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This Day In History : October 10

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Battle of Tours

At the Battle of Tours near Poitiers, France, Frankish leader Charles Martel, a Christian, defeats a large army of Spanish Moors, halting the Muslim advance into Western Europe. Abd-ar-Rahman, the Muslim governor of Cordoba, was killed in the fighting, and the Moors retreated from Gaul, never to return in such force.

Charles was the illegitimate son of Pepin, the powerful mayor of the palace of Austrasia and effective ruler of the Frankish kingdom. After Pepin died in 714 (with no surviving legitimate sons), Charles beat out Pepin’s three grandsons in a power struggle and became mayor of the Franks. He expanded the Frankish territory under his control and in 732 repulsed an onslaught by the Muslims.

Victory at Tours ensured the ruling dynasty of Martel’s family, the Carolingians. His son Pepin became the first Carolingian king of the Franks, and his grandson Charlemagne carved out a vast empire that stretched across Europe.

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History Hit Story of England: Making of a Nation

Battle of Tours: Its Significance and Historical Implications

Celeste Neill

01 oct 2018.

On 10 October 732 Frankish General Charles Martel crushed an invading Muslim army at Tours in France , decisively halting the Islamic advance into Europe.

The Islamic advance

After the death of the Prophet Muhammed in 632 AD the speed of the spread of Islam was extraordinary, and by 711 Islamic armies were poised to invade Spain from North Africa. Defeating the Visigothic kingdom of Spain was a prelude to increasing raids into Gaul, or modern France, and in 725 Islamic armies reached as far north as the Vosgues mountains near the modern border with Germany .

Opposing them was the Merovingian Frankish kingdom , perhaps the foremost power in western Europe. However given the seemingly unstoppable nature of the Islamic advance into the lands of the old Roman Empire further Christian defeats seemed almost inevitable.

Map of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750 AD. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 731 Abd al-Rahman, a Muslim warlord north of the Pyrenees who answered to his distant Sultan in Damascus, received reinforcements from North Africa. The Muslims were preparing for a major campaign into Gaul.

The campaign commenced with an invasion of the southern kingdom of Aquitaine, and after defeating the Aquitanians in battle Abd al-Rahman’s army burned their capital of Bordeaux in June 732. The defeated Aquitanian ruler Eudes fled north to the Frankish kingdom with the remnants of his forces in order to plead for help from a fellow Christian, but old enemy: Charles Martel .

Martel’s name meant “the hammer” and he had already many successful campaigns in the name of his lord Thierry IV, mainly against other Christians such as the unfortunate Eudes, who he met somewhere near Paris . Following this meeting Martel ordered a ban , or general summons, as he prepared the Franks for war.

14th century depiction of Charles Martel (middle). Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Battle of Tours

Once his army had gathered, he marched to the fortified city of Tours, on the border with Aquitaine, to await the Muslim advance. After three months of pillaging Aquitaine, al-Rahman obliged.

His army outnumbered that of Martel but the Frank had a solid core of experienced armoured heavy infantry who he could rely upon to withstand a Muslim cavalry charge.

With both armies unwilling to enter the bloody business of a Medieval battle but the Muslims desperate to pillage the rich cathedral outside the walls of Tours, an uneasy standoff prevailed for seven days before the battle finally began. With winter coming al-Rahman knew that he had to attack.

The battle began with thundering cavalry charges from Rahman’s army but, unusually for a Medieval battle, Martel’s excellent infantry weathered the onslaught and retained their formation. Meanwhile, Prince Eudes’ Aquitanian cavalry used superior local knowledge to outflank the Muslim armies and attack their camp from the rear.

Christian sources then claim that this caused many Muslim soldiers to panic and attempt to flee to save their loot from the campaign. This trickle became a full retreat, and the sources of both sides confirm that al-Rahman died fighting bravely whilst trying to rally his men in the fortified camp.

The battle then ceased for the night, but with much of the Muslim army still at large Martel was cautious about a possible feigned retreat to lure him out into being smashed by the Islamic cavalry. However, searching the hastily abandoned camp and surrounding area revealed that the Muslims had fled south with their loot. The Franks had won.

Despite the deaths of al-Rahman and an estimated 25,000 others at Tours, this war was not over. A second equally dangerous raid into Gaul in 735 took four years to repulse, and the reconquest of Christian territories beyond the Pyrenees would not begin until the reign of Martel’s celebrated grandson Charlemagne.

Martel would later found the famous Carolingian dynasty in Frankia, which would one day extend to most of western Europe and spread Christianity into the east.

Tours was a hugely important moment in the history of Europe, for though the battle of itself was perhaps not as seismic as some have claimed, it stemmed the tide of Islamic advance and showed the European heirs of Rome that these foreign invaders could be defeated.

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The Battle of Tours - 732 AD fr de , en ,

Charles Martel was a ruler of the Carolingian Frankish Empire in the early 8 th century AD. The empire encompassed the territories of much of modern day France, western Germany, Switzerland, as well as Belgium and the Netherlands, and was the dominant Christian power in Western Europe at the time. Having won a civil war between two competing kingdoms in 724, Charles had secured his position as head ruler of the entire Carolingian Empire, but had not yet been granted the title of King.

Although he was constantly repelling Saxon and Bavarian armies, as well as other threats, the empire was for the most part secure. Charles supported St. Boniface and other missionaries in their efforts to convert all remaining German tribes to Christianity as a way of uniting his region. The European continent was slowly becoming more prosperous and stable. But a new threat had begun working its way towards the heart of Western Civilization 100 years prior to Charles’ rule.

Islam Expanding

In the Middle East, the religion of Islam was formed in 622 AD. The region was quickly united under the new religion and then began to conquer more distant lands. By 711 Islamic armies had crossed the Gibraltar Straight and entered into Europe by way of present day Spain. It was from here that they began to set up new kingdoms and seek to conquer other parts of Europe, primarily for plunder of any type of treasure they could find.

The indigenous peoples of Europe referred to the Islamic invaders as the Saracens. From Spain the door stood wide open for the Saracens to enter into France, the conquest of which would have likely been followed by all the rest of Europe, and might have resulted in the banishment of Christianity from the Earth. At this time Christianity was not universally known or practiced, even by those nations which we today regard as the foremost in civilization. Great parts of Britain, Germany, Denmark, and Russia were still pagan and barbarous.

In 712 the Saracens entered into France and began pillaging the region for treasure. In 725 Anbessa, the Saracen governor of Spain, personally leads an army across the Pyrenees Mountains into France and takes the strongly fortified town of Carcassone. During the battle he receives a fatal wound, and the Saracen army retires into the nearby town of Narbonne before retreating back to the safety of Spain.

In 732 the Saracens invade France again under the command of Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman. They reach Bordeaux and begin to lay siege to the town when they get word of rich treasures in the Basilica of St. Martin in the city of Tours. They set off towards this area with the intent to plunder it for all it's worth.

Up to this point, the Carolingian Empire, ruled by King Charles, had no need to oppose the Saracens since they had not invaded any of his territories. The area of the Saracens plunder had been Aquitaine, an independent kingdom in southwestern France ruled by King Eude. Having learned of the damage being done to his neighboring kingdom, Charles becomes convinced of the danger presented to his territories. If Aquitaine were to be defeated, his kingdom would surely be next. Charles begins to march an army towards the Saracen invaders to confront them on his own terms.

While Abd al Rahman is advancing towards Tours, he receives intelligence regarding the advance of Charles and his army. He decides to fall back on Poitiers in order to occupy a more advantageous field of battle. Charles, leading an army of such size rarely seen in Europe, crosses the Loire River and joins the remains of the army of Aquitaine.

They come in sight of the Arabs on October 10 th , 732. The enemy spots Charles and his army and at first hesitates. The two armies remain camped, staring each other down, for seven days. Abd al Rahman at last gives the signal to attack. The Saracens rush the Franks with all their might but the Frankish front line holds. The battle rages on until late in the day, when a terrible clamor is heard from behind the Saracen army. It is King Eude, attacking the Saracen camp, stealing all of their ill-gotten plunder. The Saracen army frantically rushes back to protect their possessions.

In this moment of confusion the Franks advance. Abd al Rahman is killed in the chaos. The Saracens regain control of their camp. By this time the sun is beginning to set, and Charles decides to wait until the next day to resume combat, not wanting to risk losing any more troops at night.

The next morning the Franks awake early and assemble their army, expecting to rejoin battle with their enemy. They wait, but no enemy appears. They cautiously approach the Saracen camp and find it completely empty. The Saracens had taken advantage of the night and begun their retreat back towards Spain, leaving most of their plunder behind. As the battlefield was surveyed that day, it was realized that a vast number of Saracen men had been slain. The Franks counted their losses and found that only 1500 of their men had been killed.

Charles is finally proclaimed King of the Carolingian Empire, and for his enormous victory he receives the surname of Martel, "The Hammer". He would later become the grandfather of Charlemagne. The Carolingian Empire becomes the Holy Roman Empire, with Charlemagne proclaimed Emperor by the Pope on Christmas Day, 800 AD. This empire survives for over 1000 years until it is formally dissolved in 1806.

The battle of Tours marks a major turning point in the history of Western Civilization. One where the spread of Islam into Europe was reversed, and Christianity begins to give the people of Europe something more in common with each other. By the year 1000 AD, the continent would be doing fairly well. It would be generally free from foreign attack and steadily creating a more prosperous future.

Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34

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Charles Martel and the defense of Europe at the Battle of Tours

What if one man’s decision could change the fate of an entire continent? That is exactly what happened in the eighth century, when Charles Martel, known as 'The Hammer', faced the Muslim forces of the Umayyad Caliphate as they swept across the Iberian Peninsula and into the heart of the Frankish kingdom.

At the subsequent Battle of Tours in 732, Charles Martel would define the future of Europe for the next 1000 years.

So, why did this battle matter so much, and how did he defeat an enemy that seemed unstoppable?

Martel’s rise to power among the Franks

Following the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe, the Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of the region of modern France, known as Gaul.

The leading Frankish family was known as the Merovingians, and they began a dynasty that ruled over the Franks from around 476.

Historians consider them to be the first kings of France. The dynasty's name came from Merovech, the grandfather of Clovis I, who united the Frankish tribes and expanded their territory across Gaul.

However, over the next two hundred years, the power of Merovingian kings waned, with authority shifting to their key military commanders, known as the ‘mayor of the palace’, who acted as the real rulers of the Frankish realms.

Charles Martel was born around 688 into a powerful Frankish family with deep political connections.

He was the illegitimate son of Pepin of Herstal, the Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, and his concubine Alpaida.

By this time, the Frankish kingdom was fragmented and in disarray. After Pepin's death in 714, the Frankish kingdom fell into internal strife.

There was a power struggle between Pepin's widow, Plectrude, and various noble factions.

Among this, the young Charles found himself imprisoned by Plectrude in an attempt to secure the throne for her grandson, Theudoald.

However, by 715, he managed to escape and began to gather support from key Austrasian nobles who opposed Plectrude's rule.

Thanks to some canny political maneuvering, Charles Martel gradually consolidated his influence over the Franks.

By 718, after a series of battles, including a decisive victory against the Neustrians at Amblève, he had solidified his position as the Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia.

In contrast to his rivals, Charles pursued a strategy that combined diplomacy with outright military aggression.

He understood that the only path to stability lay in unifying the fractured Frankish territories under his leadership.

By 723, Charles Martel had effectively united Austrasia and Neustria under his rule.

How Charles Martel secured his power

To consolidate his new power, Martel implemented a policy of distributing lands, or benefices, to his most loyal followers, a tactic that ensured their continued support and reinforced the military strength of his rule.

As such, he effectively tied the noble class to his leadership and created a new social order that depended on his authority.

This approach enabled him to build a robust network of allies who would help maintain the stability of his reign.

Also, by 730, he had reorganized the Frankish army, focusing on creating a disciplined and heavily armored cavalry.

This transformation allowed his forces to maneuver quickly and strike decisively against enemies.

In addition, he encouraged the use of stirrups and better armor, which improved the combat effectiveness of his troops.

To strengthen his hold on power, Charles Martel also cultivated key alliances within the Church .

The Frankish Church held significant influence over the populace, and Charles recognized the importance of gaining its support.

He sought the backing of influential bishops and abbots. He secured their loyalty by granting them protection and additional lands.

Through the Church’s support, he gained both moral authority and additional resources to fund his campaigns.

Moreover, Charles strategically placed his own family members in positions of power within the Church.

Additionally, Martel launched campaigns against rebellious regions, such as the Duchy of Aquitaine in 731, which had resisted Frankish control for years.

In his dealings with other European powers, he appears to have balanced aggression with diplomacy.

For instance, his alliance with the Lombards against the Muslims demonstrated his willingness to work with traditional enemies to achieve his strategic goals.

While through a series of campaigns from 718 to 732, he pushed back the Frisians, the Alemanni, and the Bavarians, bringing these territories under Frankish control.

The Battle of Tours (732)

Out of all of the battles that Martel fought, it was the one at Tours in 732 that has become the most famous.

It occurred near the city of Tours, in present-day France, at a time when Islamic expansion threatened to overrun much of Western Europe.

Before the confrontation, the Umayyad Caliphate had rapidly expanded its territory across North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula, with the intent to continue its push into Frankish lands.

Tensions had been building for years, with Umayyad raiders conducting raids into southern France.

Charles Martel had prepared his forces for a confrontation that would determine the fate of Western Europe.

Charles Martel had chosen a defensive strategy and positioned his forces on a wooded, elevated plateau to protect them from the superior mobility of the Muslim cavalry.

By employing a solid shield wall formation, Martel's infantry absorbed and repelled wave after wave of Umayyad assaults.

When enemy troops withdrew, exhausted, Martel ordered his men to hold their ground rather than pursue.

This apparently confused his opponents, who expected a more conventional battle.

Moreover, Martel capitalized on the element of surprise and patience, waiting until the Umayyad forces grew weary from repeated attacks.

At a crucial moment, Martel launched a counterattack that led to the death of their leader, Abdul Rahman Al-Ghafiqi.

This loss caused disarray among the Muslim ranks, forcing them to retreat from France entirely.

The significance of the Battle of Tours lay in its decisive role in halting the northern advance of Islamic forces.

Had the Umayyad army succeeded, the cultural and religious future of Western Europe could have been irrevocably changed.

Ultimately, the battle prevented the Islamic expansion from gaining a foothold beyond the Pyrenees and preserved the Christian dominance of Western Europe.

In the aftermath of the victory, Charles Martel earned the title ‘The Hammer’, a reflection of his reputation as a relentless defender of Christendom.

For years following the battle, Muslim forces ceased their attempts to advance further into Frankish territory, focusing instead on consolidating their control in the Iberian Peninsula.

Impact on the Franks and the rise of the Carolingians

Charles Martel's military victories and political reforms laid the groundwork for the Carolingian Empire, which would reach its zenith under his grandson, Charlemagne.

By strengthening the central authority of the Frankish state, Martel created a more unified and resilient kingdom.

In addition, Martel’s successes gave the Frankish kingdom a newfound sense of stability and purpose, allowing it to transition from a fragmented collection of tribes into a cohesive and powerful realm.

The political and social changes Charles Martel implemented by redistributing land to his most loyal followers, creating a network of vassals who owed their allegiance directly to him.

This policy of granting benefices ensured that the nobility remained dependent on the king for their wealth and status.

Over time, this practice contributed to the emergence of feudalism , as land became the primary currency of political loyalty and military service.

In particular, Martel’s need to sustain a professional, mounted warrior class, or knights , created a hierarchical structure based on land ownership and personal loyalty.

After Charles Martel’s death in 741his sons, Carloman and Pepin the Short, succeeded him.

Carloman took control of the eastern Frankish lands, while Pepin ruled the western territories.

By 747, Carloman retired to a monastery, leaving Pepin as the sole ruler. In 751, Pepin took a decisive step by deposing the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, and having himself anointed king with the Church’s blessing.

This act marked the formal beginning of the Carolingian Dynasty and demonstrated the successful continuation of Charles Martel’s policies of consolidation and alliance-building.

Under Pepin’s rule, and later that of his son Charlemagne , the Carolingian Empire would reach its height, achieving the political and cultural aspirations set in motion by Charles Martel’s visionary leadership.

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Battle of Tours

The Battle of Tours (October 10, 732), often called Battle of Poitiers and also called in Arabic بلاط الشهداء (Balâṭ al-Shuhadâ’) The Court of Martyrs [5] was fought near the city of Tours, close to the border between the Frankish realm and the independent region of Aquitaine. The battle pitted Frankish and Burgundian. [6] [7] forces under Austrasian Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel against an army of the Umayyad Caliphate led by ‘Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Governor-general of al-Andalus. The Franks were victorious, ‘Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi was killed, and Martel subsequently extended his authority in the south. Ninth-century chroniclers, who interpreted the outcome of the battle as divine judgment in his favor, gave Charles the nickname Martellus ("The Hammer"), possibly recalling Judas Maccabeus ("The Hammerer") of Maccabean revolt . [8] Details of the battle, including its exact location and the exact number of combatants, cannot be determined from accounts that have survived. [9]

As later chroniclers increasingly came to praise Charles Martel as the champion of Christianity , pre-twentieth century historians began to characterize this battle as being the decisive turning point in the struggle against Islam . "Most of the eighteen and nineteenth century historians, like Gibbon , saw Poitiers (Tours), as a landmark battle that marked the high tide of the Muslim advance into Europe." [10] Leopold von Ranke felt that "Poitiers was the turning point of one of the most important epochs in the history of the world." [11]

1.1 The Opponents
1.2 Muslim conquests from Hispania
1.3 Eudes' appeal to the Franks
1.4 Advance toward the Loire
2.1 Preparations and maneuver
2.2 Engagement
2.3 The battle turns
2.4 Following day
2.5 Contemporary accounts
2.6 Strategic analysis
3.1 Umayyad retreat and second invasion
3.2 Advance to Narbonne
3.3 Carolingian Dynasty
4 The last Umayyad invasions of Gaul
5.1 In Western history
5.2 In Muslim history
6.1 Supporting the significance of Tours as a world-altering event
6.2 Objecting to the significance of Tours as a world-altering event
7 Conclusion
9 References
10 External links

While modern historians are divided as to whether or not the victory was responsible—as Gibbon and his generation of historians claimed—for saving Christianity and halting the conquest of Europe by Islam , the battle helped lay the foundations for the Carolingian Empire , and Frankish domination of Europe for the next century. "The establishment of Frankish power in western Europe shaped that continent's destiny and the Battle of Tours confirmed that power." [12] In myth the battle became defining moment in European history, even though its historical reality may have been more of the nature of a border skirmish. Nevertheless, following the Battle of Tours, Europe to a large extent defined itself—over and against the Muslim world. On the other hand, the formation of the Carolingian Empire a single entity uniting religion and empire may have borrowed from Islam , which upheld that very ideal.

