THE SALVATION OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION ON OCTOBER 10, 732 AD
On this day, October 10th, 1,290 years ago in central France a few miles north of the town of Poitiers, two armies met with the fate of Western Civilization at stake.
On a forested hill stood 30,000 Christian knights led by their king Charles Martel (688-741) awaiting the onslaught of an invading horde of 60,000 Islamic Jihadis determined to extinguish Christianity from all of Europe and replace it with their Religion of the Sword.
For the last hundred years, they had exploded out of the wasteland of Arabia to conquer the Christian Middle East, Zoroastrian Persia, and all of Christian North Africa from Egypt to Morocco. For the last twenty years after crossing the Strait of Gibraltar in 711, they had swept through the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal in Islamic conquest of the ruling Christian Visigothic Kingdom.
In just six years (711-717), Islamic armies had reached the Pyrenees, the mountainous border between Spain and France. Pouring through them, for the last 15 years they had been steadily seizing more and more of Christian France – old Roman Gaul. Now Gaul was ruled by the Franks, who had been fervent Christians ever since their Founder King, Clovis (466-511), was baptized in 496.
Thus it was that on this day almost 13 centuries ago, all that stood between the Islamic horde and conquering all of Europe was this infidel army half their size that didn’t even have any cavalry – most all of their soldiers fought on foot. Surely the infidels would be annihilated as all their enemies had from Persia to the Pyrenees.
As Gibbon noted, had the Moslems won this day, all of Europe would have been Islamized and Western Civilization would have been extinguished. The famous passage from Book 7 of his masterwork, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire describes the consequence had the Christians lost:
“A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames.
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 Mohammed.”
Yet it was the Moslems who lost, not the Christians on this historic day, thanks to the military genius of Charles the Hammer. Forcing the Moslems uphill through the trees, the broadswords of his knights slashed through the horses’ legs with the horseless Moslems slaughtered on the ground. With that, the knights charged out of the trees and down the hill to start carrying the day.
When the Moslem commander Abdul Rahman Al-Ghafiqi was cut down, Charles ordered his men to spread the rumor with laughter that part of the Christian army was now in the Moslems’ tents taking away all the treasure and booty acquired in plundering and sacking such cities as Bordeaux.
The Islamic soldiers panicked with the sight of their dead commander, and worse, that all their stolen loot was about to be stolen away from them! They fled in fear and greed back to their camp in the twilight. Eager to resume the battle the following dawn, Charles and his Christian army found the Moslem camp empty. The defeated invaders had stolen away in the night, so quickly they left behind all their stolen treasure.
The number of Moslem invaders or “Saracens” as they were known back them, killed was in countless thousands. The number Christians killed was recorded at about 1,500.
Why this momentous event is called The Battle of Tours more popularly than The Battle of Poitiers is odd, as the battle site of Moussais la Bataille is ten times closer to Poitiers (11 miles) than Tours (111 miles). Maybe it’s just the euphony.
In any regard, Charles made sure to follow up with additional crushing victories at Arles in 736 and Narbonne in 737 to ensure France and all of Europe beyond was preserved from Moslem conquest. It is little wonder that Charles is known to history as Charles Martel – Charles the Hammer.
Charles reigned over France which became the Carolingian Empire (named after him). His grandson Charlemagne (747-814) transformed it into the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted for 1,000 years.
He is buried along with all Kings of France in the Royal Tombs of the Basilique Saint-Denis in Paris.
So on this day of October 10, let us raise a glass in thanks and appreciation to Charles the Hammer, savior of Europe, Christendom, and Western Civilization!