Thutmose III (Part 1): The Battle of Megiddo.
1462 BCE. In regnal year 33, Thutmose demonstrated why we call him “the Napoleon of Egypt.” He led a daring and audacious strike against his most deadly foes; this is the Eighth Campaign – one of the greatest in Egyptian history.
Bibliography
- Donald B. Redford, Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thutmose III, 2003.
- Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times, 1992.
- Richard Gabriel, Thutmose III: A Military Biography, 2009.
- Betsy M. Bryan (editor), Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut, 2014.
- Norman de Garis Davies, “Foreigners in the Tomb of Amenemhab,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 1934 (JSTOR).
- Bettina Bader, “Egypt and the Mediterranean in the Bronze Age: the Archaeological Evidence,” Oxford Handbooks Online, 2015.
To be frank, at this point I’m struggling to understand where Thutmose’s military reputation comes from, most of his campaigns seem to be incredibly ephemeral, and my credit to you for highlighting this.
By my count from your podcast he has had one significant ‘victory’, that at Megiddo, in 8 campaigns. In this campaign, he yet again fails to take the strategically important cities of Kadesh and Tunip, even with 10,000 troops at his back, instead leading a glorified raiding expedition of some unfortified villages in the Mittani sphere, beating a local militia on route.
Its quite puzzling to me, its not like there aren’t urban centres of note in the Mitanni domain, yet he did not press on them with his initiative, and, even had he pressed on them, his failure to subdue Tunip or Kadesh would mean it was not possible to hold onto anything he acquired, as isolated towns in the interior can hardly be held when in between you and they are hostile (if temporarily peaceful) cities.
If Thutmose was serious about expansion he could surely have starved Kadesh out like he did Megiddo, that would probably have brought south a sizable Mitanni army to be sure, but that’s a necessary step if you want to accomplish more than the murder of a couple of elephants and the seizure of some grain from villages.