The battle followed 20 years of Umayyads conquests in Europe, beginning with the invasion of the Visigoth Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula in 711 C.E. and progressing into the Frankish territories of Gaul, former provinces of the Roman Empire . Umayyad 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 some historians to have stopped the northward advance of Umayyad forces from the Iberian Peninsula, and to have preserved Christianity in Europe during a period when Muslim rule was overrunning the remains of the old Roman and Persian Empires. [13] Others have argued that the battle marked only the defeat of a raid in force and was not a watershed event. [14]

The exact location of the Battle of Tours remains unknown. Surviving contemporary sources, both Muslim and Western, 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. The number of troops in each army is not known. Drawing on non-contemporary Muslim sources Creasy describes the Umayyad forces as 80,000 strong or more. Writing in 1999, Paul K. Davis estimates the Umayyad forces at 80,000 and the Franks at about 30,000, while noting that modern historians have estimated the strength of the Umayyad army at Tours at between 20–80,000. [15] Edward J. Schoenfeld (rejecting the older figures of 60–400,000 Umayyad and 75,000 Franks) contends that "estimates that the Umayyads had over fifty thousand troops (and the Franks even more) are logistically impossible." [16] Another modern military historian, Victor Davis Hanson, believes both armies were of roughly the same size, about 30,000 men. [17] Modern historians may be more accurate than the medieval sources as the modern figures are based on estimates of the logistical ability of the countryside to support these numbers of men and animals. Both Davis and Hanson point out that both armies had to live off the countryside, neither having a commissary system sufficient to provide supplies for a campaign. Losses during the battle are unknown but chroniclers later claimed that Martel's force lost about 1500 while the Umayyad force was said to have suffered massive casualties of up to 375,000 men. However, these same casualty figures were recorded in the Liber pontificalis for Duke Odo of Aquitaine's victory at the Battle of Toulouse (721). Paul the Deacon, correctly reported in his Historia Langobardorum (written around the year 785) that the Liber pontificalis mentioned these casualty figures in relation to Odo's victory at Toulouse (though he claimed that Charles Martel fought in the battle alongside Odo), but later writers, probably "influenced by the Continuations of Fredegar, attributed the Saracen casualties solely to Charles Martel, and the battle in which they fell became unequivocally that of Poitiers." [18] The Vita Pardulfi, written in the middle of the eighth century, reports that after the battle ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân's forces burned and looted their way through the Limousin on their way back to Al-Andalus, which implies that they were not destroyed to the extent imagined in the Continuations of Fredegar. [19]

The Opponents

The Invasion of Hispania, and then Gaul, was led by the Umayyad Dynasty (Arabic: بنو أمية banū umayya / الأمويون al-umawiyyūn ; also "Umawi," the first dynasty of caliphs of the Islamic empire after the reign of the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs ( Abu Bakr , Umar , Uthman , and Ali ) ended. The Umayyad Caliphate, at the time of the Battle of Tours, was perhaps the world’s foremost military power. Great expansion of the Caliphate occurred under the reign of the Umayyads. Muslim armies pushed across North Africa and Persia , through the late 600s, expanding the borders of the empire from the Iberian Peninsula, in the west, to what is today Pakistan , in the east. Forces led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad crossed Gibraltar and established Muslim power in the Iberian peninsula, while other armies established power far away in Sind, in what is now the modern state of Pakistan. The Muslim empire under the Umayyads was now a vast domain that ruled a diverse array of peoples. It had destroyed what were the two former foremost military powers, the Sassanid Empire , which it absorbed completely, and the Byzantine Empire , most of which it had absorbed, including Syria , Armenia and North Africa , although Leo the Isaurian successfully defended Anatolia at the Battle of Akroinon (739) in the final campaign of the Umayyad dynasty. [20]

The Frankish realm under Charles Martel was the foremost military power of Western Europe. It consisted of what is today most of Germany , the low countries, and part of France (Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy). The Frankish realm had begun to progress towards becoming the first real imperial power in Europe since the fall of Rome, as it struggled against the hordes of barbarians on its borders, such as the fierce Saxons, and internal opponents such as Eudes, the Duke of Aquitaine.

Muslim conquests from Hispania

The Umayyad troops, under Al-Samh ibn Malik, the governor-general of al-Andalus , overran Septimania by 719, following 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 Umayyads swiftly subdued the largely unresisting cities of Alet, Béziers, Agde, Lodève, Maguelonne, and Nîmes, still controlled by their Visigoth counts. [21]

The Umayyad 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).

However, the next year, Uthman rebelled against the governor of al-Andalus , ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân, who quickly crushed the revolt and directed his attention against Eudes. ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân had brought a huge force of Arab heavy cavalry and Berber light cavalry, plus troops from all provinces of the Caliphate, in the Umayyad attempt at a conquest of Europe north of the Pyrenees. 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 Battle of the River Garonne was evidently horrific; the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 [23] commented, " solus Deus numerum morientium vel pereuntium recognoscat ," ("God alone knows the number of the slain"). [24] The Umayyad 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, (incorporating verses from Robert Southey 's poem " Roderick, the Last of the Goths "):

And so, after smashing Eudes and laying waste in the south, the Umayyad cavalry advanced north, pursuing the fleeing Eudes, and looting, and destroying all before them.

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.

It appears as if the Umayyads were not aware of the true strength of the Franks. The Umayyad 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.

Further, the Umayyads 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 Umayyads 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 Umayyad 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, while the main body advanced more slowly.

The Umayyad attack was likely so late in the year because many men and horses needed to live off the land as they advanced; thus they had to wait until the area's wheat harvest was ready 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, and while the men could kill farm livestock for food, horses cannot eat meat and needed grain as food. Letting them graze each day would take too long, and interrogating natives to find where food stores were kept would not work where the two sides had no common language.

A military explanation for why Eudes was defeated so easily at Bordeaux and at the Battle of the River Garonne after having won 11 years earlier at the Battle of Toulouse is 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 Umayyad cavalry never got a chance to mobilize and meet him in open battle. As Herman de Carinthia wrote in one of his translations of a history of al-Andalus, Eudes managed a highly successful encircling envelopment which took the attackers totally by surprise — and the result was a chaotic slaughter of the Muslim cavalry.

At Bordeaux, and again at the Battle of the River Garonne, the Umayyad cavalry were not taken by surprise, and given a chance to mass for battle, this led to the devastation of Eudes's army, almost all of whom were killed with minimal losses to the Muslims. Eudes's forces, like other European troops of that era, lacked stirrups, and therefore had no armored cavalry. Virtually all of their troops were infantry. The Umayyad 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. 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. [25] Upon hearing this, Austrasia's Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel, collected his army and marched south, avoiding the old Roman roads and hoping to take the Muslims by surprise. Because he intended to use a phalanx, it was essential for him to choose the battlefield. His plan — to find a high wooded plain, form his men and force the Muslims to come to him — depended on the element of surprise.

Preparations and maneuver

From all accounts, the invading forces were caught entirely off guard 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 seven days, the two armies watched each other with minor skirmishes. The Umayyads waited for their full strength to arrive, which it did, but they were still uneasy. A good general never likes to let his opponent pick the ground and the conditions for battle. 'Abd-al-Raḥmân, despite being a good commander, had managed to let Martel do both. Furthermore, it was difficult for the Umayyads to judge the size of the army opposing them, since Martel had used the trees and forest to make his force appear larger than it probably was. Thus, 'Abd-al-Raḥmân recalled all his troops, which did give him an even larger army - but it also gave Martel time for more of his veteran infantry to arrive from the outposts of his Empire. These infantry were all the hope for victory he had. Seasoned and battle hardened, most of them had fought with him for years, some as far back as 717. Further, he also had levies of militia arrive, but the militia was virtually worthless except for gathering food, and harassing the Muslims. (Most historians through the centuries have believed the Franks were badly outnumbered at the onset of battle by at least 2-1) Martel gambled everything that ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân would in the end feel compelled to battle, and to go on and loot Tours. Neither of them wanted to attack - but Abd-al-Raḥmân felt in the end obligated to sack Tours, which meant literally going through the Frankish army on the hill in front of him. Martel's decision to wait in the end proved crucial, as it forced the Umayyads to rush uphill, against the grade and the woods, which in and of themselves negated a large part of the natural advantages of a cavalry charge.

Martel had been preparing for this confrontation since Toulouse a decade before. He was well aware that if he failed, no other Christian force remained able to defend western Christianity. But Gibbon believes, as do most pre and modern historians, that Martel had made the best of a bad situation. Though outnumbered and depending on infantry, without stirrups in wide use, Martel had a tough, battle hardened heavy infantry who believed in him implicitly. Martel had the element of surprise, and had been allowed to pick the ground.

The Franks in their wolf and bear pelts 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, despite having tents, which the Franks did not, but did not want to attack a Frankish army they believed may have been numerically superior—according to most historians it was not. Essentially, the Umayyads 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, diminishing at once the advantages of their cavalry. It was 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 with winter approaching.

‘Abd-al-Raḥmân trusted the tactical superiority of his cavalry, and had them charge repeatedly. This time the faith the Umayyads 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 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." [26]

Despite this, the Franks did not break. It appears that the years of year-round training that Charles had bought with Church funds, paid off. His hard-trained soldiery accomplished what was not thought possible at that time: unarmoured infantry withstood the fierce Umayyad heavy cavalry. Paul Davis says the core of Martel's army was a professional infantry which was both highly disciplined and well motivated, "having campaigned with him all over Europe," buttressed by levies that Charles basically used to raid and disrupt his enemy. [27] The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 says: "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." [28]

The battle turns

Those Umayyad troops 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 Umayyad army that Frankish scouts threatened the booty that they had taken from Bordeaux. Some of the Umayyad 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 Umayyad 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 Umayyad cavalry returned to their camp. To the rest of the Muslim army, this appeared to be a full-scale retreat, and soon it became one. Both Western and Muslim histories agree that while trying to stop the retreat, ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân became surrounded, which led to his death, and the Umayyad troops then withdrew altogether to their camp. "All the host fled before the enemy," candidly wrote one Arabic source, "and many died in the flight." The Franks resumed their phalanx, and rested in place through the night, believing the battle would resume at dawn the following morning.

Following day

The next day, when the Umayyad forces did not renew the battle, the Franks feared an ambush. Charles at first believed that the Umayyad forces were trying to lure him down the hill and into the open. This tactic he knew he had to resist at all costs; he had in fact disciplined his troops for years to under no circumstances break formation and come out in the open. (See the Battle of Hastings for the results of infantry being lured into the open by armoured cavalry.) Only after extensive reconnaissance of the Umayyad camp by Frankish soldiers — which by both historical accounts had been so hastily abandoned that even the tents remained, as the Umayyad forces headed back to Iberia with what loot remained that they could carry — was it discovered that the Muslims had retreated during the night.

Given the disparity between the armies, in that the Franks were mostly infantry, all without armour, against Berber cavalry and armored or mailed Arab 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.

Contemporary accounts

The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 "describes the battle in greater detail than any other Latin or Arabic source". [29] It says of the encounter that,

While Abd ar-Rahman was pursuing Eudes, he decided to despoil Tours by destroying its palaces and burning its churches. There he confronted the consul of Austrasia by the name of Charles, a man who, having proved himself to be a warrior from his youth and an expert in things military, had been summoned by Eudes. After each side had tormented the other with raids for almost seven days, they finally prepared their battle lines and fought fiercely. The northern peoples remained as immobile as a wall, holding together like a glacier in the cold regions. In the blink of an eye, they annihilated the Arabs with the sword. The people of Austrasia, greater in number of soldiers and formidably armed, killed the king, Abd ar-Rahman, when they found him, striking him on the chest. But suddenly, within sight of the countless tents of the Arabs, the Franks despicably sheathed their swords postponing the fight until the next day since night had fallen during the battle. Rising from their own camp at dawn, the Europeans saw the tents and canopies of the Arabs all arranged just as they had appeared the day before. Not knowing that they were empty and thinking that inside them there were Saracen forces ready for battle, they sent officers to reconnoitre and discovered that all the Ishmaelite troops had left. They had indeed fled silently by night in tight formation, returning to their own country. —Wolf (trans), Chronicle of 754 , p. 145

Charles Martel's family composed, for the fourth book of the Continuations of Fredegar's Chronicle , a stylised summary of the battle:

Prince Charles bodly drew up his battle lines against them [the Arabs] and the warrior rushed in against them. With Christ's help he overturned their tents, and hastened to battle to grind them small in slaughter. The king Abdirama having been killed, he destroyed [them], driving forth the army, he fought and won. Thus did the victor triumph over his enemies. —Fouracre, Continuations of Fredegar , p. 149

This source details further that "he (Charles Martel) came down upon them like a great man of battle." It goes on to say Charles "scattered them like the stubble."

The references to "rushing in" and "overturning their tents" may allude to the phraseology of the Book of Numbers , chapter 24, "where the Spirit of God 'rushed in' to the tents of Israel." The Latin word used for "warrior," belligerator, "is also biblical, from the Book of Maccabees, chapters 15 and 16, which describe huge battles. [30]

It is thought that Bede 's Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum (Chapter XXIII) includes a reference to the Battle of Poitiers: "…a dreadful plague of Saracens ravaged France with miserable slaughter, but they not long after in that country received the punishment due to their wickedness." [31]

Strategic analysis

‘Abd-al-Raḥmân was a good general and should have done two things he failed to do, Gibbon makes the point that he did not move at once against Charles Martel, was surprised by him at Tours as Martel had marched over the mountains avoiding the roads to surprise the Muslim invaders, and thus the wily Martel selected the time and place they would collide:

‘Abd-al-Raḥmân either assumed that the Franks would not come to the aid of their Aquitanian rivals, or did not care, and he thus failed to assess their strength before invasion.
He failed to scout the movements of the Frankish army, and Charles Martel.

Having done either, he would have curtailed his lighthorse ravaging throughout lower Gaul, and marched at once with his full power against the Franks. This strategy would have nullified every advantage Charles had at Tours:

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.

While some military historians point out that leaving enemies in your rear is not generally wise, the Mongols proved that indirect attack, and bypassing weaker foes to eliminate the strongest first, is a devastatingly effective mode of invasion. In this case, those enemies were virtually no danger, given the ease with which the Muslims destroyed them. The real danger was Charles, and the failure to scout Gaul adequately was disastrous.

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 in their mailed and armored horsemen—the first true "knights." 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 Umayyad heavy cavalry had broken into the square, but agreed that the Franks were in formation still strongly resisting.

Charles could not afford to stand idly by while Frankish territories were threatened. He would have to face the Umayyad armies sooner or later, and his men were enraged by the utter devastation of the Aquitanians and wanted to fight. But Sir Edward Creasy noted that,

Both Hallam and Watson argue that had Martel failed, there was no remaining force to protect Western Europe. 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, Châlons, and Leipzig." [33]

Strategically, and tactically, Martel probably made the best decision he could in waiting until his enemies least expected him to intervene, and then marching by stealth to catch them by surprise at a battlefield of his choosing. Probably he and his own men did not realize the seriousness of the battle they had fought, as Matthew Bennett and his co-authors, in Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World (2005) says: "few battles are remembered 1,000 years after they are fought […] but the Battle of Tours is an exception […] Charles Martel turned back a Muslim raid that had it been allowed to continue, might have conquered Gaul."

Umayyad retreat and second invasion

The Umayyad army retreated south over the Pyrenees . Martel continued to drive the Umayyad forces from France in subsequent years. After the death (c. 735) 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 Umayyads entered Provence as part of an alliance with Duke Maurontus the next year. [34] Hunold, who originally resisted acknowledging Charles as overlord, soon had little choice. He acknowledged Charles at once as his overlord, and Martel confirmed his Duchy, and the two prepared to confront the invaders. Martel believed it was vital to confine the Umayyad forces to Iberia and deny them any foothold in Gaul, a view many historians share. 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 Battle of the River Berre, outside Narbonne.

Advance to Narbonne

Despite this, the Umayyads 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 Umayyad armies and fortresses at the Battle of Avignon and the Battle of Nimes. The army attempting to relieve Narbonne met him in open battle at the Battle of the River Berre and was destroyed, but Charles failed in his attempt to take Narbonne by siege in 737, when the city was jointly defended by its Muslim Arab and Berber, and its Christian Visigoth citizens.

