Chapter XI

CAMPAIGN IN SYRIA.--BATTLE OF WACUSA ON THE YERMUK.

A.H. XIII. A.D. 634.

[Sidenote: Khâlid ibn Saîd posted on the Syrian border. A.H. XII. A.D. 633.]

The campaign in Syria opened under the auspices of a very different Khâlid, of the Omeyyad clan,--Khâlid ibn Saîd. Having been one of the earliest converts, and amongst those driven for refuge to Abyssinia, he held a high place amongst the confessors of Islam. He had been appointed by Mahomet to a command in the south, and though forced to retreat in the troubles which ensued on the Prophet’s death, had achieved some renown in wresting from Mádekerib’s hands the famous sword Samsât.[147] Returning from thence, he urged his claim to a fresh command; and Abu Bekr, yielding to his importunity, and against the wish of Omar, posted him at Tayma, on the Syrian border, there to rally the friendly tribes, but, unless attacked, to take no offensive step. Tidings of the movement alarmed the Romans in that quarter, who thereupon, summoning the Ghassân and other Syrian tribes, assembled a large force to protect the border. Khâlid, on this, obtained permission to advance, but cautiously, and so as to leave no enemy in his rear. [Sidenote: Discomfits a Roman column.]As he advanced, the Syrians retired; and, marching onwards, he discomfited a Roman column on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.[148] Finding himself in a position so advanced, and the country in front roused by the inroad, Khâlid urgently demanded reinforcements from Medîna. [Sidenote: Ikrima sent to his support;]The troops were just then returning from Yemen; and so Ikrima, with Dzul Kelâa, a loyal Himyarite chief, followed by his clan, being the first to appear, were despatched to the north in haste.[149]

[Sidenote: also Amru and Welîd. January, A.D. 634.]

Two other captains of note were also deputed for the support of Khâlid; these were Amru and Welîd, who had a joint command over the Beni Codhâa, in the tract of country between Tayma and the Red Sea. Since the reduction of Dûma, this tract was now comparatively quiet, and Abu Bekr gave them the option either of remaining where they were, or engaging in a work ‘better for them, both in this present life, and in that which is to come.’ Amru, although he had, even before his deputation to Omân, had the promise from the Prophet of this district, made answer: ‘Thy servant is but an arrow in the quiver of Islam, and thou the Archer. It is for thee to pick out the fittest shaft, and whithersoever thou wilt discharge it.’ So they were despatched, Welîd to join Khâlid ibn Saîd, and Amru by Ayla to the south of the Holy Land.[150]

[Sidenote: Khâlid ibn Saîd defeated at Marj al Soffar.]

Emboldened by these reinforcements, Khâlid hastened forward to gain the first laurels of the campaign; and, forgetful of his master’s injunctions, suffered himself to be decoyed by the Roman general Bahân towards Damascus, away from his supports. [Sidenote: Moharram, A.H. XIII. March, A.D. 634.] Unprotected behind, the enemy closed in upon his rear, and cut off his retreat. He was routed at Marj al Soffar, to the east of the Sea of Tiberias; his son was slain, and, losing heart, he fled, leaving his camp in the enemy’s hands, and Ikrima to retrieve the disaster. That able general rallied the retreating force, and with a sufficient remnant, including the brave Himyarite band under Dzul Kelâa, took up a strong position on the frontier, until help should come. Khâlid continued his flight, but was stayed at Wady al Cora.--‘By my life!’ wrote the indignant Caliph, ‘thou shalt come no further; thou pratest bravely when secure, but in battle thou art a coward. I have no patience with thee!’ And he said to those about him: ‘Truly Aly and Omar knew the man better than I. Had I listened to them, this mishap had not been.’ We hear no more of Khâlid ibn Saîd.[151]

[Sidenote: Reinforcements despatched to Syria. Beginning of A.H. XIII. Spring, A.D. 634.]

