10 October 732 A.D. HAMMER STRATEGY: Charles Martel Hammers Islamo-Jihadi-Fascists at Tours
10 October 732 A.D.
HAMMER STRATEGY: Charles Martel Hammers Islamo-Jihadi-Fascists at Tours
FIFTEEN DECISIVE BATTLES
FROM MARATHON TO WATERLOO
ACCORDING TO EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
Creasy, Edward Shepherd. “The Battle of Tours, A.D.
732.” 1998. http://www.standin.se/fifteen07a.htm. Accessed 3 Oct 2014.
FIFTEEN DECISIVE BATTLES
OF THE WORLD
FROM MARATHON TO WATERLOO
ACCORDING TO EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
Chapter VII.
THE BATTLE OF TOURS, A.D. 732.
" The events that rescued our
ancestors of Britain and our neighbors of Gaul from the civil and religious
yoke of the Koran."
-GIBBON.
THE broad
tract of champaign country which intervenes between the cities of Poitiers and
Tours is principally composed of a succession of rich pasture lands, which are
traversed and fertilized by the Cher, the Creuse, the Vienne, the Claine, the
Indre, and other tributaries of the River Loire. Here and there the ground
swells into picturesque eminences and occasionally a belt of forest land, a
brown heath, or a clustering series of vineyards breaks the monontony of the
widespread meadows ; but the general character of the land is that of a grassy
plain, and it seems naturally adapted for the evolutions of numerous armies,
especially of those vast bodies of cavalry which principally decided the fate
of nations during the centuries that followed the downfall of Rome, and
preceded the consolidation of the modern European powers.
This region
has been signalized by more than one memorable conflict ; but it is principally
interesting to the historian by having been the scene of the great victory won by Charles Martel over the
Saracens, A.D. 732, which gave a decisive check to the career of Arab conquest
in Western Europe, rescued Christendom from Islam, preserved the relics of
ancient and the germs of modern civilization, and re-established the old
superiority of the Indo-European over the Semitic family of mankind.
Sismondi and
Michelet have underrated the enduring interest of this great Appeal of Battle
between the champions of the Crescent
and the Cross. But, if French writers have slighted the exploits of
their national hero, the Saracenic trophies of Charles Martel have had full
justice done to them by English and German historians. Gibbon devotes several
pages of his great work(i)
to the narrative of the battle of Tours, and to the consideration of
the consequences which probably would have resulted if Abderrahman's enterprise
had not been crushed by the Frankish chief. Schlegel(ii)
speaks of this " mighty victory " in terms of fervent gratitude, and tells how " the arm of
Charles Martel saved and delivered the Christian nations of the West from the
deadly grasp of all-destroying Islam". and Ranke(iii)
points out, as " 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."
Arnold(iv) ranks the victory of Charles Martel even higher
than the victory of Arminius, " among those signal deliverances which have
affected for centuries the happiness of mankind." In fact, the more we
test its importance, the higher we shall be led to estimate it; and, though all
authentic details which we possess of its circumstances and its heroes are but
meagre, we can trace enough of its general character to make us watch with deep
interest this encounter between the rival conquerors of the decaying Roman
empire. That old classic world, the history of which occupies so large a
portion of our early studies, lay, in the eighth century of our era, utterly
exanimate and overthrown. On the north the German, on the south the Arab, was
rending away its provinces. At last the spoilers encountered one another, each
striving for the full master of the prey. Their conflict brought back upon the
memory of Gibbon the old Homeric simile, where the strife of Hector and
Patroclus over the dead body of Cebriones is compared to the combat of two
lions, that in their hate and hunger fight together on the mountain tops over
the carcass of a slaughtered stag; and the reluctant yielding of the Saracen
power to the superior might of the Northern warriors might not inaptly recall
those other lines of the same book of the Iliad, where the downfall of
Patroclus beneath Hector is likened to the forced yielding of the panting and
exhausted wild boar, that had long and furiously fought with a superior beast
of prey for the possession of the scanty fountain among the rocks at which each
burned to drink.(v)
Although
three centuries had passed away since the Germanic conquerors of Rome had
crossed the Rhine, never to repass that frontier stream, no settled system of
institutions or government, no amalgamation of the various races into our
people, no uniformity of language or habits had been established in the country
at the time when Charles Martel was called to repel the menacing tide of
Saracenic invasion from the south. Gaul was not yet France. In that, as in
other provinces of the Roman empire of the West, the dominion of the Caesars
had been shattered as early as the fifth century, and barbaric kingdoms and
principalities had promptly arisen on the ruins of the Roman power. But few of
these had any permanency, and none of them consolidated the rest, or any considerable
number of the rest, into one coherent and organized civil and political
society. The great bulk of the population still consisted of the conquered
provincials, that is to say, of Romanized Celts, of a Gallic race which had