Carolingian Dynasty

Reluctant to tie down his army for a siege that could last years, and believing he could not afford the losses of an all out frontal assault such as he had used at Arles, Martel was content to isolate the few remaining invaders in Narbonne and Septimania. The threat of invasion was diminished after the Umayyad defeat at Narbonne, and the unified Caliphate would collapse into civil war in 750 at the Battle of the Zab. It was left to Martel's son, Pippin the Short, to force Narbonne's surrender in 759, thus bringing Narbonne into the Frankish domains. The Umayyad dynasty was expelled, driven back to Al-Andalus where Abd ar-Rahman I established an emirate in Cordoba in opposition to the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad . The threat posed by the Arab heavy cavalry also receded as the Christians copied the Arab model in developing similar forces of their own, giving rise to the familiar figure of the Western European medieval armored knight .

Martel's grandson, Charlemagne , became the first Christian ruler to begin what would be called the Reconquista in 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 Muslim lands across the Pyrenees. Historian J.M. Roberts said in 1993 [35] of the Carolingian Dynasty:

"It produced Charles Martel, the soldier who turned the Arabs back at Tours, and the supporter of Saint Boniface the Evangelizer of Germany. This is a considerable double mark to have left on the history of Europe."

The last Umayyad invasions of Gaul

In 735 the new governor of al-Andalus again invaded Gaul. Antonio Santosuosso and other historians detail how the new governor of Al-Andalus, 'Uqba b. Al-Hajjaj, again moved into France to avenge the defeat at Poitiers and to spread Islam. Santosuosso notes that 'Uqba b. Al-Hajjaj converted about 2,000 Christians he captured over his career. In the last major attempt at forcible invasion of Gaul through Iberia, a sizable invasion force was assembled at Saragossa and entered what is now French territory in 735, crossed the River Rhone and captured and looted Arles. From there he struck into the heart of Provence, ending with the capture of Avignon, despite strong resistance. Uqba b. Al-Hajjaj's forces remained in French territory for about four years, carrying raids to Lyons, Burgundy, and Piedmont. Again Charles Martel came to the rescue, reconquering most of the lost territories in two campaigns in 736 and 739, except for the city of Narbonne, which finally fell in 759. Alessandro Santosuosso strongly argues that the second (Umayyad) expedition was probably more dangerous than the first. The second expedition's failure put an end to any serious Muslim expedition across the Pyrenees although raids continued. Plans for further large scale attempts were hindered by internal turmoil in the Umayyad lands which often made enemies out of their own kind. [36]

Historical and macrohistorical views

The Historical views of this battle fall into three great phases, both in the East and and especially in the West. Western historians beginning with the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 stressed the macrohistorical impact of the battle, as did the Continuations of Fredegar. This became a claim that Martel had literally saved Christianity as Gibbon and his generation of historians agreed that the Battle of Tours was unquestionably decisive in world history.

In the East, Arab histories followed a similar path. First, the Battle was regarded as a disastrous defeat, then it faded essentially from Arab histories, leading to a modern dispute which regards it as either a secondary loss to the great defeat of the Second Siege of Constantinople or a part of a series of great macrohistorical defeats which together brought about the fall of the first Caliphate. Essentially, many modern Muslim scholars argue that the first Caliphate was a jihadist state which could not withstand an end to its constant expansion. [3] With the Byzantines and Franks both successfully blocking further expansion, internal social troubles came to a head, starting with the Great Berber Revolt of 740, and ending with the Battle of the Zab, and the destruction of the Umayyad Caliphate.

In Western history

The first wave of real "modern" historians, especially scholars on Rome and the medieval period, such as Edward Gibbon , contended that had Martel fallen, the Umayyad Caliphate would have easily conquered a divided Europe. Gibbon famously observed:

Gibbon was echoed a century later by the Belgian historian Godefroid Kurth, who wrote that the Battle of Poitiers "must ever remain one of the great events in the history of the world, as upon its issue depended whether Christian Civilization should continue or Islam prevail throughout Europe." [38]

German historians were especially ardent in their praise of Martel; Schlegel speaks of this "mighty victory" [39] , 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." Creasy quotes Leopold von Ranke's opinion that this period was

Had Martel failed, Henry Hallam argued, there would have been no Charlemagne , no Holy Roman Empire or Papal States ; all these depended upon Martel's containment of Islam from expanding into Europe while the Caliphate was unified and able to mount such a conquest.

Another great mid era historian, Thomas Arnold, ranked the victory of Charles Martel even higher than the victory of Arminius in its impact on all of modern history: "Charles Martel's victory at Tours was among those signal deliverances which have affected for centuries the happiness of mankind." [41]

John H. Haaren says in “Famous Men of the Middle Ages:”

John Bagnell Bury, writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, said: "The Battle of Tours… has often been represented as an event of the first magnitude for the world’s history, because after this, the penetration of Islam into Europe was finally brought to a standstill.” [42]

But, as will be seen below, today’s historians are very clearly divided on the importance of the Battle, and where it should rank in the signal moments of military history.

In Muslim history

Eastern historians, like their Western counterparts, have not always agreed on the importance of the Battle. According to Bernard Lewis, "The Arab historians, if they mention this engagement [the Battle of Tours] at all, present it as a minor skirmish," [43] and Gustave von Grunebaum writes: "This setback may have been important from the European point of view, but for Muslims at the time, who saw no master plan imperilled thereby, it had no further significance." [44] Contemporary Arab and Muslim historians and chroniclers were much more interested in the second Umayyad siege of Constantinople in 718, which ended in a disastrous defeat.

However, Creasy has claimed: "The enduring importance of the battle of Tours in the eyes of the Moslems is attested not only by the expressions of 'the deadly battle' and 'the disgraceful overthrow' which their writers constantly employ when referring to it, but also by the fact that no more serious attempts at conquest beyond the Pyrenees were made by the Saracens."

Thirteenth-century Moroccan author Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi, mentioned the battle in his history of the Maghrib, al-Bayan al-Mughrib fi Akhbaral-Maghrib. According to Ibn Idhari, "Abd ar-Rahman and many of his men found martyrdom on the balat ash-Shuhada'i ("the path of the martyrs)." Antonio Santosuosso points out in his book Barbarians, Marauders and Infidels: The Ways of Medieval Warfare, [45] : "they [the Muslims] called the battle's location, the road between Poitiers and Tours, "the pavement of Martyrs." However, as Henry Coppée has explained, "The same name was given to the battle of Toulouse and is applied to many other fields on which the Moslemah were defeated: they were always martyrs for the faith" [46]

Khalid Yahya Blankinship has argued that the military defeat at Tours was amongst one of the failures that contributed to the decline of the Umayyad caliphate: "Stretching from Morocco to China, the Umayyad caliphate based its expansion and success on the doctrine of jihad —armed struggle to claim the whole earth for God's rule, a struggle that had brought much material success for a century but suddenly ground to a halt followed by the collapse of the ruling Umayyad dynasty in 750 C.E. The End of the Jihad State demonstrates for the first time that the cause of this collapse came not just from internal conflict, as has been claimed, but from a number of external and concurrent factors that exceeded the caliphate's capacity to respond. These external factors began with crushing military defeats at Byzantium , Toulouse and Tours, which led to the Great Berber Revolt of 740 in Iberia and Northern Africa ."

Current historical debate on macrohistorical impact of Battle of Tours

Some modern historians argue that the Battle of Tours was of no great historical significance while others continue to contend that Martel's victory was important in European or even world history.

Supporting the significance of Tours as a world-altering event

William E. Watson, one of the most respected historians of this era, strongly supports Tours as a macrohistorical event, writing, for example, of the battle's importance in Frankish, and world, history in 1993:

Watson adds: "After examining the motives for the Muslim drive north of the Pyrenees, one can attach a macrohistorical significance to the encounter between the Franks and Andalusi Muslims at Tours-Poitiers, especially when one considers the attention paid to the Franks in Arabic literature and the successful expansion of Muslims elsewhere in the medieval period."

In An Islamic Europe educationalist Dexter B. Wakefield writes, "A Muslim France? Historically, it nearly happened. But as a result of Martel’s fierce opposition, which ended Muslim advances and set the stage for centuries of war thereafter, Islam moved no farther into Europe. European schoolchildren learn about the Battle of Tours in much the same way that American students learn about Valley Forge and Gettysburg." [48]

Victorian writer John Henry Haaren says in Famous Men of the Middle Ages, "The battle of Tours, or Poitiers, as it should be called, is regarded as one of the decisive battles of the world. It decided that Christians, and not Moslems, should be the ruling power in Europe." [49] Bernard Grun delivers this assessment in his "Timetables of History," reissued in 2004: "In 732 Charles Martel's victory over the Arabs at the Battle of Tours stems the tide of their westward advance.” [50]

Michael Grant, author of History of Rome, lists the battle of Tours in the macrohistorical dates of the Roman era. Historian Norman Cantor says in 1993: [51]

"It may be true that the Arabs had now fully extended their resources and they would not have conquered France, but their defeat (at Tours) in 732 put a stop to their advance to the north."

Robert W. Martin considers Tours "one of the most decisive battles in all of history." [52]

Paul Davis argued in 1999, "had the Muslims been victorious at Tours, it is difficult to suppose what population in Europe could have organized to resist them." [53]

Writer and philosopher Mark Whittington says that "Along with the defeat at the gates of Constantinople… the Battle of Tours halted Muslim Expansion into Europe. It has been suggested by numerous historians, including Edward Gibbon that had the Franks been defeated at Tours, the Muslim advance into Europe, then divided into squabbling kingdoms, would have been unstoppable. France, Germany, even England, would have fallen to Islam, putting an end to Christian Europe." [54] Likewise, George Bruce in his update of Harbottle's classic military history Dictionary of Battles maintains that "Charles Martel defeated the Moslem army effectively ending Moslem attempts to conquer western Europe." [55]

Objecting to the significance of Tours as a world-altering event

Other historians disagree with this assessment. Alessandro Barbero writes, "Today, historians tend to play down the significance of the battle of Poitiers, pointing out that the purpose of the Arab force defeated by Charles Martel was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy monastery of St-Martin of Tours". [56] Similarly, Tomaž Mastnak writes:

The Lebanese-American historian Philip Hitti believes that "In reality nothing was decided on the battlefield of Tours. The Moslem wave, already a thousand miles from its starting point in Gibraltar - to say nothing about its base in al-Qayrawan - had already spent itself and reached a natural limit." [58]

The view that the battle has no great significance is perhaps best summarized by Franco Cardini in Europe and Islam, who writes,

In their introduction to The Reader's Companion to Military History Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker summarise this side of the modern view of the Battle of Tours by saying “The study of military history has undergone drastic changes in recent years. The old drums-and-bugles approach will no longer do. Factors such as economics, logistics, intelligence, and technology receive the attention once accorded solely to battles and campaigns and casualty counts. Words like "strategy" and "operations" have acquired meanings that might not have been recognizable a generation ago. Changing attitudes and new research have altered our views of what once seemed to matter most. For example, several of the battles that Edward Shepherd Creasy listed in his famous 1851 book The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World rate hardly a mention here, and the confrontation between Muslims and Christians at Poitiers-Tours in 732, once considered a watershed event, has been downgraded to a raid in force." [60]

A number of modern historians and writers in other felds agree with Watson, and continue to maintain that this battle was one of history's pivotal events. Professor of religion Huston Smith says in The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions : "But for their defeat by Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours in 733, the entire Western world might today be Muslim." Historian Robert Payne in The History of Islam said: "The more powerful Muslims and the spread of Islam were knocking on Europe’s door. And the spread of Islam was stopped along the road between the towns of Tours and Poitiers, France, with just its head in Europe." [61]

Modern military historian Victor Davis Hanson acknowledges the debate on this battle, citing historians both for and against its macrohistorical placement:

↑ Victor Davis Hanson. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. Published in the UK as Why the West has Won. (NY: Faber and Faber, 2001. ISBN 0571216404 ), 143.
↑ The earliest Muslim source for this campaign is the Futūh Miṣr of Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam (c. 803-871) see: William E. Watson, "The Battle of Tours-Poitiers Revisited." Providence: Studies in Western Civilization 2 (1) (1993), [1] retrieved 17-03-2007.
↑ Hanson, 2001, 141.
↑ Hanson, 2001, 141
↑ Henry Coppée writes, "The same name (see ante ) was given to the battle of Toulouse and is applied to many other fields on which the Moslemah were defeated: they were always martyrs for the faith." Henry Coppée. (1881) History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab Moors, With a Sketch of the Civilization Which They Achieved, and Imparted to Europe. Vol II. (reprint Piscataway, NJ: Georgias Press, 2002. ISBN 1931956944 ), 13
↑ Bernard S. Bachrach. Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire. (University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. ISBN 0812235339 ), 276.
↑ Paul Fouracre. The Age of Charles Martel. (NY: Longman, 2000. ISBN 0582064767 ), 87. citing the Vita Eucherii, ed. W. Levison, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum. VII, 46–53, ch. 8, 49–50; Gesta Episcoporum Autissiodorensium, extracts ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores XIII, ch. 27, 394.
↑ Paul Riche. The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe. (University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. ISBN 0812213424 ), 44.
↑ Edward J. Schoenfeld, "Battle of Poitiers." In Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker, (Eds.) The Reader's Companion to Military History. (NY: Houghton Mifflin Books, 2001. ISBN 0618127429 ), 366.
↑ Hanson, 2001, 166.
↑ Leopold Von Ranke. History of the Reformation. (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1844, vol. 1), 5
↑ Davis, 106.
↑ "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." [2]
↑ Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker, (Eds.) The Reader's Companion to Military History. (NY: Houghton Mifflin Books, 2001. ISBN 0618127429 ), xiii.
↑ Davis, 105.
↑ Schoenfeld, 2001, 366.
↑ Hanson, 2001
↑ Fouracre, 85, citing U. Nonn, "Das Bild Karl Martells in Mittelalterliche Quellen," in Jarnut, Nonn and Richeter, (eds). Karl Martel in Seiner Zeit. (Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1994. ISBN 3799573372 ), 11–12.
↑ Fouracre, 88.
↑ David Eggenberger. An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C.E. to the Present. (NY: Courier Dover Publications, 1985. ISBN 0486249131 ), 3.
↑ Ian Meadows, Saudi Arabia 's Aramco historical site, Aramco World (April/May 2003), "The Arabs in Occitania." . accessdate 2006-06-15
↑ Meadows, "The Arabs in Occitania." . accessdate 2006-06-15
↑ previously attributed to Isidorus Pacensis, Bishop of Béja—see, O'Callaghan, 1983, 189.
↑ Kenneth Baxter Wolf. Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000. ISBN 0853235546 ), 145.
↑ Riche, 1993, 44.
↑ From the Anonymous Arab Chronicler: The Battle of Poitiers, 732.
↑ Davis, 105
↑ "Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts", Arabs, Franks and the Battle of Tours . Medieval Sourecbook, Fordham University, retrieved 13-03-2007
↑ Watson, 1993.
↑ Fouracre, 2000, 149.
↑ Bede, John Allen Giles, John Stevens, Anna Gurvey, and Henry Petrie. (1847). The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England. (reprint Kessinger Publishing, 2007. ISBN 0548191603 ), 291.
↑ Edward Shepherd Creasy. Decisive Battles of the World. (Phoenix, AZ: Simon Publications, (1851) 2001. ISBN 1931541817 ), 163.
↑ quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, viii.
↑ Fouracre, 96.
↑ J. M. Roberts. The New History of the World. (NY: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0195219279 ).
↑ Santosuosso, 2004, p. 126
↑ Edward Gibbon. The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , Chapter LII. Christian Classics Ethereal Library . retrieved 13-03-2007
↑ quoted in Frank D. Gilliard, "The Senators of Sixth-Century Gaul," Speculum . 54 (4) (Oct., 1979): 685-697
↑ quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, 158.
↑ Thomas Arnold. History of the later Roman Commonwealth. vol II. (1857), 317, quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, 158.
↑ Cambridge Medieval History p.374.
↑ Bernard Lewis. Islam and the West. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 0195090616 ), 11.
↑ Gustave von Grunebaum. Classical Islam: A History, 600 C.E. to 1258 C.E. (New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction, 2005. ISBN 0202307670 ), 66.
↑ Antonio Santosuosso. Barbarians, Marauders and Infidels: The Ways of Medieval Warfare. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004. ISBN 0813391539 ), 126.
↑ Coppée, 1881/2002, 13.
↑ William E. Watson, Providence: Studies in Western Civilization . (1993) 2 (1), deremilitari.org . retrieved 17-03-2007
↑ Dexter B. Wakefield, An Islamic Europe? Tomorrow's World 8 (3), retrieved 13-03-2007
↑ John H. Haaren and A. B. Poland, Famous Men of the Middle Ages Project Gutenberg Text retrived 18-03-2007
↑ Bernard Grun. The Timetables of History. (NY: Touchstone, 1991. ISBN 978-0671742713 ), 275.
↑ Norman F. Cantor. Civilization of the Middle Ages, rev. ed. (Harper Perennial, 1993. ISBN 0060925531 ), 136.
↑ Robert W. Martin, "The Battle of Tours," About History The Battle of Tours
↑ Mark Whittington, "Day of Decision: The Battle of Tours" Day of Decision . The Peoples Media Company retrieved 13-03-2004
↑ George Bruce, "Muslim Conquests," Muslim Conquests . Leaders and Battles Database . retrieved 13-03-2007
↑ Alessandro Barbero. Charlemagne: Father of a Continent. (Berekely, CA: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN 0520239431 ), 10.
↑ Tomaž Mastnak. Crusading Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World, and Western Political Order. (Berekely, CA: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN 0520226356 ), 99-100.
↑ Philip Khuri Hitti. History of Syria, Including Lebanon and Palestine. (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002. ISBN 1931956618 ), 469.
↑ Franco Cardini. Europe and Islam. (Making of Europe) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2001. ISBN 0631226370 ), 9.
↑ 'Editors' Note', Cowley and Parker, 2001, xiii.
↑ Robert Payne. The History of Islam. (Dorset Press, 1995. ISBN 1566198526 ), 142.
↑ Hanson, 167.
↑ Davis, 107.

References ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Arnold, Thomas. History of the later Roman Commonwealth: From The End Of The Second Punic War To The Death Of Julius Caesar And Of The Reign Of Augustus. vol II. (1857) reprint ed. Kessinger Publications, 2007. ISBN 0548302847
Bachrach, Bernard S. Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire. University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. ISBN 0812235339
Barbero, Alessandro. Charlemagne: Father of a Continent. Berekely, CA: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN 0520239431
Bede, John Allen Giles, John Stevens, Anna Gurvey, and Henry Petrie. (1847). The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England. reprint Kessinger Publishing, 2007. ISBN 0548191603
Bennett, Matthew. Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World. NY: St Martin Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0312348205
Cardini, Franco. Europe and Islam. (Making of Europe) Wiley-Blackwell, 2001. ISBN 0631226370
Coppée, Henry. History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab Moors, With a Sketch of the Civilization Which They Achieved, and Imparted to Europe. Vol II. Boston: Little, Brown, (1881) reprint Piscataway, NJ: Georgias Press, 2002. ISBN 1931956944
Cowley, Robert and Geoffrey Parker, Eds. The Reader's Companion to Military History. NY: Houghton Mifflin Books, 2001. ISBN 0618127429
Creasy, Edward Shepherd. Decisive Battles of the World. Phoenix, AZ: Simon Publicatons, (1851) 2001. ISBN 1931541817
Davis, Paul K. 100 Decisive Battles From Ancient Times to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0195143663
Eggenberger, David. An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C.E. to the Present. NY: Courier Dover Publications, 1985. ISBN 0486249131
Fouracre, Paul. The Age of Charles Martel. NY: Longman, 2000. ISBN 0582064767
Gilliard, Frank D., "The Senators of Sixth-Century Gaul," Speculum 54 (4) (October 1979): 685-697.
Grant, Michael. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A Reappraisal. Radnor, PA: Annenberg School Press, 1976. ISBN 978-0517524480
Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History. NY: Touchstone, 1991. ISBN 978-0671742713
Grunebaum, Gustave von. Classical Islam: A History, 600 C.E. to 1258 C.E. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction, 2005. ISBN 0202307670
Hanson, Victor Davis. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. Published in the UK as Why the West has Won. NY: Faber and Faber, 2001. ISBN 0571216404
Hitti, Philip Khuri. History of Syria Including Lebanon and Palestine. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002. ISBN 1931956618
Lewis, Bernard. Islam and the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 0195090616
Mastnak, Tomaž. Crusading Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World, and Western Political Order. Berekely, CA: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN 0520226356
Payne, Robert. The History of Islam. Dorset Press, 1995. ISBN 1566198526
Reagan, Geoffrey. The Guinness Book of Decisive Battles. NY: Canopy Books, 1992. ISBN 1558594310
Riche, Paul. The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe. University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. ISBN 0812213424
Roberts, J.M. The New History of the World. NY: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0195219279
Santosuosso, Antonio. Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004. ISBN 0813391539
Schoenfeld, Edward J. "Battle of Poitiers." In Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker, Eds. The Reader's Companion to Military History. NY: Houghton Mifflin Books, 2001. ISBN 0618127429
Torrey, Charles Cutler. The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain: Known as the Futūh Miṣr of Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1922.
Von Ranke, Leopold. History of the Reformation. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1844, vol. 1.
Whittington, Mark, "Day of Decision: The Battle of Tours" The Peoples Media Company Day of Decision
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000. ISBN 0853235546

External links

All links retrieved September 26, 2023.

Ian Meadows, "The Arabs in Occitania" , Saudi Aramco World .
Edward Shepherd Creasy, "Chapter VII. The Battle of Tours, A.D. 732" , Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World .
"Roman History by Cassius Dio" , Cassius Dio — Book 40 .
Medieval Sourcebook: Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts
Medieval Sourcebook: Anon Arab Chronicler: The Battle of Poitiers, 732

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Muslim Invasions of Western Europe: The 732 Battle of Tours

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The Battle of Tours was fought during the Muslim invasions of Western Europe in the 8th century.

Armies & Commanders at the Battle of Tours

Charles Martel
20,000-30,000 men
Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi
unknown, but perhaps as high as 80,000 men

Battle of Tours - Date

Martel's triumph at the Battle of Tours occurred on October 10, 732.

Background on the Battle of Tours

In 711, the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate crossed into the Iberian Peninsula from Northern Africa and quickly began overrunning the region's Visigothic Christian kingdoms. Consolidating their position on the peninsula, they used the area as a platform for commencing raids over the Pyrenees into modern-day France. Initially meeting little resistance, they were able to gain a foothold and the forces of Al-Samh ibn Malik established their capital at Narbonne in 720. Commencing attacks against Aquitaine, they were checked at the Battle of Toulouse in 721. This saw Duke Odo defeat the Muslim invaders and kill Al-Samh. Retreating to Narbonne, Umayyad troops continued raiding west and north reached as far as Autun, Burgundy in 725.

In 732, Umayyad forces led by the governor of Al-Andalus, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, advanced in force into Aquitaine. Meeting Odo at the Battle of the River Garonne they won a decisive victory and commenced sacking the region. Fleeing north, Odo sought aid from the Franks. Coming before Charles Martel, the Frankish mayor of the palace, Odo was promised aid only if he promised to submit to the Franks. Agreeing, Martel began raising his army to meet the invaders. In the years previous, having assessed the situation in Iberia and the Umayyad attack on Aquitaine , Charles came to believe that a professional army, rather than raw conscripts, was needed to defend the realm from invasion. To raise the money necessary to build and train an army that could withstand the Muslim horsemen, Charles began seizing Church lands, earning the ire of the religious community.

Battle of Tours - Moving to Contact

Moving to intercept Abdul Rahman, Charles used secondary roads to avoid detection and allow him to select the battlefield. Marching with approximately 30,000 Frankish troops he assumed a position between the towns of Tours and Poitiers. For the battle, Charles selected a high, wooded plain which would force the Umayyad cavalry to charge uphill through unfavorable terrain. This included trees in front of the Frankish line which would aid in breaking up cavalry attacks. Forming a large square, his men surprised Abdul Rahman, who did not expect to encounter a large enemy army and forced the Umayyad emir to pause for a week to consider his options. This delay benefited Charles as it allowed him to summon more of his veteran infantry to Tours.

Battle of Tours - The Franks Stand Strong

As Charles reinforced, the increasingly cold weather began to prey on the Umayyads who were unprepared for the more northern climate. On the seventh day, after gathering all of his forces, Abdul Rahman attacked with his Berber and Arab cavalry. In one of the few instances where medieval infantry stood up to cavalry, Charles' troops defeated repeated Umayyad attacks. As the battle waged, the Umayyads finally broke through the Frankish lines and attempted to kill Charles. He was promptly surrounded by his personal guard who repulsed the attack. As this was occurring, scouts that Charles had sent out earlier were infiltrating the Umayyad camp and freeing prisoners and enslaved people.

Believing that the plunder of the campaign was being stolen, a large part of the Umayyad army broke off the battle and raced to protect their camp. This departure appeared as a retreat to their comrades who soon began to flee the field. While attempting to stop the apparent retreat, Abdul Rahman was surrounded and killed by Frankish troops. Briefly pursued by the Franks, the Umayyad withdrawal turned into a full retreat. Charles re-formed his troops expecting another attack the next day, but to his surprise, it never came as the Umayyads continued their retreat all the way to Iberia.

While exact casualties for the Battle of Tours are not known, some chronicles relate that Christian losses numbered around 1,500 while Abdul Rahman suffered approximately 10,000. Since Martel's victory, historians have argued over the battle's significance with some stating that his victory saved Western Christendom while others feel that its repercussions were minimal. Regardless, the Frankish victory at Tours, along with subsequent campaigns in 736 and 739, effectively stopped the advance of Muslim forces from Iberia allowing the further development of the Christian states in Western Europe.

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The Battle of Tours - A Decisive Fight for Europe’s Future

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The early medieval world of our ancestors was built upon struggles and decisive battles. The emerging nations united the broken tribes, expanded their borders, conquered their enemies, and often enough - fended off invaders. But rare are the battles that really left a long lasting impact that echoed through the generations that followed.

Rare are such conflicts that changed the history of the world with their importance and decided the future of us all for centuries to come. And one of those rare, world-changing battles is the Battle of Tours - fought in 732 AD between the Christian Frankish forces and the invading Muslim Umayyad Caliphate.

This fierce and destructive conflict, that shaped the future of Europe and echoed through time, was a great gamble, fought against all odds. But it remains as one of the biggest lessons of Europe’s past, and today we are going in detail about that fated day in 732.

A triumphant Charles Martel (mounted) faces Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi (right) at the Battle of Tours. Source: Bender235 / Public Domain .

The Prelude to the Battle of Tours

Around the very beginning of the 8 th century, in the year 700 AD, the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate was rapidly spreading its empire around the world. It was the second of the four great caliphates that emerged after the death of Muhammad and was one of the largest empires of the world at the time.

After conquering the lands of North Africa, they saw mainland Europe as the next prey for their conquests. From the shores of North Africa, they had a clear passage - in the form of the Gibraltar Strait. This would allow their forces to cross over onto the Iberian Peninsula , from which they would spread further inland.

At the time, Iberia was under the control of the Visigothic Kingdom, a centralized state under the rule of King Roderic. Nonetheless, the Umayyads crossed the strait in the year 711 AD, under the leadership of one Tariq ibn Ziyad, and soon after clashed with the Visigothic army in the Battle of Guadalete, in the same year, in the very south of Iberia.

The "Age of the Caliphs", shows the Umayyad dominance stretched from the Middle East to the Iberian Peninsula, including the port of Narbonne, c. 720. (McZusatz / Public Domain )

At the time of the Umayyad invasion, King Roderic was far in the north, attempting to fight a Basque rebellion. This unfortunately placed him in a bad situation, as he was forced to a long march south, to face this much bigger enemy. In the end, the Visigoths were defeated in the face of the overwhelming Muslim cavalry.

In the battle, King Roderic and most of the nobles of his kingdom lost their lives, which allowed the Umayyads to effectively conquer Iberia, step by step. This they managed in just a little under seven years. And once Iberia was theirs, Frankish Gaul was just a step away.

The only thing that divided the Umayyads from their prey - the Frankish Kingdom - were the Pyrenees Mountains . This was a fitting natural barrier - but it was in no way untraversable. In time, the Umayyads began crossing over and making incursions into the very south of Gaul. By 720 they conquered the southern province of Septimania.

In the following year, they focused on the large city to the immediate west, Toulouse, which they besieged. This siege was brought to an end by the prominent Frankish Duke Odo - who managed to overwhelm the Umayyad forces outside Toulouse and defeat them. Nonetheless, large numbers of Umayyads kept crossing over the Pyrenees and laying waste to the southern provinces of Gaul.

The Duchy of Aquitaine laid in the south and faced the brunt of this invasion. Its largest towns, Bordeaux and Toulouse were ravaged, and in no time the invaders reached even the Duchy of Burgundy to its north.

But it wasn’t until 732 that the Umayyad Caliphate truly amassed its forces with proper conquering intentions and adequate strength. The man that was at the head of this force was Abdul Rahman al Ghafiqi, the then-Governor General of Muslim Iberia. He led his forces across the Pyrenees once again and plundered the land and all the cities he came across.

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Abdul Rahman al Ghafiqi led his troops over the Pyrenees Mountains toward the Battle of Tours. (Jean-Christophe BENOIST / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

The Umayyads greatly coveted riches, and their main activity during this conquest was plunder. After completely ransacking Bordeaux once again, the Umayyad forces faced Duke Odo once more. Odo led his army in an attempt to stop the invasion as he did a few years before.

But this time, he was terribly outnumbered and outmaneuvered, and his forces were crushed. Realizing the gravity of the situation, and that his own lands of Aquitaine were overrun, Odo fled to the north seeking assistance from the de-facto ruler of the Frankish Kingdom - Charles Martel.

Before the Umayyad invasion Odo and Charles were enemies. Charles sought to expand his lordship over Aquitaine and Odo saw the Franks as invaders. But with this new and much greater threat, Odo had no choice but to seek help from the Franks. Charles Martel agreed to join up with him, but the “price” was Odo’s acceptance of Frankish overlordship. Odo agreed.

The Hammer Enters the Fray

Charles Martel was a seasoned ruler and a battle hardened veteran. His troops were equally experienced having been in constant clashes along the eastern borders of their kingdom, fighting neighboring tribes.

Charles also understood how important the situation was and began gathering his levies from all over the north. And he would show his shrewdness as a battle commander, when he carefully understood the intentions of his enemy.

Meanwhile, the Umayyad forces moved slowly across the Frankish lands, their forces spread into war parties that ravaged the countryside and amassed an enormous amount of plunder. This “greedy” focus on war booty would greatly influence their future undoing. They had to take their time, as they greatly depended on the crop season for their food source.

But their destination was clear to Charles Martel. It was the rich city of Tours - prominent and wealthy, filled with abbeys of great importance. Thus, Charles placed his Frankish forces directly on the path of the coming Umayyads. He situated his army roughly in between the city of Tours and the ravaged town of Poitiers further south.

The Franks were placed close to the confluence of rivers Clain and Vienne, on a slightly elevated and forested hill. Charles Martel deliberately and shrewdly chose this position. First of all - he was outnumbered and knew it.

Map of the Battle of Tours with the position of Charles Martel's army. (Evzen M / Public Domain )

Thus he chose the cover of the forest to displace his troops and hide his number in hope to not reveal his disadvantage. Secondly - he chose a place where the Umayyads would have to enter into battle, as the only crossing over the rivers was behind the Frankish forces. Thirdly - the forest protected his troops - mainly the second lines - from the full brunt of a cavalry charge, and somewhat protected his sides from flanking attacks.

When the Umayyads approached the assembled Christian army, their leader Abdul Rahman al Ghafiqi - also a seasoned commander - knew that Charles Martel took the upper hand, by choosing his preferred place of battle. Even so, al Ghafiqi trusted in his strength and deployed for battle.

One thing he must have noticed is the difference in the troops - Umayyads relied heavily on cavalry, while the Franks were mostly footmen. But he failed to take several things into account.

The Muslim cavalry was lightly armored - they preferred to adorn themselves with chainmail and not much else in terms of armor. Riches and trinkets were much more to their liking.

They also rode willful Arabic horses, which were difficult to break in, and thus not the truly perfect cavalry mounts. Some historians also mention that this cavalry was in large part armed with spears - which were unseasoned and would break on first impact.

The Muslim cavalry rode willful Arabic horses during the Battle of Tours. (Trzęsacz / Public Domain )

On the other hand, the Frankish infantry was thoroughly seasoned. Most of the army were veterans, with only a small part of fresh recruits reserved in the second lines. They were well armored for the time, and well-armed as well. They stood packed in tight lines and ready for a cavalry charge.

But the battle did not begin immediately. The opposing forces “tested the waters”, with sporadic small skirmishes going on for seven days.

This was in truth a deliberate stalling from al Ghafiqi, who waited for his whole army to assemble fully. In the end, with the Umayyads fearing the approaching winter, they commenced battle on the seventh day - on the 10th of October 732 AD.

The Umayyad Wave That Broke On the Frankish Rock

The Umayyad commander, al Ghafiqi, heavily relied on his cavalry, even though he didn’t possess much knowledge about the assembled enemy. He sent waves of cavalry charges in an attempt to break the Frankish lines - but this did not happen. The seasoned Franks were tightly packed - shoulder to shoulder - and withstood all assaults.

The rare combination of slight elevation, good arms and armor, and tree cover allowed them to hold their ground - when it was almost impossible for infantry to hold against cavalry in medieval times. Even when some small parts of the line faltered and broke under the cavalry, the fresh second lines were quick to react - sealing the gap.

Frankish knight fighting against an Umayyad horseman. (Helix84 / Public Domain )

As the battle went on in that way, Duke Odo commenced a crucial flanking operation that greatly tipped the scales in Frankish favor. He gathered a cavalry force and flanked wide - reaching the distant Muslim encampment - i.e. their rear. This was where the Umayyad tents were and all of their abundant plunder.

Odo managed to inflict great losses here, retrieve the precious plunder, free around 200 captive Franks, and draw the eye of the enemy. But what happened next was more than he hoped for. Upon realizing that their camp and their plunder were under attack, many Umayyad units from the central battlefield rushed back in a frenzy to save their loot.

This was an unprecedented situation, one that al Ghafiqi never expected. His attempts at rallying his troops were in vain, and Charles Martel - who knew exactly what he was doing - seized this opportunity.

As the Umayyad forces dissipated to retrieve the loot, he swung his forces from left, right, and center, and engaged in both pursuit and encirclement. The remaining body of the Umayyads was surrounded and suffered immense casualties.

The chief of these was al Ghafiqi himself - who fell in battle while attempting to rally his troops. Meanwhile, Duke Odo swung north again and cut off the fleeing Umayyads, inflicting great losses. In effect, the Umayyad forces fled.

