Battle of Tours
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| Moorish invasion of Iberia |
|---|
| Guadalete – Toulouse – Covadonga – Tours |
| Campaigns of Charles Martel |
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| Cologne – Amblève – Vincy – Soissons – Tours – Avignon – Narbonne – River Berre – Nîmes |
The battle followed twenty years of Muslim conquests in Europe, beginning with the invasion of the Visigoth Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula in 711 and progressing into the Frankish territories of Gaul, former provinces of the Roman Empire. Muslim military campaigns had reached northward into Aquitaine and Burgundy, including a major battle at Bordeaux and a raid on Autun. Martel's victory is believed by many historians to have stopped the northward advance of Islam from the Iberian peninsula, and is therefore also considered of macrohistorical importance in that it halted the Islamic conquests and preserved Christianity as the controlling faith in Europe during a period when Islam was overrunning the remains of the old Roman and Persian Empires. "There were no further Muslim invasions of Frankish territory, and Charles's victory has often been regarded as decisive for world history, since it preserved western Europe from Muslim conquest and Islamization." [link]
Despite the great importance of this battle, its exact location remains unknown. Surviving contemporary sources, both Western and Muslim, agree on certain details while disputing others. Most historians assume that the two armies met where the rivers Clain and Vienne join between Tours and Poitiers. Varied estimates of the Frankish army defending Gaul suggest Martel commanded between 15,000 and 75,000 infantry, most likely closer to 75,000, in the first western standing army since the fall of Rome. They had been trained to fight in phalanxes in order to face the dreaded Muslim heavy cavalry. Between 60,000 and 400,000 men, mostly Berber lighthorse cavalry supplemented by Muslim heavy cavalry,(most likely closer to the lower number) were under Abd er Rahman, often fractured into raiding parties to plunder various Frankish centers. According to Arab accounts, in the six days before the battle, Abd er Rahman recalled his forces so they were all present for the battle. By both western and Arab historical accounts, the Muslim forces probably outnumbered the Franks significantly at the onset of the Battle, but how far is unknown. Losses during the battle are unknown; according to St. Denis Martel's force lost about 1,500, probably an underestimate; Abd er Rahman's force reportedly suffered massive casualties, including the loss of their commander Abd er Rahman.
Background
Muslim conquests from Iberia
The Moors, under Al-Samh ibn Malik, the governor-general of al-Andalus, overran Septimania by 719, continuing their sweep up the Iberian peninsula. Al-Samh set up his capital from 720 at Narbonne, which the Moors called Arbūna. With the port of Narbonne secure, the Moors swiftly subdued the largely unresisting cities of Alet, Béziers, Agde, Lodève, Maguelonne, and Nîmes, still controlled by their Visigoth counts. Saudi Arabia's Aramco historical site,
The Muslim campaign into Aquitaine suffered a temporary setback at the Battle of Toulouse (721), when Duke Odo of Aquitaine (also known as Eudes the Great) broke the siege of Toulouse, taking Al-Samh ibn Malik's forces by surprise and mortally wounding the governor-general Al-Samh ibn Malik himself. This defeat did not stop incursions into old Roman Gaul, as Arab forces, soundly based in Narbonne and easily resupplied by sea, struck eastwards in the 720s, penetrating as far as Autun in Burgundy (725).
Threatened by both the Arabs in the south and by the Franks in the north, in 730 Eudes allied himself with the Berber emir Uthman ibn Naissa, called "Munuza" by the Franks, in what would later become Catalonia. As a gage, Uthman was given Eudes's daughter Lampade in marriage to seal the alliance, and Arab raids across the Pyrenees, Eudes' southern border, ceased. [link]
However, the next year, Uthman rebelled against the governor of al-Andalus, Abd er Rahman, who quickly crushed the revolt and directed his attention against Eudes. According to one unidentified Arab, "That army went through all places like a desolating storm." Duke Eudes (called King by some), collected his army at Bordeaux, but was defeated, and Bordeaux was plundered. The slaughter of Christians at the River Garonne was evidently horrific; Isidorus Pacensis commented, "solus Deus numerum morientium vel pereuntium recognoscat", ("God alone knows the number of the slain").[Chronicon of Isidous Pacensis]. The Muslim horsemen then utterly devastated that portion of Gaul, their own histories saying the "faithful pierced through the mountains, trampled over rough and level ground, plundered far into the country of the Franks, and smote all with the sword, insomuch that when Eudo came to battle with them at the River Garonne, he fled."
