October 732
Forces Engaged
Franks: Unknown. Commander: Charles Martel.
Moslems: Approximately 20,000-80,000. Commander: Abd
er-Rahman.
Importance
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.
Historical Setting
During 717–718, Moslem forces tried and failed to capture
Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. That was a major setback for
the Moslems, whose forces (intent on spreading their faith) had been virtually
unstoppable in conquests that spread Islam from India to Spain. Although that
defeat kept the followers of Mohammed out of eastern Europe for another seven
centuries, it must have motivated other Moslems to attempt to spread the faith
into Europe via another route: North Africa into Spain into western Europe.
Moslem forces had spread across the southern Mediterranean
coast through the later decades of the seventh century and in the process of
converting their conquered enemies absorbed them into the armies of the
faithful. In North Africa, some of the most ardent converts were Moors (called
Numidians by the Carthaginians of Hannibal’s time), the Berbers of modern
Morocco. In 710, Musa ibn Nusair, Moslem governor of the region, decided to
attack across the Straits of Gibraltar and raid Spain. Without ships, however,
he turned to Julian, a Byzantine official, who loaned him four ships. Julian
did this because of a grudge he bore against Roderic, the Visigoth king that
ruled in Spain. With four ships able to carry 400 men, Musa launched a raid
that netted him sufficient plunder to whet his appetite for more.
In 711, he ferried 7,000 men across the straits under Tarik
ibn Ziyad. Although this was originally intended to be simply a larger raid,
Tarik’s victory over Roderic opened the Iberian peninsula to Moslem troops.
Within a year, Musa was back in command and master of Spain. Recalled to the
Middle East by the caliph, Musa’s successor, Hurr, pushed deeper into Spain and
through the Pyrenees into the province of Acquitaine during 717–718. Over the
next several years, Moslem power ebbed and flowed through southern, central,
and even northern Gaul (France).
The arrival of the Moslems was fortuitously timed, as
internal feuds divided the population of Gaul. The dominant population, the
Franks, were in a slump. Upon the death of Pepin II in 714, the Frankish throne
was disputed between Pepin’s legitimate grandson and illegitimate son. Eudo of
Acquitaine saw an opportunity to escape Frankish domination, so he declared his
independence and received in return the wrath of Charles Martel, Pepin’s
illegitimate son who finally succeeded to the throne in 719. After defeating
Eudo, Charles then turned toward the Rhine River to secure his northeastern
flank. He made war against the Saxons, Germans, and Swabians until 725, when
Moslem successes in southern Gaul diverted his attention.
While Charles was off fighting in Germany, Eudo feared for
his future because he was located between aggressive Moslems to the south and a
hostile Charles to the north and east. Eudo entered into an alliance with a
renegade Moslem named Othman ben abi Neza, who controlled an area of the northern
Pyrenees. That alliance provoked Abd er-Rahman, Moslem governor of Spain, who
marched against Othman in 731. After defeating him, Abd er-Rahman decided to
drive deeper into Gaul, spreading Moslem influence and, more importantly,
looting the wealthy Gallic countryside. He defeated Eudo at Bordeaux and
proceeded north toward Tours, whose abbey was reputed to hold immense wealth.
To spread as much terror and accumulate as much loot as possible, Abd er-Rahman
divided his army, probably some 80,000 strong, into several columns and sent
them pillaging.
Eudo fled to Paris, where he met with Charles and begged his
aid. Charles agreed on the condition that Eudo would swear loyalty and never again
try to remove himself from Frankish dominion. With that promise, Charles
gathered together as many men as he could and marched toward Tours.
The Battle
The army that Charles amassed was probably some 30,000 men,
a mixture of professional soldiers whom he had commanded in campaigns across
Gaul and Germany and a mixed lot of militia with little weaponry or military
skills. The Franks were hardy soldiers that armed themselves as heavy infantry,
wearing some armor and fighting mainly with swords and axes. How much the
Franks depended on cavalry has been disputed, for infantry had long dominated
the European battlefield, and cavalry was only at this time becoming common.
The strength of both infantry and cavalry was their determination in battle,
but their weakness was their almost complete lack of discipline. Further,
Charles lacked the wherewithal to maintain any sort of supply train, so his
army lived off the land.
The army he marched to face was made up primarily of Moors
who fought from horseback, depending on bravery and religious fervor to make up
for their lack of armor or archery. Instead, the Moors fought with scimitars
and lances. Their standard method of fighting was to engage in mass cavalry
charges, depending on numbers and courage to overwhelm any enemy; it was a
tactic that had carried them thousands of miles and defeated dozens of
opponents. Their weakness was that all they could do was attack; they had no
training or even concept of defense. They, like the Franks, lived off the land.
The two armies approached each other in the early autumn of
732. Abd er-Rahman’s army had succeeded in plundering many towns and churches,
and they were overwhelmed with their loot. They met in an unknown location
somewhere south of Tours, between that city and Poitiers. Abd er-Rahman was
surprised by the arrival of the Franks. Exactly how large the opposing forces
were is the point of much disagreement. The Moslem army is numbered by modern
writers as anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000, whereas the Frankish army has been
described as both larger and smaller than those numbers. Abd er-Rahman faced a
dilemma: to fight, he would have to abandon his loot, and he knew that his men
would balk at that order. Luckily for him, Charles did not attack, but merely
kept his distance and observed the Moslems for about a week. Abd er-Rahman used
that break to send men south with the loot, where they could recover it after
they beat the Franks. In the meantime, Charles was awaiting the arrival of his
militia, whom he used primarily as foragers for his fighting men and less as
fighters themselves.
