Ayyub covering the gap between Yarmouk Gorges and Harra lava plains established a line of camps in the eastern part of the plain of Yarmuk. No major conflict occurred except for a minor skirmish between Khalid's elite light cavalry Mobile guard and Byzantine Advance guard. During a council of war, Khalid ibn Walid, the former commander in chief of the Rashidun army in the campaign of Syria, offered his services as a commander of the Muslim army until the battle was over and it was given to him that day; Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah's military credentials were not as high as Khalid's. After taking command, Khalid reorganized the army into infantry and cavalry regiments, with cavalry making up a quarter of army. Khalid further divided the army into 36 infantry regiments and four cavalry regiments; with his cavalry elite, mobile guard, held in reserve. Over the course of the battle Khalid would repeatedly make critical, decisive use of this mounted reserve.

The army was lined up on a front of ten miles, with its left on the Yarmouk River a mile before the ravine began and its right on the Jabiya road, with substantial gaps between the divisions so that they could cover the whole area that Byzantines were covering with there 11 miles battle front. The center of the army was under the command of Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah (left half) and Shurhabil bin Hassana (right half). The left wing was under the command of Yazid and the right wing was under Amr ibn al-A'as. Center, left and right wings were given cavalry regiments under command, to be used as a reserve for counter attack in case they were pushed back by the Byzantines. Behind the center stood mobile guard under the personal command of Khalid. When Khalid was occupied in the conduct of the battle, Zirrar ibn al-Azwar would command the mobile guard. Each of the four corps had nine infantry regiments, which were all formed on a tribal and clan basis, so that every man would fight next to well-known comrades, and the army pushed out a line of scouts to keep the Byzantines under observation. The battle formation of Tabi'a was used which was a type of close defensive formation. In late July 636, Mahan sent Jabla with his Christian Arabs forces to check the strength of the Muslim front, but they were repulsed by the mobile guard under Khalid. After this initial operation, no military activities occurred for a month.

Byzantine

A few days after Muslims, the Byzantine army — proceeded by the lightly armed Ghassanids of Jabla — moved forward and established their strongly fortified camps just north of the Wadi-ur-Raqqad, some Byzanitne sources also mentions a fortified encampment at Yaqusah, 18 kilometer from the battlefield. Mahan deployed the Imperial Army forward of Allan, with a front about 11 miles long, as he was trying to cover the whole area between Yarmouk gorge and Roman road to Egypt, and there have been substantial gaps between the byzantine division. He used his four regular armies to form the line of battle, extending from the Wadi Allan to south of the Hill of Jabiya. The right wing was commanded by Gregory and left was commanded by Qanateer. The centre was formed by the army of Dairjan and the Armenian army of Mahan-both under the command of Dairjan. The Roman regular cavalry was distributed equally among the four armies, with each army deployed with its infantry holding the front and its cavalry held as a reserve in the rear. Ahead of the front line, across the entire 11-mile front, Mahan deployed the Christian Arab army of Jabla, which was all mounted on horses and camels. This army acted as a screen and skirmish line, until they would be joined by the main army. The army of Gregory, which formed the right wing, used chains to link its foot soldiers together. All these foot soldiers had taken the oath of death. These chains were in 10-men lengths, and were used as a proof of unshakeable courage on the part of the men, who thus displayed their willingness to die where they stood and not retreat. The chains also acted as an insurance against a break-through by enemy cavalry.

Tensions in Byzantine army

It was a rare occasion of Byzantines engaging in decisive battle and it created logistical constraints on Byzantines, Rashisdun army's strategy of withdrawl from all occupied areas and concentrating all troops at one place to give a decisive battle inturn forced all five of the Byzantine armies to concentrate at one place. This created logistic problems for the Byzantines as Damascus was only closest logistic base and Mansur, leader of Damascus, couldn’t supply massive Byzantine army that was gathered at yarmouk plain and few clashes were reported with local citizens over supply requisition, as it was end of summer and thus decline of pasturage. Greek court sources also claim treasonous disobedience to Heraclius’ command not to engage in large-scale battle with Arabs, but after concentration of Muslims at yarmouk, Vahan had no other option available. The relation between byzantine commander were also not less tense, and there was a struggle for power between Trithurios and Vahan, Jarajis and Qanatir (Buccinator). Jabla, the Christian Arab leader was ignored several time, though his opinion was of great importance as the region was of his domain and he had a good knowledge of the terrain. Thus a mistrust was created between Greeks, Armenians, and Arabs. Ecclesiastical feuds between Monophysite and Chalcedon are reported though it didn't had any direct impact, but underlyed tensions. All this decreased coordination and planning, one of the reason of Byzantine catastrophic defeat in the battle.

Vahan was instructed by Heraculis, not to start battle until all avenues of peaceful negotiation had been explored. Grogory and then Jabla were sent by Vahan to negotiate but their efforts failed. Before the battle, on Vahan’s invitation, Khalid came to talks but still with no result.[21] Meanwhile Caliph Umar sent a reinforcement of 6,000 troops, mostly from Yemen as well as 1,000 Sahaba (companions of Muhammad), among them a 100 veterans of the Battle of Badr, the first battle of Islamic conquest. The army also included citizens of the highest rank, such as Zubair,[22] Abu Sufyan, and his wife Hind bint Utbah.[23] Thus Byzantines were forced to attack because the Muslims kept getting reinforcements.