Sir Edward Creasy said:
"It was under one of their ablest and most renowned commanders, with a veteran army, and with every apparent advantage of time, place, and circumstance, that the Arabs made their great effort at the conquest of Europe north of the Pyrenees. The victorious Moslem soldiery in Spain,
- :"A countless multitude;
- :Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,
- :Pers::ian, and Copt, and Tartar, in one bond
- :Of erring faith conjoined--strong in the youth
- :And heat of zeal--a dreadful brotherhood,"
- :"Nor were the chiefs
- :Of victory less assured, by long success
- :Elate, and proud of that o'erwhelming strength
- :Which surely, they believed, as it had rolled
- :Thus far uncheck'd, would roll victorious on,
- :Till, like the Orient, the subjected West
- :Should bow in reverence at Mahommed's name;
- :And pilrims from remotest Arctic shores
- :Tread with religious feet the burning sands
- :Of Araby and Mecca's stony soil."
- :SOUTHEY'S RODERICK.
Eudes' appeal to the Franks
Eudes appealed to the Franks for assistance, which Charles Martel only granted after Eudes agreed to submit to Frankish authority. As noted above, Charles had been preparing for this battle for a decade, and prepared at once to confront the Muslims, believing if he allowed them to occupy Aquitaine, that the whole West would be lost eventually.
It appears as if the Muslims were not aware at that time of the true strength of the Franks. The Islamic forces were not particularly concerned about any of the Germanic tribes, including the Franks, and the Arab Chronicles, the history of that age, show that awareness of the Franks as a growing military power only came after the Battle of Tours when the Caliph expressed shock at his army's disastrous defeat.
Further, the Muslims appear not to have scouted northward for potential foes, for if they had, they surely would have noted Charles Martel as a force to be reckoned with in his own account, due to his thorough domination of Europe from 717: this might have alerted the Moors that a real power led by a gifted general was rising in the ashes of the Western Roman Empire.
Advance toward the Loire
In 732, the Arab advance force was proceeding north toward the River Loire having outpaced their supply train and a large part of their army. Essentially, having easily destroyed all resistance in that part of Gaul, the invading army had split off into several raiding parties, simply looting and destroying, while the main body advanced more slowly.The Muslim attack was so late in the year, likely because that many men and horses needed to live off the land as they advanced, so they had to wait until the area's wheat harvest and then until a reasonable amount of the harvest was threshed (slowly by hand with flails) and stored. The further north, the later the harvest is; the men could kill farm livestock for food, but horses cannot eat meat but needed grain as food, because letting them graze each day would take too long; interrogating natives to find where stored food was would not work where the two sides had no common language.
A military explanation for why Eudes was defeated so easily at Bordeaux, and the River Garonne after having won 11 years earlier at Battle of Toulouse, was simple. At Toulouse, Eudes managed a basic surprise attack against an overconfident and unprepared foe, all of whose defensive works were aimed inward, while he attacked from the outside. The Arab cavalry never got a chance to mobilize and meet him in open battle.
At Bordeaux, and again at the River Garonne, the Arab cavalry did have such a chance, and this caused absolute devastation of Eudes's army, almost all of whom were killed, with minimal losses to the Muslims. Eudes forces, like other European troops of that era, lacked stirrups, and therefore had no armoured cavalry. Virtually all of their troops were infantry. The Muslim heavy cavalry broke the Christian infantry in their first charge, and then slaughtered them at will as they broke and ran.
The invading force went on to devastate southern Gaul, preparing it for complete conquest. One of the major raiding parties advanced on Tours. A possible motive, according to the second continuator of Fredegar, was the riches of the Abbey of Saint Martin of Tours, the most prestigious and holiest shrine in western Europe at the time. Upon hearing this, Austrasia's Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel, collected his army of an estimated 15,000 to 75,000 veterans, and marched south avoiding the old Roman roads hoping to take the Muslims by surprise. Because he intended to use a phalanx, it was essential for him to choose the battlefield, find a high wooded plain, and form his men and force the Muslims to come to him. Therefore surprise was essential.