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Charles Martel gathered his cavalry at Battle of Tours and attacked the Umayyad encampment. (Levan Ramishvili / Public Domain )

Now, Charles Martel expected a second day of battles and remained in his position, treating the wounded and re-organizing. But another day never came. The Umayyads, with their commander dead, could not successfully organize another attack or choose a fitting leader. They had suffered great losses as well.

Charles Martel feared an ambush and would not descend from the hill at any cost. Eventually, he sent out extensive reconnaissance parties to survey the Umayyad forces - but only to learn that there were none. They had gathered all the remaining plunder they could and fled during the night - extremely hastily. They had returned to Iberia.

Charles Martel won a crushing and glorious victory that cemented his reputation of a noble and capable leader. He was praised all across Europe as the savior of the Christendom and the “Hammer that Broke the Muslims”. Thus he earned his nickname - Martel - meaning Charles the Hammer.

He subsequently expanded his rule over Aquitaine and successfully isolated the invaders to the southern region of Septimania, where they remained for another 27 years and were completely unable to break through. Charles’ wealth, influence, power, and ability led to the emergence of the Carolingian dynasty , which would rise and last for centuries to follow.

Charles Martel's military campaigns in Aquitaine, Septimania, and Provence after the Battle of Tour-Poitiers (734–742). (Iñaki LLM / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Changing the Future of the World

The Europe of the early 18 th century desperately needed a capable and strong commander that would stop the Muslim Umayyad invaders dead in their tracks. And that commander was Charles Martel. He stood up to ravaging flood of conquerors and using his superior tactics, shrewdness, and reputation, he managed to win a crushing battle - against all odds. Like a beacon that kept burning throughout a storm, his Frankish warriors defied their enemy in battle. And it is this battle that changed the course of European history, and with that - the history of the World.

Top image: Medieval soldier at war. Credit: Andrey Kiselev / Adobe Stock

By Aleksa Vučković

Creasy, E. 2016. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World . Enhanced Media.

Neiberg, M. 2003. Warfare in World History . Taylor & Francis.

Scott, J. 2011. Battle of Tours - A New Look at an Old Enemy . eBookIt.

I am a published author of over ten historical fiction novels, and I specialize in Slavic linguistics. Always pursuing my passions for writing, history and literature, I strive to deliver a thrilling and captivating read that touches upon history's most... Read More

Battle of Tours 732 Charles Martel

What was the battle of tours.

The Battle of Tours was fought in 732 between a sizable Moorish invading force and a Frankish army under Charles Martel.

The Saracen army prepares for battle near Paris

Martel was able to check the Moorish advance by routing the Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732.

The battle is considered highly significant in that it was crucial in stemming the tide of Muslim advance into north-eastern Europe after the Moors had successfully taken over southern Iberia.

Moors in various costumes

Modern historians believe that had Martel not defeated the Moorish army at Tours, Christianity may have lost a vital sphere of influence in Western Europe.

The outcome of the battle was the routing of the Muslim army and a resounding victory for Charles Martel, earning him the title of being the “Savior of Christianity”.

Prelude to the Battle of Tours

Muslim forces were defeated at the 721 Battle of Toulouse in their advance into northern Iberia. Duke Odo of Aquitaine secure this victory but by 732, another sizable Muslim army arrived to invade northern Iberia.

Odo attempted to stem the tide but was defeated and fled. He then turned to the Franks who were conventionally considered rivals of Aquitaine.

Charles Martel, the Frankish military general, agreed to come to Odo’s help if Odo agreed to bend the knee to Frankish authority. Between the threats of a complete Muslim invasion and the condition of submitting to the Franks, Odo chose the latter.

Charles Martel *Frankish Military General

Battle Tactics Battle of Tours

The key advantage that the invading Moorish army had over the Franks was its highly mobile cavalry.

Martel, on the other hand, had thousands of veteran troops. While the Frankish had no cavalry advantage over Muslims, Martel managed a crucial advantage by setting up his army at the ridge of a hill.

The Battle of Tours was also known as the Battle of Poitiers

The phalanx-like formation of his infantry, surrounded by trees on both sides, ensured that any charge from the Muslim cavalry would have little advantage against the Frankish infantry.

Being able to choose the terrain and the condition of the battle played the most central role in ensuring the subsequent Frankish victory in the battle.

Frankish Troops

Battle of Tours Battle

The Muslim army was led by Abd er Rehman. He had been able to victories in many previous battles using the might of Muslim heavy cavalry. At the Battle of Tours , the importance of Rehman’s cavalry was greatly diminished.

The Muslim army was positioned at the foot of the hill while the Frankish stood in a defensive formation atop the ridge of the hill. After waiting for six days, Ab der Rehman made the tactical mistake of making his troops charge uphill.

This negated the cavalry advantage the Muslims had. The Franks, on the other hand, stood in highly organized formations and withstood one cavalry charge after another from the Muslims.

Although the Muslim army was able to pierce through the Frankish formations, they couldn’t penetrate deep enough and sustained heavy losses at the hands of the Frankish infantry.

After the battle which had lasted nearly a day, rumors spread that the Franks had attacked the Muslim camp.

A sizable portion of the Muslim army immediately broke off to reach the camp. Muslim general, Ab der Rehman, was consequently killed while trying to restore order in his army.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Battle of Tours (732?)

Introduction, general overviews.

The Continuations of the Chronicle of Fredegar
The Chronicle of 754
Other Early Sources
Muslims and Christians in the Eighth Century
Frankish Politics
Muslims in Early Medieval Francia
Frankish Warfare
Andalusi Warfare
The Brunner Thesis
The End of Muslim Expansion in Gaul
The Memory of the Battle of Tours

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Battle of Tours (732?) by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024 LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0247

Despite being one of the most famous engagements of the medieval period, there are many uncertainties about the Battle of Tours, including its date, precise location, and significance. The traditional dating of the battle to October 732 has been questioned by scholars on the basis of Iberian sources, with many preferring to place it in late 733 or 734. Because the encounter took place between Tours and Poitiers, it is sometimes also named after the latter city. What is known is that the battle took place because the Muslim governor of al-Andalus, ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAbd Allah al-Ghafiqi, invaded Aquitaine, motivated by an alliance between its Duke, Eudo, and the rebel Berber border lord ʿUthman b. Naissa. After being defeated, Eudo turned to the Frankish Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel. The Frankish and Muslim armies met on the road to Tours, with the former being victorious. Al-Ghafiqi was killed, but his army retreated in good order. The significance of this clash has long been debated. The battle has been hailed as one of the most important in history for halting the expansion of the caliphate in western Europe and cementing the prestige and power of Charles Martel and his descendants, the Carolingians. More recent scholars have questioned this assessment, pointing to the continuation of Muslim raids into Frankish territory in subsequent years and the limited presence of the battle in Carolingian history writing. Beyond dispute is the modern importance of the Battle of Tours, inspiring numerous books, works of art, and political movements.

While the Battle of Tours has occasioned much interest, sober scholarly accounts are harder to come by. Collins 1994 addresses the subject from an Iberian perspective, drawing heavily on the Chronicle of 754 . Fouracre 2000 , a biography of Charles Martel, approaches the battle from a Frankish background.

Collins, Roger. The Arab Conquest of Spain 711–797 . Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.

Offers an extremely useful account of the battle within the context of al-Andalus. Argues strongly in favor of a date in 733 or 734 on the basis of the Chronicle of 754 .

Fouracre, Paul. The Age of Charles Martel . Harlow: Longman, 2000.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315845647

The best overview of the career of Charles Martel, good for situating the Battle of Tours within wider Frankish politics, with a greater emphasis on the Frankish sources.

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

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185.80.151.41

The Battle of Tours: A Turning Point in Early Medieval History

Post author By Library Author
Post date February 15, 2023

Table of Contents

History is just that: a story . It follows people, the characters, through their environment, the setting, and the things that happen to them, the plot.

Like any story, it moves along thanks to specific events. And while they might not seem so significant at the moment, when we look back, we can use them to connect the dots to how we got where we are today.

One such event was the Battle of Tours. Fought between the invading, Muslim-run Umayyad Caliphate and the Christian Kingdom of the Franks, this battlefield duel drew a “line in the sand” in European history that is still alive and well in the 21st century.

The Advancing Muslim Kingdoms

To understand the Battle of Tours, the first place to look is the Middle East in the three centuries before the fighting began. Something was happening in these lands east of the Mediterranean and in the foothills of Asia.

In a word: Islam.

Founded in the 7th century by the Arabian prophet Muhammad, the monotheistic religion that descended from Judaism and Christianity had taken the Middle East by storm. Not only had huge swaths of territory converted to this new faith, its leaders, starting with Muhammad himself, had created a new empire.

As they spread their version of the word of God, they conquered new lands, spreading throughout Mesopotamia, western Asian lands such as Pakistan and India, as well as North Africa.

By the end of the 8th century, they had one of the largest empires in history. But they weren’t interested in stopping in North Africa, so they didn’t. In 711 AD, they crossed the Mediterranean and crashed onto the shores of Spain. Their armies quickly advanced through Spain, defeating the Visigoths and establishing a new province of their empire: Al-Andalus.

After so much success, why would they stop there?

Well, they didn’t. They crossed over the Pyrenees Mountains and into what is now France and kept on fighting.

Things were looking good for the Muslim caliphate. Until they weren’t.

The Christians Respond

The Battle of Tours is ultimately a story about the battle between Christianity and Islam. As Islam grew, it did so mainly in non-Christian lands.

The tribes of Arabia that united under Muhammad had been polytheistic, meaning they believed in many gods. As Islam spread, though, it came into contact with more and more Christian territories.

This worried the people of Europe. Not only did they devoutly believe their religion was the one true religion, but a threat to the Christian faith was a threat to the rulers of Europe who used faith as a source of their power.

So, when the Muslim-led armies crashed into Spain, a largely Christian territory, conquered it in the blink of an eye (historically speaking…it was more like a period of 50 years), there had to be a response.

The one to answer the call was a man named Charles Martel. He was the ruler of the Franks, a Germanic people who populated much of western Europe.

A Christian, Martel commanded a considerable army and rose to power as Islam was spreading into Europe. His decisions and the results of these decisions left a lasting mark on European history.

The Battle of Tours

The Battle of Tours itself took place in 732 AD, just twenty years after the Umayyad Caliphate had crossed into Spain. In just that short time, Muslim armies had made their way into what is now central France.

The lack of political unity at the time made it easy for the strong, unified army of the Caliphate to march across Europe. Kingdoms next to one another would often not come to the support of each other due to feuds both past and present.

This was exactly what the Umayyad army was hoping for when they attacked Tours, a wealthy city on the Loire River in central France. Technically part of Aquitaine, which Charles Martel had invaded for his own purposes, no one thought Martel would fight for the defense of Tours.

But Martel was a true man of mystery and did exactly what no one expected him to do.

The battle, which lasted more than a week, came as a surprise to the Umayyads army. Not only did they not really know that Martel and his army of Franks were waiting there, they had no idea how many people were in the army and how strong they really were.

So, the Umayyad commander, Abdul Rahman Al-Ghafiqi , sent his cavalry, or horse-mounted units, into the city for what he thought would be a quick victory.

Talk about wishful thinking.

The mainly-Frankish army was as big if not bigger than the invading force, and they fought them back handedly.

Martel’s force remained in the forest in the highlands, forcing Al-Gfaiqi’s army to try and charge uphill, something that never works, not even for Anakin Skywalker.

Numbers of casualties are impossible to know for sure, but by the end of the seventh day, the Umayyad army had lost.

Once beaten back, they turned and ran. Al-Gafiqi was killed in battle and the Muslim invasion of Europe was in big, big trouble.

Frankish Conquest of Gaul and the Early Stages of the Holy Roman Empire

After failing to beat back Martel, the Umayyad force ran south in retreat. Martel followed them, chasing them further and further from his people. Eventually, the Umayyad army crossed the Pyrenees.

“Finally!” he shouted. “Now down through Hispania and back to North Africa!”

Wrong.

Instead of making the same mistake his enemies had made by chasing them through foreign territory, Martel decided to call it a day once he felt safe.

He drew a line in the map, right through the Pyrnees and said “I’m done.”

This move had two major impacts.

First, it allowed him to maintain the gains he just made against the advancing Umayyad army.

Second, it allowed him to consolidate power in France. He just chased away the “evil” Muslims advancing with their army, outdoing his rival kings in the area, proving his strength to the people.

By stopping his pursuit, he made himself the most powerful man in western Europe.

The Rise of the Catholic Church

This victory, and the moves Martel made after it, put an end to the advance of Islam into Europe. The Umayyads would try again a few years later, but Martel’s position was too strong to defeat.

Internal strife in the Umayyad Caliphate also caused interest in a European invasion to stop. Eventually, Al-Andalus split off from its leaders in Damascus and became its own independent Caliphate.

The fact that this line that Martel “drew” also separated two very popular religions is why the Battle of Tours is so significant. From this moment on, the lands east of the Pyrenees were to be Christian. South of the Pyrenees were primarily Muslim.

Recognizing this divide, Martel did one more thing to cement his power. He went to the Pope, the leader of the Christian faith and one of the only authorities everyone would listen to and asked for his blessing to rule the land he had just conquered, or, as he might have put it, liberated from Muslim rule.

The Pope went along with this and the Frankish empire was born.

A New Era in Medieval History

The acknowledgement by the Church in Rome gave Europe its largest central authority since the fall of the Roman Empire. Many at the time still longed for the “glory days” or Rome, and were waiting for someone to take its place. For someone to fill that power vacuum.

The Frankish kingdom turned empire established by Martel helped fill this vacuum, at least for the time. Martel’s successors combined forces with the church to revive the title “Roman emperor” in an effort to unite Europe and Christianity.

In addition to proving the foundation for the Frankish empire, the Battle of Tours set the stage for the epic religious battle that was about to take place throughout the 11th and 12th centuries.

Stricken with fear over the threat of a Muslim invasion into Christian lands, the Pope and the kings of Europe would go on to organize the Crusades.

These wars sought to “take back” lands seen as rightfully Christian, which included the Holy Land of Jerusalem and the recently conquered Spain.

The Battle of Tours helped define the boundaries between the Christian and Muslim worlds and set the stage for conflicts that defined much of Medieval history.

Written by Matthew Jones

Illustrated by Jean Galvao

Raymond Ibrahim

Middle East and Islam Specialist

The Battle of Tours: When the West ‘Manfully Resisted’ Islam

10/10/2020 by Raymond Ibrahim 8 Comments

Today in history, on October 10, 732, an epic battle saved Western Europe from becoming Islamic.

Precisely one hundred years after the death of Islam’s prophet Muhammad in 632 — a century which had seen the conquest of thousands of square miles of formerly Christian lands, including Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain — the scimitar of Islam found itself in the heart of Europe in 732, facing that continent’s chief military power, the Franks.

After the Muslim hordes, which reportedly numbered 80,000 men, had ravaged most of southwestern France, slaughtering and enslaving countless victims, they met and clashed with 30,000 Frankish infantrymen under the leadership of Charles Martel, on October 10, somewhere between Poitiers and Tours. An anonymous medieval Arab chronicler describes the battle as follows:

Near the river Owar [Loire], the two great hosts of the two languages [Arabic and Latin] and the two creeds [Islam and Christianity] were set in array against each other. The hearts of Abd al-Rahman, his captains and his men were filled with wrath and pride, and they were the first to begin to fight. The Muslim horsemen dashed fierce and frequent forward against the battalions of the Franks, who resisted manfully, and many fell dead on either side, until the going down of the sun.

Entirely consisting of wild headlong charges, the Muslim attack proved ineffective, for “the men of the north stood as motionless as a wall, they were like a belt of ice frozen together, and not to be dissolved, as they slew the Arab with the sword. The Austrasians [eastern Franks], vast of limb, and iron of hand, hewed on bravely in the thick of the fight,” writes one chronicler. The Franks refused to break ranks and allow successive horsemen to gallop through the gaps, which Arab cavalry tactics relied on. Instead, they tightened their ranks and, “drawn up in a band around their chief [Charles], the people of the Austrasians carried all before them. Their tireless hands drove their swords down to the breasts [of the foe].”

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson offers a more practical take:

When the sources speak of “a wall,” “a mass of ice,” and “immovable lines” of infantrymen, we should imagine a literal human rampart, nearly invulnerable, with locked shields in front of armored bodies, weapons extended to catch the underbellies of any Islamic horsemen foolish enough to hit the Franks at a gallop.

As expected, the battle was a wondrous mess: “Muslims would ride up in large bodies, slash at the clumsier Franks, shoot arrows, and then ride away as the enemy line advanced.”

In response, “each Frankish soldier, with shield upraised, would lodge his spear into either the horsemen’s legs or the face and flanks of his mount, then slash and stab with his sword to cut the rider down, all the while smashing his shield — the heavy iron boss in the center was a formidable weapon in itself — against exposed flesh. Gradually advancing en masse, the Franks would then continue to trample and stab fallen riders at their feet — careful to keep close contact with each other at all times.”

At one point, Allah’s warriors surrounded and trapped Charles, but “he fought as fiercely as the hungry wolf falls upon the stag. By the grace of Our Lord, he wrought a great slaughter upon the enemies of Christian faith,” writes Denis the chronicler. “Then was he first called ‘Martel,’ for as a hammer of iron, of steel, and of every other metal, even so he dashed and smote in the battle all his enemies.”

