AHC: Caliphate of Francia

I am thinking of what the other countries in Europe would do, a Caliphate in Western Europe is unbearable! Those Heathens must be shown the Sword of Christ!
 
I am thinking of what the other countries in Europe would do, a Caliphate in Western Europe is unbearable! Those Heathens must be shown the Sword of Christ!
Note that the Caliphate of Corduba was already in Western Europe :D

But i wonder about the capability of reaction of the christian kingdoms in Europe. The biggest bulwark against the Caliphate of Corduba was the Frankish Kingdom itself. Should it fall, or get defeated so thoroughly that it had to accept a permanent muslim presence north of the Pyrinees...

Good news for the Occitan language and literature, though, if it can establish itself as an independent polity!
Oh wait, you said all of modern France.
 
I have my doubts. Tours/Poitiers was a big raid at the largest, and every source I've read on the subject of al-Andalus seems to agree that their expansive potential past the Pyrenees was not great.
 
Note that the Caliphate of Corduba was already in Western Europe :D

But i wonder about the capability of reaction of the christian kingdoms in Europe. The biggest bulwark against the Caliphate of Corduba was the Frankish Kingdom itself. Should it fall, or get defeated so thoroughly that it had to accept a permanent muslim presence north of the Pyrinees...

Good news for the Occitan language and literature, though, if it can establish itself as an independent polity!
Oh wait, you said all of modern France.

Actually, for much of the Medieval period in OTL Occitan was more prestigious throughout Western Europe than the langues d'Oïl in northern France that form the basis of modern standard French. And in TTL any Muslim polity would likely be based out of the south, so... Occitan may still have a pretty bright future if the area isn't Arabized or Berberized...
 
Have a Islamic Caliphate (Umayyad probably most likely) conquered all of modern day France.
Impossible, safe catastrophic collapse of Francia politic entities.

Expanding from Al-Andalus was discussed to death (including a ongoing thread).

In short, Al-Andalus was :
- Too short in men, not having the military ressources to occupy territories north of Pyrénées
- Too divided politically, knowing several revolts (critically at the end of Xth century) and factional infighting
- Not that interested in territorial expansion (rather raidings)
- Having more threatening foes in other places (Fatimids, by exemple)

A decisive Muslim victory at Tours could be a good start.
Not really : Tours, as Huehuecoyotl said, was "only" a big raid. You had Arabo-Berber victories in 725-726 raids, along the Rhone river, without it becoming an Umayyad province (as far as I know). (neither the Umayyad victories in Aquitaine in 730's making it so)
The major difference was the presence of the majordomo, who if he was defeated, may not have the prestige he had IOTL.
But considering the prestige was mostly a self-made historiography, the consequences would be...limited.

Good news for the Occitan language and literature, though, if it can establish itself as an independent polity!.
Occitan language didn't appeared, or more exactly differencied itself from Gallo-Romance continuum before the Xth century. Any conquest, be it implausible, would have consequance on linguistical development.
 
Actually, for much of the Medieval period in OTL Occitan was more prestigious throughout Western Europe than the langues d'Oïl in northern France that form the basis of modern standard French. And in TTL any Muslim polity would likely be based out of the south, so... Occitan may still have a pretty bright future if the area isn't Arabized or Berberized...
Yes, the Provençal lyric was the soul and origin of most of the poetry and literature in western Europe for a few centuries... but the language had bad luck politically speaking.

What i was thinking was kind of like a reversed Hispanic Marque: the Caliphate in the Iberian Peninsula carving out a buffer state in France. The area wouldn't have to be heavily arabized at all: it could be a shallow islamization, not unlike what the Visigothic nobility expected when they sided with the muslims against their own king.

The Occitanian nobility might see the attractive of the idea of being supported by a powerful Caliphate in the south: the Caliphate would be too far away to meddle in the politics of the area as long as they remained loyal (and faithful), but the threat of their military power might be enough to keep the much closer Franks at bay.
 
The Occitanian nobility might see the attractive of the idea of being supported by a powerful Caliphate in the south: the Caliphate would be too far away to meddle in the politics of the area as long as they remained loyal (and faithful), but the threat of their military power might be enough to keep the much closer Franks at bay.

Opposing french and occitan medieval culture, on a linguistic or nationalist base is an huge (as in freaking huge) anachronism.
Medieval culture was based on religion and feudalism, and...that's approximatly all. Sure you had regional features, but they're not really dominant. It's why occitan, or french and italian later, managed to be a "cultural language" present elsewhere in Europe : because it wasn't considered as "national".