Battle
Preparations and maneuver
From all accounts, the invading forces were caught by total surprise to find a large force, well disposed and prepared for battle, with high ground, directly opposing their attack on Tours. Charles had achieved the total surprise he hoped for. He then chose to begin the battle in a defensive, phalanx-like formation. According to the Arabian sources the Franks drew up in a large square, with the trees and upward slope to break any cavalry charge.For six days, the two armies watched each other with minor skirmishes. The Muslims waited for their full strength to arrive, which it did, but they were still uneasy. No good general, and Abd er Rahman was one, liked to let his opponent pick the ground and conditions for battle -- and Martel had done both. Martel gambled everything that Abd er Rahman would in the end feel compelled to battle, and to go on and loot Tours. Neither of them wanted to attack. The Franks were well dressed for the cold, and had the terrain advantage. The Arabs were not as prepared for the intense cold of an oncoming northern European winter, but did not want to attack what they thought might be a numerically superior Frankish army. (Most historians believe it was not.) Essentially, the Arabs wanted the Franks to come out in the open, while the Franks, formed in a tightly packed defensive formation, wanted them to come uphill, into the trees, negating at once some of the advantages of their cavalry. It became a waiting game, which Martel won. The fight began on the seventh day, as Abd er Rahman did not want to postpone the battle indefinitely as winter was coming on.
Engagement
Abd er Rahman trusted the tactical superiority of his cavalry, and had them charge repeatedly. This time the faith the Muslims had in their cavalry, armed with their long lances and swords which had brought them victory in previous battles, was not justified. The Franks, without stirrups in wide use, had to depend on unarmoured foot soldiers.In one of the rare instances where medieval infantry stood up against cavalry charges, the disciplined Frankish soldiers withstood the assaults, though according to Arab sources, the Arab cavalry several times broke into the interior of the Frankish square.
- :"The Moslem horsemen dashed fierce and frequent forward against the battalions of the Franks, who resisted manfully, and many fell dead on either side."(from the Anon Arab Chronicler: The Battle of Poitiers, 732).
"And in the shock of the battle the men of the North seemed like a sea that cannot be moved. Firmly they stood, one close to another, forming as it were a bulwark of ice; and with great blows of their swords they hewed down the Arabs. Drawn up in a band around their chief, the people of the Austrasians carried all before them. Their tireless hands drove their swords down to the breasts of the foe." Citation, please
The battle turns
Those Muslims who had broken into the square had tried to kill Martel, but his liege men surrounded him and would not be broken. The battle was still in flux when Frankish histories claim that a rumor went through the Arab army that Frankish scouts threatened the loot that they had taken from Bordeaux. Some of the Muslim troops at once broke off the battle and returned to camp to secure their loot. According to Muslim accounts of the battle, in the midst of the fighting on the second day, (Frankish accounts have the battle lasting one day only), scouts from the Franks sent by Charles began to raid the camp and supply train (including slaves and other plunder).Charles supposedly had sent scouts to cause chaos in the Muslim base camp, and free as many of the slaves as possible, hoping to draw off part of his foe. This succeeded as many of the Muslim Cavalry returned to their camp. This, to the rest of the Muslim army, appeared to be a full-scale retreat, and soon it was one. Both Western and Muslim histories agree that while trying to stop the retreat, Abd er Rahman became surrounded, which led to his death, and the Muslims then withdrew altogether to their camp. The Franks resumed their phalanx, and rested in place through the night, believing the battle would resume at dawn of the following morning.
Following day
The next day, when the Muslims did not renew the battle, the Franks feared an ambush. Charles at first believed that the Muslims were trying to lure him down the hill and into the open - the one tactic he knew he had to avoid at all costs. (see the Battle of Hastings for the results of infantry being lured into the open by armoured cavalry. Martel disciplined his troops literally for years to under no circumstances break formation and come out in the open.) Only after extensive reconnaissance of the Muslim camp by Frankish soldiers - which by both historical accounts had been hastily abandoned, even the tents remaining, as the Muslim forces headed back to Iberia with what loot remained that they could carry -- was it discovered that the Muslims had retreated during the night.Later, the Arab Chronicles would reveal that generals from the different parts of the Caliphate, including Berbers, Arabs, Persians, and others, could not agree on a single battlefield commander, much less a leader to take Abd er Rahman's place as Emir. Only Abd er Rahman had a Fatwa from the Caliph, and thus absolute authority over the faithful under arms. With his death, politics, racial and ethnic bias, and personal conflict emerged, exacerbated by the varied nationalities and ethnicities present in an army drawn from all over the Caliphate.
