Battle of Mu'tah

According to the scholars of history, the battle of Mu’tah was in the 8th year of Hijrah (629 AD). The background of this battle was that the Prophet Muhammad had sent a letter to the ruler of Busra, but the messenger was intercepted on the way and killed by Al-Ghassani, the Governor of Al-Balqa.

This was considered to be a very serious crime had amounted to declaration of war. Urwah Ibn Zubair said Prophet Muhammad sent this expedition to Mu’tah in in Jumadah Al-Ula in the 6th year of Hijrah and appointed Zaid Ibn Harithah as the commander of the force, and said: ‘If Zaid were slain, then Ja’far Ibn Abi Talib was to take command, and of he were killed then ‘Abdullah Ibn Rawahah’.

Their number was 3,000. They went on their way as far as Ma’an in Syria where they heard that Heraclius had come down to Ma’ab in the Balqa’ with 100,000 Greeks joined by 100,000 men from Lakhm, Judham, Al-Qayn, Bahra and Bali.

The two armies met in or near the village of Mu’tah. After Muslims had arranged themselves in rows, each of the three commanders dismounted his shoes and fought on foot in hand-to-hand combat.

When fighting began Zaid ibn Harithah fought holding the Messenger’s standard, until he died from loss of blood among the spears of the enemy. Then Ja’far took it and fought with it until he was martyred, Abdullah Ibn Rawahah took the standard and fought until he died a martyr.

According to ostensible eyewitnesses, Ja’far received thirty or more wounds on the lower part of his body and exactly seventy-two sword blows and one spear wound on the upper part of his torso.

It was Thabit b. Arqam came forward and grabbed the standard and when he saw Khalid Ibn Walid he ordered him to take hold of the standard. Khalid was elected as the commander and he was able to maintain his heavily outnumbers army of 3,000 men against an army of 10,000 of the Byzantine Empire and Ghassanid Arabs.

Khalid Ibn Walid said: on the day of the battle of Mu’tah nine swords were broken in my hand, and nothing was left in hand except a Yemenite sword of mine.

Twelve Muslim men were martyred on that day. The casualties among the Romans were unknown.
Battle of Mu'tah

Battle of Baphaeon

Between 1260 and 1320, the Turcomans, mobilized by their ghazi tribal chiefs, and in tandem with the Seljuk waged jihad against Byzantine forces.

Their leader was Osman Ghazi (Osman I), who held the frontier land in western Asia Minor that was farthest north and closest to the Byzantines. Osman had become master of an area stretching from Eskishehir to the plains of Iznik and Brusa and had organized a fairly powerful principality.

When Osman I besieged around 1301, the Byzantines sent an army to raise the siege. The emep0ror depstahced against Osman a force of 2,000 men under the command of the Hetaereiarch Muzalon charged with the task relieving Iznik.

This army was defeated by Osman I in the summer of 1301 at Baphaeon, on the southeastern shores of the Sea of Marmara.

The local population was panic-stricken and started to leave, seeking shelter in the castle of Nicomedia.

This victory over the Byzantine imperial army made Osman prominent among other frontier lords the prospect of new conquest, booty and land attracted a wave of Turcoman warriors to be Ottoman principality.

Many other nomadic Turkish soldiers came to Konya, Osman’s capitol. They became known as beys, commanders of complements of fighters who were loyal to them, just as they in turn, were loyal to Osman.

In Ottoman tradition this victory is known as the victory won near Yalakova over the forces of the emperor during the siege do Iznik.
Battle of Baphaeon

Battle of Lihula (Swedes and Estonian)

An army led by King John of Sweden tries unsuccessfully to gain a foothold in Estonian by taking control of a castle in Lihula.

King John I, landed in western Estonian, but the garrison he left at Lihula was annihilated by the Estonians. The attacked by Estonians to the Swedes stronghold happened in summer of 1220. Estonian killed the entire Swedish garrison.

The Swedes had only 500 men in the garrisons, which attempted to fight its way out of Lihula once the town had caught fire. Only about 50 Swedes escaped to the Danish output of Tallinn.

After this blow to their ambitions, the Swedes turned their attention northwards and renewed their efforts to conquer the rest of Finland.
Battle of Lihula (Swedes and Estonian)

Battle of Ain-Jalut 1260 AD

The Mongol army of Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan, pressed westward into Syria and Palestine after tis crushing victory over the Muslims of Baghdad.

With an army numbering around three hundred thousand men, Hulagu had been advancing across the Middle East since 1253.

In Persian he had destroyed the castles of the Ismailis sect, who had attempted to assassinate Great Khan Mongke, Hulagu cousin.