long been under the dominion of the Caesars, and had acquired, together with no
slight infusion of Roman blood, the language, the literature, the laws, and the
civilization of Latium. Among these, and dominant over them, roved or dwelt the
German victors; some retaining nearly all the rude independence of their
primitive netional character, others softened and disciplined by the aspect and
contact of the manners and institutions of civilized life ; for it is to be
borne in mind that the Roman empire in the West was not crushed by any sudden
avalanche of barbaric invasion. The German conquerors came across the Rhine,
not in enormous hosts, but in bands of a few thousand warriors at a time. The
conquest of a province was the result of an infinite series of partial local
invasions, carried on by little armies of this description. The victorious
warriors either retired with their booty, or fixed themselves in the invaded
district, taking care to keep sufficiently concentrated for military purposes,
and ever ready for some fresh foray, either against a rival Teutonic band, or
some hitherto unassailed city of the provincials. Gradually, however, the
conquerors acquired a desire for permanent landed possessions. They lost
somewhat of the restless thirst for novelty and adventure which had first made
them throng beneath the banner of the boldest captains of their tribe, and
leave their native forests for a roving military life on the left bank of the
Rhine. They were converted to the Christian faith, and gave up with their old
creed much of the coarse ferocity which must have been fostered in the spirits
of the ancient warriors of the North by a mythology which promised, as the
reward of the brave on earth, an eternal cycle of fighting and drunkenness in
heaven.
But,
although their conversion and other civilizing influences operated powerfully
upon the Germans in Gaul, and although the Franks (who were originally a
confederation of the Teutonic tribes that dwelt between the Rhine, the Maine,
and the Weser) established a decisive superiority over the other conquerors of
the province, as well as over the conquered provincials, the country long
remained a chaos of uncombined and shifting elements. The early princes of the
Merovingian dynasty were generally occupied in wars against other princes of their
house, occasioned by the frequent subdivisions of the Frank monarchy. and the
ablest and best of them had found all their energies tasked to the utmost to
defend the barrier of the Rhine against the pagan Germans who strove to pass
that river and gather their share of the spoils of the empire.
The
conquests which the Saracens effected over the southern and eastern provinces
of Rome were far more rapid than those achieved by the Germans in the north,
and the new organizations of society which the Moslems introduced were
summarily and uniformly enforced. Exactly a century passed between the death of
Mohammed and the date of the battle of Tours. During that century the followers
of the Prophet had torn away half the Roman empire; and, besides their conquests
over Persia, the Saracens had overrun Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Spain, in an
uncheckered and apparently irresistible career of victory. Nor, at the
commencement of the eighth century of our era, was the Mohammedan world divided
against itself, as it subsequently became. All these vast regions obeyed the
caliph; throughout them all, from the Pyrenees to the Oxus, the name of
Mohammed was invoked in prayer, and the Koran revered as the book of the law.
It was under
one of their ablest and most renowned commanders, with a veteran army, and with
every apparent advantage of time, place, and circumstance, that the Arabs made
their great effort at the conquest of Europe north of the Pyrenees. The victorious Moslem soldiery
in Spain,
" A countless
multitude ;
Syrian, Moor, Saracen,
Greek renegade,
Persian, and Copt, and
Tartar, in one bond
Of erring faith
conjoined-strong in the youth
And heat of zeal-a
dreadful brotherhood,"
were eager for the plunder of more Christian
cities and shrines, and full of fanatic confidence in the invincibility of
their arms.
" Nor were the
chiefs
Of victory less
assured, by long success
Elate, and proud of
that o' erwhelming strength
Which, surely they
believed, as it had rolled
Thus far uncheck' d,
would roll victorious on,
Till, like the Orient,
the subjected West
Should bow in
reverence at Mohammed' s name;
And pilgrims from
remotest Arctic shores
Tread with religious
feet the burning sands
Of Araby and Mecca's
stony soil."
-SOUTHEY'S Roderick.
It is not
only by the modern Christian poet, but by the old Arabian chroniclers also,
that these feelings of ambition and arrogance are attributed to the Moslems who
had overthrown the Visigoth power in Spain. And their eager expectations of new
wars were excited to the utmost on the reappointment by the caliph of Abderrahman Ibn Abdillah
Alghafeki to the government of that country, A.D. 729, which restored them a
general who had signalized his skill and prowess during the conquests of Africa
and Spain, whose ready valor and generosity had made him the idol of the troops,
who had already been engaged in several expeditions into Gaul, so as to be well
acquainted with the national character and tactics of the Franks, and who was
known to thirst, like a good Moslem, for revenge for the slaughter of some
detachments of the True Believers, which had been cut off on the north of the
Pyrenees.
