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Concept
Battle of Tours
Summary
The Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of the Highway of the Martyrs (Maʿrakat Balāṭ ash-Shuhadā'), was fought on 10 October 732, and was an important battle during the Umayyad invasion of Gaul. It resulted in the victory for the Frankish and Aquitanian forces, led by Charles Martel, over the invading Muslim forces of the Umayyad Caliphate, led by Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, governor of al-Andalus. Several historians, such as Edward Gibbon, have credited the Christian victory in the battle as an important factor in curtailing the Islamization of Western Europe.
Details of the battle, including the number of combatants and its exact location, are unclear from the surviving sources. Most sources agree that the Umayyads had a larger force and suffered heavier casualties. Notably, the Frankish troops apparently fought without heavy cavalry. The battlefield was located somewhere between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, in northern Aquitaine in western France, near the border of the Frankish realm and the then-independent Duchy of Aquitaine under Odo the Great.
Al-Ghafiqi was killed in combat, and the Umayyad army withdrew after the battle. The battle helped lay the foundations of the Carolingian Empire and Frankish domination of western Europe for the next century. Most historians agree that "the establishment of Frankish power in western Europe shaped that continent's destiny and the Battle of Tours confirmed that power."
The Battle of Tours followed two decades of Umayyad conquests in Europe which had begun with the invasion of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom of the Iberian Peninsula in 711. These were followed by military expeditions into the Frankish territories of Gaul, former provinces of the Roman Empire. Umayyad military campaigns reached northward into Aquitaine and Burgundy, including a major engagement at Bordeaux and a raid on Autun. 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.
Official source
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