The Second Perso-Turkic War begins in 619…
616 CE to 627 CE
The Second Perso-Turkic War begins in 619 with an invasion of Sassanid Persia by the Göktürks and Hephthalites under Tong Yabghu.
The war ends with the defeat of the Turks and Hephthalites by the Sassanids under General Smbat Bagratuni.
The Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 is fought throughout the Middle East and eastern Europe: in Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, Anatolia, and even before the walls of Constantinople itself.
Such long standing imperial possessions as Chalcedon and Alexandria fall to the Persians; civil authority in Roman possessions throughout Asia Minor erodes as Emperor Heraclius grants his generals (strategoi) both civil and military authority over those lands that they occupy with their “themes,” as the army groups, or corps, are called.
The long-standing and complex economic rivalry between the two empires is reduced to a holy war—the West’s first Crusade—between Christianity and Zoroastrianism, in which both sides destroy each other’s places of worship.
While the Persians prove largely successful during the first stage of the war from 602 to 622, conquering much of the Levant, Egypt, and parts of Anatolia, the ascendancy of Emperor Heraclius in 610 leads, despite initial setbacks, to the Persians' defeat.
Heraclius' campaigns in Persian lands from 622 to 626 force the Persians onto the defensive and allow his forces to regain momentum.
The Persians, allied in 626 with the Avars, make a final attempt to take Constantinople, but are defeated there.
Heraclius in 627 invades the Persians' heartland and forces them to sue for peace.