As night descended on the field of carnage, the two bloodied armies disengaged and withdrew to their camps. At the crack of dawn, the Franks prepared to resume battle, only to discover that the Muslims had all fled under the cover of darkness. Their master, Abdul, had been killed in fighting the day before, and the Berbers — freed of his whip and having tasted Frankish mettle — apparently preferred life and some plunder over martyrdom. They all fled back south — still looting, burning, and enslaving all and sundry as they went. Aware that his strength lay in his “wall of ice,” Charles did not give chase.

The aftermath “was, as all cavalry battles, a gory mess, strewn with thousands of wounded or dying horses, abandoned plunder, and dead and wounded Arabs. Few of the wounded were taken prisoner — given their previous record of murder and pillage.” The oldest sources give astronomical numbers of slain Muslims, with only a small fraction of slain Franks. Whatever the true numbers, significantly fewer numbers of Franks than Muslims fell in that battle. Even Arab chronicles refer to the engagement as the “Pavement of Martyrs,” suggesting that the earth was littered with Muslim corpses.

“The joyful tidings were soon diffused over the Catholic world” and the surviving chronicles of the day — including that of the aforesaid and anonymous Arab — portray this victory in epic if not apocalyptic terms. Indeed, of all the many battles between Islam and Christendom, Tours has, beginning with the contemporary chronicles up until the modern era, been one of if not the most celebrated in the West. For although the Mediterranean was lost, and although raids on the European coastline became a permanent feature, Islam was confined to the Iberian Peninsula, leaving Western Europe to develop organically.

It is for this reason that, well into the twentieth century, leading Western historians, such as Godefroid Kurth (d. 1916), still saw Tours as “one of the great events in the history of the world, as upon its issue depended whether Christian Civilization should continue or Islam prevail throughout Europe.”

Historical quotes in this article were excerpted from the author’s Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West

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Battle of Tours – History, facts, & significance

The Battle of Tours, also known as the Battle of Poitiers, is a significant event in European history. It marked the turning point in the Muslim invasion of Europe. It took place on October 10, 732, between the Franks led by Charles Martel and the Muslims led by Emir Abdur Rahman. The battle resulted in the defeat of the Muslim army. It is significant because it halted Muslim expansion into Europe. It also marked the beginning of the Latin West’s counteroffensive.

Historical Background: The Rise of the Barbaric

We should see the Battle of Tours in its historical context. In the 5th century, most of Western Europe was overrun by barbaric Gothics (Germanic). They had a strong commitment to their group and race. This commitment fostered cohesion and enabled them to overrun the Roman Empire. The Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Franks were the dominant groups. Franks consolidated their hold on Gaul.

The Church of Rome injected itself into this medley of barbaric kingdoms. By the 6th century, the Goths had settled down in the conquered areas as landlords. The church established a series of monasteries throughout Western Europe. It entered into a working relationship with the landlords and the strongmen. The local political structure of the church revolved around the monasteries. These religious bodies levied their own taxes in return for dispensing ritual rites. In time, they became rich, and their power grew in proportion to their wealth.

The Muslim Invasion of Europe

The Berbers played a significant role in the history of the Maghrib. Their impact is comparable to the Germanic peoples’ impact on European history. The Berbers were a sturdy, resilient, and handsome race of people. They inhabited the Atlas Mountains. Arab General Uqba bin Nafi subdued them in his advance toward the Atlantic Ocean. But periodic uprisings continued for more than a century. Muslim rulers launched repeated expeditions to contain the uprisings.

The invasion of Southern France was a part of the Muslim campaign against the Visigoths . The first incursion occurred during the reign of Caliph al Walid. It was successful in subduing Sorbonne and Lyons (713). A second raid made in 714 captured Normandy. An expedition in 731 under Anbasa bin Saheem extended Muslim dominions beyond Carcasonne. But Anbasa was killed during this campaign. After Anbasa, Abdur Rahman bin Abdullah was appointed the governor of Spain. He crossed the Pyrenees in the spring of 732 after careful preparations. It was the immediate prelude to the Battle of Tours.

The Battle of Tours: The Turning Point in the Muslim Invasion of Europe

The first Frankish resistance came from the Duke of Achetain near the port of Borden. Rahman’s army defeated him and captured Borden. After subduing southern France, Emir Abdur Rahman turned north. On the plains of Tours, near the modern city of Paris, he met the Frankish chief Charles Martel. In the Battle of Tours, Charles Martel had the support of neighboring Frankish and German chiefs. The Frankish infantry stood its ground against the Muslim cavalry. Emir Abdur Rahman himself led the charge but fell in combat on the second day of the battle. The Muslim armies withdrew under the cover of night having lost more than 100,000 men in the battle.

The Aftermath of the Battle of Tours

The aftermath of the battle was significant. Latin West established itself as the counterbalance to the rising Muslim Empire. The Islamic armies had to withdraw from northern Europe. Their expansion halted. The battle also boosted the prestige of Charles Martel. He solidified his position as the undisputed ruler of the Franks. He continued to consolidate his power and expand his kingdom. It later became the Carolingian Empire under his grandson, Charlemagne.

The Battle of Tours had important consequences for the Islamic world as well. The defeat shattered the myth of Muslim invincibility. It caused a crisis of confidence among the Muslim rulers. It also created a power vacuum in the Islamic Empire, which led to internal strife and division. The Berbers, who had been restive for some time, rose in rebellion and challenged the Arab rulers. The Abbasid Revolution in Central Asia also weakened the Islamic Empire. It led to the overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty, which had ruled the empire at the time of theBattle of T

Summary of The Battle of Tours

The Battle of Tours was a pivotal event in the history of Europe and the Islamic world. It marked the limits of Muslim expansion into northern Europe. It also established the Latin West as a significant power.

The Battle had far-reaching consequences for the Islamic Empire. It led to internal strife and the overthrow of the ruling dynasty.

The Battle of Tours remains a symbol of the clash between the Christian West and the Islamic East. Still, we can feel its legacy.

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Battle of Tours

From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Battle of Tours (October 10, 732), [ 4 ] also called the Battle of Poitiers and in Arabic : معركة بلاط الشهداء ‎ (ma‘arakat Balâṭ ash-Shuhadâ’) Battle of Court of The Martyrs [ 5 ] , was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours , near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille (modern Vouneuil-sur-Vienne ) about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Poitiers. The location of the battle was close to the border between the Frankish realm and then-independent Aquitaine . The battle pitted Frankish and Burgundian [ 6 ] [ 7 ] forces under Austrasian Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel against an army of the Umayyad Caliphate led by ‘Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi , Governor-general of al-Andalus . The Franks were victorious, ‘Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi was killed, and Charles subsequently extended his authority in the south. Ninth-century chroniclers, who interpreted the outcome of the battle as divine judgment in his favour, gave Charles the nickname Martellus ("The Hammer"), possibly recalling Judas Maccabeus ("The Hammerer") of the Maccabean revolt . [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Details of the battle, including its exact location and the exact number of combatants, cannot be determined from accounts that have survived. Notably, the Frankish troops won the battle without cavalry. [ 10 ]

As later chroniclers praised Charles Martel as the champion of Christianity, pre-20th century historians began to characterize this battle as being the decisive turning point in the struggle against Islam, a struggle which preserved Christianity as the religion of Europe. "Most of the 18th and 19th century historians, like Gibbon, saw Poitiers (Tours), as a landmark battle that marked the high tide of the Muslim advance into Europe." [ 11 ] Leopold von Ranke felt that "Poitiers was the turning point of one of the most important epochs in the history of the world." [ 12 ]

While modern historians are divided and there is considerable disagreement as to whether or not the victory was responsible — as Gibbon and his generation of historians claimed, and which is echoed by many modern historians — for saving Christianity and halting the conquest of Europe by Islam , there is little dispute that the battle helped lay the foundations of the Carolingian Empire and Frankish domination of Europe for the next century. "The establishment of Frankish power in western Europe shaped that continent's destiny and the Battle of Tours confirmed that power." [ 13 ]

[ edit ] Background

The Battle of Tours followed 21 years of Umayyad conquests in Europe which had begun with the invasion of the Visigothic Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula in 711. These were followed by military expeditions into the Frankish territories of Gaul , former provinces of the Roman Empire . Umayyad military campaigns had reached northward into Aquitaine and Burgundy , including a major engagement at Bordeaux and a raid on Autun . Charles' victory is widely believed to have stopped the northward advance of Umayyad forces from the Iberian peninsula , and to have preserved Christianity in Europe during a period when Muslim rule was overrunning the remains of the old Roman and Persian Empires . [ 14 ] Others have argued that the battle marked only the defeat of a raiding force and was not a watershed event. [ 15 ]

Most historians assume that the two armies met where the rivers Clain and Vienne join between Tours and Poitiers. The number of troops in each army is not known. Drawing on non-contemporary Muslim sources, Creasy describes the Umayyad forces as 80,000 strong or more. Writing in 1999, Paul K. Davis estimates the Umayyad forces at 80,000 and the Franks at about 30,000, [ 1 ] while noting that modern historians have estimated the strength of the Umayyad army at Tours at between 20–80,000. [ 16 ] Edward J. Schoenfeld (rejecting the older figures of 60–400,000 Umayyad and 75,000 Franks) contends that "estimates that the Umayyads had over fifty thousand troops (and the Franks even more) are logistically impossible." [ 10 ] Another modern military historian, Victor Davis Hanson , believes both armies were of roughly the same size, about 30,000 men. [ 17 ] Modern historians may be more accurate than the mediæval sources as the modern figures are based on estimates of the logistical ability of the countryside to support these numbers of men and animals. Both Davis and Hanson point out that both armies had to live off the countryside, neither having a commissary system sufficient to provide supplies for a campaign. Losses during the battle are unknown but chroniclers later claimed that Charles Martel's force lost about 1,500 while the Umayyad force was said to have suffered massive casualties of up to 375,000 men. However, these same casualty figures were recorded in the Liber pontificalis for Duke Odo of Aquitaine 's victory at the Battle of Toulouse (721) . Paul the Deacon reported correctly in his Historia Langobardorum (written around the year 785) that the Liber pontificalis mentioned these casualty figures in relation to Odo's victory at Toulouse (though he claimed that Charles Martel fought in the battle alongside Odo), but later writers, probably "influenced by the Continuations of Fredegar , attributed the Saracen casualties solely to Charles Martel, and the battle in which they fell became unequivocally that of Poitiers." [ 18 ] The Vita Pardulfi , written in the middle of the eighth century, reports that after the battle ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân's forces burned and looted their way through the Limousin on their way back to Al-Andalus, which implies that they were not destroyed to the extent imagined in the Continuations of Fredegar . [ 19 ]

[ edit ] The opponents

The invasion of Hispania , and then Gaul , was led by the Umayyad Dynasty ( Arabic : بنو أمية banū umayya / الأمويون al-umawiyyūn ‎ also "Umawi"), the first dynasty of caliphs of the Islamic empire after the reign of the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs ( Abu Bakr , Umar , Uthman , and Ali ) ended. The Umayyad Caliphate, at the time of the Battle of Tours, was perhaps the world’s foremost military power. Great expansion of the Caliphate occurred under the reign of the Umayyads. Muslim armies pushed across North Africa and Persia through the late 600s; forces led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad crossed Gibraltar and established Muslim power in the Iberian peninsula, while other armies established power far away in Sind , in what is now the modern state of Pakistan . The Muslim empire under the Umayyads was now a vast domain that ruled a diverse array of peoples. It had destroyed what were the two former foremost military powers, the Sassanid Empire , which it absorbed completely, and the Byzantine Empire , most of which it had absorbed, including Syria, Armenia and North Africa, although Leo the Isaurian successfully defended Anatolia at the Battle of Akroinon (739) in the final campaign of the Umayyad dynasty. [ 20 ]

The Frankish realm under Charles Martel was the foremost military power of Western Europe. It consisted of what is today most of France (Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy), most of Western Germany, and the low countries. The Frankish realm had begun to progress towards becoming the first real imperial power in Western Europe since the fall of Rome, as it struggled against external forces such as the Saxons , Frisians , and internal opponents such as Odo the Great (Old French: Eudes), the Duke of Aquitaine .

[ edit ] Muslim conquests from Hispania

The Umayyad troops, under Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani , the governor-general of al-Andalus , overran Septimania by 719, following 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 Umayyads swiftly subdued the largely unresisting cities of Alet , Béziers , Agde , Lodève , Maguelonne , and Nîmes , still controlled by their Visigothic counts. [ 21 ]

The Umayyad 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 in 725.

Threatened by both the Umayyads 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, the deputy governor of what would later become Catalonia . As a gage, and to seal the alliance, Uthman was given Eudes's daughter Lampade in marriage, and Arab raids across the Pyrenees , Eudes's southern border, ceased. [ 22 ] However, the next year, Uthman rebelled against the governor of al-Andalus , ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân, who quickly crushed the revolt and directed his attention against Eudes. ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân had brought a huge force of Arab heavy cavalry and Berber light cavalry, plus troops from all provinces of the Caliphate, in the Umayyad attempt at a conquest of Europe north of the Pyrenees . 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 Battle of the River Garonne was evidently horrific; the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 [ 23 ] commented, " solus Deus numerum morientium vel pereuntium recognoscat ", ("God alone knows the number of the slain"). [ 24 ] The Umayyad 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."

[ edit ] 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.

It appears as if the Umayyads were not aware of the true strength of the Franks. The Umayyad 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.

[ edit ] Advance toward the Loire

The Umayyad attack was likely so late in the year because many men and horses needed to live off the land as they advanced; thus they had to wait until the area's wheat harvest was ready 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, and while the men could kill farm livestock for food, horses cannot eat meat and needed grain as food. Letting them graze each day would take too long, and interrogating natives to find where food stores were kept would not work where the two sides had no common language.

A military explanation for why Eudes was defeated so easily at Bordeaux and at the Battle of the River Garonne after having won 11 years earlier at the Battle of Toulouse is 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 Umayyad forces were mostly infantry, and what cavalry they had never got a chance to mobilize and meet him in open battle. As Herman de Carinthia wrote in one of his translations of a history of al-Andalus, Eudes managed a highly successful encircling envelopment which took the attackers totally by surprise — and the result was a chaotic slaughter of the Muslim forces.

At Bordeaux , and again at the Battle of the River Garonne , the Umayyad forces were cavalry, not infantry, and were not taken by surprise, and given a chance to mass for battle, this led to the devastation of Eudes's army, almost all of whom were killed with minimal losses to the Muslims. Eudes's forces, like other European troops of that era, lacked stirrups , and therefore had no heavy cavalry. Virtually all of their troops were infantry. The Umayyad 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. 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. [ 8 ] Upon hearing this, Austrasia 's Mayor of the Palace , Charles Martel , collected his army and marched south, avoiding the old Roman roads and hoping to take the Muslims by surprise. Because he intended to use a phalanx , it was essential for him to choose the battlefield. His plan — to find a high wooded plain, form his men and force the Muslims to come to him — depended on the element of surprise.

[ edit ] Battle

[ edit ] preparations and maneuver.

From all accounts, the invading forces were caught entirely off guard 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 seven days, the two armies watched each other with minor skirmishes. The Umayyads waited for their full strength to arrive, which it did, but they were still uneasy. 'Abd-al-Raḥmân, despite being a good commander, had managed to let Charles bring his army to full strength and pick the location of the battle. Furthermore, it was difficult for the Umayyads to judge the size of the army opposing them, since Charles had used the trees and forest to make his force appear larger than it probably was. Thus, 'Abd-al-Raḥmân recalled all his troops, which did give him an even larger army — but it also gave Charles time for more of his veteran infantry to arrive from the outposts of his Empire. These infantry were all the hope for victory he had. Seasoned and battle hardened, most of them had fought with him for years, some as far back as 717. Further, he also had levies of militia arrive, but the militia was virtually worthless except for gathering food, and harassing the Muslims. Unlike his infantry, which was both experienced and disciplined, the levies were neither, and Charles had no intention of depending on them to stand firm against cavalry charges (Most historians through the centuries have believed the Franks were badly outnumbered at the onset of battle by at least 2-1.). Charles gambled everything that ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân would in the end feel compelled to battle, and to go on and loot Tours. Neither of them wanted to attack - but Abd-al-Raḥmân felt in the end obligated to sack Tours, which meant literally going through the Frankish army on the hill in front of him. Charles's decision to wait in the end proved crucial, as it forced the Umayyads to rush uphill, against the grade and the woods, which in and of themselves negated a large part of the natural advantages of a cavalry charge.

Charles had been preparing for this confrontation since Toulouse a decade before. He was well aware that if he failed, no other Christian force remained able to defend western Christianity. But Gibbon believes, as do most pre and modern historians, that Charles had made the best of a bad situation. Though outnumbered and depending on infantry, without heavy cavalry, Charles had a tough, battle-hardened heavy infantry who believed in him implicitly. Moreover, as Davis points out, this infantry was heavily armed, each man carrying up to perhaps 75 pounds of wood and iron armour into battle. Formed in a phalanx, they were better able to resist a cavalry charge than might be conventionally thought, especially as Charles had been able to secure them the high ground and trees to further aid breaking such charges. Charles also had the element of surprise, in addition to being allowed to pick the ground.

The Franks 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, despite having tents, which the Franks did not, but did not want to attack a Frankish army they believed may have been numerically superior. Essentially, the Umayyads 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, diminishing at once the advantages of their cavalry. It was a waiting game which Charles won: the fight began on the seventh day, as ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân did not want to postpone the battle indefinitely with winter approaching.

