Editing Battle of Tours (section)

==Background==
[[File:The Saracen Army outside Paris, 730-32 AD.png|thumb|upright|The exoticism of the [[Saracen]] army is stressed in this detail from ''The Saracen Army outside Paris'', by [[Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld]], painted 1822–27, which actually depicts a fictional incident from [[Ludovico Ariosto]] (Cassino Massimo, Rome).<ref>The patriotic and religious fresco project and its cultural implications are discussed by Albert Boime, ''A Social History of Modern Art'' 2004, pp. 62ff.</ref>]]

Sources available on ancient battles or those of the High Middle Ages say little on this event. Few Arab authors refer to this episode. Allusions to the battle of Poitiers simply specify that Abd al-Rahman and his companions  experienced martyrdom.

The Latin sources of the eight and ninth centuries are more numerous but remain imprecise. Most chronicles report the event in 732 in brief and similar terms just recalling that Charles fought the Saracens on a Saturday in October. The Annals of Lorsch are more precise.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Notice sur Grégoire de Tours par François Guizot |url=https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/gregoire/fregedaire.htm#V#federation=archive.wikiwix.com&tab=url |access-date=2025-01-05 |website=archive.wikiwix.com}}</ref> According to [[Sigebert of Gembloux|Sigebert de Gembloux]], "duke Odo, inferior to Charles in all respects, brought against him the Saracens of Spain" (Chronica), where the [[Chronicle of Fredegar|Chronicles of Fredegar]] (which he copies) states that "Odo, seeing himself defeated and humiliated by Charles, appealed to the treacherous nation of Saracens."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Goderniaux |first=Alexandre |date=2015 |title=Eique victoria provenit in omnibus. De Charlemagne à Henri IV : appropriations analogiques des exploits militaires des Pippinides et des Carolingiens par Sigebert de Gembloux durant la Querelle des Investitures |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_2015_num_93_3_8804 |journal=Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire |volume=93 |issue=3 |pages=753–769 |doi=10.3406/rbph.2015.8804}}</ref>

The Battle of Tours followed two decades of [[Umayyad conquest of Hispania|Umayyad conquests]] in Europe which had begun with the invasion of the [[Christians|Christian]] [[Visigothic Kingdom]] of the [[Iberian Peninsula]] in 711. These were followed by military expeditions into the [[Franks|Frankish]] territories of [[Gaul]], former provinces of the [[Roman Empire]]. Umayyad military campaigns reached northward into Aquitaine and [[Burgundy (region)|Burgundy]], including a major engagement at [[Bordeaux]] and several raids. Charles's victory is widely believed to have stopped the northward advance of Umayyad forces from the Iberian Peninsula and to have prevented the Islamization of Western Europe.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Ray|first=Michael|date=2019-06-13|title=Battle of Tours|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Tours-732|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190628235956/https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Tours-732|archive-date=2019-06-28|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Bunting|first=Tony|title=Battle of Tours|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Tours-732|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914052141/https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Tours-732|archive-date=2017-09-14|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref>

Most historians assume that the two armies met where the rivers [[Clain]] and [[Vienne (river)|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",<ref>{{harvnb|Wolf|1990|page=145}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Davis-unk">{{harvnb|Davis|1999|page=unk}}</ref>

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 outnumbered the Franks if one counts the outlying raiding parties which rejoined the main body before Tours. Drawing on non-contemporary Muslim sources, Creasy describes the Umayyad forces as 80,000 strong or more. Writing in 1999, [[Paul K. Davis (historian)|Paul K. Davis]] estimates the Umayyad forces at 80,000 and the Franks at about 30,000,<ref name="Davis-unk" /> while noting that modern historians have estimated the strength of the Umayyad army at Tours at between 20,000–80,000.<ref name="Davis-105">{{harvnb|Davis|1999|page=105}}</ref> However, Edward J. Schoenfeld, rejecting the older figures of 60,000–400,000 Umayyads and 75,000 Franks, contends that "estimates that the Umayyads had over fifty thousand troops (and the Franks even more) are logistically impossible."<ref name="Schoenfeld-366" /> Similarly, historian [[Victor Davis Hanson]] believes both armies were roughly the same size, between 20,000 and 30,000 men.<ref name=Hanson>Hanson,  2001</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Hanson|first=Victor Davis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XGr16-CxpH8C|title=Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power|date=2007-12-18|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-42518-8|language=en}}</ref>{{rp|141}}

Modern 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. Davis and Hanson point out that both armies had to live off the countryside, neither having a [[Military logistics|logistical 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."<ref name="home.eckerd.edu">{{Cite web |author=Tom oberhofer |url=http://home.eckerd.edu/~oberhot/moussais.htm |title=battle of poitiers 729 battle of Moussais, battle of Tours, Charles Martel Eudes of Aquitaine, Abd. er-Rahman, medieval warfare |publisher=Home.eckerd.edu |access-date=2012-10-04 |archive-date=2017-02-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202050206/http://home.eckerd.edu/~oberhot/moussais.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