This inability to select a leader, rather than the loss at Tours alone, may have led to the wholesale withdrawal of an army that probably still could have defeated the Franks, and was precipitated by Martel's opportunity to have killed Abd er Rahman using a clever ruse he had carefully planned to cause confusion at the battle's apex, combined with years of rigorously training his men to withstand trained heavy calvary. Martel's Franks, virtually all infantry without armour, managed to withstand both mailed heavy cavalry with 20 foot lances, and bow-wielding light cavalry, without aid of bows or firearms. [link] This was a feat of war almost unheard of in medieval history, a feat which even the heavily armored Roman legions proved themselves incapable of against the Parthians, [link] gave him a place in the pantheon of great generals during an age generally bereft of same, one of the greatest upset victories in military history, and left him with a unique place in history hailed through the centuries as Christendom's savior. [link]
Certainly, given the disparity between the armies, in that the Franks were mostly infantry, all without armour, against mounted and Arab armored or mailed horsemen, (the Berbers were less heavily protected) Charles Martel fought a brilliant defensive battle. In a place and time of his choosing, he met a far superior force, and defeated it.
Strategic analysis
Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi was a good general and should have done two things he failed to do:-- He assumed that the Franks would not come to the aid of their Aquitanian cousins, and he thus failed to assess their strength before invasion.
- He failed to scout the movements of the Frankish army, and Charles Martel.
- The invaders would have not been burdened with booty that played such a huge role in the battle.
- They would have not lost one warrior in the battles they fought before Tours. (Though they lost relatively few men in overrunning Aquitaine, they suffered some casualties - losses that may have been pivotal at Tours).
- They would have bypassed weaker opponents such as Eudes, whom they could have picked off at will later, while moving at once to force battle with the real power in Europe, and at least partially picked the battlefield.
According to Creasy, the Muslims best strategic choice would have been to simply decline battle, depart with their loot, garrisoning the captured towns in southern Gaul, and return when they could force Martel to a battleground more to their liking, one that maximized the huge advantage they had of the first true "knights" mailed and amoured horsemen. It might have been different, however, had the Muslim forces remained under control. Both western and Muslim histories agree the battle was hard fought, and that the Muslim heavy cavalry had broken into the square, but agreed that the Franks were in formation still stoutly resisting.
Some western historians, such as Hallam and Wallace, have questioned the soundness of Charles Martel's wholesale commitment to stopping the Islamic invasion at Tours, when his army was so clearly outclassed, but in the end, believe with the majority that Charles could not afford to stand idly by while Europe was ravaged. Not only would he have had to face the Muslims sooner or later, his men were enraged by the utter devastation of their Acquitanian cousins, and wanted to fight. While both Hallam and Wallace rightly point out that had Martel failed, there was no remaining force to protect Christian Europe, he also finds that Martel simply could not afford to wait any longer to intervene. Hallam perhaps said it best:
- :"It may justly be reckoned among those few battles of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes: with Marathon, Arbela, the Metaurus, Chalons, and Leipsic."