[ edit ] Engagement

In one of the 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 Muslim horsemen dashed fierce and frequent forward against the battalions of the Franks, who resisted manfully, and many fell dead on either side." [ 25 ]

[ edit ] The battle turns

Umayyad troops who had broken into the square had tried to kill Charles, but his liege men surrounded him and would not be broken. The battle was still in flux when—Frankish histories claim—a rumor went through the Umayyad army that Frankish scouts threatened the booty that they had taken from Bordeaux . Some of the Umayyad 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 Umayyad 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 Umayyad cavalry returned to their camp. To the rest of the Muslim army, this appeared to be a full-scale retreat, and soon it became one. Both Western and Muslim histories agree that while trying to stop the retreat, ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân became surrounded, which led to his death, and the Umayyad troops then withdrew altogether to their camp. "All the host fled before the enemy", candidly wrote one Arabic source, "and many died in the flight". The Franks resumed their phalanx, and rested in place through the night, believing the battle would resume at dawn the following morning.

[ edit ] Following day

[ edit ] Contemporary accounts

The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 "describes the battle in greater detail than any other Latin or Arabic source". [ 27 ] It says of the encounter that,

While Abd ar-Rahman was pursuing Eudes, he decided to despoil Tours by destroying its palaces and burning its churches. There he confronted the consul of Austrasia by the name of Charles, a man who, having proved himself to be a warrior from his youth and an expert in things military, had been summoned by Eudes. After each side had tormented the other with raids for almost seven days, they finally prepared their battle lines and fought fiercely. The northern peoples remained as immobile as a wall, holding together like a glacier in the cold regions. In the blink of an eye, they annihilated the Arabs with the sword. The people of Austrasia, greater in number of soldiers and formidably armed, killed the king, Abd ar-Rahman, when they found him, striking him on the chest. But suddenly, within sight of the countless tents of the Arabs, the Franks despicably sheathed their swords postponing the fight until the next day since night had fallen during the battle. Rising from their own camp at dawn, the Europeans saw the tents and canopies of the Arabs all arranged just as they had appeared the day before. Not knowing that they were empty and thinking that inside them there were Saracen forces ready for battle, they sent officers to reconnoitre and discovered that all the Ishmaelite troops had left. They had indeed fled silently by night in tight formation, returning to their own country. — Wolf (trans), Chronicle of 754 , p. 145

Charles Martel's family composed, for the fourth book of the Continuations of Fredegar's Chronicle , a stylised summary of the battle:

Prince Charles boldly drew up his battle lines against them [the Arabs] and the warrior rushed in against them. With Christ's help he overturned their tents, and hastened to battle to grind them small in slaughter. The king Abdirama having been killed, he destroyed [them], driving forth the army, he fought and won. Thus did the victor triumph over his enemies. — Fouracre, Continuations of Fredegar , p. 149

This source details further that "he (Charles Martel) came down upon them like a great man of battle". It goes on to say Charles "scattered them like the stubble".

The references to "rushing in" and "overturning their tents" may allude to the phraseology of the Book of Numbers , chapter 24, "where the Spirit of God 'rushed in' to the tents of Israel." The Latin word used for "warrior", belligerator , "is also biblical, from the Book of Maccabees , chapters 15 and 16, which describe huge battles. [ 28 ]

It is thought that Bede 's Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum (Chapter XXIII) includes a reference to the Battle of Poitiers: "...a dreadful plague of Saracens ravaged France with miserable slaughter, but they not long after in that country received the punishment due to their wickedness". [ 29 ]

[ edit ] Strategic analysis

‘Abd-al-Raḥmân was a good general and should have done two things he failed to do. Gibbon makes the point that he did not move at once against Charles Martel, was surprised by him at Tours as Charles had marched over the mountains avoiding the roads to surprise the Muslim invaders, and thus the wily Charles selected the time and place they would collide:

‘Abd-al-Raḥmân either assumed that the Franks would not come to the aid of their Aquitanian rivals, or did not care, 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 Charles to a battleground more to their liking, one that maximized the huge advantage they had in their mailed and armored 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 Umayyad heavy cavalry had broken into the square, but agreed that the Franks were in formation still strongly resisting.

Both Hallam and Watson argue that had Charles failed, there was no remaining force to protect Western Europe. 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 , Châlons and Leipzig ." [ 31 ]

Strategically, and tactically, Charles probably made the best decision he could in waiting until his enemies least expected him to intervene, and then marching by stealth to catch them by surprise at a battlefield of his choosing. Probably he and his own men did not realize the seriousness of the battle they had fought, as Matthew Bennett and his co-authors, in Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World (2005) says: "few battles are remembered 1,000 years after they are fought [...] but the Battle of Tours is an exception [...] Charles Martel turned back a Muslim raid that had it been allowed to continue, might have conquered Gaul."

[ edit ] Aftermath

[ edit ] umayyad retreat and second invasion.

The Umayyad army retreated south over the Pyrenees . Charles continued to drive the Umayyad forces from France in subsequent years. After the death (c. 735) 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 Umayyads entered Provence as part of an alliance with Duke Maurontus the next year. [ 32 ] Hunold, who originally resisted acknowledging Charles as overlord, soon had little choice. He acknowledged Charles at once as his overlord, and Charles confirmed his Duchy, and the two prepared to confront the invaders. Charles believed it was vital to confine the Umayyad forces to Iberia and deny them any foothold in Gaul, a view many historians share. 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 Battle of the River Berre , outside Narbonne .

[ edit ] Advance to Narbonne

Despite this, the Umayyads 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 Umayyad armies and fortresses at the Battle of Avignon and the Battle of Nimes . The army attempting to relieve Narbonne met him in open battle at the Battle of the River Berre and was destroyed, but Charles failed in his attempt to take Narbonne by siege in 737, when the city was jointly defended by its Muslim Arab and Berber, and its Christian Visigothic citizens.

[ edit ] Carolingian dynasty

Reluctant to tie down his army for a siege that could last years, and believing he could not afford the losses of an all-out frontal assault such as he had used at Arles , Charles was content to isolate the few remaining invaders in Narbonne and Septimania . The threat of invasion was diminished after the Umayyad defeat at Narbonne, and the unified Caliphate would collapse into civil war in 750 at the Battle of the Zab . It was left to Charles' son, Pippin the Short , to force Narbonne's surrender in 759, thus bringing Narbonne into the Frankish domains. The Umayyad dynasty was expelled, driven back to Al-Andalus where Abd ar-Rahman I established an emirate in Cordoba in opposition to the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad . The threat posed by the Arab heavy cavalry also receded as the Christians copied the Arab model in developing similar forces of their own, giving rise to the familiar figure of the western European medieval armored knight . [ citation needed ]

Charles's 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 Muslim lands across the Pyrenees . Historian J.M. Roberts said in 1993 of the Carolingian Dynasty:

[ edit ] The last Umayyad invasions of Gaul

In 735, the new governor of al-Andalus again invaded Gaul. Antonio Santosuosso and other historians detail how the new governor of Al-Andalus, 'Uqba b. Al-Hajjaj, again moved into France to avenge the defeat at Poitiers and to spread Islam. Santosuosso notes that 'Uqba b. Al-Hajjaj converted about 2,000 Christians he captured over his career. In the last major attempt at forcible invasion of Gaul through Iberia, a sizable invasion force was assembled at Saragossa and entered what is now French territory in 735, crossed the River Rhone and captured and looted Arles . From there, he struck into the heart of Provence, ending with the capture of Avignon, despite strong resistance. Uqba b. Al-Hajjaj's forces remained in French territory for about four years, carrying raids to Lyons, Burgundy, and Piedmont. Again Charles Martel came to the rescue, reconquering most of the lost territories in two campaigns in 736 and 739, except for the city of Narbonne, which finally fell in 759. Alessandro Santosuosso strongly argues that the second (Umayyad) expedition was probably more dangerous than the first. The second expedition's failure put an end to any serious Muslim expedition across the Pyrenees , although raids continued. Plans for further large-scale attempts were hindered by internal turmoil in the Umayyad lands which often made enemies out of their own kind. [ 34 ]

[ edit ] Historical and macrohistorical views

The historical views of this battle fall into three great phases, both in the East and especially in the West. Western historians, beginning with the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754, stressed the macrohistorical impact of the battle, as did the Continuations of Fredegar. This became a claim that Charles had literally saved Christianity, as Gibbon and his generation of historians agreed that the Battle of Tours was unquestionably decisive in world history.

Modern historians have essentially fallen into two camps on the issue. The first camp essentially agrees with Gibbon, and the other argues that the Battle has been massively overstated—turned from a raid in force to an invasion, and from a mere annoyance to the Caliph to a shattering defeat that helped end the Islamic Expansion Era. It is essential however, to note that within the first group, those who agree the Battle was of macrohistorical importance, there are a number of historians who take a more moderate and nuanced approach to supporting the battle's importance, rather than the more dramatic rhetoric of Gibbon. The best example of this school is William E. Watson , who does believe the battle has such importance, as will be specifically discussed below, but analyzes it militarily, culturally and politically, rather than seeing it as a classic "Muslim versus Christian" confrontation.

In the East, Arab histories followed a similar path. First, the battle was regarded as a disastrous defeat, then it faded essentially from Arab histories, leading to a modern dispute which regards it as either a secondary loss to the great defeat of the Second Siege of Constantinople or a part of a series of great macrohistorical defeats which together brought about the fall of the first Caliphate. Essentially, many modern Muslim scholars argue that the first Caliphate was a jihadist state which could not withstand an end to its constant expansion. [2] With the Byzantines and Franks both successfully blocking further expansion, internal social troubles came to a head, starting with the Great Berber Revolt of 740, and ending with the Battle of the Zab , and the destruction of the Umayyad Caliphate.

[ edit ] In Western history

The first wave of real "modern" historians, especially scholars on Rome and the medieval period, such as Edward Gibbon , contended that had Charles fallen, the Umayyad Caliphate would have easily conquered a divided Europe. Gibbon famously observed:

Nor was Gibbon alone in lavishing praise on Charles as the savior of Christiandom and western civilization. H.G. Wells in his A Short History of the World said in Chapter XLV "The Development of Latin Christendom:"

Gibbon was echoed a century later by the Belgian historian Godefroid Kurth , who wrote that the Battle of Poitiers "must ever remain one of the great events in the history of the world, as upon its issue depended whether Christian Civilization should continue or Islam prevail throughout Europe." [ 36 ]

German historians were especially ardent in their praise of Charles Martel; Schlegel speaks of this "mighty victory", [ 37 ] 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." Creasy quotes Leopold von Ranke 's opinion that this period was:

The German military historian Hans Delbruck said of this battle "there was no more important battle in the history of the world." ( The Barbarian Invasions , page 441.) Had Charles Martel failed, Henry Hallam argued, there would have been no Charlemagne , no Holy Roman Empire or Papal States ; all these depended upon Charles's containment of Islam from expanding into Europe while the Caliphate was unified and able to mount such a conquest. Another great mid era historian, Thomas Arnold , ranked the victory of Charles Martel even higher than the victory of Arminius in its impact on all of modern history: "Charles Martel's victory at Tours was among those signal deliverances which have affected for centuries the happiness of mankind." [ 39 ] Gustave Louis Maurice Strauss in Moslem and Frank; or, Charles Martel and the rescue of Europe said "The victory gained was decisive and final, The torrent of Arab conquest was rolled back and Europe was rescued from the threatened yoke of the Saracens." (page 122)

Charles Oman, in his History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages , concludes that

John H. Haaren says in Famous Men of the Middle Ages :

But, as will be seen below, today’s historians are very clearly divided on the importance of the battle, and where it should rank in the signal moments of military history.

[ edit ] In Muslim history

Eastern historians, like their Western counterparts, have not always agreed on the importance of the battle. According to Bernard Lewis , "The Arab historians, if they mention this engagement [the Battle of Tours] at all, present it as a minor skirmish," [ 41 ] and Gustave von Grunebaum writes: "This setback may have been important from the European point of view, but for Muslims at the time, who saw no master plan imperilled thereby, it had no further significance." [ 42 ] Contemporary Arab and Muslim historians and chroniclers were much more interested in the second Umayyad siege of Constantinople in 718, which ended in a disastrous defeat.

Thirteenth-century Moroccan author Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi , mentioned the battle in his history of the Maghrib, " al-Bayan al-Mughrib fi Akhbar al-Maghrib ." According to Ibn Idhari , "Abd ar-Rahman and many of his men found martyrdom on the balat ash-Shuhada'i ("the path of the martyrs)." Antonio Santosuosso points out in his book Barbarians, Marauders and Infidels: The Ways of Medieval Warfare, on p. 126 "they (the Muslims) called the battle's location, the road between Poitiers and Tours, "the pavement of Martyrs." However, as Henry Coppée has explained, "The same name was given to the battle of Toulouse and is applied to many other fields on which the Moslemah were defeated: they were always martyrs for the faith" [ 43 ]

Khalid Yahya Blankinship argued that the military defeat at Tours was one of the failures that contributed to the decline of the Umayyad caliphate: "Stretching from Morocco to China, the Umayyad caliphate based its expansion and success on the doctrine of jihad--armed struggle to claim the whole earth for God's rule, a struggle that had brought much material success for a century but suddenly ground to a halt followed by the collapse of the ruling Umayyad dynasty in 750 AD. The End of the Jihad State demonstrates for the first time that the cause of this collapse came not just from internal conflict, as has been claimed, but from a number of external and concurrent factors that exceeded the caliphate's capacity to respond. These external factors began with crushing military defeats at Byzantium, Toulouse and Tours, which led to the Great Berber Revolt of 740 in Iberia and Northern Africa."

[ edit ] Current historical debate on macrohistorical impact of Battle of Tours

Some modern historians argue that the Battle of Tours was of no great historical significance while others continue to contend that Charles Martel's victory was important in European or even world history.

[ edit ] Supporting the significance of Tours as a world-altering event

William E. Watson , strongly supports Tours as a macrohistorical event, but distances himself from the rhetoric of Gibbons and Drubeck, writing, for example, of the battle's importance in Frankish, and world, history in 1993:

Watson adds, "After examining the motives for the Muslim drive north of the Pyrenees , one can attach a macrohistorical significance to the encounter between the Franks and Andalusi Muslims at Tours-Poitiers, especially when one considers the attention paid to the Franks in Arabic literature and the successful expansion of Muslims elsewhere in the medieval period."

Victorian writer John Henry Haaren says in Famous Men of the Middle Ages , "The battle of Tours, or Poitiers, as it should be called, is regarded as one of the decisive battles of the world. It decided that Christians, and not Moslems, should be the ruling power in Europe." [ 45 ] Bernard Grun delivers this assessment in his "Timetables of History," reissued in 2004: "In 732 Charles Martel's victory over the Arabs at the Battle of Tours stems the tide of their westward advance.” [ 46 ]

Historian and humanist Michael Grant [ 47 ] lists the battle of Tours in the macrohistorical dates of the Roman era. Historian Norman Cantor who specialized in the medieval period, teaching and writing at Columbia and New York University, says in 1993: "It may be true that the Arabs had now fully extended their resources and they would not have conquered France, but their defeat (at Tours) in 732 put a stop to their advance to the north." [ 48 ]

Military historian Robert W. Martin considers Tours "one of the most decisive battles in all of history." [ 49 ] Additionally, historian Hugh Kennedy [ 50 ] says "it was clearly significant in establishing the power of Charles Martel and the Carolingians in France, but it also had profound consequences in Muslim Spain. It signaled the end of the ghanima (booty) economy." [ 51 ]

Military Historian Paul Davis argued in 1999, "had the Muslims been victorious at Tours, it is difficult to suppose what population in Europe could have organized to resist them." [ 52 ] Likewise, George Bruce in his update of Harbottle's classic military history Dictionary of Battles maintains that "Charles Martel defeated the Moslem army effectively ending Moslem attempts to conquer western Europe." [ 53 ]

Antonio Santosuosso [ 54 ] puts forth an interesting modern opinion on Charles, Tours, and the subsequent campaigns against Rahman's son in 736-737. Santosuosso presents a compelling case that these later defeats of invading Muslim armies were at least as important as Tours in their defence of Western Christendom and the preservation of Western monasticism, the monasteries of which were the centers of learning which ultimately led Europe out of her Middle Ages. He also makes a compelling argument, after studying the Arab histories of the period, that these were clearly armies of invasion, sent by the Caliph not just to avenge Tours, but to begin the conquest of Christian Europe and bring it into the Caliphate.

[ edit ] Objecting to the significance of Tours as a world-altering event

Other historians disagree with this assessment. Alessandro Barbero [ 55 ] writes, "Today, historians tend to play down the significance of the battle of Poitiers, pointing out that the purpose of the Arab force defeated by Charles Martel was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy monastery of St-Martin of Tours". [ 56 ] Similarly, Tomaž Mastnak [ 57 ] writes:

The Christian Lebanese-American historian Philip Hitti believes that "In reality nothing was decided on the battlefield of Tours. The Moslem wave, already a thousand miles from its starting point in Gibraltar - to say nothing about its base in al-Qayrawan - had already spent itself and reached a natural limit." [ 59 ]

The view that the battle has no great significance is perhaps best summarized by Franco Cardini [ 60 ] says in Europe and Islam

(See postmodernism .) In their introduction to The Reader's Companion to Military History Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker summarise this side of the modern view of the Battle of Tours by saying “The study of military history has undergone drastic changes in recent years. The old drums-and-bugles approach will no longer do. Factors such as economics, logistics, intelligence, and technology receive the attention once accorded solely to battles and campaigns and casualty counts. Words like "strategy" and "operations" have acquired meanings that might not have been recognizable a generation ago. Changing attitudes and new research have altered our views of what once seemed to matter most. For example, several of the battles that Edward Shepherd Creasy listed in his famous 1851 book The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World rate hardly a mention here, and the confrontation between Muslims and Christians at Poitiers-Tours in 732, once considered a watershed event, has been downgraded to a raid in force." [ 62 ]

[ edit ] Conclusion

A number of modern historians and writers in other fields agree with Watson, and continue to maintain that this Battle was one of history's pivotal events. Professor of religion Huston Smith says in The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions "But for their defeat by Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours in 733, the entire Western world might today be Muslim." Historian Robert Payne on page 142 in " The History of Islam " said "The more powerful Muslims and the spread of Islam were knocking on Europe’s door. And the spread of Islam was stopped along the road between the towns of Tours and Poitiers, France, with just its head in Europe."

