STRATEGIC FAILURE

The sixth-century Byzantine diplomat Peter the Patrician prophetically anticipated seventh-century events when, in 562, he warned another eastern power who threatened the Byzantine Empire, namely, the Persian Empire: “We have our fill of war before war has its fill of us … As long as men are evidently winning over their adversary, their courage is cultivated. But when it is obviously failing to destroy their enemies, they waste their own strength and as a result they lose to those who should not conquer them.”

Heraclius had eighteen years in which to find the proper strategy and tactics for crushing the Persians. But he did not have the leisure of eighteen more years to devise or improvise the proper tactics and defenses and counterstrategy against the Muslims. The initial Muslim invasions surprised the military defenders and civilian inhabitants of Syria and Palestine, who were not anticipating any major military activity from the direction of the Arabian peninsula, even though in retrospect modern observers may find warning signs. It is impossible to prove whether Heraclius could have devised an effective strategy against the Muslims if he had possessed more time. He unsuccessfully tried to develop what one may term one variant of a strategy of positional warfare, that of a defense in depth. Such a strategy depends on the control of fixed fortified points and sieges, and a principal object is the control of territory and population in that territory. That strategy did not succeed.