Aftermath
Islamic retreat and second invasion
The Arab army retreated south over the Pyrenees. Martel continued to drive the Muslims from France in subsequent years. After the death (c. 735-6) of Eudes, who had reluctantly acknowledged Charles' suzerainty in 719, Charles wished to unite Eudes's Duchy to himself, and went there to elicit the proper homage of the Aquitainians. But the nobility proclaimed Hunold, Eudes' son, as the Duke, and Charles recognized his legitimacy when the Arabs invaded Provence the next year. Hunold, who originally resisted acknowledging Charles as overlord, soon had little choice. Martel believed, and most historians agree his vision was correct, that it was vital to confine the Muslims to Iberia, and not allow them a foothold in Gaul. Therefore he marched at once against the invaders, defeating one army outside Arles, which he took by storm and razed the city, and defeated the primary invasion force at the River Berre, outside Narbonne.Advance to Narbonne
Despite this, the Arabs remained in control of Narbonne and Septimania for another 27 years, though they could not expand further. The treaties reached earlier with the local population stood firm and were further consolidated in 734 when the governor of Narbonne, Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, concluded agreements with several towns on common defense arrangements against the encroachments of Charles Martel, who had systematically brought the south to heel as he extended his domains. He destroyed Muslim armies and Fortresses at the Battle of Avignon and the Battle of Nimes . At the Battle of the River Berre when the army attempting to relieve Narbonne met him in open battle, Martel destoyued that army, but Charles failed in his attempt to take Narbonne by siege in 737, when the city was jointly defended by its Muslim Arab and Christian Visigoth citizens.Carolingian dynasty
Rather than tie down his army for a siege that could last years, or attempt an all out frontal assault, such as he had used at Arles, Martel (who felt he could neither afford the time for the siege, nor the losses of the assault) was content to isolate the few remaining invaders in Narbonne and Septimania, and it was left to his son, Pippin the Short, to force Narbonne's surrender, in 759, and to drive the Arabs completely back to Iberia, and bring Narbonne into the Frankish Domains. His grandson, Charlemagne, became the first Christian ruler to begin what would be called the Reconquista from Europe. In the northeast of Spain the Frankish emperors established the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. This formed a buffer zone against Islam across the Pyrenees.Historical and macrohistorical views
The importance of these campaigns, Tours and the later campaigns of 736-7 in putting an end to Muslim bases in Gaul, and any immediate ability to expand Islamic influence in Europe, cannot be overstated. Gibbon and his generation of historians, and the majority of modern experts agree with them that they were unquestionably decisive in world history.In Western history
Christian contemporaries, from Bede to Theophanes, carefully recorded the battle and were keen to spell out what they saw as its implications. Later scholars, such as Edward Gibbon, would contend that had Martel fallen, the Moors would have easily conquered a divided Europe. Gibbon famously observed,"A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Qur'an would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammed." [[Citing sources citation needed]]Certainly, the Islamic invasions were an enormous danger to Europe during the window of 721 from Toulouse to 737 at the Arab defeat at Narbonne. But the window was closing. The unified Caliphate collapsed into civil war in 750 at the Battle of the Zab which left the Umayyad dynasty wiped out except for the Princes who escaped to Africa, and then to Iberia, where they established the Umayyad Emirate in opposition to the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad. Also, the Arab heavy cavalry threat receded as the Christians imitated that tactic, producing the well-known image of the western European medieval armored knight.
Certainly German historians were especially fervent in their praise of Martel and their belief that he saved Europe and Christianity from then all-conquering Islam, while they also praise him as driving back the ferocious Saxon barbarians on his borders. Schlegel speaks of this " mighty victory " in terms of fervent gratitude, and tells how " the arm of Charles Martel saved and delivered the Christian nations of the West from the deadly grasp of all-destroying Islam". Ranke opined that this period was
" one of the most important epochs in the history of the world, the commencement of the eighth century, when on the one side Mohammedanism threatened to overspread Italy and Gaul, and on the other the ancient idolatry of Saxony and Friesland once more forced its way across the Rhine. In this peril of Christian institutions, a youthful prince of Germanic race, Karl Martell, arose as their champion, maintained them with all the energy which the necessity for self-defence calls forth, and finally extended them into new regions."
Gibbons perhaps summarized Martel's campaigns against the Islamic invasions most eloquently when he said:
- :"yet the victory of the Franks was complete and final...the Arabs never resumed the conquest of Gaul, and they were soon driven beyond the Pryenees by Charles Martel and his valient race."
- :"Charle's Martel's victory at Tours was among those signal deliverances which have affected for centuries the happiness of mankind." [History of the later Roman Commonwealth, vol ii. p. 317.]
Many ancient, mid, and modern historians agree that Martel was the father of western heavy cavalry. He had no trouble using his enemies tools against them, no pride stopped him from seizing any advantage he could in defending his faith, his father's home and homeland, and his people, from what he saw was a danger that would destroy them if not checked. His foresight in moving to strike first, to stop them short of his "front door", reminds one of Winston Churchill's famous statement, that "it is better to fight in your neighbor's back yard, than have to defend your own front door." In 5 short years, from the Battle of Tours, to the Battle of River Berre, he fathered western heavy cavalry, and used it in conjunction with his phalanx with devastating effect.In the modern era, Matthew Bennett and his co-authors of "Fighting Technigues of the Mediviel World" published in 2005 say the "few battles are remembered 1,000 years after they are fought...but the Battle of Poitiers, (Tours) is an exception...Charles Martel turned back a Muslim raid that had it been allowed to continue, might have conquered Gaul." Michael Grant, author of "History of Rome" finds the Battle of Tours of such importance that he lists it in the machrohistorical dates of the Roman era.
