Arabs vs Vikings in France

Very vague knowledge here but question:

Say the manage to win at Tours, the big problem is that their supply lines cannot extend to the Rhine, right? But what if they could extend their supply lines, say through Italy? They couldn't get Constantinople, could they try to get Italy instead? An assault via Sicily or the Alps could be possible and would allow them control of the Mediterranean.
 

Dirk

Banned
Sorry, I though you meant that I had got the Anglo-Saxons v Vikings and Franks-Arabs out of sync. However, although I mentioned Alfred the Great I meant the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and the Vikings generally, not Alfred specifically. I mentioned him to show what was going on in the British Isles at the same time as the Arabs advancing to the Rhine and how they might effect each other.

That's alright, sorry if my own reply seems somehow harshly worded, I just didn't know what you meant. Anyway, I'd say that such a heavy Arab presence in France would worry the Pope, to the point where he would submit to Constantinople again and apply for help from the Iconoclasts there. The Byzantine Emperors, while more focused on the East, still would have liked (I assume) to become the political bigwigs in Italy, and this would be a chance for them to do so.

Other than that there's no help for the Franks but themselves (no small help, considering how fertile the land was, and that the Muslim force at Tours was only a tentative raiding party), any Italians that might join up, and the dubious help of Anglo-Saxons and Celts in Britain, who are divided fighting each other. The same goes for the Franks as well. Without a great victory for Charles Martel the dukes remain mostly autonomous, the Aquitainians probably assert their independence, and the Christian world remains divided.
 
No. Spain is the farthest Arabs can reach. They can't advance to the Rhine, they can't conquer France or Occitania. Northern Spain is full of mountains. It's very hard to control it but you can prevent the Reconquista if Al-Andalus does not balkanise

Very vague knowledge here but question:

Say the manage to win at Tours, the big problem is that their supply lines cannot extend to the Rhine, right? But what if they could extend their supply lines, say through Italy? They couldn't get Constantinople, could they try to get Italy instead? An assault via Sicily or the Alps could be possible and would allow them control of the Mediterranean.


I do not know I always wonder where this problem with "supply lines" come from.
I mean do you seriously think that the Arab Army came all the way from Arabia or Syria to France? Thus overstretching "supply lines" for three thousand miles or what?
No, it was a local enterprise. As the conquest of Spain was a local enterprise of the North African Arabs/Berbers. No problem of any 'supply lines". Actually Caliph did not know that he conquered Spain till almost the conquest was already over.

And the conquest of the Southern France might be just a local enterprise of the Spanish Arabs/Berbers with the help from some willing Muslim adventures from the North Africa. Just the usual pattern of conquest.
 
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