In the present emergency, it was fortunate for Abu Bekr that the south of the peninsula was by this time entirely pacified. He was able, therefore, as the columns returned from thence, to hurry them off to Syria, there to retrieve the fortunes of Islam. Four battalions were now sent forward. First, _Shorahbîl_, returning at that moment from Irâc, was appointed to supersede Welîd, who shared in the disgrace of Khâlid’s defeat.[152] Rallying the scattered fragments of the discomfited force, he carried the greater part back again to the front, and there took up a position in advance of Ikrima. Then followed _Yezîd_, son of Abu Sofiân, with a great levy from Mecca, including many famous chiefs of the Coreish, roused by the Caliph’s call and the stirring news from Syria. His brother, Muâvia, shortly after joined him, bringing up the remaining fragments of the runaway army. _Abu Obeida_, already known to the reader as a trusted Companion of the Prophet, led a third column, and posted himself near to _Amru_, who commanded the fourth brigade in the Wady Araba, to the west of the others. Many of the new troops, especially the levies from the south, travelled, after the Bedouin fashion, with their families, ready to settle house and home in the north; for the marvellous success of the army in Irâc suggested the still more inviting prospect of establishing themselves in the Land of Promise, flowing with milk and honey.[153]

[Sidenote: Composition of the Syrian force.]

This force was altogether different in composition from the army of Irâc. That in the main consisted of Bedouins, who flocked in tribes or clans to the banners of Mothanna and Khâlid; the men of Mecca and Medîna were as yet in Irâc comparatively few, for they had returned in great numbers to their homes after the battle of Yemâma. In the Syrian army, on the contrary, there are reckoned at least a thousand _Companions_--men who had seen and conversed with the Prophet; and of these no fewer than one hundred of the famous Three Hundred of Bedr. They enrolled themselves at pleasure under whichever chief they chose; but, once enrolled, they yielded to their leader an implicit obedience; while he, on his part, consulted their views and wishes, not only in the set council of war, but generally on all occasions of importance. Sheikhs of renown, such as Abu Sofiân and Soheil, who but a few years before, had wielded at will the whole power of Mecca, and haughty high-born chieftains of Nejd and Yemen, now joined with alacrity and zeal the column of anyone, however young and inferior, into whose hands the Caliph was minded to present a banner of command. And the whole force, thus formed in separate detachments, held itself at the absolute disposal of the Commander of the Faithful.

[Sidenote: Abu Bekr addresses the columns as they leave Medîna.]

Abu Bekr was duly sensible of the gravity of the enterprise on which he now embarked--nothing short, in fact, of measuring swords with the Kaiser. He had thrown down the gauntlet, and in fact was waging war, at one and the same time, with the potentates of the East and of the West. The brigades for this service were pitched one after another on the outlying field of Jorf; and, as each was ready to march, the Caliph walked a little distance (as nearly two years before he had done with Osâma) by the side of the mounted leader, and gave him thus his farewell commands. ‘Profession,’ he would say, ‘is naught without faith. The merit of a work dependeth on the purpose of the worker. The reward set forth in the Book of the Lord for such as fight in His ways, is great. Set this ever before thee and before thy men. But when thou haranguest them, be brief, for in the multitude of words the foremost word is lost in the hindermost. So striving, ye will obtain the prize, riches and glory in the present life, and in the life to come salvation.’ Then saying ‘Fare ye well,’ he would retrace his steps and return to his simple home.

[Sidenote: Advance of the four divisions.]

The four battalions now gathered on the Syrian border numbered 30,000, besides the reserve of 6,000 under Ikrima.[154] In their first advance these columns met with little to oppose them. [Sidenote: Moharram, A.H. XIII. March, A.D. 634.] Abu Obeida marched through the Belcâa. The Arab settlement at Maâb[155] resisted, but, after an unsuccessful skirmish, submitted to his terms; and he then marched on to Jâbia. From the south of Palestine a Roman force advanced on the Araba below the Dead Sea; but it was easily discomfited by Yezîd, who pursued it to Dâthin, and slew the patrician in command.[156] The four divisions eventually took up ground in a sort of échelon, threatening the chief garrisons in the south of Syria. Abu Obeida, advancing towards Damascus, held a position the furthest east, near to Ikrima and the scene of the recent disaster. Next came Shorahbîl, overawing the Ghôr, or depressed valley of the Jordan and Tiberias. Yezîd in the Belcâa, threatened Bostra; and Amru, in lower Palestine, Hebron. Each of these, at last, found himself confronted by a Roman force.

