Re: Yesterday
The most common response is that this was the high-water mark of Islam in Europe. This “turned the tide in the undeclared war against Western Europe.” If the battle had not been won, the path would have been clear for an advance through.
Europe. As Edward Gibbon’s famous line runs, “A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammed.”(PBUH)
However, Abd-er-Rahman’s men were equipped for raiding, not invading. They might have been able to succeed in conquering some of the cities but would have had no way of holding them, although it is true that this was the bulk of the Frankish (French) army, and the path would have been cleared for a big invasion.
Could the Franks, if they had lost, regrouped and pushed back the Moslems? Sir Edward Creasy disagrees, saying, “It is unlikely a lesser man could have succeeded where his superior had failed.” That is likely true, but the Moslems would have had severe trouble with peasant revolts. Creasy himself says in his book when describing why Charles went after Abd-er-Rahman so quickly: “So dreadful and so widespread were the ravages of the Saracenic light cavalry throughout Gaul, that it must have been impossible to restrain for any length of time the indignant ardor of the Franks.” The Moslems would not have been able to hold France for long without sufficient military dictatorship. The same would likely be true throughout the rest of Europe.
Could the Moslems, after having lost, regrouped and reinvaded? We must remember that it was never the intent of the Moslems to invade. It was only to pillage and loot. And likely all future invasion plans were put on hold when it was seen how bravely the Franks resisted the charge of the cavalry. A monkish chronicler states that 375,000 Arab horsemen died in the battle ; while this is obviously an exaggeration, even Arab accounts state that many Arabs died in the battle, and it would have been hard to recruit and train more horsemen. In addition, within 50 years the Umayyad dynasty crumbled, and internal strife within the empire would have prevented any further campaigns. Likely they would not even have the time to consider, much less the troops to accomplish, a reinvasion.
So perhaps, as William E. Watson wrote, “the importance of the Battle of Tours has been greatly exaggerated over the passage of time, and that the only reason it's noteworthy of all, is that after the conclusion of this battle, Muslim invasions of Western Europe ceased.” Yet, that was important. A boundary was now clearly set between Christian and Moslem, and aside from the Spaniards taking back their homeland, the Crusades, and the fall of the Byzantine Empire, there would be no further conflict between the two. Both religions were left to develop and to nurture cultures. And, as is so often mentioned in analyses of the battle, this ensured that Christianity, not Islam, would be the dominant religion in Europe, and by extension the New World. All invasion plans of Europe were destroyed along with much of the Arab army in this battle.