Battle of Nineveh
| date | December 12, 627 |
|---|---|
| place | near Nineveh , Iraq |
| output | decisive Eastern Roman victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Rhazates † |
|
| Troop strength | |
| unknown | unknown (12,000?) |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
unknown (6,000?) |
The Battle of Nineveh on December 12th, 627 was the decisive battle of the devastating East Roman - Sassanid War of the years 603 to 628, in the course of which East was pushed to the edge of the abyss. It was also the climax of the Persian campaign of the Eastern Roman emperor Herakleios .
Herakleios had already left Constantinople in April 622 and embarked on a long campaign into the heart of the Persian Empire. With the failure of the siege of Constantinople in 626 and the beginning of violent attacks by the Kök Turks on the Sassanid northern border, the Persian troops had finally lost the initiative. In September 627 the Eastern Roman army marched south from Tbilisi under the leadership of the Emperor . Herakleios surprised the Sassanids with this daring campaign to such an extent that they could not move enough troops north in time. Herakleios now camped on December 1st near the ruins of Nineveh and crossed the Great Zab , a branch of the Tigris . From there he could have taken Dastagird (the summer residence of Chosraus II ) and then marched on the capital, Ctesiphon .
The Sassanids could not prevent Herakleios from crossing the river, but blocked his way to the south. Herakleios seems to have faked a retreat in order to lure the Persians away from the Tigris into the open field; he succeeded. On December 12, 627, the battle finally broke out near Nineveh, although Rhazates (actually: Roch Vehan ), the Persian general, had been waiting for reinforcements, which however did not arrive in time. With regard to the strength of the two armies, no precise figures are recorded; According to Tabari , 6,000 of the 12,000 Persians fell, but like all the others, this information should be treated with great caution, especially since the same author claims that Herakleios commanded 90,000 men, which is completely implausible. The fighting was fierce in the open field, but eventually Rhazates fell and the Persians gave up the battle. Apparently the Eastern Romans were able to exploit the advantages of the terrain better than the Persians; the Romans also used some standard maneuvers during the battle, as already described in the Strategikon . According to Sebeos , Herakleios first faked to escape in the field and then attacked surprisingly. In any case, Herakleios defeated the Persians decisively, even if the emperor's approach was risky, after all he also risked being cut off and destroyed in the worst case. But the risk was worth it.
Herakleios' way to the south was now open, so that at the beginning of 628 he could almost unhindered take Dastagird, which Chosrau had previously fled. Herakleios wisely renounced a siege of the capital Ctesiphon; presumably from the justified concern that the main Persian army had not yet intervened in the fighting, but perhaps also because he feared being cut off. In addition, the imperial army was numerically quite weak and dependent on the surprise effect. Some time later, Herakleios received the news of the death of Chosraus II, who had been overthrown by his son Kavadh II Siroe in February 628 and killed shortly afterwards. In 630 Ostrom and Persia signed a peace treaty. The battle of Nineveh was thus the last in the long struggle between the two late ancient great powers.
The importance of victory is, however, put into perspective by recent research (e.g. by James Howard-Johnston ): Roman propaganda exaggerated the success; the victory was of psychological importance at best. The very fact that Herakleios could not achieve more in the peace of 630 that was later concluded than the restoration of the pre-war Roman borders (and that although the Sassanid Empire was at that time in a state of internal turmoil) shows that the Persians did not get away from the emperor had been decisively beaten. If one follows this reading, then it was the domestic political difficulties and the attack of the Kök Turks that caused the Persians to break off the war with Eastern Europe. Herakleios had therefore not achieved a triumph, but merely secured the survival of his empire with great difficulty.
See also
literature
- James Howard-Johnston: Heraclius' Persian Campaigns and the Revival of the East Roman Empire, 622-630, in: War in History 6 (1999), pp. 1-44.
- Walter E. Kaegi: Heraclius. Emperor of Byzantium, Cambridge 2003, p. 156ff.
Remarks
- ↑ Tabari I 1004
- ↑ See Kaegi, Heraclius , p. 167.
- ↑ Sebeos 38 (English translation by Robert W. Thomson, James Howard-Johnston (comment): The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos . 2 Vols. Translated Texts for Historians . Liverpool 1999, pp. 83f.).