Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of Yarmouk (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everyone, this is Gary, and I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be taking a brief summer break this week. So I've lined up some episodes from the archives that statistically I know most of you haven't listened to. And if you have heard it, it'll be a good refresher. I'll be back again with new episodes on July 23rd. From August 15th to August 20th, in the year 636, one of the most important battles in world history took place. The participants in the battle couldn't have known it, but the results of that battle would shape world history for the next 1,400 years. Much of the geography of the world today can be traced back to the results of those six days. Learn more about the Battle of Yarmuk and one of the most important battles in world history

Starting point is 00:00:43 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thulein podcast from NPR. I considered doing an episode on the greatest battles in world history.

Starting point is 00:01:29 I did quite a bit of research on the topic, and I eventually found myself asking the question, what is a great battle? I previously did an episode on the Battle of Canny, where the Romans were routed by the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. It's a very famous battle simply for the brilliant general ship of Hannibal. However, in the end, it didn't really matter. Rome lost the battle, but they still ended up winning the war. So I began trying to find battles that really turned the course of history. These type of conflicts wouldn't have been one European king fighting some other European king, but rather clashes of civilizations.

Starting point is 00:02:01 A battle where, if things were to have gone differently, the world would be a very different place today. Sometimes it's a case of defeating an invading army, like in the Battle of Marathon, and sometimes it might be the success of a conquering army, like the Battle of Gagamella. I still might do that episode, giving an overview of such battles, but I also wanted to give each of them their own due because they're so important to creating the world we live in, and also because many of these battles are ones that most people have never heard of. That's the case with the battle I want to talk about today, the Battle of Yarmuk, the first great decisive battle between the early Islamic Caliphate and the Christian Byzantine Empire.

Starting point is 00:02:38 The early 7th century was pretty close to peak Byzantine Empire, which if you remember back to the very first episode of this podcast ever, was actually just the Roman Empire which didn't fall apart. in the East. At no point during the Byzantine Empire did anyone ever call it that, and so I'll be using the term Byzantine and Roman interchangeably during this show. Their biggest adversary during this period was the Sasanian Empire, which was primarily centered in modern day Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. This East-West clash was the current version of a similar one which had gone on for a thousand years. First it was the Greeks and the Persians, then it was the Romans and the Parthians, and now it was the Byzantines and the

Starting point is 00:03:16 Sasanians. The point is that neither the Byzantines nor the Sasanians were paying any attention to what was happening in the Arabian Peninsula. Arabia was a huge desert, and the people who lived there were nomadic. They weren't considered a threat to any of the major powers. Well, they probably should have paid more attention. In the first several decades of the 7th century, the Prophet Muhammad created a new state centered in the Western Arabian city of Mecca. From there, he and his followers managed to unite the Arabian Peninsula through a series of conquests and conversions, and then began to expand outward. Muhammad died in 632, and his successor was his close advisor and father-in-law,

Starting point is 00:03:52 Abu Bakar. He became the first caliphate of the first caliphate, the Rashidun caliphate. He and his successor, two years later, Umar, rapidly expanded out of the Arabian Peninsula. Much of the success was due in large part to the general Khalid Ibn Al-Walid. I previously did an entire episode on El-Walid, so I'm not going to go into too much depth on him here. However, I will simply say that El-Walid was unquestionably the greatest Muslim general of the period, and probably one of the top five or ten generals in world history.

Starting point is 00:04:22 As the caliphates spread north into the Levant, they were on a collision course with the Byzantines. The Byzantines controlled everything around the eastern Mediterranean at that time, including what is today Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. The Byzantines under the Emperor Heraclius had also recently conquered lands further to the east from the Sasanian Empire. Just as an aside, Heraclius is a really underestimated emperor. He was emperor for over 30 years, which is an incredibly long time for a Roman emperor, and has been largely forgotten by history. So I do think he might be worth an episode of his own in the future.

