How Historically Significant Was the Battle of Tours?

How Historically Significant Was the Battle of Tours?

  • The historical significance of the Battle of Tours is very high

    Votes: 19 24.1%
  • The historical significance of the Battle of Tours is pretty high

    Votes: 29 36.7%
  • The historical significance of the Battle of Tours is right in the middle

    Votes: 15 19.0%
  • The historical significance of the Battle of Tours is pretty low

    Votes: 14 17.7%
  • The historical significance of the Battle of Tours is very low

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Total voters
    79

Anaxagoras

Banned
Before the late 20th Century, generations of historians looked upon the 732 (or was it 733?) Battle of Tours as one of the decisive battles in the history of the world, claiming that it halted the Muslim advance into Europe and saved Western Christendom from Islamic conquest. Gibbon, Creasy, and many other famous historians subscribed to this point of view. In recent years, however, there has been a rising counter voice, with some historians claiming that the battle was actually of relatively minor importance.

What is the board's view on this debate? How historically significant was the Battle of Tours?
 
Historians are probably correct when they point out that the invasion of Gaul that led to the battle of Tours was only a massive raiding party, though I will point out that this is how most of the Islamic conquests in North Africa and Hispania were achieved. If the battle had been won, Islam would have been a much more significant force in mainland Europe, though it is hard to predict what would have happened if the battle had been won by the Muslims.
 
Historians are probably correct when they point out that the invasion of Gaul that led to the battle of Tours was only a massive raiding party, though I will point out that this is how most of the Islamic conquests in North Africa and Hispania were achieved. If the battle had been won, Islam would have been a much more significant force in mainland Europe, though it is hard to predict what would have happened if the battle had been won by the Muslims.

This is the best way to put it, in my opinion.

So I voted in the middle. If it had been lost, the consequences could be very serious - potentially even if the Muslims don't come back, as it would break Martel and his supporters, and that would leave a void where they were OTL, with all sorts of interesting consequences.

But calling it "Very decisive" implies that the Fate of Western Civilization stood on it, and while I can argue for the second one if necessary, it just doesn't seem like it would be quite that extreme.

On the other hand, to look at the idea of it not being decisive at all, its hard to see how a major defeat here would not be a problem for the Franks - at the very least, internal chaos is fun!, and at most the Muslims can seriously consider coming back.

One thing that we forget when rating Europe as a backwater is "compared to what?" Compared to Arabia or Mongolia, even the underdeveloped Western Europe is a prize. Sure no one would choose Gaul (not yet France) over Constantinople, but that's not the situation, necessarily.

So I think if the Franks lose, the odds that there will be a Muslim presence in Aquitaine are good enough to be worth considering it not happening to matter, though "Tours is lost = Western Civilization is overrun completely" is a bit much even if we assume they go after Gaul in full. There are other leaders and such, sooner or latter the Muslims will run into one, or some other reason.

Hope this makes sense.
 
Tours, like the Battle of Tallas, simply settled an existing boundary. Unlike Tallas a defeat at Tours could have dramatic impacts on European civilization, including adding another violent, religious-war happy monotheism into the mix. If Tours is lost, all of Europe will not be Muslim, it's too cold and too full of smelly barbarians for the Muslims to really bother. The absence of the Carolingians, however, butterflies away the entirety of early Medieval politics as we know it.
 
Tours, like the Battle of Tallas, simply settled an existing boundary. Unlike Tallas a defeat at Tours could have dramatic impacts on European civilization, including adding another violent, religious-war happy monotheism into the mix. If Tours is lost, all of Europe will not be Muslim, it's too cold and too full of smelly barbarians for the Muslims to really bother. The absence of the Carolingians, however, butterflies away the entirety of early Medieval politics as we know it.

When religion is involved, rational considerations like climate and smelly barbarians tend to go out the window.

Even if practicality prevents the establishment of Arab cities on the Rhine or Baltic, the more appropriate parts of France can be settled and used as bases for missionary work and punitive expeditions.

Europe could still be Muslim, even if it doesn't go Arab.
 
I opted for pretty rather than very high because Tours was fought c.732, less than 20 years before the overthrow of the Omayyad dynasty and the Civil War that led to the Abbasids dominating the Islamic World. Although the Omayyads ruled on in Iberia, their state, while wealthy was not as powerful as a united Islamic polity. Granted, if the Omayyads had been even more successful on the battlefield they might have retained control of Southwest Asia longer, but given corruption, discrimination against converts to Islam etc, it still seems like a civil war was in the offing.
Therefore I think it unlikely that territory beyond the Pyrenees would have been conquered, and that the most significant effect of an Islamic victory at Tours might have been enduring Muslim domination of the Mediterranean.
 