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.{{citation needed|date=October 2018}} 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 ''[[Chronicle of Fredegar|Continuations of Fredegar]]'', attributed the Muslims casualties solely to Charles Martel, and the battle in which they fell became unequivocally that of [Tours-Poitiers]."<ref>Fouracre, 2000, p. 85, citing U. Nonn, 'Das Bild Karl Martells in Mittelalterliche Quellen', in Jarnut, Nonn and Richeter (eds), Karl Martel in Seiner Zeit, pp. 9–21, at pp. 11–12.</ref> 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 region on their way back to Al-Andalus, which implies that they were not destroyed to the extent imagined in the ''Continuations of Fredegar''.<ref>Fouracre, 2000, p. 88.</ref>

===Umayyads===
The invasion of [[Hispania]], and then [[Gaul]], was conducted by the [[Banu Umayya|Umayyad dynasty]] ({{langx|ar|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. The 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.<ref name="Eggenberger, 1985, p. 3">{{harvnb|Eggenberger|1985|page=3}}</ref>

The Umayyad empire was now a vast domain that ruled a diverse array of peoples. It had defeated and completely absorbed the [[Sasanian Empire]], while also conquering much of the [[Byzantine Empire]], including Syria, Armenia, and North Africa, although [[Leo III the Isaurian|Leo the Isaurian]] stemmed the tide when his army defeated the Umayyads at the [[Battle of Akroinon]] (740), their final campaign in [[Anatolia]].<ref name="Eggenberger, 1985, p. 3" />

===Franks===
The [[Francia|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, the Frankish kingdom consisted of north and eastern France ([[Austrasia]], [[Neustria]] and [[Burgundy]]), most of western Germany, and the Low Countries (Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands). This domain 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, or Eudo), Duke of Aquitaine and [[Duchy of Gascony|Vasconia]].

===Umayyad conquests from Hispania===
{{Main|Umayyad conquest of Hispania}}
[[File:Age of Caliphs.png|thumb|The "Age of the [[Caliph]]s", showing Umayyad dominance stretching from the Middle East to the Iberian Peninsula, including the port of [[Narbonne]], c. 720]]
{{Location map many
|France
|label   = Tours
|lat     = 47.393611
|long    = 0.689167
|label2  = Autun
|lat2    = 46.9516666667
|long2   = 4.29944444444
|label3  = Narbonne
|lat3    = 43.1836
|long3   = 3.0042
|label4  = Toulouse
|lat4    = 43.6045
|long4   = 1.444
|border  = 
|caption = Modern-day French borders. Septimania runs along the Mediterranean (southeast) coast from the Spanish border, and Aquitaine is along the Atlantic (west) coast running north from Spain.
|float   = right
|width   = 250
}}
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 without much resistance the cities of [[Alet-les-Bains|Alet]], [[Béziers]], [[Agde]], [[Lodève]], [[Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone|Maguelonne]], and [[Nîmes]], still controlled by their Visigothic counts.<ref name=Meadows>{{Cite web |url=http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199302/the.arabs.in.occitania.htm |title=Ian Meadows, "The Arabs in Occitania", Arab and Islamic Culture and Connections, Saudi Aramco World |access-date=2011-01-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514184310/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199302/the.arabs.in.occitania.htm |archive-date=2011-05-14 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The Umayyad campaign into Aquitaine suffered a temporary setback at the [[Battle of Toulouse (721)|Battle of Toulouse]]. [[Odo the Great|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 and raiding into [[Burgundy]] in 725.<ref name=Meadows/>

Threatened by both the Umayyads in the south and by the Franks in the north, in 730 Odo allied himself with the Berber commander [[Munuza|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 the Moors ceased their raids across the [[Pyrenees]], Odo's southern border.<ref name=Meadows/> However, the next year, the Berber leader killed the bishop of Urgell Nambaudus and detached himself from his Arab masters in Cordova. Abd Al Raḥman in turn sent an expedition to crush his revolt, and next directed his attention against Uthman's ally Odo.<ref>{{harvnb|Collins|1989|page=89}}</ref>

Odo collected his army at [[Bordeaux]], but was defeated, and Bordeaux was plundered. During the following [[Battle of the River Garonne]], the ''[[Chronicle of 754]]''<ref>Previously attributed to [[Chronicle of 754|Isidorus Pacensis]], [[Bishop of Beja]]&nbsp;– see, O'Callaghan, 1983, p. 189.</ref> commented that "God alone knows the number of the slain".<ref>''{{lang|la|Solus Deus numerum morientium vel pereuntium recognoscat}}'' {{harvnb|Wolf|1990|page=144}}</ref> The chronicle added that 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 set about reorganizing his troops despite his heavy losses, and gave the Frankish leader notice of the impending danger to the heartland of his realm while appealing 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 peoples|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 on his own, 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 wagons 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 harvest had been stored.

Odo was defeated so easily at Bordeaux and Garonne, despite winning eleven years earlier at the Battle of Toulouse, because at Toulouse he had 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 completely by surprise, resulting in the 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, had [[Great Stirrup Controversy|no stirrups at that time]] and therefore no heavy cavalry. Most of their troops were infantry. The Umayyad heavy cavalry broke Odo's infantry in their first charge and then slaughtered them as they fled.

The invading force went on to devastate southern Gaul. A possible motive, according to the second continuator of the ''[[Chronicle of Fredegar]]'', were the riches of the [[Abbey of Saint Martin of Tours]], the most prestigious and holiest shrine in western Europe at the time.<ref name="Riche, 1993, p. 44">Riche, 1993, p. 44.</ref> 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.