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Murder Holes, Machicolations, and Other Medieval Warfare Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 6, 2020 34 min

Pike and shot - Pike and Shot : Campaigns — A pike and short formation, with pikemen protecting those wielding firearms while they reloaded. Pintrest

19. The Middle East’s Most Consequential Battle

Medieval illustration of the Battle of Yarmouk. Wikimedia

No single battle has had a greater impact in shaping the Middle East than did the Battle of Yarmouk in 636. The train of events leading up to that engagement began in 634, when Arab tribal armies erupted from the sparsely populated Arabian Peninsula. Fired by Islamic zeal, they simultaneously attacked the era’s two superpowers, the Sassanid Persian Empire to the east, and the Byzantine Empire to the west and north. Within two years, the outnumbered Arabs had won a series of brilliant victories that shaped the Middle East forever after.

The Sassanid Empire fell outright, while the Byzantines lost their possessions in Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, and got pushed back to today’s Turkey. Of the Arab victories between 634 – 636, the most decisive was the Battle of Yarmouk in August of 636. It was fought along the Yarmouk River, southeast of the Golan Heights, near where the borders of today’s Syria, Jordan, and Israel meet.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.