War of the Three Gods by Peter Crawford

Author:Peter Crawford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Battle of Yarmuk, 636: Deployments.

In order to prevent being outflanked by the sheer length of the Roman line, the Muslims deployed their forces in a similar manner. Yazid and his corps were deployed on the Muslim left opposite George; Abu Ubayda commanded the left centre and Shurahbil the right centre, while their right flank opposite Buccinator was given to Amr, who had marched north from Palestine to join the Muslim army retreating from Damascus. The Muslim flanks were each supported by a cavalry detachment, while a single detachment supported Abu Ubayda and Shurahbil in the centre. Similar to Vahan, Khalid retained command of the majority of the Muslim cavalry, held in the rear as a reserve. It is worth noting that, despite the seemingly structured outlook that these initial deployments give, the Battle of Yarmuk better resembled a series of almost separate engagements thanks to the distance between many of the corps, with the commanders given an independence of movement within an overall strategic plan.9

Day 1—15 August 636

At dawn, with the armies arrayed a mile apart, a series of duels took place. This had become a regular Muslim tactic in an attempt to not only buoy the morale of their own men and damage that of their opponent but to also kill as many enemy officers as possible before the battle commenced. As they had a group of soldiers, the mubarizun, trained especially for this kind of one-on-one fighting, it is not surprising that the Muslims won the majority of these duels. By midday, tired of these preliminaries and wary of losing anymore officers, Vahan ordered a probing attack along the entirety of his front line to gauge the strength of the Muslim infantry. Such a broad frontal offensive would have quickly exposed any weakness in the Muslim line but it seems that Vahan only committed a third of his infantry to this attack and the Muslim veterans were able to cope with it. This relatively low-intensity combat lasted throughout much of the day and, despite some minor flashpoints, neither side were able to make any sort of headway before contact was broken off as the sun went down.

Day 2—16 August 636

On the second day, Vahan launched a more concerted effort to destroy his foe. With his two centre divisions pinning the Muslim centre, Vahan launched both George’s and Buccinator’s wings in ferocious attacks that drove the Muslim flanks back. Both Yazid and Amr were forced to commit their cavalry contingents in an attempt to restore the situation. However, even with this reinforcement, both Muslim wings began to crumble under the weight of the Roman attack. One popular story suggests that only the intervention of the Muslim women, who berated those men who had retreated back to camp, saved the Muslim flanks from total collapse for, shamed by their taunts, the routing Muslim infantry and cavalry regrouped and re-entered the fray on their respective flanks in time to shore up the Muslim lines.

However, once again proving himself a master of cavalry deployment, the real saviour of the Muslim army on the second day of Yarmuk was Khalid.

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