Let's talk about how important this battle was to the establishment and longevity of Europe as we know it today
>>1213745
It wasn't, not in a grand Christains vs Muslims sort of way.
Tours was a raiding party that was already heading back south when it was defeated. And the Umayyads mostly spread by colonizing, not raiding, and they had stopped that particular mode of advance well to the south, and didn't really have the population base to continue northwards.
Plus, you know, it was about a fifth of the size of the major battle between Christians and Muslims going on over in Byzantium.
Tours's principal importance was for how it solidified Charles Martel and the Carolingians in general, and for what they in turn would do for France. But in an ultramacrohistorical view? It wasn't that big of a deal, and Creasy (sp?) is an idiot.
>>1213745
Tours wasn't about anything as grand as establishing Europe nor something as mundane as a raiding party. It was a battle to settle which invader would claim hegemony over Aquitaine: the northern Franks or the southern Moors.
The actual result of the battle wouldn't change had the Moors won. Rather than decades of devastating suppression and raids into Southern France by the Carolingians, there might have been decades of the same from Arab-Berbers while the native lords and bishops of the region relied on mercenaries from the opposite side to defend themselves.
>>1213745
Don't really understand what's going on in that portrait. Where are the muslims? Why are the European looking dudes in the middle looking to strike each other?
>>1213807
No other leader in Europe at the time was as good as Charles Martel. If he had died at tours than all of Francia would have eventually fallen to the moors. He was the only one capable of unifying the other lords, not too mention he was the only one in Europe with a professional standing army. No one in Europe had heavy Calvary, only the moors.
Meme battle
>woo hoo, we beat a scouting party
>>1213845
This. The raiding party meme needs to die. The moors were already taking cities in southern Francia before and after tours, they clearly had intentions to take It over.
>>1213845
>Implying the Moors brought 50,000 men.
If you believe the Moorsih sources (and believing just one interested party at face value is always a dumb idea) then they claim they started that campaign with 50,000 men. They also note that some went home when their service terms were up, and while it's not mentioned, you'd have inevitable losses due to disease, desertion, other skirmishes since you know they were on campaign for some time, later than usual.
Now add in that the Moorish force was predominatnly cavalry, and thus not the sort of people that you used for siege works or occupation. They weren't traveling with a baggage train, and timed their march north to coincide with the harvest so they'd have something to live off the land when they moved around. As a corollary of that, it also means that they'd have no food once the season ended, and would have to turn back at that point anyway.
It was a fucking raid. A large one, but a raid. And yes, the evidence points to that.
>>1213860
whooops, misquoted, the post is meant for
>>1213845
And I guess
>>1213855
The forces that mauled the crap out of Odo and were taking places like Bordeaux and Tolouse were not directly connected with the party that moved out into Tours. For instance, the 721 battle of Tolouse featured an almost entirely infantry force out of the Moors, with lots of engines and foreign mercenaries to help in the dirty work of the assault. The composition of what they were bringing to Tours was way different.
The "raiding party" meme needs to die. You have to have some kind of agenda to say 50k troops is a "raiding party".
The Battle of Tours completely reversed the momentum in the war between Christians and muslims for control over western Europe. Within 50 years Charlemagne was marching into Spain and muslims were steadily being expelled from Europe.
Of course there were other factors that contributed to their decline but it's just so ridiculous that people think if the muslims kept winning battles they would have for some reason decided to stop annexing territory when that's never been the way that any muslims have operated anywhere in the world throughout history. The Mughals, the Turks, Persians, Umayyads, Timurids, every single muslim nation in the pre-modern world had a society that was completely based around territorial expansion and subjugation of other groups through war, pillage, slavery and forced religious conversions, and when they could no longer win battles against those they wished to subjugate they began to stagnate and turn to infighting.
Saying the battle of Tours doesn't matter would be like saying the Ottomans were just out camping during the siege of Vienna and they never really intended to conquer the city, or they were just out innocently sight-seeing before the Italians set upon them in the Battle of Lepanto; I'm sure Mehmed II was only joking when he called himself the King of Rome.
>mfw Muslims captured Iberia because of mutinous men
Why was Roderic betrayed?
>>1213807
>being conquered by Muslims is no different than being conquered by a Christian king
Fuck off with your cultural relativism
>>1213918
>Within 50 years Charlemagne was marching into Spain and muslims were steadily being expelled from Europe.
Marching in unsuccesfully that is, and the real reconquista only long after Charlemagne
>>1214331
It doesn't matter that he didn't succeed, the point is that the paradigm shifted after the Battle of Tours from large arab "raids" into Christian lands, to large Frankish "raids" into the lands controlled by muslims.
There were no significant, successful arab offensives against Christians in Western Europe after the Battle of Tours. It was the turning point in the conflict; after this battle the muslims only lost land in the west, never gaining anything.
>>1213962
Cause the Witizan party wanted the sons of Witiza reigning.
>it's a "leftists claim that Muslims dindu nuffin, that they woulda stopped violently conquering and subjugating Christians if they'd won the battle, and that Tours wasn't important because 'muh raiding party'" episode
>>1214518
>Is another "Charles saved the day even if he attacked Odo, the guy who actually stoped Muslims in Western Europe before it was cool" episode.
>>1213860
Even if it was just a "raiding party", if the moors had won that battle they would have been unstoppable in Francia. They fought the only unified ruler with the best army in Western Europe, it was the only chance Francia had at stopping the moors. If Charles Martel had lost than the kingdom would have divided and the seperate kingdoms would have been taken one by one, just like what was happening in southern Francia at the time. Personally I think the moors were trying to draw out a large Francia host so that they could crush them, making their future invasion plans much easier without having to worry about sieges being lifted.
>>1213918
>the war between Christians and muslims for control over western Europe
There was no such thing. It was a period of personal ambition and realpolitik. That's why the campaign that led to the Battle of Tours started when a Muslim governor of northeastern Spain allied through marriage the duke of Aquitaine, with pledges to protect one another not only from Abderahman but Charles Martel himself.
>The Mughals, the Turks, Persians, Umayyads, Timurids, every single muslim nation in the pre-modern world had a society that was completely based around territorial expansion and subjugation of other groups through war, pillage, slavery and forced religious conversions
You have no idea what you're talking about. Of the above, only the Mughals, Seljuks, and Timurids are alike and were expansionist, religiously domineering societies, and they had something in common: they appear centuries after the early Arab conquest period. The Ummayads and Muslim Persians of this early era where not alike, and were not based on territorial expansion but centralizing imperialism. Comparing them to the Ottomans is absolutely ridiculous.
>>1213918
Then where was the moorish baggage train?