[Sidenote: Heraclius sends four battalions to oppose them.]

Heraclius now, at last, was thoroughly aroused. It was but a few years before that he had gloriously repulsed the Chosroes; but after that he had relapsed into the inactivity of earlier years. Tidings of the invasion--a fresh irruption, as it would seem, of barbarians from the south instead of from the north--awakened him from his lethargy. Repairing to Hims, he gathered together an immense force, and sent it, in separate divisions, to stem the advancing tide. The largest of these, numbering (tradition tells us) 90,000 men, was commanded by his brother Theodoric.[157] The Moslems were alarmed at the formidable array, and they consulted how to meet it. Amru urged his brother generals to gather all into one body.--‘For how,’ he sent to say, ‘can our scanty numbers, divided and apart, encounter these mighty hosts?’ [Sidenote: The Saracen generals resolve to draw together.]To this they agreed, and Abu Bekr, who had constant tidings of their progress, was of the same mind. ‘Draw ye all together,’ was his command, ‘by the banks of the Yermûk. Ye are the Lord’s host, and shall surely put the enemy to flight. Such as you shall not be discomfited by reason of the fewness of your numbers. Tens of thousands are smitten in battle because of their sins. Wherefore, do ye eschew sin. Let every man stand close by his fellow. So shall the Lord give you the victory.’

[Sidenote: Romans and Moslems face each other at _Wacûsa_ on the Yermûk. Safar, A.H. XIII. April, A.D. 634.]

Acting on this counsel, the four columns concentrated to the south of the Yermûk, near where it was crossed by the military road from Damascus. The Romans, suiting their tactics to the change, also drew together, and, under command of Theodoric, pitched their camp on the northern bank of the river. The place was singular. The Yermûk, taking its rise in the high lands of the Haurân, and fed by many affluents, is a large and swift stream. In its lower course it runs, far below the level of the plain, in a deep and rugged gorge, through which its waters, rapidly descending to the Ghôr, fall into the Jordan at Gadara, below the Lake of Galilee. The battle-ground was probably 30 or 40 miles above the junction. Here the stream, fetching a compass, formed on the northern bank a great plain,--the plain of WACÛSA, bounded on three sides by a sheer precipice. The remaining side was hemmed in by a ravine which nearly closed the circuit. A narrow neck was left for entrance, across which the military road passing, formed the key of the position. The Romans were tempted by the wide expanse of level ground, which offered room for their great camp, and was secure on every side. Advancing, therefore, from the north, they entered this plain, and spread themselves out upon it. Thereupon the Moslems crossed the river, and encamped also on the northern bank, upon another plain adjoining the neck; thus they commanded the road, and threatened the exit of the enemy. Amru, seeing this, rejoiced and said: ‘Be of good cheer, my friends; the Romans are shut in, and few that are shut in escape.’[158] A desultory warfare ensued without any definite result. The Romans often formed up in force, and as often were driven back; but the ravine was to them a strong protection, and the Arabs gained no material advantage. In such indecisive skirmishing two months passed away, and the armies remained still facing one another.[159]

[Sidenote: Khâlid transferred to Syria.]