Furthermore, when it comes to feudalty and "Arab-friendly" medieval Occitania, allow me to be more than dubious.
We're talking of a region where nobiliar power was extremly divided, basically where feudalism and knighthood (depsite being a quite distinct variant) was present in a more "idealized form". As in, promotion of nobiliar values such as crushing infidels.

Saracenic threat was quite a trend in medieval poetry, and some of occitan inventions on this matter were kept to nowadays (as Bamophet, a concious occitan deformation of "Muhammad").
If we were only to use "gallic" visigothic exemple, we see they eventually preferred to revolt against Arabs (that didn't had the means to effectivly control the countryside past Narbonne) and join with Franks.
 
I am thinking of what the other countries in Europe would do, a Caliphate in Western Europe is unbearable! Those Heathens must be shown the Sword of Christ!

Problem is, there weren't a whole lot of other countries in Europe at this time with any kind of military strength. The Byzantine Empire was pretty much the only other significant European power, and it had its hands full with invasions on the east. If the Arabs somehow manage to conquer the Frankish Kingdom, it would be pretty tough to dislodge them from that territory.
 
I have my doubts. Tours/Poitiers was a big raid at the largest, and every source I've read on the subject of al-Andalus seems to agree that their expansive potential past the Pyrenees was not great.

I've heard these arguments before, but I don't know if I completely buy them. We're talking about a people who, in a span of 100 years, emerged from the Arabian Peninsula to conquer the entire Middle East (save Anatolia), all of North Africa, Persia and Spain. At many points during that century (632-732), one could have argued that they'd reached their expansive limit, but they kept pressing further. Many of their invasions (notably their invasion of Spain) did not involve huge numbers of troops. The invasion of 711 seems more like a raid (fewer than 2,000 initial troops, apparently) than the invasion of 732 (which had anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 troops). If the Umayyads had won at Poitiers, I'm not sure they'd be content to just raid a few towns and then go back to Septimania. Contemporary sources suggest that they were surprised to meet an army of equal size; that sounds to me like they expected a conquest.
 
I've heard these arguments before, but I don't know if I completely buy them. We're talking about a people who, in a span of 100 years, emerged from the Arabian Peninsula to conquer the entire Middle East (save Anatolia), all of North Africa, Persia and Spain. At many points during that century (632-732), one could have argued that they'd reached their expansive limit, but they kept pressing further. Many of their invasions (notably their invasion of Spain) did not involve huge numbers of troops. The invasion of 711 seems more like a raid (fewer than 2,000 initial troops, apparently) than the invasion of 732 (which had anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 troops). If the Umayyads had won at Poitiers, I'm not sure they'd be content to just raid a few towns and then go back to Septimania. Contemporary sources suggest that they were surprised to meet an army of equal size; that sounds to me like they expected a conquest.

The Frankish Kingdom is a whole different matter from the weak and divided Visigothic Kingdom, though. It was more populous and wasn't suffering from a spate of infighting as the Visigoths had been.
 
The invasion of 711 seems more like a raid (fewer than 2,000 initial troops, apparently)
According arabic sources, more like 10 000, reinforced in 712 when Musa and Abd al Aziz arrive.

than the invasion of 732 (which had anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 troops).
Only in hugely inflated sources of Mozarabic Chronicle and later French ones (more the ennemies, bigger the prestige)
The actual consensus is around 10 000, 15 000 at the greatest extent.

That's an huge raid, indeed, but not much differently than the campaigns of 720's (720, 725/726) or even the later expedition (as in 799)

Contemporary sources suggest that they were surprised to meet an army of equal size; that sounds to me like they expected a conquest.
And that's where critical analysis of sources is useful.
First, 20 000 (to say nothing of 80 000) men in a same road in a same place would have been a logistical impossibility.
Then, contemporary sources were something we would call today "propaganda". Charles Martel needed some prestige to get back southern Gaul under Merovingian/Peppinid control. Once he get that, he can not only rival with Odo of Aquitaine (that beneficied from his victory at Toulouse), but use this pretext to pursue the ennemy up to Narbonne in 737 (remember that the raids of 725/726 didn't lead to that).
 
Is there any chance of some claimant to power, with no other hope, asking for Muslim backing? If he had a few landholders with him, there might be a mixed regime for a while, at least.
 
