14

Considering how far the Umayyad Empire had come into Europe, and their defeat at the Battle of Tours could they have pushed further into Europe? Did Tours really stop their advance or were there other forces that kept them from further conquest?

Their empire was already large, and it's hard to see how their forces could have continued into the Frankish Kingdoms, and maintain a stable country especially considering they just took Iberia. Looking at later times they had revolts in North Africa they were not in solid control, so if they had spread their forces more they could have fallen swifter and lost European territories if there were revolts. So it looks like they hadn't stabilized control but pressed onwards, yet if they didn't then did they stop to stabilize control of the empire or were there other forces at work?

NSNoob
  • 8,195
  • 1
  • 48
  • 82
MichaelF
  • 7,567
  • 5
  • 40
  • 70
  • I wouldn't consider it unprecedented, see Mongol invasion of Europe - that country was far larger. Depends on what you consider a "country" of course, it clearly couldn't be governed in a centralized way. – Wladimir Palant Oct 14 '11 at 12:37
  • 2
    I was waiting for this question to come out. :-) It's an interesting point of debate. – Noldorin Oct 14 '11 at 12:47
  • My own personal view is that the terrain in France, combined with the military superiority of the Franks and nearby forces (compared to the Visigoths) would have proven extremely costly to the invading Moors had they attempted again. – Noldorin Oct 14 '11 at 12:49
  • That's my thinking, after Iberia the terrain changes a bit, although Hannibal made it across the alps so it's not unprecedented. The Mongol invasion is a good point too. – MichaelF Oct 14 '11 at 14:23
  • 1
    Russia was geographically very open to attack from the east, and militarily at a disadvantage to light cavalry on the steppes of Asia. The more advanced and indeed populous nations of Central and Western European would have posed a much larger challenge, for sure. – Noldorin Oct 20 '11 at 00:28
  • 2
    I’m voting to close this question because counterfactuals are off topic. – Spencer Apr 20 '21 at 21:04
  • 1
    Hard to see where its counterfactual but you could propose an edit if it really bothers you. – MichaelF Apr 23 '21 at 15:49
  • @Noldorin - Not to mention that there was no Russia on the map at that time. What was to become Russia is the geopolitical successor of the Mongol empire, and it couldn't have existed as such (as an Eurasian empire) otherwise. What stopped the Arabs from taking that area before the Mongol is that the Khazars were there and pushed them back in the same way the Franks did in the west. And by the way, maybe even more important: the Arabs also attacked Constantinople by sea and land - and lost (against the "Byzantines"=Romans and Bulgarians). – cipricus Mar 03 '23 at 12:40
  • Arab siege of Constantibople. So what stopped the Arabs is not just the Franks, but also the Byzantines (and Bulgarians) in the Mediterranean and Balkans, and the Khazars in the east. – cipricus Mar 03 '23 at 12:44
  • @Spencer - I don't really know what people that say "counterfactual" on this platform really mean, but I imagine that looking at the consequences of a fact X not being the case in order to ascertain the importance of X is not it. ("If I don't drink water I die") – cipricus Mar 03 '23 at 14:00
  • @cipricus It's more like "if this had happened instead of what actually happened" and the question does exactly that: if they had spread their forces more (i.e. as a result of winning the battle) they could have fallen swifter and this is the whole reason OP questions whether the Battle of Tours was the turning point. – Spencer Mar 03 '23 at 18:20
  • Michael, if you don't want it to be considered as counterfactual, don't propose alternate outcomes. – Spencer Mar 03 '23 at 18:24
  • @Spencer - Then a lot of historical argumentation is meaningless. History is contingency, and analyzing possible outcomes is a must, which doesn't mean that every alternate outcome is possible and makes sense. But not all alternate outcome should be considered "counterfactual" in your sense, just the "alternate for the sake of alternate", like playing with imagination. When related to real facts, when reasonable and meaningful, possibilities that are at play should not be considered "counterfactual" just because they didn't happen. – cipricus Mar 04 '23 at 10:17
  • @cipricus You can certainly argue that in Meta if you like. – Spencer Mar 04 '23 at 18:17
  • @Spencer again propose an edit, it's an 11 year old question. As a Historian questions like this were part of our learning process. Since you took a snippet to make your point, here is my snippet that is my question "did they stop because of the defeat of Tours or were there other forces at work" Which was answered by Tom. – MichaelF Mar 09 '23 at 16:24

