Most events are transitory. Some change history.
The battle of Tours-Poitiers changed history. Historian Edward Gibbon has said, “If the battle had turned out differently, we might now be teaching interpretation of the Koran at Oxford”.
In 711 Abdur al-Rahman led his Muslim forces over the Pyrenees to invade Gaul. They had already conquered the middle-east, northern Africa, and Spain,
Europe was next.
In Gaul the irresistible force of Islamic expansion met
the unmovable force of Charles Martel’s army.
The fiercely fought battle of Tours-Poitiers ended Islam’s hope of extending their Caliphate into Europe. Abdul’s men fled the field, never to return. The man most responsible for the rout was described as both brilliant tactician and brutal warrior.
Charles Martel was so called because the word, martel, in old French, meant, hammer.
He was a hard man. He was also a smart man. He had
a way with timing and maneuver that made him de-facto master of all the Frankish kingdoms.
He was also innovative. Part of his battlefield success was due to his use of cavalry. He recognized early-on how the weight of cavalry could be used to turn the tide of battle.
Had he known about stirrups he would have been even more effective. Stirrups weren’t introduced into European calvary until a little before 1266 when William the Conqueror proved the value of stirrups at the Battle of Hastings.
Without the stirrup, jousting would probably never have amounted to much beyond laughable tumbles from precarious saddles.
Charles extended his contribution to Western Civilization by being father to the Carolingian dynasty, and grandfather to Charlemagne - the first Holy Roman Emperor.
It’s a great trick to know at any given time what will matter,
and what won’t.
Charles Martel - Hammer of the Moors