In 535, Emperor Justinian I returned Sicily to the Roman Empire, now ruled from Constantinople exclusively. As the power of what is now known as the Byzantine Empire waned in the West, Sicily was invaded by the Rashidun Caliphate during the reign of Caliph Uthman in the year 652. However, this first invasion was short-lived, and the Muslims left soon after.
The first true conquest expedition was launched in 740. In that year the Muslim prince Habib, who had participated on the 728 attack,
successfully captured Syracuse. Ready to conquer the whole island, they were however forced to return to Tunisia by a Berber revolt. A second attack in 752 aimed only to sack the same city.
The opportunity for the Aghlabid emirs of Ifriqiya came in 827, when the commander of the island's fleet, Euphemius, rose in revolt against the Byzantine Emperor Michael II. Defeated by loyalist forces and driven from the island, Euphemius sought the aid of the Aghlabids. The latter regarded this as an opportunity for expansion and for diverting the energies of their own fractious military
establishment and alleviate the criticism of the Islamic scholars by championing jihad, and dispatched an army to aid him. Following the Arab landing on the island, Euphemius was quickly sidelined.
An initial assault on the island's capital, Syracuse, failed, but the Muslims were able to weather the subsequent Byzantine counter-attack and hold on to a few fortresses. With the aid of reinforcements from Ifriqiya and al-Andalus, in 831 they took Palermo, which became the capital of the new Muslim province.
The Byzantine government sent a few expeditions to aid the locals against the Muslims, but preoccupied with the struggle against the Abbasids on their eastern frontier and with the Cretan Saracens in the Aegean Sea, it was unable to mount a sustained effort to drive back the Muslims, who over the next three decades raided
Byzantine possessions almost unopposed. The strong fortress of Enna in the centre of the island was the main Byzantine bulwark against Muslim expansion, until its capture in 859. Following its fall, the Muslims increased their pressure against the eastern parts of the island, and after a long siege captured Syracuse in 878. The Byzantines retained control of some fortresses in the north-eastern corner of the island for some decades thereafter, and launched a number of efforts to recover the island until well into the 11th century, but were unable to seriously challenge Muslim control over Sicily. The fall of the last major Byzantine fortress, Taormina, in 902, is held to mark the completion of the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
Although few strongholds in the northeast remained unconquered and in Christian hands, the fall of Taormina marked the effective end of Byzantine Sicily, and the consolidation of Muslim control over the island.
In 963 the Muslims attacked the last remaining Christian stronghold on the island, Rometta, which prompted an expedition sent by the Byzantine emperor, Nikephoros II Phokas, to recover Sicily. The Byzantines were at first successful, recapturing Messina and other fortresses in the northeast, but were repulsed before Rometta itself, and retreated back to Calabria. In the next year, they tried to resume their offensive, but were annihilated in the Battle of the Straits off Messina. As a result, a lasting truce was concluded by the two powers in 967.
The Battle of Manzikert was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuq Empire on August 26, 1071 near Manzikert, in modern Malazgirt in Muş Province, Turkey. The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes played an important role in undermining Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Armenia, and allowed for the gradual Turkification of Anatolia.
The Byzantine Empire began to decline under the reign of the militarily incompetent Constantine IX and under Constantine X. Under Constantine the IX the Byzantines first came into contact with the Seljuk Turks when they attempted to annex Ani, the Armenian capital. Constantine made a truce with the Seljuks that lasted until 1064. In 1064 they took Ani, and in 1067 the rest of Armenia, followed by Caesarea.
In 1068 Romanos IV took power, and after some speedy military reforms entrusted Manuel Comnenus to lead an expedition against the Seljuks. Manuel captured Hierapolis Bambyce in Syria, but was then defeated and captured by the Seljuks under the Sultan Alp Arslan.
Alp Arslan was the second Sultan of the Seljuk Empire and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. Despite his success Alp Arslan was quick to seek a peace treaty with the Byzantines, signed in 1069. He saw the Fatimids in Egypt as his main enemy and had no desire to be diverted by unnecessary hostilities.