In addition
to his cardinal military virtues, Abderrahman is described by the Arab writers
as a model of integrity and justice. The first two years of his second administration
in Spain were occupied in severe reforms of the abuses which under his
predecessors had crept into the system of government, and in extensive
preparations for his intended conquest in Gaul. Besides the troops which he
collected from his province, he obtained from Africa a large body of chosen
Berber cavalry, officered by Arabs of proved skill and valor ; and in the
summer of 732, he crossed the Pyrenees at the head of an army which some Arab
writers rate at eighty thousand strong, while some of the Christian chroniclers
swell its numbers to many hundreds of thousands more. Probably the Arab account
diminishes, but of the two keeps nearer to the truth. It was from this
formidable host, after Eudes, the Count of Aquitaine, had vainly striven to check
it, after many strong cities had fallen before it, and half the land had been
overrun, that Gaul and Christendom were at last rescued by the strong arm of
Prince Charles, who acquired a surname,(vi)
like that of the war-god of his forefathers' creed, from the might with which
he broke and shattered his enemies in the battle.
The
Merovingian kings had sunk into absolute insignificance, and had become mere
puppets of royalty before the eighth century. Charles Martel, like his father,
Pepin Heristal, was Duke of the Austrasian Franks, the bravest and most
thoroughly Germanic part of the nation, and exercised, in the name of the
titular king, what little paramount authority the turbulent minor rulers of
districts and towns could be persuaded or compelled to acknowledge. Engaged
with his national Competitors in perpetual conflicts for power, and in more
serious struggles for safety against the fierce tribes of the unconverted
Frisians, Bavarians, Saxons, and Thuringians, who at that epoch assailed with
peculiar ferocity the Christianized Germans on the left bank of the Rhine,
Charles Martel added experienced skill to his natural courage, and he had also
formed a militia of veterans among the Franks. Hallam has thrown out a doubt
whether, in our admiration of his victory at Tours, we do not judge a little
too much by the event, and whether there was not rashness in his risking the
fate of France on the result of a general battle with the invaders. But 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. If, indeed, the Arab account of the disorganization of the Moslem
forces be correct, the battle was as well timed on the part of Charles, as it
was, beyond all question, well fought.
The monkish chroniclers, from whom we are obliged
to glean a narrative of this memorable campaign, bear full evidence to the
terror which the Saracen invasion inspired, and to the agony of that great
struggle. The Saracens, say they, and their king, who was called Abdirames,
came out of Spain, with all their wives, and their children, and their
substance, in such great multitudes that no man could reckon or estimate them.
They brought with them all their armor, and whatever they had, as if they were
thenceforth always to dwell in France.(vii)
" Then
Abderrahman, seeing the land filled with the multitude of his army, pierces
through the mountains, tramples over rough and level ground, plunders far into
the country of the Franks, and smites all with the sword, insomuch that when
Eudo came to battle with him at the River Garonne, and fled before him, God
alone knows the number of the slain. Then Abderrahman pursued after Count Eudo,
and, While he strives to spoil and burn the holy shrine at Tours, he encounters
the chief of the Austrasian Franks, Charles, a man of war from his youth up, to
whom Eudo had sent warning. There for nearly seven day's they strive intensely,
and at last they set themselves in battle array, and the nations of the North
standing firm as a wall, and impenetrable as a zone of ice, utterly slay the
Arabs with the edge of the sword."(viii)
The European
writers all concur in speaking of the fall of Abderrahman as one of the
principal causes of the defeat of the Arabs; who, according to one writer,
after finding that their leader was slain, dispersed in the night, to the
agreeable surprise of the Christians, who expected the next morning to see them
issue from their tents and renew the combat. One monkish chronicler puts the
loss of the Arabs at 375,000 men, while he says that only 1,007 Christians fell
; a disparity of loss which he feels bound to account for by a special
interposition of Providence. I have translated above some of the most spirited
passages of these writers; but it is impossible to collect from them anything
like a full or authentic description of the great battle itself, or of the
operations which preceded and followed it.