3 Answers3

19

During the battle of Tours, the invading Muslim leader, Emir Abd al Rahman was killed, which represented a major setback for them. After winning the battle in 732, the Frankish leader Charles Martel followed up his victory by "cleaning out" Muslim enclaves established in southern France, meaning that they had lost the initiative.

By about 750, the Ummayad Empire had degenerated into civil war, making it possible for Martel's son and grandson, Charlemagne, to push the invaders out of France entirely, and begin pushing them out of northern Spain.

So yes, the battle of Tours represented a bursting of the Ummayad bubble.

Tom Au
  • 104,554
  • 17
  • 253
  • 530
  • 3
    Nice, didn't know about Emir Abd al Rahman being killed - that would definitely be a setback. Thanks. – MichaelF Oct 20 '11 at 12:07
1

As a complementary answer:

While the battle of Tours was an important moment in the Arab expansion into Europe, it was not the only one, for the simple reason that the Arab expansion in that direction (from Africa and the Middle East to the north) was not made (and was not stopped) only there.

I even think that the Frankish victory was disproportionately emphasized by Western historiography until recently against the sieges of Constantinople of 674–678 and 717–718, as if the Franks were the most important European power (which, at that time, they were most certainly not) or even the only European power (in a restrictive, westerly-centered perspective that excludes the Byzantines).

A front where the Arabs were stopped from entering Europe from the east (and from becoming an Eurasian steppe empire in the way that others did before and after the Mongols) is that of the Arab–Khazar wars of c. 642–652 and c. 722–737.

enter image description here

Not only it is doubtful that an Arab victory at Tours would have meant the full conquest of Europe (meaning Franks, Vikings, Saxons, Longobards, and Avars, not to re-mention the Byzantine empire), but the fall of Constantinople or the conquest of the Turkic Khazars (and their possible conversion to Islam) would have surely been much richer in consequences.

cipricus
  • 2,284
  • 15
  • 27
-2

Yes, the Battle of Tours was absolutely a turning point for the Umayyad Caliphate in the year, 732 AD/CE...but it was also, a type of starting point for France, as an early Medieval European civilization-(following the more regionally rooted Merovingian dynastic period).

It was under the leadership of Charles "The Hammer" Martel who was able to prevent further Islamic expansion into France. In doing so, France-(unlike a sizable part of Spain during the Middle Ages), was never Islamized or Arabized and was able to retain both the Catholic Faith and the Latin language-(the French language, to the best of my knowledge, emerged as a conversational/colloquial language later in the Middle Ages).

While I won't necessarily say that Charles "The Hammer" Martel "saved Western civilization" from Muslim expansion, one could say that Charles "The Hammer" Martel certainly helped to preserve and conserve Frankish, Catholic and Western civilization during the Early Middle Ages. His grandson, Carlos Magnus-(better known as Charlemagne), would become the First Holy Roman Emperor and a Carolingian Renaissance based in Aachen, Germany would follow.

If the Umayyads were successful and victorious at the Battle of Tours, it is very unlikely that such an above mentioned historical reality would have ever materialized.

However, as the Umayyads were literally forced over the Pyrenees and returned to Spain, the Umayyad Caliphate began a near 300 year Islamic civilizational flourishment largely based out of the Andalusian city of Cordoba.

