On
this date, 10 October 732, Charles Martel's forces defeat an Umayyad army
between near Tours, France.
|
Battle
of Tours
|
|||||||
|
Part of the Umayyad invasion of Gaul
|
|||||||
 Charles de Steuben's Bataille de Poitiers en octobre 732 romantically depicts a triumphant Charles Martel (mounted) facing Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi (right) at the Battle of Tours. |
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
Belligerents
|
|||||||
|
Kingdom of the Franks Western
Franks |
Umayyad Caliphate
|
||||||
|
Commanders and leaders
|
|||||||
|
Strength
|
|||||||
|
15,000–20,000
|
20,000–25,000
|
||||||
|
Casualties
and losses
|
|||||||
|
1,000
|
12,000
|
||||||
|
Campaigns
of Charles Martel
|
|
The
Battle of Tours (10 October 732)
– also called the Battle of Poitiers
and, by Arab sources, the Battle of the
Palace of the Martyrs (Arabic:
معركة بلاط الشهداء,
translit. Ma'arakat Balāṭ
ash-Shuhadā’) – was
fought by Frankish
and Burgundian
forces under Charles Martel against an army of the Umayyad
Caliphate led by 'Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Governor-General
of al-Andalus.
It was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, in the Aquitaine of
west-central France, near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille, about 20 kilometres
(12 mi) northeast of Poitiers. The location of the battle was close to the
border between the Frankish realm and the then-independent Duchy of Aquitaine under Odo
the Great.
The
Franks were victorious. 'Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi was killed, and Charles
subsequently extended his authority in the south. Details of the battle,
including its exact location and the number of combatants, cannot be determined
from accounts that have survived. Notably, the Frankish troops won the battle without
cavalry.
Ninth-century
chroniclers, who interpreted the outcome of the battle as divine judgment in
his favour, gave Charles the nickname Martellus ("The
Hammer"). Later Christian chroniclers and pre-20th century historians
praised Charles Martel as the champion of Christianity, characterizing the
battle as the decisive turning point in the struggle against Islam, a struggle
which preserved Christianity as the religion of Europe; according to modern
military historian Victor Davis Hanson, "most of the 18th and
19th century historians, like [Edward] Gibbon, saw Poitiers (Tours), as a
landmark battle that marked the high tide of the Muslim advance into
Europe." Leopold von Ranke felt that "Poitiers was
the turning point of one of the most important epochs in the history of the
world."
There
is little dispute that the battle helped lay the foundations of the Carolingian Empire and Frankish domination of
Europe for the next century. Most historians agree that "the establishment
of Frankish power in western Europe shaped that continent's destiny and the
Battle of Tours confirmed that power."
Background
The
Battle of Tours followed two decades 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 reached
northward into Aquitaine and Burgundy,
including a major engagement at Bordeaux and a raid on Autun. Charles's
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 Byzantine
and Persian Empires.
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. The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754, a Latin
contemporary source which describes the battle in greater detail than any other
Latin or Arabic source, states that "the people of Austrasia
[the Frankish forces], greater in number of soldiers and formidably armed,
killed the king, Abd ar-Rahman", which agrees with many Arab and Muslim
historians. However, virtually all Western sources disagree, estimating the
Franks as numbering 30,000, less than half the Muslim force.
Some
modern historians, using estimates of what the land was able to support and
what Martel could have raised from his realm and supported during the campaign,
believe the total Muslim force, counting the outlying raiding parties, which
rejoined the main body before Tours, outnumbered the Franks. 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. However, Edward J. Schoenfeld, rejecting the older figures of
60–400,000 Umayyads and 75,000 Franks, contends that "estimates that the
Umayyads had over fifty thousand troops (and the Franks even more) are
logistically impossible." Similarly, historian Victor Davis Hanson believes both armies were
roughly the same size, about 30,000 men.
Contemporary
historical analysis 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. Other sources
give the following estimates: "Gore places the Frankish army at
15,000–20,000, although other estimates range from 30,000 to 80,000. In spite
of wildly varying estimates of the Muslim force, he places that army as around
20,000–25,000. Other estimates also range up to 80,000, with 50,000 not an
uncommon estimate."
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
the Great's victory at the Battle of Toulouse (721). Paul
the Deacon reported correctly in his History of the Lombards (written around
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
Muslims casualties solely to Charles Martel, and the battle in which they fell
became unequivocally that of Poitiers." 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.