Popular conservative military historian Victor Davis Hanson shares his view about the battle's macrohistorical placement:

Paul Davis, another modern historian who addresses both sides in the debate over whether or not this Battle truly determined the direction of history, as Watson claims, or merely was a relatively minor raid, as Cardini writes, says "whether Charles Martel saved Europe for Christianity is a matter of some debate. What is sure, however, is that his victory ensured that the Franks would dominate Gaul for more than a century." [ 64 ] Davis writes, "Moslem defeat ended the Moslem’s threat to western Europe, and Frankish victory established the Franks as the dominant population in western Europe, establishing the dynasty that led to Charlemagne." [ 65 ]

[ edit ] See also

List of wars in the Muslim world
Battles of macrohistorical importance involving invasions of Europe
Siege of Constantinople (718)
Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian peninsula

[ edit ] Footnotes

^ a b c Davis, Paul K. "100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present"
^ The earliest Muslim source for this campaign is the Futūh Miṣr of Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam (c. 803-71) — see Watson, 1993 and Torrey , 1922.
^ Hanson, 2001, p. 141.
^ Oman, 1960, p. 167.
^ Henry Coppée writes, "The same name (see ante ) was given to the battle of Toulouse and is applied to many other fields on which the Moslemah were defeated: they were always martyrs for the faith" (Coppée, 1881/2002, p. 13.)
^ Bachrach, 2001, p. 276.
^ Fouracre, 2002, p. 87 citing the Vita Eucherii , ed. W. Levison, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum VII, pp. 46–53, ch. 8, pp. 49–50; Gesta Episcoporum Autissiodorensium , extracts ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores XIII, pp. 394–400, ch. 27, p. 394.
^ a b Riche, 1993, p. 44.
^ Hanson, 2001, p. 143.
^ a b Schoenfeld, 2001, p. 366.
^ Hanson, 2001, p. 166.
^ Ranke, Leopold von. "History of the Reformation," vol. 1, 5
^ Davis, 1999, p. 106.
^ "There were no further Muslim invasions of Frankish territory, and Charles Martel's victory has often been regarded as decisive for world history, since it preserved western Europe from Muslim conquest and Islamization." [1]
^ Cowley and Parker, 2001, p. xiii.
^ Davis, p. 105.
^ Hanson, Victor Davis. “Culture and Carnage: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power"
^ Fouracre, 2000, p. 85 citing U. Nonn, 'Das Bild Karl Martells in Mittelalterliche Quellen', in Jarnut, Nonn and Richeter (eds), Karl Martel in Seiner Zeit, pp. 9–21, at pp. 11–12.
^ Fouracre, 2000, p. 88.
^ Eggenberger, 1985, p. 3.
^ Saudi Arabia 's Aramco historical site, ""The Arabs in Occitania."" . http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199302/the.arabs.in.occitania.htm . Retrieved on 2006-06-15 .
^ Saudi Aramco World : The Arabs in Occitania
^ previously attributed to Isidorus Pacensis , Bishop of Béja — see, O'Callaghan, 1983, p. 189.
^ Wolf, 2000, p. 145.
^ From the Anon Arab Chronicler: The Battle of Poitiers, 732.
^ Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts
^ Watson, 1993.
^ Fouracre, 2000, p. 149.
^ Bede, 1847, p. 291.
^ Creasy, 1851/2001, p. 163.
^ quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, p. viii.
^ Fouracre, 2000, p. 96.
^ Roberts,J.M.. “The New History of the World
^ Santosuosso, 2004, p. 126
^ The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon , Chapter LII.
^ quoted in Frank D. Gilliard, The Senators of Sixth-Century Gaul, Speculum, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Oct., 1979), pp. 685-697
^ quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, p. 158.
^ History of the later Roman Commonwealth , vol ii. p. 317, quoted in Creasy, 1851/2001, p. 158.
^ Cambridge Medieval History p.374.
^ Lewis, 1994, p. 11.
^ von Grunebaum, 2005, p. 66.
^ Coppée, 1881/2002, p. 13.
^ Watson, William, E. (1993). The Battle of Tours-Poitiers Revisited . Providence: Studies in Western Civilization v.2 n.1.
^ Famous Men of The Middle Ages by John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D. Project Gutenberg Etext.
^ The Timetables of History p.275.
^ Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University, and author of History of Rome
^ Civilization of the Middle Ages p.136.
^ The Battle of Tours (732)
^ University of St. Andrews.
^ Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: Political History of Al-Andalus , p. 28.
^ Davis, Paul 1999, p. 105.
^ Leaders & Battles Database .
^ Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Western Ontario, considered an expert historian in the era in dispute.
^ Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Piemonte Orientale in Vercelli, Italy.
^ Barbero, 2004, p. 10.
^ Institute of Philosophy SRC.
^ Mastnak, 2002, pp. 99-100.
^ Hitti, 2002, p. 469.
^ Professor of Medieval History, University of Florence, Italy.
^ Cardini, 2001, p. 9.
^ 'Editors' Note', Cowley and Parker, 2001, p. xiii.
^ Hanson, Victor Davis, 2001, p. 167.
^ Davis, Paul, 1999, p. 107.
^ Paul K. Davis, 100 Decisive Battles from Ancient Times to the Present: The World’s Major Battles and How They Shaped History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 103.

[ edit ] References

Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Bachrach, Bernard S (2001). Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire . University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-3533-9
Barbero, Alessandro (2004). Charlemagne: Father of a Continent . University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23943-1
Bede, Giles, John Allen, Stevens, John, Gurvey, Anna and Petrie, Henry (1847). The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England . H. G. Bohn.
Bennett, Bradsbury, Devries, Dickie and Jestice, Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World
Coppée, Henry (1881/2002). History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab Moors, With a Sketch of the Civilization Which They Achieved, and Imparted to Europe . Vol II. Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-931956-94-4
Cowley, Robert and Parker, Geoffrey (Eds.). (2001). The Reader's Companion to Military History . Houghton Mifflin Books. ISBN 0-618-12742-9
Creasy, Edward Shepherd (1851/2001). Decisive Battles of the World . Simon Publicatons. ISBN 1-931541-81-7
Davis, Paul K. (1999) "100 Decisive Battles From Ancient Times to the Present" ISBN 0-19-514366-3
Eggenberger, David (1985). An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present . Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-24913-1
Fouracre, Paul (2000). The Age of Charles Martel . Pearson Education. ISBN 0-582-06476-7
Gibbon, Edward The Battle of Tours , Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Grant, Michael History of Rome
Grunebaum, Gustave von (2005). Classical Islam: A History, 600 A.D. to 1258 A.D. Aldine Transaction. ISBN 0-202-30767-0
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 0-571-21640-4
Hitti, Philip Khuri (2002). History of Syria Including Lebanon and Palestine . Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1-931956-61-8
Hooker, Richard "Civil War and the Umayyads"
Lewis, Bernard (1994). Islam and the West . Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509061-6
Martin, Robert W. "The Battle of Tours is still felt today" , from about.com
Mastnak, Tomaž (2002). Crusading Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World, and Western Political Order . University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22635-6
Oman, Charles W. (1960). Art of War in the Middle Ages A. D. 378-1515 . Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801490626
Poke, The Battle of Tours , from the book Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World From Marathon to Waterloo by Sir Edward Creasy, MA
Reagan, Geoffrey, The Guinness Book of Decisive Battles , Canopy Books, NY (1992) ISBN 1-55859-431-0
Riche, Paul (1993). The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe . University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1342-4
Roberts, J.M. (2003) The New History of the World Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-521927-9
Santosuosso, Anthony (2004). Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels . Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-9153-9
Schoenfeld, Edward J. (2001). Battle of Poitiers. In Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker (Eds.). (2001). The Reader's Companion to Military History (p. 366). Houghton Mifflin Books. ISBN 0-618-12742-9
Torrey, Charles Cutler (1922). The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain: Known as the Futūh Miṣr of Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam . Yale University Press.
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.
Watson, William E., "The Battle of Tours-Poitiers Revisited" , Providence: Studies in Western Civilization , 2 (1993)
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter (2000). Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain . Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-554-6

[ edit ] 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.
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
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Inside the epic battle among Rupert Murdoch's children for the future of his empire

Peter Kafka , Chief Correspondent covering media and technology

Rupert Murdoch has enormous wealth and power. But he's 93. Who's going to control his company when he's gone?
Old plan: Four of his six kids would gain control. New plan: Murdoch wants to hand the whole thing over to his son Lachlan .
That's led to a brutal family fight, which is playing out now in a Nevada courtroom. Murdoch expert David Folkenflik explains what could happen next.

The biggest story in media right now has nothing to do with sexting . Instead, it's about the future of Rupert Murodoch's media empire . And who is going to control it — and Fox News in particular — when the 93-year-old billionaire dies.

Murdoch and his family are currently fighting with each other about the future , but they are doing it behind closed doors in a Reno, Nevada courtroom , which is why you haven't heard much about it since hearings started last week.

The fight in a nutshell: Rupert Murdoch's wealth is tied up in controlling stakes of his two companies — News Corp, which owns properties like the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, and Fox Corp., which owns Fox News and the Fox broadcasting network. Control of those stakes was supposed to be split between four of his children — Lachlan, James, Elisabeth, and Prudence — when he died. But recently, Rupert Murdoch has been trying to change those plans, and pass along full control to Lachlan Murdoch, who now has the CEO title at both News Corp and Fox .

And yes, this sounds a lot like "Succession," with good reason: The HBO show was based in part on the lives of the Murdoch clan.

There's a lot going on here, and it can also be hard to understand. So I talked to David Folkenflik, NPR's media correspondent and Murdoch family expert, to explain how we got here, what's happening now — and what might happen next. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

From an outsider's perspective, it seems like handing over a media empire that one guy ran to four of his children when he dies is a recipe for disaster. Or, at a minimum, a very good HBO show . Was this always going to end up in some kind of sort of knife fight?

Looking back on it, this is the logical outcome of a patriarchal setup, a family setup where the patriarch has never really understood how to show love, has often cut checks to ease wounded feelings, and actively pitted his children against each other in competition for his affection and respect through essentially corporate warfare.

To be clear, is this about how to divide up a fortune worth $6 billion? Or is it about power and control?

I think there's both at stake. I think there's the question of who's controlling this thing, which has been drummed into them — the only thing worth doing is running a powerful company, just like Dad.

I also think that James, in particular, seemingly joined to some degree by his two elder sisters, has a substantive critique of the way in which the company has been run.

Particularly Fox News, which has propelled so much of their fortunes but has gotten increasingly more right-wing and more unhinged in the age of Trump. Fox News embraced things [it] knew not to be true about groundless claims of fraud in the 2020 race. Emails and the texts at the time show that Fox executives and the Murdochs themselves knew not to be true and knew not to be the right thing .

James is saying this has been corrosive to American society and is a short-term financial play in pursuit of an intense but aging audience that will not serve Fox well in an age of cord-cutting and streaming. It's not a plan for the future. That's his argument.

He made these arguments after he'd left the company, and also after he basically lost the most recent round of knife fights inside the company, and had been frozen out and didn't get a job at Disney like he thought he might have after Fox sold most of its assets to Disney . Is that timing coincidental?

Watch: The biggest controversies during Murdoch's reign at Fox

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Battle of Tours
Charles Martel. Battle of Tours, (October 732), victory won by Charles Martel, the de facto ruler of the Frankish kingdoms, over Muslim invaders from Spain. The battlefield cannot be exactly located, but it was fought somewhere between Tours and Poitiers, in what is now west-central France.
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Battle of Tours
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The Battle of Tours is unquestionably a noteworthy battle, but what exactly were its impacts om history. First, and most importantly, the Battle of Tours halted the spread of Islam into Western Europe. The Battle ended the First Umayyad invasion of modern-day France. The second invasion occurred from 735-739CE and arguably posed a greater threat.
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That is exactly what happened in the eighth century, when Charles Martel, known as "The Hammer," faced the Muslim forces of the Umayyad Caliphate as they swept across the Iberian Peninsula and into the heart of the Frankish kingdom. At the subsequent Battle of Tours in 732, Charles Martel would define the future of Europe for the next 1000 years.
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The Battle of Tours (October 10, 732), often called Battle of Poitiers and also called in Arabic بلاط الشهداء (Balâṭ al-Shuhadâ') The Court of Martyrs was fought near the city of Tours, close to the border between the Frankish realm and the independent region of Aquitaine. The battle pitted Frankish and Burgundian. forces under Austrasian Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel ...
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The traditional dating of the battle to October 732 has been questioned by scholars on the basis of Iberian sources, with many preferring to place it in late 733 or 734. Because the encounter took place between Tours and Poitiers, it is sometimes also named after the latter city. What is known is that the battle took place because the Muslim ...
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The Battle of Tours-Poitiers Revisited; 716: A Crucial Year For Charles Martel; 213 medieval manuscripts now online, thanks to KBR; The Battle of Murten: The Invasion of Charles the Bold and the Survival of the Swiss States; Advertisement. Subscribe to Medievalverse. Email address. First name.
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours definition is a battle between North African armies and Frankish forces led by Charles Martel in Gaul in 732 C.E. It was a significant battle in the Early Middle Ages as it ...
The Battle of Tours, 732
T he Muslims planned to go to Tours to destroy the Church of St. Martin, the city, and the whole country. Then came against them the glorious Prince Charles, at the head of his whole force. He ...
The Battle of Tours: A Turning Point in Early Medieval History
The Battle of Tours. The Battle of Tours itself took place in 732 AD, just twenty years after the Umayyad Caliphate had crossed into Spain. In just that short time, Muslim armies had made their way into what is now central France. The lack of political unity at the time made it easy for the strong, unified army of the Caliphate to march across ...
Discover Battle of Tours
Battle of Tours. The Battle of tours was fought between the Franks and the Moors. The Frankish army, serving under Charles Martel, was victorious, and the Moors were forced to retreat to southern Spain. This battle is often seen as the turning point in Europe's struggle against the spread of Islam, and it upheld Christianity as the dominante ...
Battle of Tours
The Frankish king Charles Martel wields his battle-axe during the Battle of Tours (732), in which his forces defeated Muslim invaders from Spain.
The Battle of Tours: When the West 'Manfully Resisted' Islam
Today in history, on October 10, 732, an epic battle saved Western Europe from becoming Islamic. Precisely one hundred years after the death of Islam's prophet Muhammad in 632 — a century which had seen the conquest of thousands of square miles of formerly Christian lands, including Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain — the scimitar of ...
Battle of Tours
Summary of The Battle of Tours. The Battle of Tours was a pivotal event in the history of Europe and the Islamic world. It marked the limits of Muslim expansion into northern Europe. It also established the Latin West as a significant power. The Battle had far-reaching consequences for the Islamic Empire.
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours (October 10, 732), [4] also called the Battle of Poitiers and in Arabic: معركة بلاط الشهداء ‎ (ma'arakat Balâṭ ash-Shuhadâ') Battle of Court of The Martyrs [5], was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille (modern Vouneuil-sur-Vienne) about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Poitiers.
Ukraine's Zelensky tours Pennsylvania ammunition plant as he begins US
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky toured a Pennsylvania ammunition plant on Sunday as he began a key visit to the United States in which he is expected to present his blueprint to defeat ...
Rupert Murdoch Is in a 'Succession' Court Battle
Rupert Murdoch and his children are in an epic closed-door court battle for the future of his empire. NPR's David Folkenflik explains why it matters. A vertical stack of three evenly spaced ...

Battle of Tours

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Battle of Tours: Its Significance and Historical Implications

Celeste Neill

The Islamic advance

The Battle of Tours

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Charles Martel and the defense of Europe at the Battle of Tours

Martel’s rise to power among the Franks

How Charles Martel secured his power

The Battle of Tours (732)

Impact on the Franks and the rise of the Carolingians

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Battle of Tours

The Opponents

Muslim conquests from Hispania

Eudes' appeal to the Franks

Advance toward the Loire

Preparations and maneuver

The battle turns

Following day

Contemporary accounts

Strategic analysis

Umayyad retreat and second invasion

Advance to Narbonne

Carolingian Dynasty

The last Umayyad invasions of Gaul

Historical and macrohistorical views

In Western history

In Muslim history

Current historical debate on macrohistorical impact of Battle of Tours

Supporting the significance of Tours as a world-altering event

Objecting to the significance of Tours as a world-altering event

References ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

External links

Muslim Invasions of Western Europe: The 732 Battle of Tours

Armies & Commanders at the Battle of Tours

Battle of Tours - Date

Background on the Battle of Tours

Battle of Tours - Moving to Contact

Battle of Tours - The Franks Stand Strong

The Battle of Tours - A Decisive Fight for Europe’s Future

The Prelude to the Battle of Tours

The Hammer Enters the Fray

The Umayyad Wave That Broke On the Frankish Rock

Changing the Future of the World

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Battle of Tours 732 Charles Martel

Prelude to the Battle of Tours

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Battle of Tours (732?) by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024 LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0247

The Battle of Tours: A Turning Point in Early Medieval History