Military history of Georgia
The Iberians invaded with a large army and forced Mithridates of Armenia to retreat to the fortress of Gorneas (Garni), which was garrisoned by the Romans under the command of prefect Caelius Pollio and centurion Casperius.
Tacitus wrote about the usurpation, "Rhadamistus might retain his ill-gotten gains, as long as he was hated and infamous; for this was more to Rome's interest than for him to have succeeded with glory."
When the Georgians regained power and resources under Queen Tamar, they reconquered their territory (including Tao-Klarjeti) and invaded Byzantium to help the Komnenos establish the Trebizond Empire.
Over a 106-year period, the Georgians had four victories over the Seljuk Turks – in the battles of Ertsukhi (1104), Didgori (1121), Shamkori (1195) and Basiani (1205) – and slowly eliminated their dominance and presence in the region.
The battle resulted in King David's decisive victory over the Seljuk force (under Ilghazi) and the reconquest of Muslim-held Tbilisi, which became the royal capital.
Georgia defeated a significantly-larger Muslim coalition army of the Sultanate of Rum in the Basiani Vale, 60 km northeast of Erzurum, on 27 July 1202.
The Mongols withdrew to pillage lands in Persia and, after resupplying, returned two months later to crush a hastily-organized Georgian-Armenian army near Tbilisi.
Georgia (effectively the only remaining Christian state in the Caucasus) was subjected to several disastrous invasions between 1386 and 1404 by the armies of Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, whose empire extended at its zenith from Central Asia to Anatolia.
Bagrat's son and successor, George VII, put up a stiff resistance and had to spend much of his reign (1395–1405) fighting the Timurid invasions.
George VII eventually signed a peace treaty with the Timurids, although by that time his kingdom consisted of little more than pillaged towns, ravaged countryside and a shattered monarchy.
One was Kara Koyunlu, which took advantage of Georgia's weakened state as a result of Timur's campaigns and began an invasion which killed King George VII.
Amidst negotiations and too weak to stand on its own, Georgia turned to the Russian Empire and repeatedly requested military aid which was refused due to political turmoil in Europe; Heraclius appealed to Empress Catherine the Great for a few thousand troops.
In August 1795, a 70,000-strong Persian army crossed the Aras river to secure vassalage of the Ganja and Erivan Khanates before reaching its destination.
Heraclius was initially successful in fending off the Qajar army, until Armenians told Khan that the Georgians were short of manpower as the Iranians were about to end their campaign.
Heraclius mounted a counterattack, but was forced to withdraw to his last defensive position; his retreat from Tbilisi to the mountains was covered by the remaining artillery and the Three Hundred Aragvians.
Georgia's 19th-century nobility found military service an appealing career option, and many enlisted in the Russian army or as temporary militia members.
[21] A brief war erupted between the two new Caucasus republics over the control of border regions, ending in a stalemate with little political or territorial gains on either side and hundreds (possibly thousands) of casualties.
In 1918, Ossetian Bolsheviks launched an insurgency against Georgian authorities to remove the Tskhinvali District from the Democratic Republic of Georgia and join Soviet Russia.
Georgia sent troops to repulse the Bolshevik incursion with the aid of the Abkhazians, resulting in the capture of all three major areas along the coast (as far as Tuapse); Sochi was secured.
After failed negotiations, joint Abkhaz-Georgian troops conducted a large-scale offensive and retook Gagra after a bloody battle which was intended to progress.
Although the Axis powers never penetrated the Georgian SSR, Georgia contributed almost 700,000 officers and soldiers (about 20 percent of the 3.2–3.4 million citizens mobilized) to the war effort; about 300,000 were killed.
[24][25] In addition to Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria (who served for the Soviet Union), other prominent Georgian figures included Zakaria Bakradze, Valerian Tevzadze,[26] Jerzy Tumaniszwili,[27] Vasilij Shalvovich Kvachantiradze, Giorgi Abashvili, and Dimitri Amilakhvari.
The 882nd Infantry Battalion of the Georgian Legion, commanded by Shalva Loladze, revolted against the Germans on the island of Texel in the Netherlands on 5 April 1945 in an effort to seize it and surrender to the Allies.
Five hundred sixty-five Georgians, 117 Dutch inhabitants, and about 800 Germans died on what has been described as Europe's last World War II battlefield.
On 19 August, Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua resigned and joined the opposition, and the National Guard of Georgia divided into supporters and opponents of Gamsakhurdia.
Georgia undertook a number of reforms to upgrade its outdated military hardware and retrain its troops in accordance with NATO standards and combat doctrines, indicative of the country's shift towards EU and the West.
As a member of the Partnership for Peace since 1994 and with the Georgia Train and Equip Program, Georgian soldiers conduct joint exercises with US troops (including special forces.
Small arms from Israel and AR-15–style rifles from the United States are primarily used for peacekeeping operations, but most of Georgia's arsenal still consists of outdated Soviet weapons.
The structure of the Georgian Land Forces is based on the NATO model, organised in accordance with the country's unique territorial and strategic situations.
About 140 Georgian soldiers took part in the 2014 EUFOR operation to protect Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, providing security for humanitarian-aid convoys.