Umayyads
Main
articles: Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi and Umayyad
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 Sunni caliphs of the Sunni Islamic empire after the reign of the Rashidun
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 east across Persia and west
across North
Africa through the late 7th century.
In
711–18, Tariq ibn Ziyad led forces across the Strait of Gibraltar to conquer the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania. The Muslim
empire under the Umayyads was now a vast domain that ruled a diverse array of
peoples. It had destroyed what had been the two foremost military powers, the Sasanian
Empire, which it absorbed completely, and the greater part of the Byzantine
Empire, including Syria, Armenia and North Africa, although Leo the Isaurian stemmed the tide when he
defeated the Umayyads at the Battle of Akroinon (739), their final campaign
in Anatolia.
Franks
The
Frankish realm
under Charles Martel was the foremost military power of western Europe. During
most of his tenure in office as commander-in-chief of the Franks, it consisted
of north and eastern France (Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy), most of western Germany, and the Low Countries
(Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands). The Frankish realm had begun to
progress towards becoming the first real imperial power in western Europe since
the fall of Rome. However, it continued to struggle against external forces
such as the Saxons, Frisians, and other opponents such as the
Basque-Aquitanians led by Odo the Great (Old French: Eudes), Duke over
Aquitaine and Vasconia.
Umayyad
conquests from Hispania
Main
article: Umayyad conquest of 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.
The
Umayyad campaign into Aquitaine suffered a temporary setback at the Battle of Toulouse. Duke Odo the Great
broke the siege of Toulouse, taking Al-Samh ibn Malik's forces by surprise.
Al-Samh ibn Malik was mortally wounded. This defeat did not stop incursions
into old Roman Gaul, as Moorish 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 Odo
allied himself with the Berber commander Uthman ibn Naissa,
called "Munuza" by the Franks, the deputy governor of what would
later become Catalonia.
To seal the alliance, Uthman was given Odo's daughter Lampagie in marriage, and
Moorish raids across the Pyrenees, Odo's southern border, ceased. However, the next
year, the Berber leader killed the bishop of Urgell Nambaudus and detached
himself from his Arabs masters in Cordova. Abdul Raḥman in turn sent an
expedition to crush his revolt, and next directed his attention against
Uthman's ally Odo.
Odo
collected his army at Bordeaux, but was defeated, and Bordeaux plundered. During
the following Battle of the River Garonne, the Chronicle
of 754 commented that "God alone knows the number of the
slain". The Chronicle of 754 continues, saying they "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."
Odo's
appeal to the Franks
Odo,
who despite the heavy losses was reorganizing his troops, gave the Frankish
leader notice of the impending danger knocking on the heartland of his realm,
and appealed to the Franks for assistance, which Charles Martel only granted
after Odo agreed to submit to Frankish authority.
It
appears that 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 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, because of his growing domination of much of Europe
since 717.
Umayyad
advance towards the Loire
In
732, the Umayyad advance force was proceeding north towards the Loire River, having
outpaced their supply train and a large part of their army. 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
Umayyads delayed their campaign late in the year probably because the army
needed to live off the land as they advanced. They had to wait until the area's
wheat harvest was ready and then until a reasonable amount of the harvested and
stored.
The
reason why Odo was defeated so easily at Bordeaux and Garonne, but had won 11
years earlier at the Battle of Toulouse is simple. At Toulouse, Odo managed a
surprise attack against an overconfident and unprepared foe. The Umayyad forces
were mostly infantry, and what cavalry they did have were never mobilized. As Herman of Carinthia wrote in one of his
translations of a history of al-Andalus, Odo managed a highly successful
encircling envelopment which took the attackers totally by surprise – the
result was a chaotic slaughter of the Muslim forces.
At
Bordeaux and again at Garonne, the Umayyad forces were mostly cavalry and had
the chance to mobilize, which led to the devastation of Odo's army. Odo's
forces, like other European troops of that era, lacked stirrups, possibly explaining which resulted in no heavy cavalry at
that time. Most of their troops were infantry. The Umayyad heavy cavalry broke
Odo's infantry in their first charge, and then slaughtered them as they broke
and ran.
