half century of migrations and collapses

[nokhor]

in the seventh century a disproportionate number of migrations and collapse happended in a relatively short period of time.

599- the avar having already conquered and or forced the migrations of germans [gepids, lombards] and slavs [croats, serbs, other slavs] into central and southern europe, begin invading the byzantine empire in earnest.

618- the suo dynasty of china after an exhausting war against the koguryo dynasty of northern korea involving over a million man on the suo side, collapses due to the enormous strain their conscription and labor puts on china. they also fail to win the war against koguryo, and are supplanted by the t'ang.

626- after a debilitating siege involving a grand alliance of avars, slavs, and sassanids persians against the byzantines, the grand alliance is defeated at constatinople, the avar empire collapses as they withdraw from being a major power in south east europe to being a regional power in what would later become hungary.

636- battle of yarmuk, the arabs defeat the byzantines. arabs conquer south eastern portion of byzantine empire.

636- battle of qadisiyyah. arabs decisively defeat sassanid persia and begin to conquer it as the sassanids collapse.

the heir to the sassanids later becomes a general in the court of t'ang dynasty china.

the great arab migration begins into northern africa, and the middle east.

the great slavic migration has begun into the balkans.

teotihuacan the greatest city in the americas collapses. archeologists differ as to why.

661- the t'ang conquer pyongyang, the koguryo capital, and beset by an alliance of the t'ang with the silla, another korean state, the koguryo begin their inevitable decline.

with the exception of the suo, most of the states that collapsed in that half century [koguryo, sassanids] had dynasties that were centuries old. those that did survived a near collapse [avars, byzantines] were very much reduced in power and were never able to regain their former glory.

the people who participated in the great migrations in this period came to permanantly occupied the lands they had taken. the lombards moved into italy and settled into what became known as lombardy, the serbs and croats settled in the southwest balkans, and the arabs in northern africa and the middle east.

[AntiochusIII]

Interesting period indeed. Clearly the main factors in the West are the opportunistic rise of a great Islamic Jihad into a war-torn Eastern Mediterranean world, and the movement of the Avars into the Hungarian plains which let to another round of struggles between Byzantium and her neighbors; Constantinople, arguably, had the honor of being the climax, like it often does. Whereas in China the progression between the Sui, or as you call it Suo, and the Tang, in a way is almost seemless. It's quite similar to the transition between the Qin and the Han centuries earlier, the former fell because of the weight of its own iron grip on the people, the latter, while milder overall, build on the achievements that come with that iron grip without the burden of the crimes.

What happened in India at the time? The Gupta Empire just fell half a century before that, isn't it?

[nokhor]

i have no idea why i called the sui the suo, too much playing sengoku strategy games maybe. i apologize.

in northern india/iran/afghanistan area, the [h]epthalites a.k.a white huns power was being broken by wars with the sassanids, indians, and turks after the epthalites had slaughtered most of northern india. but i purposely left them out because their fall was happening about a half century before most of the stuff i was describing began.

i think if you had to pick any one event that had a significance in most of the other events, it would have to be the formation of the first turkish khaganate, the go[k]turk empire under bayan in 552. and their formation and collapse had effects throughout eurasia. it caused the avars to push westward towards the byzantines, pushed the epthalites towards india, and the collapse of turkish power was indirectly related to a strong chinese state under the sui. also the sui and koguryo came into conflict because they were both expanding into the power vacuum left by the eastern turks.

[AntiochusIII]

Interesting thesis. Any good books on the Turkish migrations where I could find a lot of the details? Thanks.

[nokhor]

Any good books on the Turkish migrations where I could find a lot of the details? Thanks

nope, not really, at least not in english that i have come across. there is of course the oft mentioned rene grousset "empire of the steppes" which has been translated into english. and some chapters like XLVI in gibbon's "decline and fall..." have good snippets of some of the movements and migrations but i have not come across a definitive monograph on turkish migrations in english. i personally have been dying for a decent sassanid history in english. pretty much most of the stuff that i have come across have been written either in farsi or french neither of which i read.