Esarhaddon, a son of Sennacherib, brushed off internal rebellions and did what his forebears had only thought to do: attack Egypt. It’s this attack on such a large, powerful, and faraway land that some historians cite as the Assyrian “bridge too far.” Defeating the field forces of the Egyptians proved to be relatively easy for the still formidable Assyrian armies, but holding the region proved to be a nightmarish and expensive endeavor. The main Assyrian army was tied down for a long time in the Egyptian quagmire while things festered back at the heart of the homeland. It was a classic trap of
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