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Mahan: "We know that it is hardship
and hunger that have brought you out of your lands. We will give
every one of your men ten dinars, clothing and food if you return
to your lands, and next year we will send you a similar amount."
Khalid: "Actually, what brought us
out of our lands is that we are a people who drink blood, and it
has reached us that there is no blood tastier than Roman blood."1
The Syrian theatre of operations
was like an arena entered by the contestants from opposite sides.
Beyond each entrance stretched a sea which was the home ground of
the contestant entering from that side. On the west of Syria and
Palestine lay the blue expanse of the Mediterranean which was a
'Roman Lake'. On the east and south stretched the desert in whose
wastes the Arab was master. The Romans could move with freedom over
the Mediterranean in fleets of ships without interference by the
Muslims, while the Muslims could move in the desert on fleets of
camels with a similar freedom from interference by the Romans. Neither
could the Muslims venture into the sea of water nor the Romans into
the sea of sand. Within the total arena both sides could manoeuvre
with ease.
Thus, for the purpose of fighting a battle
in this arena, the ideal location for each side was its home bank
where it could deploy with its back to its sea and withdraw in safety
in case of a reverse, while at the same time, if victorious, it
could pursue and destroy its opponent before he could escape to
his refuge. But this advantage favoured the Muslims more than the
Romans, for the former could give up the theatre of operations and
withdraw to the edge of the desert without loss of face or wealth
or territory. The Romans could not give up the theatre of operations
as it was their Empire and had to be defended. And this strategical
advantage which the Muslims enjoyed, of being able to fight on their
home ground, was very much in the mind of Heraclius when he planned
the next and greatest operation of this campaign.
Heraclius had come to the throne in 610
when the affairs of the Eastern Roman Empire were at their lowest
ebb and the Empire consisted of little more than the area around
Constantinople and parts of Greece and Africa. At first he had had
to swallow many bitter pills, but then fortune smiled on him, and
over a period of almost two decades he re?established the Empire
in all its former greatness. He defeated the barbarians of the north,
the Turks of the Caucasus and the highly civilised Persians of the
Empire of Chosroes; and he did this not only with hard fighting,
but also-and this was more important-by masterly strategy and superb
organization. Heraclius was a strategist to the fingertips, and
it was only his extraordinary organizational ability which made
it possible for the Romans to create and put into the field a vast
but closely knit imperial army consisting of more than a dozen nations
from the Franks of Western Europe to the Armenians of the Southern
Caucasus.
Now Heraclius was again being made to swallow
bitter pills, and what made the pills still more bitter was the
fact that they had been thrust down his throat by a race which the
Romans had detested and scorned and regarded as too backward and
too wretched to constitute any kind of military threat to the Empire.
All the manoeuvres against the Muslims, though strategically flawless,
had ended in defeat. The first concentration of the Roman army at
Ajnadein, whence it was to have struck in the rear of the Muslims,
was destroyed by Khalid in the first Battle of Ajnadein. Heraclius'
attempt to limit Muslim success by a stout defence of Damascus had
failed in spite of his best efforts to strengthen the beleaguered
garrison. His next offensive manoeuvre, the concentration of a fresh
Roman army at Baisan, whence it was again intended to strike in
the rear of the Muslims, had also failed, his army being trounced
by Shurahbil. Thereafter not only had his attempt to retake Damascus
been defeated by Abu Ubaidah and Khalid, but his other defences
also crumbled as the Muslims went from victory to victory and took
almost all of Palestine and Syria as far north as Emessa.
1. Ibn Kathir, Al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah, Dar
Abi Hayyan, Cairo, 1st ed. 1416/1996, Vol. 7 P. 14.
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