Though,
however, we may have cause to regret the meagreness and doubtful character of
these narratives, we have the great advantage of being able to compare the
accounts given of Abderrahman's expedition by the national writers of each
side. This is a benefit which the inquirer into antiquity so seldom can obtain,
that the fact of possessing it, in the case of the battle of Tours, makes us
think the historical testimony respecting that great event more certain and
satisfactory than is the case in many other instances, where we possess
abundant details respecting military exploits, but where those details come to
us from the annalist of one nation only, and where we have, consequently no
safeguard against the exaggemtions, the distortions, and the fictions which
national vanity has so often put forth in the garb and under the title of
history. The Arabian writers who recorded the conquests and wars of their
countrymen in Spain have narrated also the expedition into Gaul of their great
emir, and his defeat and death near Tours, in battle with the host of the
Franks under King Caldus, the name into which they metamorphose Charles Martel.(ix)
They tell us
how there was war between the count of the Frankish frontier and the Moslems,
and how the count gathered together all his people, and fought for a time with
doubtful success. " But," say the Arabian chroniclers, "
Abderrahman drove them back; and the men of Abderrahman were puffed up in
spirit by their repeated successes, and they were full of trust in the valor
and the practice in war of their emir. So the Moslems smote their enemies, and
passed the River Garonne, and laid waste the country, and took captives without
number. And that army went through all places like a desolating storm.
Prosperity made these warriors insatiable. At the passage of the river,
Abderrahman overthrew the count, and the count retired into his stronghold, but
the Moslems fought against it, and entered it by force and slew the count; for
everything gave way to their cimeters, which were the robbers of lives. All the
nations of the Franks trembled at that terrible army, and they betook them to
their king Caldus, and told him of the havoc made by the Moslem horsemen, and
how they rode at their will through all the land of Narbonne, Toulouse, and
Bordeaux, and they told the king of the death of their count. Then the king
bade them be of good cheer, and offered to aid them. And in the 114th year(x) he mounted his horse, and he took with him a host
that could not be numbered, and went against the Moslems. And he came upon them
at the great city of Tours. And Abderrahman and other prudent cavaliers saw the
disorder of the Moslem troops, who were loaded with spoil; but they did not
venture to displease the soldiers by ordering them to abandon everything except
their arms and war-horses. And Abderrahman trusted in the valor of his
soldiers, and in the good fortune which had ever attended him. But (the Arab
writer remarks) such defect of discipline always is fatal to armies. So
Abderrahman and his host attacked Tours to gain still more spoil, and they
fought against it so fiercely that they stormed the city almost before the eyes
of the army that came to save it; and the fury and the cruelty of the Moslems
towards the inhabitants of the city were like the fury and cruelty of raging
tigers. It was manifest," adds the Arab, " that God's chastisement
was sure to follow such excesses; and Fortune thereupon turned her back upon
the Moslems. "
Near the River Owar,(xi)
the two great hosts of the two languages and the two creeds were set in array
against each other.
The hearts of Abderrahman, his captains, and his men, were filled with wrath
and pride, and they were the first to begin the fight. The Moslem 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. Night parted the two armies ; but in the gray of the morning the
Moslems returned to the battle. Their cavaliers had soon hewn their way into
the centre of the Christian host. But many of the Moslems were fearful for the
safety of the spoil which they had stored in their tents, and a false cry arose
in their ranks that some of the enemy were plundering the camp ; whereupon
several squadrons of the Moslem horsemen rode off to protect their tents. But
it seemed as if they fled ; and all the host was troubled. And, while
Abderrahman strove to check their tumult, and to lead them back to battle, the
warriors of the Franks came around him, and he was pierced through with many
spears, so that he died. Then all the host fled before the enemy and many died
in the flight. This deadly defeat of the Moslems, and the loss of the great
leader and good cavalier, Abderrahman, took place in the hundred and fifteenth
year."
It would be
difficult to expect from an adversary a more explicit confession of having been
thoroughly vanquished than the Arabs here accord to the Europeans. The points
on which their narrative differs from those of the Christians-as to how many
days the conflict lasted, whether the assailed city was actually rescued or
not, and the like-are of little moment compared with the admitted great fact
that there was a decisive trial of strength between Frank and Saracen, in which
the former conquered. 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.
Charles Martel, and his son and grandson, were left at leisure to consolidate
and extend their power. The new Christian Roman empire of the West, which the
genius of Charlemagne founded, and throughout which his iron will imposed peace
on the old anarchy of creeds and races, did not indeed retain its integrity
after its great ruler' s death. Fresh troubles came over Europe ; but
Christendom, though disunited, was safe. The progress of civilization, and the
development of the nationalities and governments of modern Europe, from that
time forth went forward in not uninterrupted, but ultimately certain career.
SYNOPSIS OF
EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF TOURS, A.D. 732, AND THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS, A.D.
1066.
A.D.
