Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Heraclian epoch (610-717)

External Problems

Muhammed and Islam

Page 12

In Egypt there were special causes for the weak resistance to the Arabs. The main reason must be sought in the general conditions prevailing in the Byzantine army. Numerically the troops were perhaps sufficiently strong; but the general organization of the army was poor. It was subdivided into many parts commanded by five different rulers or dukes (duces), entrusted with equal power. There was no unity of action among these governors. Their indifference to the general problems of the province, their personal rivalries, the lack of solidarity and coordination toward a common end, and their military incapacity paralyzed resistance. The soldiers were no better than their leaders. Numerous as the Egyptian army was, its poor leadership and poor training made it very unreliable and created a strong tendency toward defection. There is no doubt that numerous causes explain the terrifying successes of the Arabs, Maspero said, but the main cause of the Byzantine defeat in the valley of the Nile was the poor quality of the army which was intrusted, contrary to all expectations, with the task of defending Egypt. On the basis of the study of papyri, Gelzer thought that the class of privileged large landowners which arose in Egypt previous to the period of the Arabian conquests became practically independent of the central government and, though it did not create an actual local ruling body, was also one of the main causes for the fall of Byzantine domination. Amelineau, also on the basis of a study of papyri, suggested as another important factor which facilitated the Arabian conquest the inadequate civil administration of Egypt. The English papyrologist H. I. Bell called the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs no miracle, no example of divine vengeance on erring Christendom; it was merely the inevitable collapse of a structure rotten at the core. Thus the list of primary causes for Arabian success includes religious conditions in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, the racial kinship of the population of the two first countries to the people of Arabia, the inadequacy of military forces, inefficient military organization and poor civil administration, and class relations in Egypt.

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