"The events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our
neighbours of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the
Koran."--GIBBON.
The broad tract of champaign country which intervenes between the cities
of Poictiers 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 monotony of the wide-spread
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 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. [Vol, vii. p. 11, ET SEQ. Gibbon's remark, that if the
Saracen conquest 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 Mahomat," has almost an air of regret.] Schlegel
speaks of this "mighty victory" in terms of fervent gratitude; and
tells how "the arms of Charles Martel saved and delivered the Christian
nations of the West from the deadly grasp of all-destroying Islam;"
[Philosophy of History, p. 331.] and Ranke 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, Mahommedanism 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." [History of the Reformation in Germany,
vol. i. p. 5.]
Arnold 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." [History of the later Roman
Commonwealth, vol ii. p. 317.] In fact, the more we test its importance,
the higher we shall be led to estimate it; and, though the 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 mastery
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 fountain
among the rocks, at which each burned to drink.
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 one people, no uniformity of language or habits, had
been established in the country, at the time when Charles Martel was
called on 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
national 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 decided 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 unchequered
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 Mahommed's name;
And pilrims 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 re-appointment 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 valour 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 of Gaul. Besides the troops which he collected from his
province, he obtained from Africa a large body of chosen Barber cavalry,
officered by Arabs of proved skill and valour: 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 Acquitaine, had
vainly striven to check it, after many strong cities had fallen before
it, and half the land been overrun, that Gaul and Christendom were
at last rescued by the strong arm of Prince Charles, who acquired
a surname, [Martel--'The Hammer.' See the Scandinavian Sagas for an
account of the favourite weapon of Thor.] 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, engaged also 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 wide-spread 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 ardour
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 armour, and whatever they had, as if they
were thence forth always to dwell in France. ["Lors issirent d'Espaigne
li Sarrazins, et un leur Roi qui avoit nom Abdirames, et ont leur fames
et leur enfans at touts leur substance an si grand plente que nus ne
le prevoit nombrer ne estimer: tout leur harnois et quanques il avoient
amenement avec ents, aussi comme si ils deussent toujours mes habiter en
France."]
"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 days 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." ["Tunc Abdirrahman,
multitudine sui exercitus repletam prospiciane terram," &c.--SCRIPT.
GEST. FRANC. p. 785.]
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 or 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
instance 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 exaggerations, 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. [The Arabian chronicles were compiled
and translated into Spanish by Don Jose Antonio Conde, in his "Historia
de la Dominacion de los Arabos an Espana," published at Madrid in 1820.
Conde's plan, which I have endeavoured to follow, was to present 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 Mahommedans and the Christians.]
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 valour 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
those 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 scimetars, 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 [Of the Hegira.] he mounted
his home, 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 valour 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, [Probably the Loire.] 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
horseman 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
grey 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 horseman 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 further 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, 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 dominions 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 Saal, the Bohemian mountains, and a line drawn from thence
crossing the Danube above Vienna, and prolonged to the Gulf of Istria.
[Hallam's Middle Ages.]
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 an uniform system."
[Hallam, UT SUPRA.]
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 982, Otho the Great, of Germany,
revives the imperial dignity.
827. Egbert, king of Wessex, acquires the supremacy over the 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 of Cerdic.
1035. Duke Robert of Normandy dies on his return from a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, and his son William (afterwards the conqueror of England)
succeeds to the dukedom of Normandy.