Damascus is the oldest of the state capitals that have survived to this day. Arab historian Yakut al-Hamawi believed that the age of the city should be counted from Adam and Eve. In his opinion, after the expulsion from Eden, they settled precisely in the Damascus region. On the slopes of Mount Kasyun, near which the city is located, there is the Magarat ad-Damm cave ("the cave of the first blood"). The Arabs believe that it was in her that Cain killed Abel.
4th century BC - A certain trading city, in which orientalists see Damascus, became a bone of contention between Akkad and Ur and passed from hand to hand many times. An advantageous position at the crossroads of trade routes predetermined the fate of the Syrian capital - it has become a battlefield many times.
1457 BC - The army of Pharaoh Menheperra (Thutmose III) went to Syria and Palestine. This was his first trip to Southwest Asia. Syria was then fragmented into dozens of city-states, but almost all of them united to fight the Egyptians. However, the allied army was defeated at Megiddo, and the Egyptians laid siege to Damascus. Punctual Egyptian officials did not report anything about the course of the siege, but recorded the trophies and orders of the pharaoh: 900 soldiers and noble townspeople were beheaded, 6,000 townspeople were driven into slavery.
733 BC - Damascus again withstood siege, assault and devastation. Then he was already the capital of the Syrian kingdom, founded 400 years earlier by the Arameans. But their power fell victim to the intrigues of the king of Judah Ahaz. He was able to assure the ruler of Assyria that the ruler of Damascus, Rezin, was going to a campaign against Judea in order to force her to pay tribute not to Nineveh, but to Damascus. Tiglathpalasar III succumbed to deception and laid siege to Damascus. Neither a five-year supply of food, nor powerful fortifications helped, a year later the city fell. The street fighting continued for a week. 20,000 inhabitants were taken prisoner, and Retsin with the surviving soldiers was executed.
539 BC - The Persian king Cyrus II approached Damascus with a huge army. The then owners of the city - the rulers of the Chaldean state - ordered to defend themselves at any cost and promised to send an army to help. While the siege was going on, their plans changed, and the troops were needed to protect other possessions. The Persians took the city by storm and brutally punished the disobedient: a third was killed, a third was taken into slavery, and a huge indemnity was imposed on the rest. Perhaps, remembering this massacre, 200 years later, the inhabitants of Damascus opened the gates of the army of Alexander the Great without a fight.
'85 BC. - The army of the Nabataean kingdom appeared under the walls of Damascus. The capital of the Seleucid state - a wreck of the empire of Alexander the Great - was in its prime, but the state itself and the army were in decline. The cavalry army was able to take by storm a large and well-fortified city, but it happened. This time, many more townspeople died during robbery and fires than soldiers in battle. After 21 years, Damascus fell to the Romans with almost no resistance and half empty.
634 - All Syria, already belonged to Byzantium for 300 years, but it retreated under the blows of the Arabs. Damascus was also besieged. It was well fortified, supplied with supplies, and defended by a strong garrison. In addition, the Byzantines repeatedly tried to break the blockade, literally under the city walls bloody battles broke out every now and then. But there was no unity among the urban elite, and after a year of siege, part of it agreed on a peaceful surrender. However, on the day when the gates were opened on one side, on the other, the Arabs were able to force their way into the city. Fighting began in the streets. While the emirs were negotiating, about ten thousand Byzantine soldiers and three to four thousand civilians were killed in skirmishes.
1260 - Damascus was waiting for a new attack. In March of this year, the army of the Mongolian commander Hulagu rushed into the city on the move. Many civilians fled, already knowing that the Mongols were ruthlessly cracking down on the recalcitrant. The garrison was taken by surprise and completely killed, and all the inhabitants were expelled from the city by the conquerors. But in the fall, the Arabs regained Damascus, taking it without a fight.
Promotional video:
1300 - A descendant of Hulagu, Gazan Khan, who created his state on the territory of Iran, invaded Syria. The Arabs were unable to quickly gather strength and fight back. After a short siege, the horde broke into the streets of the city. The few surviving contemporaries said that the Mongols had perpetrated an unprecedented massacre: "Blood flowed through the streets in full-flowing rivers." The return of the Arabs three years later turned out to be no less bloody. Having defeated the Mongols near the city, they executed all the prisoners - at least 7,000 people.
1400 - Damascus undergoes yet another devastating raid. It was Emir Tamerlane who declared war on the Ottoman state, which then ruled Syria. Without entering into negotiations or offering to surrender, he took city after city. From the very beginning, Tamerlane did not want to establish control over Damascus for a long time - he planned to wipe it off the face of the earth as an important trading center of the rival power. As a result of the three-day assault, the besiegers broke into the city from several directions at once. They did not take prisoners from among the soldiers. When there was no one to resist, Tamerlane ordered to drive away all the gunsmiths, glass blowers (Damascus was famous for these two industries) and other artisans and took them into slavery in Samarkand. He ordered all the rest of the inhabitants to be killed, and the city to be destroyed to the ground.
1516 - Damascus was occupied by the troops of the Turkish Sultan Selim. They found the city dilapidated, although more than a hundred years had passed since the invasion of Tamerlane. Crowds of robbers, beggars, Christians, sectarians of all denominations, gangs of marauders hid in the ruins. For decades, their earnings were robbing caravans and pilgrims to Mecca. Selim ordered a raid in the ruins of Damascus. About two thousand of the strongest prisoners were sent to the galleys, and another three thousand were simply hanged. But from that time on, a gradual revival of the city began.
1860 - The streets of Damascus are stained with blood again. This time, the relationship was sorted out by Christians, of whom there were always many, and the Druze - representatives of a branch of Islam. Not only the followers of Christ, but also other Muslims are hostile to the latter. Here the Ottoman governor was inactive until the army had to be brought in. First, the Christians defeated the Druze quarters, killing seven hundred opponents. And then the Druze staged a more bloody massacre: more than five thousand people died. The sent troops were able to separate the warring parties, only increasing the number of victims.
2011 anti-government demonstrations begin. Almost the entire country was engulfed in civil war, and in December the first explosions in the capital thundered. 44 people were killed, and another 160 were injured.
2012 - In March, real fighting began in Damascus, the number of those killed in this city went to hundreds. By the summer, government troops were forced to stop the militants already on the central avenue of the capital, using tanks, aviation and heavy artillery. In total, more than four thousand residents of the city died in battles on the streets of the city and in terrorist attacks. In the summer, the fighting took place in the government quarter, but in early August, the army with heavy losses for both sides drove the rebels out of Damascus. But this did not mean the end of the bloodshed in the capital. Terrorist attacks, new opposition protests and government counter-attacks.
2013 - On August 21, chemical weapons were used in the suburbs of Damascus - more than 1000 people were killed. The fighting in the Syrian capital continues to this day.
Journal: Military history, no. 48 / S
