Military
See also: Byzantine-Sassanid War of 602–628Years of warfare between the Sassanids and the Byzantines, as well as the strain of the Khazar invasion of Transcaucasia, had exhausted the army. No effective ruler followed Khosrau II and this created chaos in society and problems in the provincial administration (until Yazdegerd III came to power). All these factors undermined the strength of the Persian army. Yazdegerd III lacked experience and didn't try to rebuild the army.
When Arab squadrons made their first raids into Sassanid territory, Yazdegerd III didn't consider them a threat, and he refused to send an army to encounter the invaders. When the main Arab army reached the Persian borders, Yazdegerd III procrastinated in dispatching an army against the Arabs. Even Rostam-e Farokhzad, who was both Eran Spahbod and Viceroy, didn't see the Arabs as a threat. Without opposition, the Arabs had time to consolidate and fortify their positions.
When hostilities between the Sassanids and the Arabs finally began, the Persian army faced fundamental problems. While their heavy cavalry had proved effective against the Roman armies, it was too slow and regimented to act with full force against the agile and unpredictable lightly armed Arab cavalry and foot archers.
The Persian army had a few initial successes. War elephants temporarily stopped the Arab army, but when Arab veterans returned from the Syrian fronts where they had been fighting against Byzantine armies, they taught the Arab army how to deal with these beasts. Thus war elephants had lost their effectiveness on the battlefield.
These factors contributed to the decisive Sassanid defeat at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah. The Persians, who had only one generation before conquered Egypt and Asia Minor, lost decisive battles when nimble, lightly armed Arabs accustomed to skirmishes and desert warfare attacked them. The Arab squadrons defeated the Persian army in several more battles culminating in the Battle of Nihawānd, the last major battle of the Sassanids. The Sassanid dynasty came to an end the following year with the death of Yazdegerd III.
Read more about this topic: Fall Of The Sassanid Empire
Famous quotes containing the word military:
“In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious. For that we care for them; from that have issued endless consequences.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it. The antique arm whined as he reached for another mug. It was a Russian military prosthesis, a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby pink plastic.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“There was somewhat military in his nature, not to be subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, to call his powers into full exercise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)