A more tempered viewpoint may be found in Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels by Antonio Santosuosso, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Western Ontario, and considered an expert historian in the era in dispute in this article. It was published in 2004, and has quite an interesting modern expert opinion on Charles Martel, Tours, and the subsequent campaigns against Rahman's successor in 736-737. Santosuosso makes a compelling case that these defeats of invading Muslim Armies, were at least as important as Tours in their defense of western Christianity, and the preservation of those Christian monastaries and centers of learning which ultimately led Europe out of the dark ages. He also makes a compelling case that while Tours was unquestionably of macrohistorical importance, the later battles were at least equally so. Both invading forces defeated in those campaigns had come to set up permanent outposts for expansion, and there can be no doubt that these three defeats combined broke the back of European expansion by Islam while the Caliphate was still united.
While some modern assessments of the battle's impact have backed away from the extreme of Gibbon's position, Gibbons's conjecture is supported by other historians such as Edward Shepard Creasy and William E. Watson. Most modern historians such as Watson, Grant, Bennett, and Santosuosso generally support the concept of Tours as a macrohistorical event favoring western civilization and Christianity . Military writers such as Robert W. Martin, "The Battle of Tours is still felt today", also argue that Tours was such a turning point in favor of western civilization and Christianity that its aftereffect remains to this day.
In Muslim history
Contemporary Arab and Muslim historians and chroniclers are much more interested in the second Umayyad siege Arab defeat at Constantinople in 718, which ended in a disastrous defeat. Some Muslim historians have argued that had the Caliph recalled his armies from Europe to aid in the siege, the city might have been taken by land, despite the legendary walls - such a recall would have doubled the army laying siege, allowed a full attack while still beating off Bulgar forces trying to end the siege by harassing the army from outside while the defenders held the walls.Some contemporary historians argue that had the Arabs wished to conquer Europe they could easily have done so. Essentially these historians argue that the Arabs were not interested enough to mount a major invasion, because Northern Europe at that time was considered to be a socially, culturally and economically backward area with little to interest any invaders. Some western scholars, such as Bernard Lewis, agree with this stance, though they are in a minority.
This is also disputed by Arab histories of the period circa 722-850 which mentioned the Franks more than any other Christian people save the Byzantines, (The Arabian chronicles were compiled and translated into Spanish by José Antonio Conde, in his "Historia de la Dominación de los Árabes en España", published at Madrid in 1820, and in dealing specifically with this period, the Arab chronicles discuss the Franks as one of two non-Muslim Powers then concerning the Caliphate). The Arab Chronicles discuss the impact of the death of Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, as an absolute disaster for the faithful.
Further, a microhistorical view of this Battle is disputed by the records of the Islamic raids into India and other non-Muslim states for loot and converts. Given the great wealth in Christian shrines such as at Tours, Islamic expansion into that area would have been likely had it not been sharply defeated in 732, 736, and 737 by Martel, and internal strife in the Islamic world prevented later efforts. Other relevant evidence of the importance of this battle lies in Islamic expansion into all other regions of the old Roman Empire -- except for Europe, and what was retained by Byzantium, the Caliphate took all of the old Roman and Persian Empires. It is not likely Gaul would have been spared save by the campaigns by, and the loyalty of, Charles Martel's veteran Frankish Army.
Finally, it ignores that 4 Emirs of al-Andalus over a 25 year period used a Fatwa from the Caliph to levy troops from all provinces of Africa, Syria, and even Turkomens who were beginning conversion, to raise 4 huge invading armies, well supplied and equipped, with the intention of permanent expansion across the Pyrenees into Europe. No such later attempts however were made, as conflict between the Umayyad Emirate of Iberia and the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad prevented a unified assault on Europe.