Then, he turned against the Abbasid caliphate, razed Baghdad, massacring 200,000 of its inhabitants and executing the caliph.

The Ayyubid caliph was also captured and the city of Aleppo conquered in 1260.

A Muslim Mamluks army of Egypt, which had been preparing to resist the Mongol advance, now swung over to the offensive.

The Sultan of Egypt, Sultan al-Muzaffar Sayf ad-Din Qutuz, strengthening the defenses of Cairo, preparing the city and its inhabitants to defend themselves to the death.

In July 1260, the Egyptian army marched north to confront the Mongols and Sultan Qutuz sent a message to the Franks in Care requesting safe passage and the provision of food.

Franks decided to side with Mamluks in this showdown between two heavyweight powers of the region and agreed to Qutuz’s request.

The battle of Ain-Jalut took place Friday 3 September 1260. The Mamluks approached from the north-west and the Mongols charged into them, destroying the Mamluk left plank.

But Qutuz rallied his troops and launched a counterattack that shook the Mongols. He then launched a frontal attack that led to a complete Mamluk victory.

The battle of Ain-Jalut, the first Mongol defeat in the West ended Hulagu’s invasion.

After the battle of Ain-Jalut, Mongol made only a few small invasions into Syria and never again threatened the Mamluks, who would continue to rule Egypt until eighteenth century.
Battle of Ain-Jalut 1260 AD

Battle of Corinth (146 BC)

The Battle of Corinth happened in 146 BC was a battle fought between the Roman Republic and the Greek state of Corinth and its allies in the Achaean League.

At the regular meeting of the league in May 146 BC, in Corinth, the Roman delegates were insulted, threated and when they complained of the treatment they received, they were virtually chased out of the meeting by the mob assembled for the occasion by the anti-Roman faction.

Upon received the news, the Roman Senate ordered Lucius Mummius the consul of 146 BC, to lead a fleet and land-force against Achaeans.

The Romans defeated and destroyed their main rival in the Mediterranean, Carthage, and spent the following months in provoking the Greeks.

The Roman consul Mummius, with 23,000 infantry and 3,500 cavalry (probably two legions plus Italian allies) with an unspecified number of Cretans archers and Pergamese contingent sent for Pergamon by King Attalus, advanced into the Peloponnese against the revolutionary Achaean government.

The Achaean general Diaeus prepared to defend Corinth. But popular terror had succeeded to popular passion. Diaeus camped at Corinth with 14,000 infantry and 600 cavalry (plus possibly some survivors of another army that had been defeated earlier).

The overbold and partly untrained army of Diaeus met the Romans in open battles in the isthmus at a place called Leucopetra. The result was an overwhelming defeat for the Achaeans.

Diaeus, who had fought fled in despair to his native city of Megalopolis. He killed his wife that she might not become the slave of a Roman and having himself take poison, he set fire to his house.

Three days after the battle, Mummius entered the defenseless city of Corinth, and ordered it to be plundered and destroyed by fire; all the male inhabitants were put to the sword and all the women and children as well as the remaining slaves were sold.
Battle of Corinth (146 BC)

The Battle of Marathon 490 BC

The most important event of the period 491-488 BC for the Athenian Democracy was the battle of Marathon. It is commonly regarded as one of the most significant wars in all of history.

In the year 490 BC, Darius launched a new attempt to conquer Greece. The historian Herodotus presents the campaign as having been initiated against the Greek cities of Athens and Eretria by Darius I in revenge for their support of a revolt within the Persian empire of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor in 499-494 BC.

The Persians decided to invade Greece by crossing the Aegean. After crossing the Aegean Sea, their large force reached Euboea and after a short siege, they captured Eretria.

When the Athenians heard the news, they too marched out to Marathon. Before leaving Athens for Marathon, the generals sent a herald to ask Sparta for help.

The battle took place at Marathon, a plain on Athenian territory 40 km northeast of Athens.

The Greeks emerged victorious and put an end to the possibility of Persian despotism.

The Battle of Marathon marked the first military encounter between Greeks and Persians on the Greek mainland, and although it was won through favorable circumstances and good fortune rather than by military superiority it had a huge ideological impact on the Greeks.
The Battle of Marathon 490 BC

Battle of Coronea

The Battle of Coronea in 394 BC was a battle in the Corinthian War.

In this war Spartans and their allies under King Agesilaus defeated a force of Thebans and Argives that was attempting to block their march back into the Peloponnese. 

In 396 BC Agesilaus took 8000 troops to Asia Minor to protect the Spartan-allied Greek cities from the Persian attack.