Abu Bekr became anxious at the delay, and at the urgent appeals that came to him for reinforcements. It was not so much the poverty of numbers, as the lack of fire and military genius that disquieted him. Abu Obeida was mild and kindly even to timidity; Amru an able counsellor, but lacking military dash. The mettle of none of the generals had yet been fully tested; and their independence one of another, in the absence of a general-in-chief, while it gave opportunity to each, had a paralysing effect on all. When, therefore, the cry reached Medîna for help, the Caliph exclaimed: ‘Khâlid, son of Welîd, is the man for this! By him, with the help of the Lord, shall the machinations of Satan and the Romans be overthrown.’ The stealthy pilgrimage of Khâlid had come to his knowledge, and he now marked his displeasure by indirectly hinting at it in the order for his deputation to Syria, which ran as follows: ‘Depart and join thyself unto the armies of the Faithful on the Yermûk, for they are downcast and forlorn. But beware that thou return not again to do what thou hast done. The Lord helping, thy removal shall not dishearten thy followers in Irâc. Go forward then, Father of Suleimân, high resolve and success attend thee! Fill up the measure of the Lord’s benefits upon mankind, and He shall fulfil the same unto thee. Have a care lest the world and the flesh ensnare thee, so that thou stumble and thy works perish. The Lord doth recompense!’[160]

[Sidenote: Khâlid, with reinforcements from Irâc, sets out for Syria.]

This order at the first disconcerted Khâlid. He set it down to Omar, who, envying him the conquest of Irâc, would thus, on the eve of accomplishment, snatch it from his hand. There was too much reason for the fear; but had Abu Bekr lived, it would have been otherwise, for his order continued thus:--‘Take with thee half the army, and leave Mothanna half. [Sidenote: Safar, A.H. XIII. April, A.D. 634.]When the Lord shall have given thee victory in Syria, then thou shalt return with the troops to thy command in Irâc.’ Reconciled by this assurance, and loyal to his chief, Khâlid set to work at once, and began by selecting the ‘Companions’ and flower of the force to accompany him. Mothanna insisted that the division should be equal both in kind and number, and protested that he would not be responsible for the safety of Irâc unless it was effected fairly. He was conciliated by getting back a goodly portion of the veterans. The strength of either moiety is put at 9,000.[161] The spring was far advanced when Khâlid marched. Mothanna accompanied him to the border of the desert, and, taking a last farewell of the great general whom he had served so loyally, retraced his steps to Hîra.

[Sidenote: Khâlid marches across the Syrian desert;]

The Syrian desert lay between Khâlid and his new sphere of action. He could not take the northern route, because of hostile tribes and Roman garrisons; therefore, turning south by Ain Tamar, he crossed the second time the Nefûd--that strange and tumbled red sea of sand--to the north of the mountains of the Beni Tay, and halted at Dûma.[162] Thence he took the direct road to Syria, along the Wady Sirhân; and surprising Corâcar, a settlement of the Beni Kelb lying half way, he plundered it. Keeping the same route, he would in a few days have reached Bostra. But he feared the Roman garrisons, lest they should check him on that road, and hinder his junction with the Moslem army. He formed, therefore, the bold design of striking right across the Syrian desert to the north, emerging at Tadmor, and so turning the Roman flank. A council of war was held, and a Bedouin, well versed in the desert, set before them. ‘There is but one track,’ said the guide, ‘a track so bare, and for five days so waterless, that even single horsemen shun it, lest they perish by the way.’ ‘By the same way shall we go,’ was Khâlid’s prompt resolve; and when expostulated with on the wild and perilous attempt, he answered that, with Divine aid and firm resolve, nothing was wild and nothing perilous. The words fired his followers with the same adventurous zeal, and the project was by acclamation carried. ‘Do this then,’ said the guide, ‘if ye be bent upon the enterprise. Gather as many camels as ye can; make them thirsty by withholding water for a while; then let them drink plentifully, and again a second time; afterwards, bind their ears and slit their lips so that they ruminate not. So haply may your water last.’ At each stage across the wilderness, ten such camels were slain for every troop of a hundred lances. The water drawn from them was mixed with milk for the horses. The men were given but a single draught each day. On the fifth day a shudder crept over the host. The supply was at an end. They had reached the neighbourhood, marked by two hills on the right hand and on the left, where water should have been, but the signs were wanting, and the guide was at fault. After casting anxiously about in all directions, he cried in despair--‘Search for the bramble bush; the bramble should be here; if ye find it not, we are lost.’ So they searched all around. At last they came upon a half-concealed root, and raising the Takbîr, shouted ‘Great is the Lord!’ Rushing to the spot, they dug down into the ground, and found a plentiful supply of water.[163]

[Sidenote: and effects a junction with the Syrian army. Rabi II. or Jumâd I. June or July.]

