The ancient history of the world – the mighty Assyrian Empire

The almighty army of the Assyrian Empire

The mighty Assyrian Empire

The establishment of the Assyrian Empire (8th to 7th centuries BC) was gradually completed through continuous military conquest. The foundation for the establishment of the Assyrian Empire was laid by the Assyrian king Nasirpa II in the early 9th century BC. He led an army that defeated the Alamites, sacked Mesopotamia and Syria, inflicted heavy damage on Uraltu to the north, expanded the mountainous borders in the east, and marched to the Phoenician coast in the west.

The founder of the Assyrian Empire was Tigrat Palasar III in the late 8th century BC. After he came to power, he carried out reforms in many areas. The military reform is mainly to divide the standing army into seven or eight special branches, such as heavy infantry, siege troops, chariot soldiers, cavalry, engineers, and heavy troops. At the same time, he also improved his weapons and equipment, equipped the army with iron bows and arrows, knives and guns, armor, etc., and made and used trebuchets, city thrusters and ladders for siege. Through military reforms, the Assyrian army became the most powerful army in West Asia and North Africa at that time. The Assyrian king Tiglat Palashar III vividly embodied the warlike habits of the Assyrians, conquering was his greatest desire, and every external conquest fueled his ambitions for expansion. In 745 BC, Tiglat Palashar III established a pro-Assyrian regime in babylon under the pretext of helping to quell the rebellion. In 744 BC, the Assyrians took the lead in expanding northeastward, successfully conquering the Medes tribes.

The victory of the two conquests fueled the expansion of Tiglat Parashar III. In 743 BC, he led a large army to attack the city of Damascus. The city of Damascus was strong, and the defenders and the people in the city fought bravely to kill the enemy and desperately defend Damascus. The Assyrian king, seeing that he could not conquer for a long time, hurriedly mobilized trebuchets and fired huge stones and burning oil barrels into the city of Matuq. The trebuchet was a siege weapon from the roman and medieval eras, and with the protection of the metal shell, the soldiers inside the machine could throw boulders into the walls and cities of the enemy and cause damage.

For a time, the whole city of Damascus was in a sea of fire, and the soldiers and people in the city had no intention of continuing to defend the city. Assyrian generals also attacked the gates and ramparts with siege mallets equipped with huge metal strike angles, and damascus was captured.

The Assyrian king, annoyed by the stubborn resistance of the Damascus, ordered his soldiers to massacre the soldiers and civilians in the city and let the prisoners of war lie on sharpened wooden stakes until they died.

The assyrian king's brutality was shocked, and 19 countries, including Israel, Syria and Palestine, formed an alliance to wage a war of resistance against the Assyrians in the mountains of Lebanon. The Assyrians defeated the Allied forces with their well-equipped and well-trained soldiers.

After the 19-nation alliance was subjugated, the Assyrian king began the Northern Expedition to Uraltu. Uraltu relied on the rugged terrain and tenacious resistance, which allowed the Assyrians to regain some momentum in their winning streak. However, the karma was not reconciled, and turned to beauty and won a great victory. In 714 BC, Assyria again carried out the Northern Expedition, and the country carried a cart over the mountains and waded through the waters, and copied the hinterland of the ancient Uraltu. The Uraltu garrison was caught off guard and frustrated, and the entire city of Moussair was looted by Ayatoll.

Foreign conquest was a tradition in assyria, and no matter which king it was, it was full of desire to conquer.

During the reign of Sargon II (722-705 BC), Assyria continued to expand its territory outward. As soon as Sargon II ascended the throne, he sent an army to capture Samaria and destroy Israel. In 714 BC, he launched another major attack on Uraltu, capturing his holy city of Musasiel. By the time Ofar hadtung 's reign ( c . 681 – 669 BC ) , he led an army across the Sinai Peninsula in 671 BC , defeated the Egyptian army and captured the Egyptian capital , Memphis. Finally, during the reign of Assyrian Banibal (about 668-627 BC), the Assyrian army captured the ancient capital of Egypt, Thebes, and completely destroyed Elam in the east. By this time, Assyria's territory had reached its largest scale: from the western part of the Iranian plateau in the east, bordering the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea in the west, Egypt in the southwest, Uraltu in the north, and the Persian Gulf in the south. By this time, Assyria had become a large Iron Age empire that spanned West Asia and North Africa.

The people of the conquered areas continued to revolt, and various fierce contradictions and struggles within Assyrian society directly led to the decline of the Assyrian Empire.

At the end of the empire, there were some great powers around Assyria- the Medes in the east, Lydia in the north, and Caleb (Neo-Babylon) in the south, which was also an important reason for the decline of the Assyrian Empire.

In 655 BC, Egypt broke away from the Assyrian Empire and regained its independence. In 626 BC, the Calebids of Babylonia declared their independence and established the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom. Later, it allied itself with the Medes to attack Assyria. In 612 BC, the two armies captured Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. In 605 BC, Kalkhemish, the last stronghold in western Assyria, was also breached, and Assyria was declared extinct.