He was recalled and began an overland through Thrace and Thessaly, he descended southward into hostile Boeotia.

Upon Agesilaus and his army’s entry into Boeotia on 14 August 394, he encountered a defending force of Thebans was waiting with its Boeotian allies and its contingent of Argives, Athenians and Corinthians.

The battle was fought on the plain of Coronea. Agesilaus had been joined by two units of Spartan and he had his neodamodeis, the mercenaries, the Greeks from Ionia and some additional troops recruited on the march and in Boeotia.

Wounded and with his army now too weak to occupy Boeotia, Agesilaus withdraw to Sparta.

Victory in a major battle of Coronea secured Agesilaus’ safe passage through Boeotia to Sparta, but it failed reestablish Spartan preeminence in central Greece. The victory failed to gain any strategic advantage.
Battle of Coronea

Battle of Cunaxa

The battle of Cunaxa fought by Cyrus against Artaxerxes II is interesting as showing the discipline of which a Greek phalanx was capable, when compared with the heterogeneous troops of Persia and as being the initiation of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.

Artaxerxes II, Great King of the Persian Empire, commanded Persian army while the other side was led by his younger brother Cyrus, who intended to commit fratricide and rule in Artaxerxes’s place.

Artaxerxes had an army to be 45 000 strong, while Cyrus had, including the Greeks, ranging between 10 000 to 14 000. The majority of these were Spartans; the rest 25000 Thracian and Greek peltasts and 200 excellent Cretan archers.

Late in September 401 BC, these two huge faced each other on a dusty plain, on the eastern bank of the River Euphrates.

The battle was the climax of the Cyrus campaign, long plotted from his domain in what is now western Turkey.

The battle of Cunaxa was hard fought and could have been won by Cyrus had he had not been killed. The Greek troops of Cyrus right wing were victorious against Artaxerxes’s Egyptian recruits, archers and cavalry led by Chithrafarna.

The Greek mercenary troops were now stranded and their commanders taken hostage by Chithrafarna.
Battle of Cunaxa

Battle of Megiddo in 609 BC

There are three most famous battles in the site of Megiddo throughout history. One of them Battle of Megiddo in 609 BC was fought between Egypt and the Kingdom of Judah, in which King Josiah fell.

In 609 BC, King Josiah attempted to block Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt as he marched north to assist Assyria in a fight against Babylon.

Possibly Necho’s northern campaign appeared a threat to Judah. King Josiah attempted to stop the Egyptians. Josiah suffered serious injuries and eventually died.

Before King Josiah untimely death he led the nation to a time do reform, removing the places of idolatrous worship and concentrating worship in Jerusalem, which apparently satisfied the teaching of the Book of Deuteronomy.

After the death of King Josiah, Pharaoh made Jehoahaz succeeded his father and became Judah’s new King. Then they overthrow Jehoahaz, deporting him to Egypt and replacing him with his brother Jehoikim. Jehoikim stayed loyal to Pharaoh for 4 years.
Battle of Megiddo in 609 BC

Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3 in 1863)

The people of the United States clashed over slavery from the start. Many Northern States insisted that constitution ban slavery throughout the country. In the South, however, slavery was growing.

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States. He opposed the spread of slavery. Soon after Lincoln’s election, 11 states seceded or withdraw from the United States.

They form their own country, the Confederates States of America.

On April 12, 1862, Confederate troops attacked and took control of Fort Summer in South Carolina. Most civil war battles were fought in the South because North want to take back Southern cities and land for the Union.

By 1863, the armies of the North and the South fought in the small town of Gettysburg. Pennsylvania. It became the bloodiest battle of the entire civil war with 30,000 soldier were either injured or killed.

Both North and South had advantages in the war. The North had more manufacturing and better railroad system.

The South, especially at the beginning of the warm had better military leaders. They also knew they only had to fight long enough for the North to give up hope of bringing the states that had seceded or left the Union, back in.

The two forces collided at the town of Gettysburg in the morning of July 1, 1863. The battle lasted three days. The streets of the little town were all dabbled with blood. The tidings of the victory at Gettysburg came to the Northern people on the 4th of July.
Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3 in 1863)

Battle of Leuctra

The Battle of Leuctra was one of the turning point in Greek history: the Spartans, who had been so dominant for two and half centuries in Greek politics to be reduced to the status of a secondrate power.

The Battle of Leuctra was a battle fought on July 6, 371 BC, between the Boeotians led by Thebans and the Spartans along with their allies amidst the post-Corinthian War conflict.

In 375 BC, Sparta and Athens, as well as the Persian king who needed mercenaries, arrange for a common peace that was immediately broken.