Starting point is 00:04:55 The Caliphate took Damascus in 634 and took the city of Amesa, now known as Homs, earlier in 636. By August 636, the two sides were ready for a showdown. The location was near the Yarmuk River, in what is today, southeast of the Sea of Galilee, near the Israeli Jordanian border. Yarmouk is actually just a tributary of the Jordan River. river. The Muslim army was led by Khalid Ibn al-Walid. The Caliph Umar didn't get along with him, but he knew he was the best general and put him in charge, which was a smart move because he never lost a battle. The Roman forces on the ground were led by an Armenian general by the name of Vahan. The Muslim

Starting point is 00:05:32 forces were almost all Arab and Muslim, whereas the Byzantine forces were a mix of Slavs, Franks, Greeks, Georgians, Armenians, and Christian Arabs. The multi-ethnic, multilingual nature of the Byzantine forces made them less cohesive than the Islamic forces. The Byzantine army was at least twice the size of the Muslim army. The estimates of the number of men at arms on each side varies widely. The original sources placed the number of soldiers in the Caliphate Army at between 24,000 and 40,000, and the number of Byzantine soldiers between a hundred thousand and 240,000. Regardless what the actual numbers were, the Byzantines had a numerical advantage of at least

Starting point is 00:06:10 2 to 1, and possibly as high as 10 to 1. However, they had several problems. Since they had lost Damascus, they had issues with supplies and food, whereas the caliphate did not. On the first day of fighting, the forces lined up against each other, and there was very little action. Champions from each side went out to fight each other, and there was a limited attack by the Byzantines just to test the Islamic forces. On day two, Bahan attacked at dawn when he thought the other side would be praying. He pushed his forces up the middle, but the main attack came on the flanks. Al-Walid was ready, and after being pushed back, they managed to maintain their position until sunset. On days three and four, the Byzantines tried again to push through with their superior numbers,

Starting point is 00:06:49 but each time they were beaten back by El-Walid and his men. On day five, Bahan and the Byzantine sought peace. Abu Ubadaya, the governor of Syria, was a static that they could bring the fighting to a negotiated end, but El-Walid rejected the offer. This was what he was looking for. He now knew that after days of failed attacks, the enemy was demolished. moralized, and now was the time for him to strike. On the sixth and final day of the battle, El-Walid enacted his plan of attack. The Arab infantry moved forward to engage with the Byzantine

Starting point is 00:07:20 infantry. And while that was happening, El-Walid sent his cavalry around the Byzantine left to their rear to push the Byzantine cavalry off the field of battle. With that, the Byzantine infantry was surrounded on three sides, and the route began. Soldiers that weren't cut down either ran into the Yarmuk river and drowned or jumped off a nearby cliff. The Byzantines lost about half of their entire force. The deaths were in the tens of thousands, depending on the numbers you accept. The Islamic forces, on the other hand, only lost a few thousand. Estimates are between one and four thousand men. This battle completely changed the geopolitical landscape of the seventh century. Syria and the entire Levant became predominantly Muslim, which it still is today. That same year, 636, they defeated the

Starting point is 00:08:07 Samian Empire at the Battle of Al-Qaeda. The next year, they easily took Jerusalem, which, over 400 years later, would be the impetus for the First Crusade. Muslim forces continued one of the most rapid expansions of territorial acquisition in world history, spreading through North Africa and eastward into Persia and Central Asia. It wasn't until the Battle of Tours, almost 100 years later, which actually took place in France, that the expansion of the caliphate was halted. If the Battle of Yarmak had gone the other way, and it easily could have if things were were just a bit different. The Muslim forces under the Caliph Umar and General Khalid Ibn El-Walid would have been pushed back into the Arabian Peninsula and world history would have taken a radically

Starting point is 00:08:46 different course. As for the generals, Vahan was most probably killed in action on the last day of battle. There were rumors about him surviving and becoming a hermit back in Armenia, but there was never any actual documentation. Khalid Ibn El-Walid was pretty much forcibly retired soon afterwards. He died in the city of Homs and Syria, and his mausoleum is still there today. Even if you had never heard of the Battle of Yarmuk, it easily qualifies as one of the most significant battles in world history. In the words of military historian George Nafsinger, quote, Although Yarmic is little known today, it is one of the most decisive battles in human history. Had Hercules' forces prevailed, the modern world would be so changed as to be unrecognizable.

Starting point is 00:09:34 The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just want to thank everyone, including the show's producers, who support the show over on Patreon. If you'd like to support the show, just head over to patreon.com, which is currently the only place where you can get show merchandise. Also, if you want to talk to other listeners about the show, head over to our Facebook group or Discord server,

Starting point is 00:09:57 both of which have links in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of Yarmouk (Encore)

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