The
invading force went on to devastate southern Gaul. A possible motive, according
to the second continuator of the Chronicle of Fredegar, was the riches of
the Abbey of Saint Martin of Tours, the
most prestigious and holiest shrine in western Europe at the time. Upon hearing
this, Austrasia's Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel prepared
his army and marched south, avoiding the old Roman roads, hoping to take the
Muslims by surprise.
 |
|
Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://faithandheritage.com/2016/10/the-guardian-of-the-west/]
|
Battle
(October 732)
Preparations
and maneuver
By
all accounts, the invading forces were caught off guard to discover a large force
sitting directly in their path to Tours. Charles achieved the total surprise he
had hoped for. He then chose not to attack and rather began fighting in a
defensive, phalanx-like
formation. According to Arab sources, the Franks drew up in a large square,
with hills and trees in their front to diminish or break up Muslim cavalry
charges.
For
seven days, the two armies engaged in minor skirmishes. The Umayyads waited for
their full strength to arrive. 'Abd-al-Raḥmân, despite being a proven
commander, had been outmaneuvered; he had allowed Charles to concentrate his
forces and pick the field of battle. Furthermore, it was impossible for the
Umayyads to judge the size of Charles' army, since he had used the trees and
forest to screen his true numbers.
Charles'
infantry were his best hope for victory. Seasoned and battle-hardened, most of
them had fought with him for years, some as far back as 717. In addition to his
army, he also had levies of militia which had not seen significant military use
except for gathering food and harassing the Muslim army.
While
many historians through the centuries have believed that the Franks were
outnumbered at the onset of battle by at least two to one, the most authentic
source called the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754, points to the contrary.
Charles
correctly assumed that 'Abd-al-Raḥmân would feel compelled to give battle, and
move on and try to loot Tours. Neither side wanted to attack. Abd-al-Raḥmân
felt he had to sack Tours, which meant he had to go through the Frankish army
on the hill in front of him. Charles' decision to stay in the hills proved
crucial, as it forced the Umayyad cavalry to charge uphill and through trees,
diminishing their effectiveness.
Charles
had been preparing for this confrontation since the Battle of Toulouse a decade
earlier. Gibbon believes, as do most historians, that Charles had made the best
of a bad situation. Though allegedly outnumbered and without any heavy cavalry,
he had tough, battle-hardened infantrymen who believed in him implicitly.
Moreover, as Davis points out, these infantrymen were heavily armed, each man
carrying up to perhaps 75 pounds (34 kg) of armour into battle.
Formed
into a phalanx formation, they were able to withstand a
cavalry charge better than might be expected, especially as Charles had secured
the high ground – with trees before him to further impede any cavalry charges.
The failure of Arab intelligence extended to the fact that they were totally
unaware of how good his forces were; he had trained them for a decade. And
while he was well aware of the Caliphate's strengths and weaknesses, they knew
almost nothing about the Franks.
Furthermore,
the Franks were dressed for the cold. The Arabs had very light clothing more
suitable for North African winters than European winters.
The
battle eventually became a waiting game in which the Muslims did not want to attack
an army that could possibly be numerically superior and wanted the Franks to
come out into the open. The Franks formed up in a thick defensive formation and
waited for them to charge uphill. The battle finally began on the seventh day,
as 'Abd-al-Raḥmân did not want to wait any longer, with winter approaching.
Engagement
'Abd-al-Raḥmân
trusted in the tactical superiority of his cavalry and had them charge
repeatedly. In one of the few instances where medieval infantry stood
up against cavalry charges, the disciplined Frankish soldiers withstood the
assaults, though according to Arab sources, the Arab cavalry broke into the
Frankish square several times. Despite this, the Franks did not break. The
well-trained Frankish soldiers accomplished what was not thought possible at
that time: infantry withstanding a heavy cavalry charge. Paul Davis says the
core of Charles' army was a professional infantry which was both highly
disciplined and well motivated, "having campaigned with him all over
Europe". The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 says:
And in the shock of 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].
Turning
point
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 rumour 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, 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.
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 whatever loot they could carry – was it discovered that the Muslims had
retreated during the night.
Contemporary
accounts
The
Mozarabic Chronicle of 754
"describes the battle in greater detail than any other Latin or Arabic
source". It says of the encounter that,
While Abd ar-Rahman was pursuing Odo, 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 Odo. 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
Latin word used for "warrior", belligerator, "is from the Book of Maccabees, chapters 15 and 16",
which describe huge battles.