After 7 days of waiting, watching, and certainly a bit of
probing by both sides, Abd er-Rahman felt his loot sufficiently safe to focus
on the battle. The exact date of the battle is unknown, although some sources
(Perrett, The Battle Book) name 10 October. Charles knew the nature of the
Moslem fighting style, and he had just the troops to counter it. As the Moslems
massed to launch their charge, Charles formed his men into a defensive square
made up primarily of his Frankish followers, but supplemented with troops from
a variety of tribes subject to the Franks. No detailed account of the battle
exists, but later reports relate that the Moslem cavalry beat unsuccessfully
against the Frankish square, and the javelins and throwing axes of the Franks
inflicted severe damage on the men and horses as they closed. The Moslems,
knowing no other tactic, continued to attack and continued to fail to break the
defense. Isidorus Pacensis wrote staunch Frankish square: “The men of the North
stood 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
[Franks from the German frontier], vast of limb, and iron of hand, hewed on
bravely in the thick of the fight.” It was this display of strength that earned
for Charles his nickname Martel, or “the Hammer.” Eudo, fighting with Charles,
led an attack that turned the Moslem flank; they either panicked or feared for
their loot. Creasy (Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, p. 166) quotes a
Moslem source: “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.” The
departure of some of the cavalry apparently had a bad effect on the rest, and
the Moslem effort collapsed.
At day’s end, the Moslems withdrew toward Poitiers. Charles
kept his men together and did not pursue, thinking that the battle would resume
the following day. In the night, however, the Moslems learned that Abd
er-Rahman had been killed in the fighting, so they fled. When the Franks found
the Moslem camp empty of men the next morning, they contented themselves with
recovering the abandoned loot. No accurate casualty count for either side was
recorded.
Results
Survivors of Abd er-Rahman’s army retreated back toward
Spain, but they were not the last Moslems that ventured across the Pyrenees in
search of easy wealth. They were, however, the last major invasion. Pockets of
Moslem power remained along the southern frontier and Mediterranean coast until
759, but, for the most part, Islam settled into Spain and went no farther.
Although the effectiveness of Charles Martel’s tactics was certainly a factor,
it was internal struggles within Islam that limited continued expansion. When
factional fighting broke out in Arabia, the effects spread throughout the
Moslem empire. This not only divided the fighting forces, it also isolated the
Moslem occupants in Spain from any religious leadership from the Middle East.
Thus, consolidation seemed preferable to expansion.
Had the Moslems been victorious in the battle near Tours, it
is difficult to suppose what population in western Europe could have organized
to resist them. On the other hand, Abd er-Rahman’s force was rather limited,
and the religious schism that flared soon after the battle could well have
stopped his campaigning as effectively as did the Franks. Thus, 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. For a couple of centuries, the ruling Merovingian dynasty
had produced young, weak kings that ceded much of their ruling power to men who
held the position of majordomo, or mayor of the palace. As the representative
from the king to the aristocracy, the majordomos were able to coordinate public
activity more than order it. By the time of Pepin II, however, the role of the
majordomo was virtually indistinguishable from that of the king, and the
monarch ruled in name only. Indeed, Charles was majordomo without a king, and
upon his death in 741 his sons claimed kingship and divided the realm between
them. During this same period, the aristocrats began exercising hereditary
rights to their lands, rather than receiving their positions at the king’s
pleasure. This was the start of the feudal era, which dominated European
society for centuries. To exercise control over these aristocrats, Charles
Martel also granted land in payment for military service rendered, but to
acquire that land he had to take it from the greatest landowner, the Catholic
Church. That earned him the displeasure of Rome, but similar actions on the
part of Charles’s grandson actually brought the military power of the Franks
and the religious authority of the church closer together. His grandson was
also called Charles, later termed “the Great,” or Charlemagne. Under his rule,
the Franks rose to their greatest power both politically and militarily.
The nature of the European military changed after this
battle. The concept of heavy cavalry was forming in the eighth century. The
introduction of the stirrup made stability on horseback possible, and stability
was vital for both carrying an armored rider and using heavy lances. The age of
the armored knight, a fighting machine that was both the result and the
foundation of feudalism, was being born. Although infantry remained key to
winning European battles, it was paired with or subordinated to cavalry from
this point until the fifteenth century.
Thus, the establishment of Frankish power in western Europe
shaped that continent’s society and destiny, and the battle of Tours confirmed
that power.
References:
Creasy, Edward S. Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. New
York: Harper, 1851; Dupuy, R. Ernest, and Trevor Dupuy. Encyclopedia of
Military History. New York: Harper & Row, 1970; Fuller, J. F. C. A Military
History of the Western World, vol. 1. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1954;
Gregory of Tours. History of the Franks. Translated by Ernest Brehaut. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1916; Oman, Charles. The Art of War in the
Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1953 [1885].