The alliance between Spartan and Athens posed a dilemma for Thebes and Sparta desired to dominate Thebes again as it had ten years earlier. At that time Sparta briefly occupied Thebes until a daring uprising in 379 restored Theban independence. Relations between the two states remained strained throughout the decade until 371. BC.

The Spartan King Cleombrotus gathered some Peloponnesian allies and marched on Thebes.

The Spartan army and allies outnumbered the Thebans and the Spartan soldier was famed for strength and fighting skills.

The Spartan army numbered 9000 hoplites and 1000 cavalry. The Theban forces consisted of 6000 hoplites and 1000 cavalry.

The only strength the Thebans maintained was a more disciplined cavalry. Theban commander Epaminondas introduced new idea and altered the usual tactical deployment of the phalanx by massing his strongest force on the left wing of his army directly across from the enemy’s strongest right wing.

Epaminondas also introduced another innovation, the employment of a reserve composed of elite.

The two armies of Spartan and Theban met on the plain of Leuctra, which was 1000 yards wide and bracketed by two small ridges upon which the two armies pitched their camp.

The battle was a Theban victory due to Epaminondas usage of new tactics. The defeat of the Spartan army made Epaminondas immediately famous. Epaminondas followed this victory in the next year by invading the Peloponnese and freeing Arcadia and Messenia from Spartan domination.
Battle of Leuctra

Phenix City Battle was the Last Major Engagement of the Civil War

Marker on Summerville Road

One of the least known facts of the Civil War is that its last major battle was fought along the Chattahoochee River in Phenix City, Alabama, and the adjacent city of Columbus, Georgia.

The Battle of Columbus (also called the Battle of Girard) took place on April 16, 1865, an Easter Sunday. General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomatox Court House one week earlier and General Joseph E. Johnston would meet with General William Tecumseh Sherman in North Carolina the next day to discuss the surrender of Confederate forces in the Deep South.

It was in the last days of the war that Union Major General James H. Wilson pushed east from Montgomery, battling Confederate forces as he approached Auburn. By the mid-point of the month he was driving east from Auburn, moving fast with thousands of troops to seize the vital bridges over the Chattahoochee and destroy the vast wartime industrial complex in Columbus.

Site of 14th Street Bridge

These bridges linked Columbus with the smaller town of Girard (now Phenix City) on the Alabama side. To protect both the bridges and the major military manufacturing complex of Columbus, the Confederates had ringed Girard with a series of forts, batteries, breastworks and other defenses. These were placed atop encircling ridges and hilltops as the area immediately adjacent to the bridges was overlooked by these hills.  Additional defenses were built on the Columbus side of the river and cannon were positioned so as to command the bridges.

The initial attack developed on the afternoon of April 16, 1865, when part of Wilson's command made a dash for the "lower" or Dillingham Street bridge. This force, carried out by part of Upton's Division, was repulsed.

Surviving Earthworks in Phenix City

The effort to quickly seize a crossing point and outflank the Confederates having failed, Wilson resolved on a night attack down Summerville road directly into the throat of the main Southern defenses and batteries. Recognizing that this was likely to be the point of greatest danger, Confederate General Howell Cobb moved the majority of his force into the trenches there and positioned guns to sweep the road from all directions.

Battery Site at Russell County Courthouse

The attack came at 9 p.m.  Pushing directly down the Summerville Road, Wilson's forces overran an advanced line of Confederate works. Thinking they had captured the main Southern line, they pushed immediately for the "upper" or 14th Street bridge. As they approached the main line, however, the Confederates opened on them from front, left and right. Recognizing their precarious situation, the Federals drove straight forward and slashed through the Confederate main line.

The battle now collapsed into a confusing night fight, but by 10 p.m. the upper bridge had been taken and Columbus had fallen. The impact on the Southern war effort was devastating. Not only were the factories destroyed, but the nearly complete ironclade C.S.S. Jackson was captured and the warship C.S.S. Chattahoochee was burned by its own crew to prevent its capture. No other battle between Union and Confederate forces would be fought on the scale of the action at Phenix City and Columbus.

To learn more about the Battle of Columbus (Girard), please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/battleofcolumbus.

The Battle of Spanish Fort, Alabama - March & April, 1865

Confederate Earthworks at Spanish Fort

One of the largest battles of the Civil War in Alabama was underway in earnest 146 years ago this week.

For most of the month of March in 1865, Union troops had slowly pushed their way north up the East Shore of Mobile Bay. Led by General E.R.S. Canby, the 32,000 soldiers were determined to break up and capture the Confederate defenses at Spanish Fort and old Blakeley, a critical step towards the final capture of the port of Mobile.  Simultaneously, a column of 13,000 men moved north from Pensacola, Florida, to break the railroad connecting Mobile with Montgomery and complete the encirclement of the Confederate forces.

