BATTLE OF TOURS The battle of Tours (A.D. 732), sometimes called the battle of Poitiers, marks the turning point in the northern advance of the Moors ; the victory of the Franks checked once and for all the expansion of Islam in western Europe. In 711 the Arabs had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and conquered the weak Visi gothic kingdom of Spain ; a few years later they crossed the Pyrenees, and in 72o captured Narbonne, which became the base for their further progress into Gaul, where the wealth of the churches and monasteries offered a powerful inducement. The plan of extending their power to the north was rendered more possible by the political rivalry which subsisted betweeen the dukes of Aquitaine and the Merovingian Mayors of the Palace. However, in 720, the year in which the Arab attacks began in earnest, Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, had made his peace with Charles Martel, and was therefore free to deal with the impending danger. In 721 he relieved Toulouse, which was being besieged, and won a decisive victory over the Arabs. But after a short respite the attack was renewed in 725. A strong army crossed the eastern Pyrenees, captured Carcassonne and Nimes, and occupied the greater part of the province of Septimania. In the same year they made a raid into Burgundy and destroyed the city of Autun. Internal dissensions among the Arabs themselves, the incessant hostility between the Ma`ddites and the Yemenites, prevented them, however, from following up these successes ; and it was not until the appointment in 731 of the popular and energetic governor of the Yemenite party, `Abd-ar-Rahman, that the offensive was resumed. The situation in Gaul was favourable for the enterprise, for war had once more broken out between Eudo and Charles. With a large army `Abd-ar-Rahman crossed the Pyrenees and cap tured and burnt Bordeaux. Eudo, who hastened to check his ad vance, was defeated, with the loss of the greater part of his army, between the Garonne and the Dordogne. The Arabs pressed for ward, plundering as they went, along the line of the Roman road which ran northward from Bordeaux through Poitiers to Orleans. At Poitiers they destroyed the basilica of St. Hilary; their next ob jective was Tours, whither they were attracted by the immense riches of the famous church of St. Martin. But before they
reached it they were met by Charles, to whom Eudo, despite his previous hostility, had fled for assistance after his defeat.
Charles, at the head of a large army, engaged with the enemy south of Tours, perhaps at the little town of Cenon, near the junction of the Clain and the Vienne, and not far north of Old Poitiers (see the inset map in Spruner-Menke, Plate 29). For seven days the two armies stood facing each other. Then on a Saturday in October the serious fighting began. Charles had taken up a defensive position in close formation. It was the moral and physical superiority of the Teutonic race over the Muslims that won the day. The light Arab cavalry broke before the "immovable wall" of Frankish soldiers who stood, we are told, firm "as a rock of ice" (Isidorus Pacensis). They were hurled back with heavy loss ; `Abd-ar-Rahman himself was killed on the field. Fighting continued till nightfall; and when, on the next morning, the Franks prepared to resume the battle, they found the Arab tents deserted. The Arab losses were very severe.
The battle of Tours is commonly regarded as one of the decisive battles of the world's history. In a sense this is true. It dealt a decisive check to the advance of the Arabs into Gaul. It removed an imminent peril, a constant menace. But there were causes other than Charles's victory which in part account for the cessation of the Arab advance. The revolt of the Berbers in North Africa was as decisive a factor as the battle of Tours in putting an end to the advance of the Arabs into western Europe.