But Byzantine emperor Romanos wanted to recover the lost fortresses, and led a large army around 40,000 to 70,000 men into Armenia. The march across Asia Minor was long and difficult, and Romanos did not endear himself to his troops by bringing a luxurious baggage train along with him. The expedition rested at Sebasteia on the river Halys, reaching Theodosiopolis in June 1071. Thinking that Alp Arslan was either further away or not coming at all, Romanos marched towards Lake Van, expecting to retake Manzikert rather quickly, as well as the nearby fortress of Khliat if possible. Alp Arslan was already in the area, however, with allies and 30,000 cavalry from Aleppo and Mosul. Alp Arslan's scouts knew exactly where Romanos was, while Romanos was completely unaware of his opponent's movements.
Romanos ordered his general Joseph Tarchaniotes to take some of the regular troops to Khliat, while Romanos and the rest of the army marched to Manzikert. This split the forces in half, each taking about 20,000 men. It is unknown what happened to the army sent off with Tarchaniotes.
Romanos was unaware of the loss of Tarchaneiotes and continued to Manzikert, which he easily captured on August 23. The next day some foraging parties under Bryennios discovered the Seljuk army and were forced to retreat back to Manzikert. The Armenian general Basilakes was sent out with some cavalry, as Romanos did not believe this was Alp Arslan's full army. The cavalry was destroyed and Basilakes taken prisoner. Romanos drew up his troops into formation and sent the left wing out under Bryennios, who was almost surrounded by the quickly approaching Turks and was forced to retreat once more. The Seljuk forces hid among the nearby hills for the night, making it nearly impossible for Romanos to counterattack.
On August 25, some of Romanos' Turkic mercenaries came into contact with their Seljuk kin and deserted. Romanos then rejected a Seljuk peace embassy. He wanted to settle the eastern question and the persistent Turkic incursions and settlements with a decisive military victory, and he understood that raising another army would be both difficult and expensive. The Emperor attempted to recall Tarchaneiotes, who was no longer in the area.
On August 26 the Byzantine army gathered itself into a proper battle formation and began to march on the Turkish positions, with the left wing under Bryennios, the right wing under Theodore Alyates, and the centre under the emperor. Andronikos Doukas led the reserve forces in the rear—a foolish mistake, considering the loyalties of the Doukids. The Seljuks were organized into a crescent formation about four kilometres away.
The Byzantines held off the arrow attacks and captured Alp Arslan's camp by the end of the afternoon. They tried to force the Seljuks into a pitched battle; the Seljuk cavalry simply disengaged when challenged, the classic hit and run tactics of steppe warriors. With the Seljuks avoiding battle, Romanos was forced to order a withdrawal by the time night fell. However, the right wing misunderstood the order, and Doukas, as a rival of Romanos, deliberately ignored the
emperor and marched back to the camp outside Manzikert, rather than covering the emperor's retreat. With the Byzantines thoroughly confused, the Seljuks seized the opportunity and attacked.
The Byzantine right wing was almost immediately routed. The left wing under Bryennios held out a little longer but was also soon routed. The remnants of the Byzantine centre, including the Emperor and the Varangian Guard, were encircled by the Seljuks. Romanos was injured and taken prisoner by the Seljuks. By dawn, the professional core of the Byzantine army had been destroyed whilst many of the peasant troops and levies who had been under the command of Andronikus had fled.
When Emperor Romanos IV was conducted into the presence of Alp Arslan, the Sultan refused to believe that the bloodied and tattered man covered in dirt was the mighty Emperor of the Romans. After discovering his identity, Alp Arslan placed his boot on the Emperor's neck and forced him to kiss the ground. Romanos remained a captive of the Sultan for a week. During this time, the Sultan allowed Romanos to eat at his table whilst concessions were agreed upon: Antioch, Edessa, Hierapolis, and Manzikert were to be surrendered. This would have left the vital core of Anatolia untouched. The Sultan then gave Romanos many presents and an escort of two emirs and one hundred Mamluks on his route to Constantinople. Shortly after his return to his subjects, Romanos found his rule in serious trouble. Despite attempts to raise loyal troops, he was defeated three times in battle against the Doukas family and was deposed, blinded, and exiled to the island of Proti where he died soon.