It
is thought that Bede's
Ecclesiastical History of
the English People (Book V, Chapter XXIV) 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".
Strategic
analysis
Gibbon
makes the point that 'Abd-al-Raḥmân did not move at once against Charles
Martel, and was surprised by him at Tours as Charles had marched over the
mountains avoiding the roads to surprise the Muslim invaders. Thus, Charles
selected the time and place they would collide.
'Abd-al-Raḥmân
was a good general, but failed to do two things he should have done before the
battle:
- He 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.
These
failures disadvantaged the Muslim army in the following ways:
·
The
invaders were burdened with booty that played a role in the battle.
·
They
had casualties before they fought the battle.
·
Weaker
opponents such as Odo were not bypassed, 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 pick 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, can be 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 CreasyCarlisle,
Henny. "Charles
"the Hammer" Martel King of the Franks". genealogieonline.,
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,
when we remember that Charles had no standing army, and the independent spirit of the Frank warriors who followed his standard, it seems most probable that it was not in his power to adopt the cautious policy of watching the invaders, and wearing out their strength by delay. So dreadful and so widespread were the ravages of the Saracenic light cavalry throughout Gaul, that it must have been impossible to restrain for any length of time the indignant ardor of the Franks. And, even if Charles could have persuaded his men to look tamely on while the Arabs stormed more towns and desolated more districts, he could not have kept an army together when the usual period of a military expedition had expired.
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."
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 one
historian put it: "few battles are remembered over
1,000 years after they are fought, but the Battle of Poitiers is an exception
[...] Charles Martel turned back a Muslim raid that had it been allowed to
continue, might have conquered Gaul."
Aftermath
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 Odo, who had reluctantly acknowledged Charles' suzerainty
in 719, Charles wished to unite Odo's Duchy to himself, and went there to
elicit the proper homage of the Aquitainians. But the nobility
proclaimed Hunold, Odo's 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.
Hunold,
who originally resisted acknowledging Charles as overlord, soon had little
choice. He acknowledged Charles as his overlord, albeit not for long, and
Charles confirmed his Duchy.
Umayyad invasion (735–39)
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. Charles Martel invaded
Septimania in two campaigns in 736 and 739, but was forced back again to
Frankish territory under his control. 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.
Advance
to Narbonne
Despite
the defeat at Tours, 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 conquered Umayyad fortresses and
destroyed their garrisons at the Siege
of Avignon and the Siege
of Nîmes.
The
army attempting to relieve Narbonne met Charles in open battle at the Battle of the River Berre and was
destroyed. However, Charles failed in his attempt to take Narbonne at the Siege of Narbonne in 737, when the city was
jointly defended by its Muslim Arab and Berber, and its Christian Visigothic
citizens.
Carolingian
dynasty
Main articles: Francia, Carolingian Empire, Pepin
the Short, and Charlemagne
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, Pepin
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
al-Rahman I established an emirate in Córdoba in opposition to the Abbasid
Caliph in Baghdad.
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:
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."
Before
the Battle of Tours, stirrups may have been unknown in the west. Lynn Townsend White Jr. argues that the
adoption of the stirrup for cavalry was the direct cause for the development of
feudalism in the Frankish realm by Charles Martel and his heirs.
 |
|
Charles Martel (c. 686 – 22 October 741) was a
Frankish statesman and military leader who as Duke and Prince of the Franks and
Mayor of the Palace, was de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death.
The son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named
Alpaida, Charles successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his
father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and
building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and
began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the
undisputed masters of all Gaul.
After work to establish a unity in Gaul,
Charles' attention was called to foreign conflicts, and dealing with the
Islamic advance into Western Europe was a foremost concern. Arab and Berber
Islamic forces had conquered Spain (711), crossed the Pyrenees (720), seized a
major dependency of the Visigoths (721–725), and after intermittent challenges,
under Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, the Arab Governor of al-Andalus, advanced toward
Gaul and on Tours, "the holy town of Gaul"; in October 732, the army
of the Umayyad Caliphate led by Al Ghafiqi met Frankish and Burgundian forces
under Charles in an area between the cities of Tours and Poitiers (modern
north-central France), leading to a decisive, historically important Frankish
victory known as the Battle of Tours (or ma'arakat Balâṭ ash-Shuhadâ, Battle of
the Palace of Martyrs), ending the "last of the great Arab invasions of
France," a military victory termed "brilliant" on the part of
Charles.
