Battle of Yarmouk

In 636, the Byzantine Empire faces the armies Moslem S at the time of the battles of the Yarmouk , in the south of the Syria.

The Byzantine army was a coalition gathering of the Greeks but also Armenians of Slavic and Christian Arabs of Syria or kingdom ghassanide. Undoubtedly more than 40.000 men including 12.000 ghassanides. The Moslem army counted approximately 20.000 men to start, especially riders. The Byzantine army was ordered by the proper brother of the emperor, Theodore, by the Georges Armenian and called Bannes or Behan. The Moslem army was ordered by the largest Arab strategist of the time, Khalid Ibn Walid. Among the Moslems there were then recently Christian Arabs lately converted with Islam, and as they had the clear dye, they could mix with the Byzantine troops and bring back of it to Khalid the news of the imminence of the attack. Khaled set up at once its troops. The infantrymen were laid out in three lines, a made up first archers, the second of men armed with sabers, the third of carriers of lances. Riders were laid out in the intervals. To encourage its men Khalid also gave to certain veterans, carefully selected for this purpose, the order to recite the verses of Coran adapted, at the time of the combat, in particular those of the sourate known as of the spoils. L E August 30th at dawn the Byzantine coalition advanced in battle order. The first day started with some skirmishes or of the singular combat. The combat of the second day begin with an attack from the Byzantine left wing on the Moslem right wing. But the Moslems held good and the Byzantines last being reinforced by a second battalion then a third. This moment part of the Moslem right wing was folded up towards the center and the other moved back. When Khalid noticed the thing it launched against attack on the enemy left wing and arrived, after several furious attacks, to restore the situation. The third day, the Moslem left wing knew the same fate. The fourth day is called " the day of the borgnes" and begin with singular combat during which the Moslems took the advantage. The loss of several of its captains among most valorous put the Byzantine généralissime in an insane rage and it ordered with its archers to draw " hundred thousand arrows of only one trait". They fell as from hail on the Moslems who counted 700 disbudded men. At least according to the legend. The fifth day it occurred something, one something on which our sources diverge (a sandstorm? Fog) but which undoubtedly seriously handicapped the movement of the heavy Byzantine coalition. Khalid gave then the commanders of the center and the two wings the signal of the general attack, then ordered in Qaiss Ibn Habirah (the commander of its second body of cavalry) to attack the Byzantine left wing, so, by this operation, to deprive the enemy infantry of her support. Of aucuns have then advanced the assumption of a defection of the 12.000 men of the light cavalry of the Christian Arabs of the tribe of Ghassanides, badly paids or not paid for several months by the Byzantines, the Moslems having offered to them to pay their arrears. Thus making pass manpower of the Byzantine army from 40.000 to 28.000 men and those of the Moslem army from 20.000 to 32.000 men. This Byzantine left wing was made up of Slavic which was defended step by step but, fault of being supported by their cavalry, they were folded back on their center made up of Armenians. The Byzantine généralissime tried to gather what remained of its cavalry to counter-attack but its heavy cavalry could not compete with the speed and the lightness of the Moslem cavalry. De Goeje (Memories on the conquest of Syria, p.113) quotes the account of specifying Théophane on the battle: " the troops of the sacellaire were withdrawn then and the Moslems, benefitting from the occasion, started the combat. A strong wind of the blowing south to the face of the Romans, a thick dust prevented them from seeing the enemy, and that was the cause of their defeat. They precipitated in the ravines of Yarmouk and perished there almost tous". This version nevertheless is disputed, just like that which wants that the Byzantine infantry fought connected by group of ten. It seems that this comes indeed from a banal mistranslation. The connected men are perhaps quite simply men gathered in tight formation. Certain historians estimate at the 70 or 120.000 dead Byzantine losses (against 3 or 4 thousand Moslems). According to Tabari more than 120.000 Byzantines perished in the ravine of Yakouça and drowned. Theodore, the brother of the Héraclius emperor, was killed. Was the infantry completely destroyed and there remained only riders (of which Ghassanides having been lacking?) scattered in all the directions, towards Damas, towards Césarée, Antioche and even towards Jerusalem. The defeat of Yarmouk although very clear did not assign in addition to measurement the leaders of Constantinople, who worried more about the Persian or Bulgarian danger. It was nevertheless the first of a long succession of victories which were going to end up delivering to the Moslems all the southernmost and Eastern basin of the Mediterranean. The battle of Yarmouk will seal Arab supremacy in Syria of North, where the Christian population monophysite perceived the Moslem projection like a release of the Byzantine yoke. One can legitimately wonder about the reality of the losses undergone by all and sundry. The hagiography transmitted during the centuries by Moslem piles evokes the figure of 60 Moslems killed against 240.000 thousand Christians. This kind of heroic amplification is frequent in the History. When Léonidas and its 300 hoplites died in Thermopyles into -480 the Greeks buried deaths in the place where they had fallen and an inscription remained famous recalled a long time that in this place four thousand Péloponnésiens had fought against three million Barbarians.

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