palace by the Austrasian nobles who were looking for a
military leader to counter the Neustrian advance.
In 716, the Neustrians, joined by the Frisians
from the north, fought Charles’s Neustrian army near
Cologne. Having had little time to gather his troops,
Charles was defeated and forced to take flight; he hid
in the Eifel mountains. The Neustrians celebrated their
victory by taking Cologne and installing the Neustrian
king as ruler. On their return home, however, Charles
took them by surprise and defeated them at the Battle of
Amblève (716). He defeated them again at Vincy, near
Cambrai, the following year. He then returned to Co-
logne and dealt with the forces still loyal to Plectrude
before turning north and sending the Neustrians’ al-
lies, the Frisians, back to their coastal territory (today’s
north Holland). He completed the security of Austrasia’s
frontiers by forcing the Saxons back east over the river
Weser.
In 718, worried about Charles’s increasing author-
ity, the Neustrians allied themselves to Aquitaine, and
their combined forces met and were defeated by Charles
at Soissons. The result was that Charles was now ac-
knowledged as mayor of the palace over all the Frankish
kingdoms—but not as king.
From 718 to 732, Charles’s power grew through
a series of victories over the tribes and peoples on the
Frankish frontiers. He attacked and ravaged the lands
of the Saxons as far east as the Weser, the Lippe, and the
Teutoburg Forest. In 719, he occupied West Frisia, in-
troducing Christianity to that country, and then turned
south to invade Bavaria. Further campaigns there in
725 and 728 consolidated Frankish control, and victory
over the Allemani in 730 meant that most of today’s
Germany was also brought under his control. It was
now that Charles prepared for the great battle he had
long expected to fight—the battle for which he is still
remembered.
In the century since the death of Muhammed,
his followers had conquered much of the Middle East,
swept west right across North Africa, and taken Spain.
The forces of the emir of Córdoba had invaded France
from the south in 721 and besieged Toulouse, the major
city of Aquitaine. They had eventually been defeated
by Odo, duke of Aquitaine, and retreated back to the
Pyrenees, but Charles was sure they would return. In
order to meet them, he reintroduced a system last used
by the Romans: a standing army of regular troops. It
had become the practice in Europe simply to gather
such soldiers as one could for a single campaign and
then let them return home once it was over. Knowing
he needed trained, experienced troops to withstand the
Muslim cavalry, Charles recruited soldiers to serve on
a full-time basis. When the emir again marched north
into France, Odo of Aquitaine met them at the Garonne
river but was decisively defeated. The triumphant Arab
forces advanced north and, somewhere between Tours
and Poitiers, met Charles, who had carefully selected the
ground on which his army would fight.
Charles had positioned his army on a hill with a
wood behind them and formed them into a tight square,
similar to the phalanx developed by alexander the
great a thousand years before. On 10 October 732, as-
saulted repeatedly by the emir’s heavy cavalry, his trained
infantry resisted all assaults from the Arabs until Charles
sent some scouts around them to free prisoners in the
Arab campsite. Fearing the loss of the loot they had
taken, many of the Arabs withdrew to safeguard their
belongings. While attempting to rally them, the Arab
commander was killed, and his troops fled in disorder.
Without cavalry and without bows and arrows, Charles’s
infantry had defeated an armored cavalry force that far
outnumbered them. After the battle of Tours, it would
be another thousand years before the forces of Islam
would be so dangerous a threat to Europe (and would be
thwarted by John iii sobieski).
Historians now believe that Charles Martel’s victory
at Tours was due largely to the failure of the Muslim
commanders to realize that they were not facing the un-
trained, tribal forces they had overcome so easily in the
past. They also had not realized that Aquitaine was no
longer just another province to be overrun but part of
a new growing empire with a leader ready to defend it.
Nonetheless, although the emir of Córdoba’s assault on
France had been halted, his forces were still a threat, and
in 736 his army landed on the south coast of France and
proceeded to capture and then fortify towns in Provence.
In 737, Charles—who had strengthened his authority by
occupying Burgundy and subjugating the Frisians, who
had again risen against him—came south to deal once
again with the Arab incursion. Once again the emir’s
generals had underestimated him. In the five years since
the Battle of Tours, Charles had formed a heavy cavalry
force that he had trained to work in close cooperation
with his foot soldiers. The combination was too much
for the emir’s forces, who lost town after town and even-
tually were defeated in a decisive battle at Narbonne. chARleS mARtel