IF THE MOORS HAD WON THE BATTLE OF TOURS
The most tremendous contingencies in all history--the determination of
the fate of whole continents, whole civilizations, by a single
incident--are sometimes the occurrences that are most completely and
signally ignored by the ordinary citizen. For instance, it does not
occur to the man on the street that but for a turn in the tide of battle
on a certain October day in the year 732, on a sunny field in
northern-central France, he, the man on the street, would to-day be a
devout Mussulman, listening at evening for the muezzin's call from a
neighboring minaret, abjuring pork and every alcoholic beverage, and
shunning stocks and all kinds of speculation as prohibited forms of
gambling.
Islamism would to-day, but for a single hard-fought battle and its
issue, probably be the established form of religion in all Europe. Even
England would have been unable to resist the onset of the impetuous
Arabs, once they had established themselves in triumph from the Tagus to
the Vistula; and the conversion of all Europe would have carried with it
the Moslemizing of the new world--supposing, indeed, that America had up
to this time been discovered under Moorish auspices, which is unlikely.
Europe was certainly nearer to conquest by the Moors in the eighth
century than most people suppose. There are few finer or more heroic
episodes in history than the extraordinary series of conquests by means
of which, a handful of fanatical Arabs, inspired by the prophet
Mohammed, carried, with fire and sword, the faith of Islam over the
world, until, within two hundred years of the date of the prophet's
birth, it reigned from the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the
Indus. Horde after horde of impetuous warriors of the Crescent had
arisen. Their purpose, frankly, was to convert the world, and convert it
by force. Cutting themselves off from their bases of supply, and relying
upon an alliance of miracle and rapine to sustain them, their triumphant
campaigns were one continuous and colossal Sherman's march to the sea.
They struck Europe at the east, and also by way of the west. Greek fire
checked them at the gates of Constantinople in the east, but they
overran all northern Africa, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and
flowed like a torrent over Spain and southern France. By the year 731,
as Gibbon truly says, the whole south of France, from the mouth of the
Garonne to that of the Rhone, had assumed the manners and religion of
Arabia.
Abd-er-Rahman, the conqueror, reigned supreme in southwestern Europe.
Spain and Portugal had been annexed to Asia, and now the turn of France
had surely come.
But at this crisis a heroic figure arose in Europe--scarcely an elegant
figure, though a picturesque one. The throne of the Franks had been
seized by an illegitimate son of old King Pepin, a rough and heedless
fighter, whose rule pleased the people better than did that of the
priests and women whom Pepin had left behind him. This bloody-handed
usurper was named Charles, or Karl, and he was destined afterward to be
called Martel, "the Hammer," on account of the iron blows that he struck
upon all who faced him.
Abd-er-Rahman, the victorious Moor, advanced into northern France,
overthrowing armies with ease, and sacking cities, churches and convents
as he marched. Nothing could stay him, as it appeared. He had planted
the standard of the prophet at the gates of Tours, which is one hundred
and thirty miles, as the crow flies, from Paris. But meantime the
usurping and base-born Charles, in command of a small army mostly
composed of gigantic and well-seasoned German warriors, was sneaking
along, like an Indian, under the shelter of a range of hills, toward the
Saracen camp; and one day, to Abd-er-Rahman's great surprise, Charles
fell upon him like a veritable hammer of red-hot iron.
Not in one moment, nor in one day, was the issue decided. Six days the
armies fought, and through all Abd-er-Rahman and his fanatical horde
held their own. But on the seventh day Charles led a battalion of his
biggest, fiercest Germans straight against the Moorish center.
Abd-er-Rahman himself was slain; his army, appalled by this
circumstance, was broken and beaten, and faded away toward the South.
Charles Martel made sure his victory by another successful campaign. The
Moors were driven out of France forever. In their stead Charles himself
reigned. He had saved Europe to Christianity. Yet for his lack of
docility, the church execrated him.
If Abd-er-Rahman had overrun France, as he would surely have done if a
less redoubtable and terrible antagonist than Charles Martel had faced
him at Tours, he would next have turned his attention to Germany. With
its fall, Italy and Rome would have invited his attention. There he
would have found few but priests to oppose him, and the empire of the
East, attacked in the rear as well as in the front, would speedily have
succumbed. No Saint Cyril would have gone forth to convert the Russians
and Bulgarians, who would promptly have been Tartarized.
As we have seen, nothing could have saved England or Ireland. The
prophet's world-conquest must have been accomplished.
What then? Would the western world have remained at the stage of
cultivation in which we see Arabia to-day? There is no reason to suppose
that that would have been quite the case. It was not so in Moorish
Spain, which rose to a high level of culture. Christianity would not
have been suppressed. It was not suppressed in Turkey or Spain. But it
would probably have been ruled, dominated, forced into odd corners, and
to some extent Moslemized. Learning would not have languished, for in
certain important forms it flourished in Spain. The western brain, the
Aryan genius, must have had its way in many intellectual respects. Yet
the cast of European thought would surely have been sicklied over with
oriental contemplativeness.
The "hustler" never could have existed under Moslem rule. The speculator
never would have risen, because he would not have been tolerated. The
Moslem doctrine forbids censuses and statistics, treating them as a form
of wicked curiosity concerning the rule of God on earth. Pictorial art,
and sculpture, which the Koran regards as idolatrous, would have been
sternly repressed. Literature would have been great along the line of
poetry; science great along the line of mathematics.
The western woman would have been orientalized. So far from forming
clubs, she would not have been permitted even to pray in the mosques.
America would have remained undiscovered for centuries; and if at last
accident or search had laid it bare, it would have followed the path of
Europe. The mellifluous tones of the muezzin's cadence, "La ilah 'i il
'Allah," "There is no god but God," would echo now where the shouts and
yells of the Wall Street speculators reverberate. And the abode of the
mighty would have been a House of Quiet, not the home of strenuousness.