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