Muslim World
La Reconquête? The Siege of Barcelona
September 9, 739 - Narbonne
After reconquering Gaul from the muslim invaders, Charles Martel now heads to Hispania, home to tens of thousands of christians, oppressed by their governors.
His first step is the capture of Septimania, which he uses as a point for the movement of supplies. With the autumn coming, he decides to wait until spring for, there yes, go with his army to enter Hispania with the aim of ridding the christians of good faith who live under the islamic terrorists. It will be a long wait, but a necessary one.
March 11, 740 - Barshiluna
Charles arrives in Barcelona, after leaving in march of Narbonne, having a friendly population in the villages in the way of its objective. Barcelona is an important commercial center and city of great christian population, but oppressed, it is his duty to liberate the good christians from the terrible arab dominion.
How many soldiers does the enemy have? He does not know. But he says his 24.000 is enough for now. He arrives taking in Barcelona and the siege begins. But there is a problem, there is no way to block the ports of the city, he can try to assault the city, maybe there are few soldiers there, maybe many. What will he do? Nobody knows, not even him.
April 2, 740 - Barshiluna
It's been 3 weeks since his forces surrounded the city in a futile effort to leave the city without supplies. With each passing day their troops become more tired of waiting and the enemies are more excited because they are still resisting. He thinks what to do for the thousandth time, maybe he can dig a tunnel into the city, but he may collapse while he is still inside, but it may work, but the tunnel is narrow, it would be a great advantage for the defenders. Charles does not know what to do and ends another day after much thought.
There is nothing to do, your best chance is to assault the fortress walls. He orders the catapults to fire and to build siege towers.
May 4, 740 - Barshiluna
It is certainly not going well, this is the third time they have attacked the hole they made in the wall, and this is the third time they are repulsed, always with heavy casualties, there remain only 17.000 men, the garrison of the city is bigger than expected. So far 1 month and 3 weeks have already passed.
But one of his officers gives an idea, his name, Louis Bayeux. He tells Charles his ideas. Apprehensive, Charles Martel accepts.
He orders that 3 merchant ships, which were stationed in Marseilles, be converted to military ships, in addition another 5 will be converted to simple shipping ships.
Charles tells his troops that the siege will be long, with his army he marches through the region in order to spread an image of liberator to the christians, not looting and burning the villages as a conqueror.
Happy, the local people support Martel and his army, they donate some supplies and inform the franks about the rumors of a huge arab army marching towards Barcelona, after hearing several reports and versions of the rumor Martel concludes that it is a force between 20 and 40 thousand soldiers.
Martel will be able to keep his siege for about more 6 months with the provisions he has, the spring still in the middle, it will take much until winter prevents the franks from having their supplies. Despite this, he has to finish the siege before the moors arrive, he estimates that he have about 3 months, this will probably not be enough, he needs to adapt his strategy to something faster. And that's what he'll do.
June 7, 740 - Barshiluna
Soon after the ships are ready, one month after the request of Martel, they arrive at the port of Barcelona. Instead of simply blocking the ports, 600 soldiers are boarded on the ships. Despite this, ships are managed in a way that pretends to block the arrival of resources, despite the number too small for the task.
During the night the 600 soldiers disembark trying to make as little noise as possible, a few minutes later the siege towers begin to move to the walls and the soldiers carry a battering ram toward the gates. Defending soldiers are alerted and awake, bells strike. The garrison of the city is directed towards the walls, no one gives attention to the port.
The defense of the walls goes well, the franks are almost being repulsed, until a surprise force attacks from behind, in several points of the walls the Arab troops are in total chaos and are quickly defeated, but in others not. In this way the soldiers of the northwestern part of the wall can repel the franks easily and begin to assist the forces around them, the result of the battle is uncertain.
The arabs are recovering quickly, the northern section of the wall has been recovered and in the west they are advancing rapidly, the franks are still disorganized, they have just climbed the walls, the concentration of troops is very uneven.
But things do not go on for long, the arabs, after dominating the west wall, are unable to advance further with the arrival of the second round of the assault, so they are retreating and being killed, one by one. Until the end. Finally, after 2 and a half months, the siege of Barcelona ends.
The population welcomes Charles with happiness, seeing the same as the liberator of them, but Martel has little time to celebrate, he suffered severe losses in the siege, and the big moorish army continues to come.