Years and decades later, Manzikert came to be seen as a disaster for the Empire. Later sources therefore greatly exaggerate the numbers of troops and the number of casualties. The usurpation of Andronikos Doukas also politically destabilized the empire and it was
difficult to organize resistance to the Turkish migrations that followed the battle. These events all interacted to create a vacuum that the Turks filled. The result of this disastrous defeat was, in simplest terms, the loss of the Eastern Roman Empire's Anatolian heartland. The Byzantine Empire was limited to the area immediately around Constantinople, and the Byzantines were never again a serious military force. It is also interpreted as one of the root causes for the later Crusades, and the First Crusade of 1095 was originally a western response to the Byzantine emperor's call for military assistance after the loss of Anatolia.
The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also referred to as the American War of Independence and as the Revolutionary War in the United States, was an armed conflict between Great Britain and those thirteen of its North American colonies which after the onset of the war declared independence as the United States of America.
The close of the Seven Years' War in 1763 saw Great Britain triumphant in driving the Kingdom of France from North America, but heavily in debt. Britain's national
debt at the end of the war had doubled to £130,000,000 and the annual cost of the British civil and military establishment in America in 1764 was £350,000, five times the cost of 15 years earlier. Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765, which imposed direct taxes on the colonies for the first time. This was met with strong condemnation among American spokesmen, who argued that their "Rights as Englishmen" meant that there could be "no taxation without representation"—that is direct taxes could not be imposed on them by Parliament because they lacked representation in Parliament.
This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England
Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Patriot protests escalated into boycotts. On December 16, 1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. The British government retaliated by closing the port of Boston and enacting punitive measures against Massachusetts, including the dissolution of its charter and the prohibition of its
traditional, democratic town meetings. Named the "Coercive Acts" by Parliament, these measures became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a shadow government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees and conventions that effectively seized power.
British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776. The
Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Later he was appointed as commander-in-chief of the newly formed Continental Army, as well as coordinating state militia units. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec and raise rebellion against the British Crown there decisively failed. On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4.
Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City. Howe outmaneuvered and defeated
Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, restoring American confidence. In 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting
Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a separate campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777.
The British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic
consequences. France and Spain had covertly provided the colonists with weapons, ammunition, and other supplies since April 1776; in 1778 France formally entered the war, signing a military alliance that recognized the independence of the United States. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South. British forces under Lieutenant-
General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina in May 1780. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers
of armed Loyalists, but too few came forward. In 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780.
In 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at King's Mountain in October 1780 and Cowpens in
January 1781, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route. A joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, and some 8,000 soldiers were taken prisoner.
Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper
hand. In early 1782 they voted to end all offensive operations in North America, but the British war against France and Spain continued, with the British decisively defeating both during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. In addition Britain inflicted several naval defeats upon the French, most decisively in the Battle of the Saintes in the Caribbean in April 1782. On September 3, 1783, the combatants signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the war. Britain agreed to recognize the sovereignty of the
United States over the territory bounded roughly by present-day Canada to the north, by Florida to the south, and by the Mississippi River to the west.
While French involvement proved decisive for the cause of American independence, France made only minor territorial gains, and incurred massive financial debts. Spain acquired Britain's Florida colonies and the island of Minorca, but failed in its primary aim of recovering Gibraltar. The Dutch lost on all counts, and had to cede Nagapattinam to the British.
The total loss of life throughout the war is largely unknown. As was
typical in the wars of the era, disease claimed far more lives than battle. At least 25,000 American Patriots died during active military service. Proportionate to the population of the colonies, the Revolutionary War was at least the second-deadliest conflict in American history, ranking ahead of World War II and behind only the Civil War.
