142 ISLAM AT WAR
for most of the period that Arab and Turkish fleets prowled the Mediter-
ranean, they would do so in galleys, and it is possible that the end of the
galley was a precise symbol for the end of Islamic dominance in the
Mediterranean Basin.
The earliest Arab major naval operations occurred as early asA.D. 649.
Arab soldiers attacked the Byzantine possession of Cyprus from the sea.
The coastal ports of Egypt and Syria, which fell into Muslim hands in the
Great Conquest, were thus put to early use in adding a naval dimension
to the operations of the caliph’s land armies. It is wonderful how quickly
the desert lords picked up on the possibilities inherent in naval operations.
These early forays were not all just piratical raids, a strong inclination
emerged to move and supply major armies by sea and to conduct direct
amphibious operations. Telling evidence of how well this lesson was
learned came in 655 when Abdullah Abu Serh defeated a Byzantine fleet
near Fenike on the southwestern coast of Anatolia.
Abu Serh’s victory was useful, but the Byzantine defense was enough
to force his armada back to Egypt. The Arabs did return though, in 668,
when a serious combined arms attack by land and sea was launched by
the Caliph against Constantinople itself. In this siege—a near-run thing—
the Prophet’s Standard Bearer (a title, no longer an individual) Eyyub el-
Ensari commanded the naval arm of the attack and fell in battle when his
fleet was defeated by a Byzantine sortie.
In 670 the Arab fleets completed the conquest of Cyprus and also oc-
cupied Smyrna on the Anatolian coast. These excellent ports provided
bases in a long series of blockades of the imperial capital, each of which
came near success. These attacks, in 674–77, combined a blockade with
a land siege by the caliph’s armies. Each time the surviving Byzantine
fleet was driven behind the boom defenses of the Golden Horn and con-
ducted only short counterattacking sorties. Each time the approach of win-
ter forced the Arab ships to withdraw, and their armies, shorn of logistical
support by the weather, would follow suit.
The Byzantines found this a dangerous pattern. Had there been a single
weak link in the defenses of their capital, the Arabs would surely have
found and exploited it. If the city of Byzantium fell, this would almost
inevitably destroy the Byzantine Empire in its totality. In fact, several
hundred years later, the naval and military situations would be remarkably
similar to those in 674–77. The break in the pattern came in 678, when
the Byzantine navy introduced a secret weapon—Greek fire—against their
enemies and succeeded in burning the attacking fleets, thus lifting the
siege. This flammable substance, projected through nozzles mounted in
the prows of galleys and from high points on the city walls, seriously