Is there any chance of some claimant to power, with no other hope, asking for Muslim backing? If he had a few landholders with him, there might be a mixed regime for a while, at least.

Well, Mauronte (patrice of Arles) tried to do that IOTL, in 736. Thing is, it caused a swift answer. As in brutal and quick frankish conquest supported by local families.

Of course, you'd say that it worked in Visigothic Spain, but the peninsula was on the middle of a civil war (without clear regional power) and was more close to Arabo-Berber reinforcements.

In Gaul, at the time Arabo-Berbers showed up in Gaul, northern Francia was already unified under Peppinids (since the latter half of VIIth century) when Aquitaine-Gascony formed another unified ensemble.

At this point, only lower Burgundian (aka Provencal) patriciates were independent enough to try such thing. They were also too weak to hold frankish push.
Even in Gothia (Septimania) local landowners preferred to deal with Franks rather than Arabo-Berbers depsite a large autonomy.

It somewhat similar to Peppin II trying to use Vikings to reinforce his claims : not only it led to major outcry (when inviting raiding bands to the party, don't expect them to not raids, or to be badly percieved), but as they had their own agenda, they don't exactly tried to work for such claims.

To say, it's technically possible, but would involve probably only a local claimant without real military weight to realistically hold Franks or even Aquitains.
 

Redhand

Banned
I really question whether the Arab (or more honesty, Berber) cultural assimilationist efforts could work in an area with a climate like Northwest Europe. I know this may be scoffed at but there is something to be said for how the armies of Islamic states had real problems operating outside of arid or at least Mediterranean climactic regions and logistics is not always the cause for this. The use of camels in battle is a good example of this. The superiority of Frankish infantry at Tours made this very apparent.

The population of Frankia is also going to be highly resistant to Islam for social factors such as already having positive political experiences with a different form of monotheism and the completely foreign Islamic views on polygamy, inheritance of land, and the social supremacy of Arabs (this isn't derogatory but rather a fact of life as Arab conquerors would often decide who rules what in terms of whose family came from Medina rather than Cairo).
 
I really question whether the Arab (or more honesty, Berber) cultural assimilationist efforts could work in an area with a climate like Northwest Europe.
Giving the really few occupation, demographically speaking, of northern Spain and Gothia, I doubt you would have a real assimilation, except in major towns. Probably something as Asturias and Galicia, or Pyrenean holdings (As in politically dependent, without real acculturation).

The use of camels in battle is a good example of this. The superiority of Frankish infantry at Tours made this very apparent.
I don't know about use of camels in battle. (Admittedly, you had a know use of camels in Merovingian Gaul, but for trade). As far as I know, horses were used would it be because it's what they found more easily in Europe.

The population of Frankia is also going to be highly resistant to Islam for social factors such as already having positive political experiences with a different form of monotheism and the completely foreign Islamic views on polygamy, inheritance of land, and the social supremacy of Arabs
It did worked in Medieval Spain, with a really limited number of Arabo-Berbers (that were as well more present in some precise regions). You can consider the population being arabized (and not assimilated : you had to wait the early X to have truly assimilated muladi, and after a series of revolt) as for the half of IXth century.

And before the conquest of Spain, the situation wasn't that much different in Southern Gaul and Hispania concerning customs and uses.
 
If muslims are succesful in Sicily, taking Provence from the sea becomes easier, no?

I don't think so. Sicily was quite an isolated (geostrategically speaking) region, and as Al-Andalus, suffering from the same issues : as regular inner divisions, being cut from reinforcement from Ifryqia if independent, threated as a fringe province if tied up with North African dynasties, and regular attacks (Byzantines, Italians, etc.).

The fact Sicily was a bit too peripherical in the Western Mediterranean basin doesn't help.

It was far more easier to get to Provence from Spanish coast, and especially the Balearic Island (that functioned as the base for maritime raids up to the XIIth century), and it was what existed IOTL (it should be noted it was more a fringe outpost, nominally under caliphal authority, but largely autonomous de facto.)

The question isn't to take control of provencal coast, as it was an historical fact, but having an interest to actually conquer the hinterland instead of raiding it.
And the main problem, as always, was the lack of men. Controlling outposts and guarding them is relativly easy, as defense require less troops.

Concerting a maritime offensive, with enough men to hold the territory, hoping there would be no counter-attack...That's another stuff.
 
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