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I opted for pretty rather than very high because Tours was fought c.732, less than 20 years before the overthrow of the Omayyad dynasty and the Civil War that led to the Abbasids dominating Islamic World. Although the Omayyads ruled on in Iberia, their state, while wealthy was not as powerful as a united Islamic polity. Granted, if the Omayyads had been even more successful on the battlefield they might have retained control of Southwest Asia longer, but given corruption, discrimination against converts to Islam etc, it still seems like a civil war was in the offing.
Therefore I think it unlikely that territory beyond the Pyrenees would have been conquered, and that the most significant effect of an Islamic victory at Tours might have been enduring Muslim domination of the Mediterranean.

Would they need control of a united Islamic polity to continue? Would Muslim equivalents to the Norman conquest of Sicily/southern Italy (which is to say, individual ambitious Muslims and their warbands) be impossible?

That's a problem in a situation where the Franks are weakened.
 
Elfwine said:
So I think if the Franks lose, the odds that there will be a Muslim presence in Aquitaine are good enough to be worth considering it not happening to matter, though "Tours is lost = Western Civilization is overrun completely" is a bit much even if we assume they go after Gaul in full. There are other leaders and such, sooner or latter the Muslims will run into one, or some other reason.
In addition, the Muslims could not strategically maneouvre the way they had in North Africa and Spain. Just too many rivers and forests. Any cavalry army would have had the same problem. Raids in and out, yes. Permanent conquest, a lot more difficult.

In addition, to date the Muslims had been cutting up dying empires (Byzantines, Sassanids, Visigoths). The Franks were a different of kettle of fish. They were slightly on the up and fighting on their own terms.
 
Toynbee did this one in A Study of History.

FWIW, he thought the Moslems might take southern Gaul but not penetrate north of the Loire. The main effect is to cut off the Christian Principalities in Spain, so they are absorbed by Al-Andalus, and the boundary between Christendom and Islam settles down permanently on either the Loire or the Pyrenees. He also saw the Lombards and the Pope having to place themselves under Byzantine protection, and a Western Church being based on Iona rather than Rome.

L Sprague de Camp borrowed this notion for The Wheels of If.
 
From the Muslim point of view I'd say that it mattered very little; already strains in expansion were evident in Spain, where Christian kingdoms in the north simply refused to give up and, coupled with existing Arab-Berber tensions, were causing Iberia to turn into a cauldron of troubles already. France cannot be held. If Charles Martel lost at Tours, the Muslims would most likely have to turn back to Spain soon after anyways, probably after looting some city or some such.

The Arabs had already reached their limits. Tours was proof that it had already happened, not the cause of the end itself.
 
If Charles Martel lost at Tours, the Muslims would most likely have to turn back to Spain soon after anyways, probably after looting some city or some such.

Yet they held a province north of the Pyrenees (Septimania) for a generation even after losing Tours.

After winning it, they might hold more (up to Bordeaux maybe?) and tighten their grip on Spain, esp if the Frankish kingdom is permanently weakened..
 
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In addition, the Muslims could not strategically maneouvre the way they had in North Africa and Spain. Just too many rivers and forests. Any cavalry army would have had the same problem. Raids in and out, yes. Permanent conquest, a lot more difficult.

In addition, to date the Muslims had been cutting up dying empires (Byzantines, Sassanids, Visigoths). The Franks were a different of kettle of fish. They were slightly on the up and fighting on their own terms.

Despite the fact that a cavalry army would take, rule, and fight over Gaul, or are we forgetting about French chivalry?

Its not as if Gaul is nothing except a massive forest and uncrossable rivers.

As for dying empires: The Byzantines may have been greatly weakened, but they weren't "dying". I'm making this point because while the Arabs do overrun the southern provinces (Syria, Palestine, Egypt...), they are mostly kept out of Anatolia except for raids.
 
The significance of the Battle of Tours does not lie in checking an Islamic invasion. If it had been lost and the others won, nothing would change. in itself, it had a very limited impact. Of course, had all defensive efforts in Gaul gone wrong, it is very possible that the country would have been conquered, but that is a much wider POD than Tours.

The real importance lies in the value it had for Charles Martel as a propaganda tool and for establishing his presence in Aquitaine. Tours was much more important for the Arnulfing dynasty than for the survival of Western Christendom.
 
Tours was a battle of relatively low importance, especially when compared to happenings in Central and Eastern Europe, Sicily and Constantinople, respectively.

The two successive defeats the Caliphate suffered at Constantinople were of massively, massively greater macrohistorical importance.
 
When religion is involved, rational considerations like climate and smelly barbarians tend to go out the window.

Even if practicality prevents the establishment of Arab cities on the Rhine or Baltic, the more appropriate parts of France can be settled and used as bases for missionary work and punitive expeditions.

Europe could still be Muslim, even if it doesn't go Arab.

Not really. Even the Conquistadors didn't take places that were harsh in terrain and filled with hostile natives for irrational reasons. Europe is unlikely to be Muslim in the entire, but Christianity won't be homogenous and there's the possibility that Western Europe's Jews might actually not be expelled in the very long term. Muslims didn't do that shit, Christian Europeans did.
 
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