Charles further took the offensive after Tours,
destroying fortresses at Agde, Béziers and Maguelonne, and engaging Islamic
forces at Nimes, though ultimately failing to recover Narbonne (737) or to
fully reclaim the Visigoth's Narbonensis. He thereafter made significant
further external gains against fellow Christian realms, establishing Frankish
control over Bavaria, Alemannia, and Frisia, and compelling some of the Saxon
tribes to offer tribute (738).
Apart from the military endeavours, Charles is
considered to be a founding figure of the European Middle Ages. Skilled as an
administrator as well as a warrior, he is credited with a seminal role in the
emerging responsibilities of the knights of courts, and so in the development
of the Frankish system of feudalism. Pope Gregory III, whose realm was being
menaced by the Lombards, and who could no longer rely on help from
Constantinople, asked Charles to defend the Holy See and offered him the Roman
consulship, though Charles declined.
He divided Francia between his sons Carloman
and Pepin. The latter became the first of the Carolingians. Charles' grandson,
Charlemagne, extended the Frankish realms to include much of the West, and
became the first Emperor in the West since the fall of Rome.
|
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 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 view of the significance
of the battle, in contrast to the more dramatic and rhetorical approach of
Gibbon. The best example of this school is William E. Watson, who does believe
the battle has such importance, as will be 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 largely faded 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,
where the Bulgarian Emperor Tervel played a crucial role, or a part of a
series of great macrohistorical defeats which together brought about the fall
of the first Caliphate. With the Byzantines and Bulgarians together with the
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 Charles fallen, the Umayyad Caliphate would have
easily conquered a divided Europe. Gibbon famously observed:
A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.
Nor
was Gibbon alone in lavishing praise on Charles as the savior of Christendom
and western civilization. H. G.
Wells in his A Short History of the World said in Chapter XLV
"The Development of Latin Christendom": "The Moslim when they
crossed the Pyrenees
in 720 found this Frankish kingdom under the practical rule of Charles Martel,
the Mayor of the Palace of a degenerate descendant of Clovis, and experienced
the decisive defeat of Poitiers (732) at his hands. This Charles Martel was
practically overlord of Europe north of the Alps from the Pyrenees to
Hungary. He ruled over a multitude of subordinate lords speaking French-Latin,
and High and Low German languages."
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."
German
historians were especially ardent in their praise of Charles Martel; Schlegel speaks of this
"mighty victory", 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
one of the most important epochs in the history of the world, the commencement of the eighth century, when on the one side Mohammedanism threatened to overspread Italy and Gaul, and on the other the ancient idolatry of Saxony and Friesland once more forced its way across the Rhine. In this peril of Christian institutions, a youthful prince of Germanic race, Karl Martell, arose as their champion, maintained them with all the energy which the necessity for self-defence calls forth, and finally extended them into new regions.
The
German military historian Hans
Delbrück said of this battle "there was no more important battle in
the history of the world." (The Barbarian Invasions, p. 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." Louis Gustave and Charles 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."
(p. 122)
Charles
Oman, in his History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, concludes
that
At Poitiers the Franks fought as they had done two hundred years before at Casilinum, in one solid mass, without breaking rank or attempting to maneuver. Their victory was won by the purely defensive tactics of the infantry square; the fanatical Arabs, dashing against them time after time, were shattered to pieces, and at last fled under shelter of night. But there was no pursuit, for Charles had determined not to allow his men to stir a step from the line to chase the broken foe. [I, 58]
John Bagnell
Bury, writing at the beginning of the 20th 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."
Modern
Western historians are clearly divided on the importance of the battle, and
where it should rank in military history; see below.
Adolf Hitler on the Battle of Tours
Albert
Speer, Hitler's Armaments Minister, described how Hitler expressed approval
of Islam, saying that Hitler had been particularly impressed by what he had
heard from a delegation of Arabs. When the Muslims had tried to penetrate
Central Europe in the 8th century, they had been driven back at the Battle of
Tours; if they had won that battle, the world would have become Muslim. Theirs
was a religion, Hitler said, that believed in spreading the faith by the sword
and subjugating all nations to that faith. Hitler considered that Islam was
perfectly suited to the "Germanic" temperament and would have been
more compatible to the Germans than Christianity.