They were now on the Syrian side of the desert, about a hundred miles to the east of Damascus. Early next morning, Khâlid fell on the astonished tribes in the neighbourhood, scattering terror all around, and securing submission either willingly or by the sword. Tadmor, after a slight resistance, yielded. Then fetching a circuit, he skirted the Haurân within sight of Damascus, and emerged at Adzraât. Having achieved this marvellous journey in the course of a few weeks, and reopened communications with the south, he sent tidings to Abu Bekr of his safety, with the Fifth of the spoil he had taken by the way. He was now close to the combined army of the Moslems, which still lay inactive on the Yermûk; and he effected a junction with them in the month of June, or perhaps July.[164]

[Sidenote: The two armies compared.]

Fresh reinforcements from the Emperor, under the renowned Armenian general Bahân (the same who discomfited the other Khâlid), had just arrived and raised the flagging spirit of the Romans. Their army, we are told, numbered 240,000 men, of whom a great body are stigmatised as felon-prisoners released for the occasion, and others are said (like those of the Persians) to have been chained together that they might not run away, or in token that they were bound to die. The idea, no doubt, is fanciful and cast in the contemptuous style of Mussulman tradition. But so much we may readily accept, that the army with which Heraclius sought to stay the tide of Saracen invasion, must needs have been very large.[165] We may also believe that though devoid of union, loyalty, and valour, it was well appointed, and elated by its achievements in the Persian war, of which many veterans were still present in the ranks. In discipline and combined movement, and in the weight and style of his equipment, the Roman, no doubt, surpassed the Arab. But the armament of the Roman did not so greatly excel as to give him a material advantage. It had no analogy, for example, with the superiority which in these days crushes the barbarian before the sanguinary appliances of modern art and science. It is strange to reflect how a single Gatling might have changed the day and driven Islam back to wither and die in the land of its birth. On the other hand, the Bedouin horse excelled in celerity and dash. Their charge, if light, was galling, and so rapidly delivered that, before the surprise was recovered from, the enemy might be out of sight. The Romans, it is true, had themselves Bedouin auxiliaries, as numerous, perhaps, as the whole Moslem army. But the spirit of the two was widely different. The fealty of the Syrian Arab was lax and loose. Christian in name, the yoke of his faith sat (as it still sits) lightly on him. Indeed, throughout the empire, Christianity was eaten up of strife and rancour. With Bahân came a troop of monks and bishops, who, bearing banners, waving aloft their golden crosses, and shouting that the faith was in jeopardy, sought thus to rouse the passion of the army. But the passion roused was too often the scowl of hatred. Bitter schisms rent the Church, and the cry of the Orthodox for help would strike a far different chord than that of sympathy in the Eutychian and Nestorian breast. Lastly, the social and ancestral associations of the Syrian Bedouin, while alien from his Byzantine masters, were in full accord with his brethren from Arabia; and of this instinctive feeling, the invaders knew well how to take advantage. With these lukewarm and disunited multitudes, compare now the Moslem force in its virgin vigour, bound together as one man, and fired with a wild fanatical zeal to ‘fight in the ways of the Lord,’ and so win at once heavenly merit and worldly fortune;--their prize, the spoil of the enemy, and the fair maidens of Syria ravished from their homes; or, should they fall in battle, the reward of the martyr, heaven opened and beautiful virgins, black-eyed Houries, beckoning, with all the wanton graces of paradise, to their warm embrace.[166] Of warriors nerved by this strange combination of earth and heaven, of the flesh and of the spirit, of the incentives both of faith and rapine, of fanatical devotion to the Prophet and deathless passion for the sex, ten might chase a hundred half-hearted Romans. The forty thousand Moslems were stronger far than the two hundred and forty thousand of the enemy.

[Sidenote: The Moslems paralysed by separate commands.]