The arab conquest of Spain was the initial expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate over Iberian Peninsula, beginning in 711. The conquest resulted in the destruction of the Visigothic Kingdom and the establishment of the independent Emirate of Cordova under Abd ar-Rahman I, who completed the unification of Muslim-ruled Iberia, or al-Andalus (756–788). The conquest marks the westernmost expansion of both the Umayyad Caliphate and Muslim rule into Europe.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the Teutonic tribe of Visigoths ended up ruling the whole peninsula until the Islamic conquest. During that time they pushed another Teutonic tribe out—the Vandals – and conquered another one—the Suevi. It is frequently stated in historical sources that Spain was one of the former Roman provinces where the Latin language and culture grew deep roots. After the fall of the Empire, the Visigoths continued the tradition by becoming probably the most Romanized of all Teutonic tribes.
On April 30, 711, muslim forces commanded by Tariq ibn Ziyad disembarked at Gibraltar, with an army consisting of Berbers, natives from north-western Africa.
According to the later chronicler Ibn Abd-el-Hakem, in 711, Tariq Ibn Ziyad led an approximately 1,700-strong raiding force from North Africa to southern Spain. However, 12,000 seems a more accurate figure. Ibn Abd-el-Hakem reports, one and a half centuries later, that "the people of Andalus did not observe them, thinking that the vessels crossing and recrossing were similar to the trading vessels which for their benefit plied backwards and forwards." They defeated the Visigothic army, led by King Roderic, in a decisive battle at Guadalete in 712. Tariq's forces were then reinforced by those of his superior, the wali Musa ibn Nusair, and both took control of most of Iberia with an army estimated at approximately 10,000–15,000 combatants.
The conquering army was made up mainly of Berbers who had themselves only recently come under Muslim influence. It is probable that this army represented a continuation of a historic pattern of large-scale raids into Iberia dating to the pre–Islamic period, and hence it has been suggested that actual conquest was not originally planned.
Both the Chronicle of 754 and later Muslim sources speak of raiding activity in previous years, and Tariq's army may have been present for some time before the decisive battle. It has been argued that this possibility is supported by the fact that the army was led by a Berber and that Musa, who was the Umayyad Governor of North Africa, only arrived the following year — the governor had not stooped to lead a mere raid, but hurried across once the unexpected triumph became clear. The Chronicle of 754 states that many townspeople fled to the hills rather than defend their cities, which might support the view that this was expected to be a temporary raid rather than a permanent change of government.
Roderic was believed to have been killed and a crushing defeat would have left the Visigoths largely leaderless and disorganized. In this regard, the ruling Visigoth population is estimated at a mere 1 to 2% of the total population, which on one hand led to a reasonably strong and effective instrument of government. However, it was highly centralised to the extent that the defeat of the royal army left the entire land open to the invaders. The resulting power vacuum, which may have indeed caught Tariq completely by surprise, would have aided the Muslim conquest immensely. Indeed, it may have been equally welcome to the Hispano-Roman peasants who were disillusioned by the prominent legal, linguistic and social divide between them and the 'barbaric' and 'decadent' Visigoth royal family.
In 714, Musa ibn Nusayr headed north-west up the Ebro river to overrun the western Basque regions and the Cantabrian mountains all the way to Gallaecia, with no relevant or attested opposition. During the period of Arab governor Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa (714–716), the principal urban centres of Catalonia surrendered. In 714, his father, Musa ibn Nusair, advanced and overran Soria, the western Basque regions, Palencia, and as far west as Gijón or León, where a Berber governor was appointed with no relevant or attested opposition. The northern areas of Iberia drew little attention to the conquerors and were hard to defend when taken. The high western and central sub-Pyrenean valleys remained unconquered.
At this time, Umayyad troops reached Pamplona, and the Basque town submitted after a compromise was brokered with Arab commanders to respect the town and its inhabitants, a practice that was common in many towns of the Iberian Peninsula. The Umayyad troops met little resistance. Considering that era's communication capabilities, three years was a reasonable time spent almost reaching the Pyrenees, after making the necessary arrangements for the towns' submissions and their future governance.
The conquest was followed by a period of several hundred years during which most of the Iberian peninsula was known as Al-Andalus, dominated by Muslim rulers. Only a handful of new small Christian realms managed to reassert their authority across the faraway mountainous north of the peninsula.