Given the importance Arab histories of the time placed on the death of Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman and the defeat in Gaul, and the subsequent defeat and destruction of Muslim bases in what is now France, it seems reasonably certain that this battle did have macrohistorical importance in stopping westward Islamic expansion. Arab histories written during that period and for the next seven centuries make clear that Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman’s defeat and death was regarded, and most scholars believe, as a catastrophe of major proportions. Their own words record it best: (translated from Arabic)
- :"This deadly defeat of the Moslems, and the loss of the great leader and good cavalier, Abderrahman, took place in the hundred and fifteenth year." (Islamic Calendar) This, from the portion of the history of the Umayyad Caliphate, and the great Arab period of expansion, also translated into Spanish by Don Jose Antonio Conde, in his "Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabos en España,” appears to put the importance of the Battle of Tours in macrohistorical perspective.
Contemporary analysis
Martel's victory at Tours and in the following campaigns may have literally saved Europe and Christianity as we know it. William Watson believes it would have been a disaster, destroying what would become western civilization after the Renaissance. All parties essentially agree that had the Franks fallen, no other power existed capable of stopping a Muslim conquest of Italy and the effective end of the Roman Catholic Church. [link] In addition, Martel's incorporation of the stirrup and mailed cavalry into the Frankish army gave birth to the armoured Knights which would form the backbone of western armies for the next five centuries. Had Martel failed, there would have been no Charlemagne, no Holy Roman Empire or Papal States. The majority view argues that all these events occurred because Martel was able to contain Islam from expanding into Europe while the Caliphate was unified and able to mount such a conquest. Gibbon has said Martel was "content with the titles of Mayor or Duke of the Franks, but he deserved to become the father of a line of kings," for his fearless defense of Europe. And the line of Kings he established continued his fight. His son retook Narbonne, and his grandson Charlemagne established the Spanish Marches across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. This formed a permanent buffer zone of Frankish strongholds in Iberia against Islam which, with the Kingdom of Asturias, became the basis of the Reconquista.No later significant Muslim attempts against Asturias or the Franks were made as conflict between what remained of the Umayyad Dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad prevented a unified assault on Europe. It would be another 700 years before the Ottomans managed to invade Europe via the Balkans.
For his defense of Europe against both Muslim invasion and barbarian incursions, but most specifically for his victory in this battle, Charles Martel is considered a hero in the Netherlands, a vital part of the Carolingian Empire, and the Low Countries. In both France and Germany he is revered as a hero of epic proportions. Gibbon called him "the hero of the age" and said "Christiandom...delivered... by the genius and good fortune of one man, Charles Martel." A strong argument can be made that Gibbon was absolutely correct.
Footnotes
External links
- [Ian Meadows, "The Arabs in Occitania"]: A sketch giving the context of the conflict from the Arab point of view.
- [Poke's edition of Creasy's 15 Most Important Battles Ever Fought] ACCORDING TO EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY Chapter VII. THE BATTLE OF TOURS, A.D. 732.
- [Cassius Dio: Roman History]
- [Medieval Sourcebook: Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts]
- [Medieval Sourcebook: Anon Arab Chronicler: The Battle of Poitiers, 732]
- [History of Europe: The Battle of Tours]
References
- Watson, William E., ["The Battle of Tours-Poitiers Revisited"], Providence: Studies in Western Civilization, 2 (1993)
- Poke,[The Battle of Tours], from the book Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World From Marathon to Waterloo by Sir Edward Creasy, MA
- Edward Gibbon, [The Battle of Tours], Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
- Michael Grant "History of Rome"
- Richard Hooker, ["Civil War and the Umayyads"]
- [Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts] from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
- [The Battle of Tours 732], from the "Jewish Virtual Library" website: A division of the American-Israeli Cooperative.
- [Tours,Poiters], from "Leaders and Battles Database" online.
- Robert W. Martin, ["The Battle of Tours is still felt today"], from about.com
- Santosuosso, Anthony, Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels ISBN 0-8133-9153-9
- Medieval Sourcebook: Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732 at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/732tours.html
- Bennett, Bradsbury, Devries, Dickie and Jestice, Fighting Tehniques of the Medieval World
- Reagan, Geoffry, The Guinness Book of Decisive Battles , Canopy Books, NY (1992) ISBN 1558594310
- Hanson, Victor Davis. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. Anchor Books, 2001. Published in the UK as Why the West has Won. Faber and Faber, 2001. ISBN 0571216404
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