The Armies
In 750, the army of the Umayyad caliph Marwan II fought a combined force of Abbasid, Shia and Persians soldiers at the Zab. Marwan's army was, on paper at least, far larger and more formidable than that of his opponents, as it contained many veterans of the Umayyads' earlier campaigns against the Byzantine Empire, but its support for the caliph was only lukewarm. It is fair to say their morale had been damaged — whereas the Abbasid's armies had been increased — by the series of defeats inflicted on the Umayyads earlier in the rebellion.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of The Zab
Famous quotes containing the word armies:
“Would not some lightning flash of vision sear people’s consciousness into life again? What was the good of stopping the war if armies continued?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)