The movement was very slow and it took Canby weeks to march his command from a jump off point on the Fish River to within sight of the massive Confederate earthworks at Spanish Fort.  The Union general had no way of knowing it, but he was opposed by a Southern force of only a couple of thousand men, but they were commanded by a bold and enterprising officer in General Randall L. Gibson.

Battle Markers at Mobile Bay Overlook

Facing sharp skirmishing from Gibson's Confederates, the Federals began to encircle Spanish Fort on March 27, 1865, officially opening the battle. It took 12 days for Canby to complete this process, dig siege positions and get his artillery into place. As a result, it was not until April 8, 1865, that he opened his bombardment of Spanish Fort with 90 cannon. The Confederates had 47 guns, but many of these were positioned to defend the river channel that led below the bluff. The replied to the Union fire as best they could.

The 8th Iowa broke through the Southern outer lines late in the day on April 8th, 1865, and General Gibson knew that his bluff was about to be exposed. Completely undetected by Canby's pickets, he withdrew his force from Spanish Fort that night, using an already prepared footbridge to slip away across the channel to nearby Fort Huger.

With only a couple of thousand men, Gibson had delayed the Union campaign up the East Shore of Mobile Bay for more than one full month. The Federals had no idea that they outnumbered him by 14 to 1. It was one of the most impressive performances by a Confederate general during the entire war.

To learn more about the Battle of Spanish Fort, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/spanishfort.

Byzantine: Battle with Flames and Sword

Byzantine: Battle with Flames and Sword
Carefully holding catapults containing their ‘secret missiles’, the Byzantine troops advanced on the enemy fortress.

Once within the firing distance, the catapults hurled the missiles – clay pots filled with an incendiary liquid called Greek fire – over the battlements at the opposing forces.

The pots exploded on impact, sending out tongues of flames which scorched the faces and hands of the victims and sometimes buried them alive.

Time and again Byzantine troops captured enemy strongholds by using the fore, and they also empowered it to defend their own forts and cities.

‘It should be turned against any tower that may be advanced against the wall of a besieged town’, proclaimed Emperor Constantine VII in the in the 10th century.

Effective as it was, the mysterious and volatile Greek fire was apt to explode when being carried over rough ground, injuring if not killing those transporting it.

After a time, the army stopped using it, but it was then adopted as the Byzantine navy’s most feared weapon.

It caught fire spontaneously when wet, and the more water that was thrown on the flames the more fiercely they burned: they continued burning even n the sea.
Byzantine: Battle with Flames and Sword

Spain is The Great Power in The 16th Century

Spain is The Great Power in The 16th Century
By middle of the sixteenth century Spain was the greatest power in Europe. The dominions of Philip II (1556 – 98) of Spain stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific: his continental territories included the Netherlands in the North and Milan and Naples in Italy.

In 1580 Philip II became king of Portugal, uniting all the states of the Iberian Peninsula. With the addition of Portugal’s Atlantic ports and its sizeable fleet, Spanish maritime power now was unsurpassed. Spain was also a great cultural and intellectual center. The fashions and tastes of its golden age dominated all the courts of Europe. The expansion of Spanish domination and the increase of Spain’s wealth and prestige was reflected in a self conscious spirit of national pride that could be seen in the story of Don Quixote, the knight who tilted at windmills in search of greatness in the novel published by Miguel de Cervantes between 1605 and 1615.

In Mediterranean Spain alone stood out against the expansion of Ottoman power. The sultan’s navy continually threatened to turn the Mediterranean into a Turkish lake, while his armies attempted to capture and hold Italian soil. All Europe shuddered at the news each Ottoman advance. Pope called for holy wars against the Turks but only Philip heeded the cry. From nearly moment that he inherited the Spanish crown he took up the challenge of defending European Christianity.

For over a decade Philip maintained costly coastal garrison in North Africa and Italy and assembled large fleets and larger army to discourage or repel Turkish invasions. This sparring could not go on indefinitely, and in 1571 both sides prepared for a decisive battle. A combined Spanish and Italian force of over three hundred ships and eighty thousand men meet an even larger ottoman flotilla off the coasts of Greece. The Spanish naval victory of Lepanto was considered one of the great events of the sixteenth century, celebrated in story and songs for the next three hundred years, though the Turks continued to menace the Mediterranean islands, Lepanto marked the end of Ottoman advanced.
Spain is The Great Power in The 16th Century