The Roman army, swollen by the battalions of Bahân, and spreading over the plain, began to overlap the Moslems and force them back into a straitened place. But with Khâlid’s energy, things soon began to mend. In a series of encounters, the enemy, being worsted, retired behind the intrenched ravine. But in other ways the situation remained the same. The five battalions of the Moslem host were separately pitched; the conduct of public prayer (mark of supreme command) was separate in each; the attacks were separately made; and so, from want of combination, they failed in delivering a decisive blow. The issue hung fire. A month passed, and Khâlid became impatient. To secure success, command must be vested in a single hand. He saw the fault, and set himself to remedy it.

[Sidenote: Khâlid obtains supreme command for a day.]

Opportunity soon offered. Unusual preparation and busy movement on the Roman side led to a council of the Moslem chiefs, and Khâlid laid his views before them. The Caliph, it was true, had given to each a separate and distinct command to meet the separate Roman armies. But the field had changed, and Abu Bekr would surely now approve the assumption of absolute command by a single general. The merit in the Caliph’s eyes would be the same for all; the merit in the sight of the Lord, the same. ‘Come now,’ he added, to disarm their jealousy, ‘and we shall vary the supreme command, each taking it in succession for the day, and, if ye will, let the first be mine.’ The success of Khâlid in Irâc added weight to his words. The proposal thus adroitly made was unanimously agreed to. The Chiefs expected that, when the occasion passed, the old system would be reverted to. But the change, once made, stood good; and the supreme command in Syria was thenceforward vested in a single hand.[167]

[Sidenote: A Roman general gained over by Khâlid.]

Meanwhile Khâlid had sown dissension in the enemy’s camp, and gained over at least one of their leading officers. The facts are obscure, and the episode, as told by tradition, strange. But so much appears, that a general, Jâreja by name, perhaps of Arab blood and imbued with Bedouin sympathies, was persuaded by Khâlid to embrace his cause, and to promise that, at the decisive moment, he would leave the Roman and join the Moslem side.[168]

[Sidenote: Moslem army arranged in battalions.]

The powers conferred on Khâlid were soon put to the test, and that to good purpose. His first care was to organise the army as a whole. ‘The Romans,’ he said, ‘are a vast and imposing multitude, and we but few to look at. Now no disposition swelleth numbers to the eye like that of separate battalions.’ So he divided the troops into forty battalions, each about a thousand strong and under a trusted leader.[169] These he arranged so that one half formed the centre, under Abu Obeida. Ten battalions were then assigned to each wing, of which one was led by Amru and Shorahbîl; the other by Yezîd, whose aged father, Abu Sofiân, was bid to go from troop to troop, and rouse their ardour by martial declamation.[170]

[Sidenote: The Roman army advances;]

It was soon manifest that the Byzantine captains were preparing to deliver a general and decisive charge. Issuing from their defences, they rolled up in dense volume along both sides of the plain. A bystander, gazing at the moving field, exclaimed, ‘How many the Romans, how few the Moslems!’ ‘Nay,’ cried Khâlid, ‘say rather “How many the Moslems, how few the Romans”; for, if ye count aright, numbers wax by the help of the Lord, but when He withdraweth His face, then they wane. I would that the Romans were double the number they now appear, if I had but under me my good Arab steed!’--for the hoofs of his favourite bay had been worn down by the rapid marching from Irâc. Still the Romans kept rolling up in dense columns. The fate of Syria depended on the day.

[Sidenote: but is kept in check.]

As the enemy drew near, Khâlid called upon Ikrima, who had brought his reserve upon the field, and Cacâa with his warriors from Irâc, to advance and check them. Just then a messenger rode up in haste, carrying a despatch from Medîna. To the inquiry of those who flocked around, he answered: ‘All is well, and reinforcements on the way.’ But in Khâlid’s ear he whispered a secret message, and he delivered a letter which, hastily glanced at, Khâlid slipped into his quiver. Then, bidding the messenger keep close by him throughout the day, he rode forth to meet Jâreja.

