Seven Decisive Battles of the Middle Ages by Joseph Dahmus First Printing Hardcover in Original Dust Jacket 1983 Medieval Military History

Seven Decisive Battles of the Middle Ages by Joseph Dahmus First Printing Hardcover in Original Dust Jacket 1983 Medieval Military History

<Condition is Good+ as Pictured> (normal wear, some markings, visible edge-wear, corners slightly rubbed/bumped)

Quick Synopsis: Joseph Dahumus describes in 8 chapters medieval warfare in general and 7 specific battles: Chalons, the Yarmuk, Hastings, Hattin, Bouvines, Crecy and Angora, the first taking place in 451 and the last in 1402. Huns, Arabs, Byzantines, Crusaders and leaders like Saladin, William the Conqueror and Timur the Lame are represented in the book.

⬇️The long description from inside the dust jacket⬇️
—This study introduces the reader to some major battles of the Middle Ages, from the battle of Chalons (451) to Angora (1402), and suggests the vital part these battles played in the rise of modern European nations.

The author describes how the battles influenced the rise and fall of kingdoms and speculates how differently European and Near Eastern civilizations might have evolved had the outcome of these battles been reversed.

Dahmus prefaces his work with a brief survey of the art of war from the decline of Rome to the fifteenth century. Then, in chronological order, he discusses the seven battles.

The battle of Chalons (451) saw Roman general Aetius and his Visigothic, Frankish, Alan, Celtic, and Saxon allies facing off against the brutal Huns lead by Attila, the "Scourge of God." While early barbarian forays into the Western Roman Empire had led to its decline, the overwhelming threat posed by Attila in 451 forced the western tribes into alliance. Attila's defeat at their hands assured that a unified, albeit tenuous germanic civilization would replace fallen Rome.
At Yarmuk (636), a tributary of the Jordan, the Arabs annihilated the Byzantine army and within a few years established an enormous and highly advanced Moslem empire that extended from the Pyrenees to the Indus River. Moslem occupation of Syria and Palestine in turn led Western Europe to undertake a series of Crusades. It was at Hattin (1187), near the sea of Galilee, where the celebrated Moslem leader Saladin gained the most decisive victory of the entire Crusading period.

The long conflict between two emerging na-tions, France and England, represents one of the central dramas of the period. When William of Normandy defeated Harold of England at the battle of Hastings (1066), be brought England's isolation to an end and established an indissoluble connection between Britain and the continent that profoundly affected cultural and political developments on both sides of the Channel. The battle of Bouvines (1214) determined not only that John would not recover Normandy and Anjou from France's Philip II, but that John's barons would force him to set his seal to the Magna Charta. A century later, with a resounding victory at Crecy (1346), England made a last bid to control Western France, and it required the Hundred Years' War before France was finally able to close the door to those ambitions.

The battle of Angora (1402) introduced Western Europe to the dread Mongol empire-builder, Timur the Lame. Oddly enough, he acted as an indirect ally of European Christians against the Ottoman Turks, who had destroyed a huge Crusading army at Nicopolis and were poised to capture Constan-tinople. Timur's annihilation of the Turkish army at Angora provided Constantinople another 50 years respite. It won Christian Europe the same 50 years to prepare itself to block the Turkish drive on Vienna and Budapest. Their fall would surely have changed the course of Western Civilization.

JOSEPH DAHMUS, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the Pennsylvania State University in State College. He has written nine books on medieval history, including Seven Medieval Historians (Nelson-Hall, 1982), Seven Medieval Queens (1972), Seven Medieval Kings (1968), The Middle Ages: A Popular History (1968), and The Prosecution of John Wyclyf (1952).


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