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," 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." 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 Muslims 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 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 that "they (the Muslims) called
the battle's location, the road between Poitiers and Tours, "the pavement
of Martyrs"." However, as Henry
Coppée pointed out, "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."
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 Berber Revolt of 740 in Iberia and Northern Africa.
 |
|
Charles Martel (left) and ISIS (right)
|
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.
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 Gibbon and Drubeck, writing, for example, of the
battle's importance in Frankish, and world, history in 1993:
There is clearly some justification for ranking Tours-Poitiers among the most significant events in Frankish history when one considers the result of the battle in light of the remarkable record of the successful establishment by Muslims of Islamic political and cultural dominance along the entire eastern and southern rim of the former Christian, Roman world. The rapid Muslim conquest of Palestine, Syria, Egypt and the North African coast all the way to Morocco in the seventh century resulted in the permanent imposition by force of Islamic culture onto a previously Christian and largely non-Arab base. The Visigothic kingdom fell to Muslim conquerors in a single battle on the Rio Barbate in 711, and the Hispanic Christian population took seven long centuries to regain control of the Iberian Peninsula. The Reconquista, of course, was completed in 1492, only months before Columbus received official backing for his fateful voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Had Charles Martel suffered at Tours-Poitiers the fate of King Roderic at the Rio Barbate, it is doubtful that a "do-nothing" sovereign of the Merovingian realm could have later succeeded where his talented major domus had failed. Indeed, as Charles was the progenitor of the Carolingian line of Frankish rulers and grandfather of Charlemagne, one can even say with a degree of certainty that the subsequent history of the West would have proceeded along vastly different currents had 'Abd ar-Rahman been victorious at Tours-Poitiers in 732.
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."
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."
Historian
and humanist Michael Grant 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."
Military
historian Robert W. Martin considers Tours "one of the most decisive
battles in all of history." Additionally, historian Hugh
Kennedy 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."
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." 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."
History
professor Antonio Santosuosso puts forth an opinion on
Charles, Tours, and the subsequent campaigns against Rahman's son in 736–737,
presenting that these later defeats of invading Muslim armies were at least as
important as Tours in their defense 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 an 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 end
of Christian Europe and bring it into the Caliphate.
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."
Victor Davis Hanson has commented that
"Recent scholars have suggested Poitiers, so poorly recorded in
contemporary sources, was a mere raid and thus a construct of western
mythmaking or that a Muslim victory might have been preferable to continued
Frankish dominance. What is clear is that Poitiers marked a general continuance
of the successful defense of Europe, (from the Muslims). Flush from the victory
at Tours, Charles Martel went on to clear southern France from Islamic
attackers for decades, unify the warring kingdoms into the foundations of the
Carolingian Empire, and ensure ready and reliable troops from local
estates."
Paul
Davis, another modern historian, 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." Davis writes, "Moslem defeat ended the Moslems' threat to
western Europe, and Frankish victory established the Franks as the dominant
population in western Europe, establishing the dynasty that led to
Charlemagne."
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 Muslim force defeated by Charles Martel
was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy
monastery of St-Martin of Tours". Similarly, Tomaž Mastnak writes:
Modern historians have constructed a myth presenting this victory as having saved Christian Europe from the Muslims. Edward Gibbon, for example, called Charles Martel the savior of Christendom and the battle near Poitiers an encounter that changed the history of the world. ... This myth has survived well into our own times. ... Contemporaries of the battle, however, did not overstate its significance. The continuators of Fredegar's chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens – moreover, as only one in a series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory. ... One of Fredegar's continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule.
The
historian Philip Khuri 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."
The
view that the battle has no great significance is perhaps best summarized by Franco Cardini[it]
in Europe and Islam: "Although prudence needs to be exercised in
minimizing or 'demythologizing' the significance of the event, it is no longer
thought by anyone to have been crucial. The 'myth' of that particular military
engagement survives today as a media cliché, than which nothing is harder to
eradicate. It is well known how the propaganda put about by the Franks and the
papacy glorified the victory that took place on the road between Tours and
Poitiers ..."
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.
See also
External links
 |
Wikimedia
Commons has media related to Battle of Tours.
|
- 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
- BBC In Our Time: The Battle of Tours. (Radio programme discussing the battle)
OTHER
LINKS:
No comments:
Post a Comment