768-814. Reign of Charlemagne. This monarch has justly been termed the
principal regenerator of Western Europe, after the destruction of the Roman
empire. The early death of his brother Carloman left him sole master of the
dominion of the Franks, which, by a succession of victorious wars, he enlarged
into the new empire of the West. He conquered the Lombards, and re-established
the pope at Rome, who, in return, acknowledged Charles as suzerain of Italy.
And in the year 800, Leo III., in the name of the Roman people, solemnly
crowned Charlemagne at Rome as emperor of the Roman empire of the West. In
Spain, Charlemagne ruled the country between the Pyrenees and the Ebro ; but
his most important conquests were effected on the eastern side of his original
kingdom, over the Sclavonians of Bohemia, the Avars of Pannonia, and over the
previously uncivilized German tribes, who had remained in their fatherland. The
old Saxons were his most obstinate antagonists, and his wars with them lasted
for thirty years. Under him the greater part of Germany was compulsorily
civilized and converted from paganism to Christianity. His empire extended
eastward as far as the Elbe, the Saale, the Bohemian Mountains, and a line
drawn from thence crossing the Danube above Vienna, and prolonged to the Gulf
of Istria.(xii)
Throughout
this vast assemblage of provinces, Charlemagne established an organized and
firm government. But it is not as a mere conqueror that he demands admiration.
" In a life restlessly active, we see him reforming the coinage and
establishing the legal divisions of money; gathering about him the learned of
every country ; founding schools and collecting libraries ; interfering, with
the air of a king, in religious controversies ; attempting, for the sake of
commerce, the magnificent enterprise of uniting the Rhine and the Danube, and
meditating to mould the discordant code of Roman and barbarian laws into a
uniform system."xiii
814-888.
Repeated partitions of the empire and civil wars between Charlemagne' s
descendants. Ultimately the kingdom of France is finally separated from Germany
and Italy. In 962, Otho the Great of Germany revives the imperial dignity.
827. Egbert,
king of Wessex, acquires the supremacy over the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
832. The
first Danish squadron attacks part of the English coast. The Danes, or
Northmen, had begun their ravages in France a few years earlier. For two
centuries Scandinavia sends out fleet after fleet of sea rovers, who desolate
all the western kingdoms of Europe and in many cases effect permanent
conquests.
871-900.
Reign of Alfred in England. After a long and varied struggle, he rescues
England from the Danish invaders.
911. The
French king cedes Neustria to Hrolf the Northman. Hrolf (or Duke Rollo, as he
thenceforth was termed) and his army of Scandinavian warriors, become the
ruling class of the population of the province, which is called, after them,
Normandy.
1016. Four
knights from Normandy, who had been on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, while
returning through Italy, head the people of Salerno in repelling an attack of a
band of Saracen corsairs. In the next year many adventurers from Normandy
settle in Italy, where they conquer Apulia ( 1040), and afterwards ( 1060)
Sicily.
1017.
Canute, king of Denmark, becomes king of England. On the death of the last of
his sons, in 1041, the Saxon line is restored, and Edward the Confessor (who
had been bred in the court of the Duke of Normandy) is called by the English to
the throne of this island, as the representative of the house Cedric.
1035. Duke
Robert of Normandy dies on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and
his son William (afterward the conqueror of England) succeeds to the dukedom of
Normandy.
i
Vol. vii., p. 17 et seq. Gibbon's sneering remark, that if the Saracen
conquests had not then been checked, " 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
Mohammed," has almost an air of regret.
ii
" Philosophy of History," p. 331.
iii
" History of the Reformation in Germany," vol. i., p. 5.
iv
" History of the later Roman Commonwealth," vol. ii., p. 317.
v
A Greek quote should appear here.
vi
Martel-The Hammer. See the Scandinavian Sagas for an account of the favorite
weapon of Thor.
vii
" Lors issirent d'Espaigne li Sarrazins, et un leur Roi qui avoit nom
Abdirames, et ont leur fames et enfans et toute leur substance en si grand
plente que nus ne le prevoit nombrer ne estimer. tout leur harnois et quanques
il avoient amenement avec entz, aussi com'me si ils deussent toujours mes
habiter en France."
viii
Tunc Abdirrahman. multitudine sui exercitûs repletam prospicens terram,
&c.-Script. Gest. Franc., p. 785.
ix
The Arabian chronicles were compiled and translated into Spanish by Don Jose
Antonio Conde, in his " Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabos en
España," published at Madrid in 1820. Conde's plan, which I have
endeavored to follow, was to preserve both the style and spirit of his Oriental
authorities, so that we find in his pages a genuine Saracenic narrative of the
wars in Western Europe between the Mohammedans and the Christians.
x
Of the Hegira.
xi
Probably the Loire.
xii
Hallam's " Middle Ages."
xiii
Hallam, ut supra.
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