[Sidenote: Battle of Wacûsa, on the Yermûk. Rajab, A.H. XIII. Sept., A.D. 634.]

The defection of this general was a calamity to the Romans, but at the first it caused an unexpected issue. He had probably a troop, or escort, which followed him, as he rode forth towards the Arab general; but whether or no, a Roman battalion, mistaking his movement for a desperate attack upon the enemy, advanced to his support with such an energetic charge that the Moslem front was broken and thrown into confusion. Ikrima stood firm. He who in the days of Ignorance had measured arms even with the Prophet of the Lord, should he flee before the infidel! ‘Who now,’ he cried, ‘will join me in the covenant of death?’ Four hundred, with his own son, and the hero Dhirâr, took the fatal pledge.[171] He charged, and the battalion which had created the surprise, bewildered at the treachery of Jâreja, fell back. The ground now clear, Khâlid ordered the whole line to move forward. The Romans too advanced, and the charge was met on both sides with the sword. All day the battle raged. Fortune varied; and the carnage amongst the Moslems, as well as the Romans, was great. Ikrima’s gallant company, holding their ground firm as a rock in front of Khâlid’s tent, bore the brunt of the day; they were slain or disabled almost to a man. So fierce were the Arabs, that even the women joined their husbands and brothers in the field; and Huweiria, daughter of Abu Sofiân, inheriting the spirit of her mother Hind, was severely wounded in an encounter with the enemy.[172]

[Sidenote: The Moslem victory.]

Towards evening the Romans began to falter. Khâlid, quickly perceiving that their horse were declining from the infantry, launched his centre as a wedge between the two. The cavalry, with nothing behind them but the precipice, made a fierce charge for their lives; the Moslem troops opened to let them pass, and so they gained the open country and never again appeared. The Moslems then turned right and left upon the remaining force cooped up between the ravine and the chasm; and, as they drove all before them, the Romans on both hands ‘were toppled over the bank even as a wall is toppled over.’ The battle drew on into the night, but opposition was now in vain. Those that escaped the sword were hurled in a moving mass over the edge into the yawning gulf. ‘One struggling would draw ten others with him, the free as well as chained.’ And so, in dire confusion and dismay, the whole multitude perished. The fatal chasm YACÛSA engulfed, we are told, 100,000 men.[173] Ficâr, the Roman general, and his fellow-captains, unable to bear the sight, sat down, drew their togas around them, and, hiding their faces in despair and shame, awaited thus their fate.

[Sidenote: Its importance.]

Morning found the Moslems in silent possession of the great plain. They flocked into the Roman entrenchment, and Khâlid took possession of Theodoric’s royal tent. The camp and its rich equipage yielded a booty of 1,500 pieces to each horseman. More than this, the fearful fate of the army struck such terror into the Byzantine court and the people of the land, that the fate of Syria was sealed. Unlike the Persian campaign, the opposition that remained was poor and feeble.

[Sidenote: Heavy loss.]

The victory was purchased at a heavy cost. Three thousand were buried on the field, besides a great multitude wounded; and among the fallen we read many distinguished names. Of Ikrima’s forlorn hope few survived. The famous Dhirâr, badly wounded, recovered to signalise himself on other fields. But Ikrima and his son both sank under their wounds. In the morning, when near their end, they were carried to the royal tent of Khâlid. He laid the head of the father on his breast, and of the son upon his thigh, tenderly wiped their faces and moistened their lips with water. And as they passed away, he kept fondly saying: ‘Alas, alas! the father and the son; who would have thought of a martyr’s death for both!’

[Sidenote: Khâlid deposed by Omar.]

But Khâlid was no longer in command. The messenger in the field had whispered in his ear the news of Abu Bekr’s death; and the letter which he then slipt into his quiver brought the new Caliph’s order that Khâlid should deliver up command into the hands of Abu Obeida.[174]

[Sidenote: Date of the battle.]

The battle was fought in the end of August, or the beginning of September, A.D. 634.[175]

Before narrating the sequel of this great victory, we must turn for a little to what was passing elsewhere.