Battle of Tours

Battle of Tours

The battle of Tours is also known as “The battle of Poitiers”. It was just one episode during a period of huge events, yet its description as 'the breaking of the tidal wave of Islamic expansion in Western Europe', remains essentially accurate. What is less justified is the belief that Charles Martel, the Frankish commander, somehow 'saved Western Christian civilization' from destruction. In reality, the wave of Arab-Islamic expansion that began in the mid-7th century AD was already drawing to a halt not only in Europe but also in the Caucasus, Central Asia, India and Africa. The expansion of Islam had been the most dramatic event of the 7th and early 8th centuries AD, and had recently incorporated both the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania, in what is now southern France.

The two opposing force in the battle were Christians and Muslims. The governors of Christian forces are: Charles Martel, according to the medieval “Chronicle of Saint-Denis”, Charles Martel got his nickname because: 'as a martel [hammer] breaks and crushes iron, steel and all other metals, so did he break up and crush his enemies'. He was born around 688 AD.

Eudes first appeared in the records as 'Eudo, prince of the province of Aquitaine' around the year AD 700.

Thierry IV was the nominal Merovingian king of Neustria and Burgundy at the time of the battle of Poitiers, ruling from AD 720 until 737.

The governors for Muslim force were Abd al-Rahman Ibn Abd Allah al-Ghafiqi, (referred to as Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi) commander of the army that invaded France in AD 732 was, as his name indicated, from the Ghafiq clan, one of the Arab clans or sub-tribes that settled in al-Andalus at an early date.

Abu'l-Walid Hisham Ibn Abd al-Malik was the tenth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty. Usually known simply as Hisham, he was born in Damascus in AD 691.

The original Berber name of Munusa, Munuza or Manussa may have been Manresa he is described him as a great persecutor of the Christians during the early years of his career.

For Charles Martel, the Muslim incursion into the principality of Aquitaine, and from there towards Tours, threatened to destroy one of the Merovingian Kingdom's most sacred shrines and was a potential challenge to the integrity of the Regnum Francorum - the Frankish Kingdom. Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi's campaign of AD 732 was not intended to conquer France, still less to overrun Christian Europe. It was merely a razzia or raid, though a substantial one, and as such was within an established Umayyad strategy of sending repeated small-scale attacks in which each army consisted only of what was necessary for its limited aim. Campaigns on other peripheral fronts, ranging from Central Asia to India and the Sudan, employed the same cautious category. Nevertheless, the Arabs lost their famous strategic mobility in mountains, marshy terrain and forested landscapes. They would clearly do so in AD 732.

The main event was approaching its culmination between the Clain and ...