Alex
  • 319
  • 1
  • 4
  • At that time there was no "Catholic, western civilization", they were all still gravitating around Byzantium and they were equally "Christian" and "Catholic". While one can argue that things would have been different without the Franks, it seems a bit doubtful that, even defeated at Tours, Franks would have gone out of the picture completely. Maybe one Arab victory in Gauls wouldn't have been enough, But one fall of Constantinople would. Take a look at my complementary answer. Arabs wanted Constantinople as much as the Ottoman did, but were severely beaten. – cipricus Mar 03 '23 at 13:35
  • It is worth considering that the real fall of Constantinople was to the Crusaders (called "Franks" in the east). The city had under one million souls then, and just 20 thousand when the Turks took it. – cipricus Mar 03 '23 at 13:46
  • Thanks for the comments...I'll address each of them individually: – Alex Mar 03 '23 at 19:54
  • I am quite aware of the fact that during the 700's AD/CE, there was no official distinction between Catholicism and Eastern rite/Orthodox Christianity. However, it is not entirely correct to say that "they were equally Christian and Catholic"....that is just not true. The Byzantine East, during the 700's AD/CE, did not view themselves as equal to the Roman Catholic West in a variety of areas.....ranging anywhere from major theological differences, to the maintenance of the earlier Greco-Roman "Classics", and above all, the Byzantines, while viewing Rome as a Sister Church, – Alex Mar 03 '23 at 19:58
  • did not see Rome as an intellectual equal; remember, this was the Early Middle Ages-(the so-called "Dark Ages") and Byzantium, as you are probably aware, was the Center of civilization-(West of Xi'an, China). – Alex Mar 03 '23 at 19:59
  • With regard to Constantinople's vulnerabilities over the centuries, yes, it is certainly true that the Arab Muslims wanted it....and failed to capture, "the City". It is also true that the Vikings also wanted it....and also failed to capture, "the City". The Crusaders did successfully capture Constantinople in 1204-(as well as other parts of greater Greece), and occupied "the City" for about 50 years. While the Crusader-(in reality, the Franco-Crusader) capture of Constantinople was a major setback for the Greco-Byzantines and did seriously weaken its morale and reputation as a Global City – Alex Mar 03 '23 at 20:04
  • it really wasn't a "Fall". By the time the Crusaders left Constantinople, the Turks were already "on the march" though much of Asia and it took them 200 years until they were able to do what others failed to do....which was to capture Constantinople and make it the Capital of their new Turkic Islamic empire. True, the city of Mystras in Southern Greece essentially became the de facto of the Byzantine Empire during its last 200 years and yes, Constantinople's population seriously declined into the tens of thousands compared with its 1 million population at the beginning of the 2nd millennium- – Alex Mar 03 '23 at 20:09
  • making it the largest city in the world, again, with the exception of Xi'an, China). But, having said that, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople had truly devastating effects on "the city"....the biggest devastation perhaps, were the widespread forced conversions of the majority of its Christian inhabitants to Islam-(whereby a small percentage of the Christian population were able, somehow, to resist such a forced widespread policy of Ottomanization and Islamization). And of course, architecturally, the conversion of the Saint Sophia Cathedral into the Ottoman Empire's Central Mosque...... – Alex Mar 03 '23 at 20:12
  • was equally devastating to the remaining Christian population of Constantinople-(and to the wider Greco-Christian population, as well as even including, the sister Eastern rite Christian populations of the Balkans the Middle East). So, I must politely disagree with your statement, though I thank you for your comments. – Alex Mar 03 '23 at 20:14
  • @cipricus: While accurate that the true fall of Constantinople was to the Crusaders: that crusade (as well as the three preceding) was as much a Norman/Late-Viking excursion as it was a Frankish one. – Pieter Geerkens Mar 03 '23 at 22:23
  • I am sorry to differ, but, the true Fall of Constantinople, was in May, 1453 to the Ottoman Turks and not to Frankish Crusaders in the early 1200's. – Alex Mar 04 '23 at 02:53