Remembering the Battle of Tours

botThe month of October marks the anniversary of an epic event that unfortunately is no longer widely known but which nonetheless shaped the future of the Western world, and which may still hold inspiration for the West today.

After the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in 632, Islam spread like a bloody tide throughout the Arabian peninsula, north to the Caspian Sea and east through Persia and beyond, westward through Egypt and across North Africa all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. From there it crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and consumed all of the Iberian peninsula, or al-Andalus as the Saracens called it. In a mere one hundred years, Muhammad’s aggressive legacy was an empire larger than Rome’s had ever been.

By 732 that fallen Roman empire had devolved into a patchwork of warring barbarian tribes. When Abd-ar-Rahman, the governor of al-Andalus, crossed the Pyrenees with the world’s most successful fighting force and began sweeping through the south of what would become France toward Paris, there was no nation, no central power, no professional army capable of stopping them.

No army except one – led by the Frankish duke Charles, the eventual grandfather of Charlemagne. His infantrymen, as Victor Davis Hanson puts it in a fascinating chapter of Carnage and Culture, were “hardened veterans of nearly twenty years of constant combat against a variety of Frankish, German, and Islamic enemies.” Hanson writes that the Roman legions had crumbled “because of the dearth of free citizens who were willing to fight for their own freedom and the values of their civilization.” But Charles had spirited, free warriors under his command who were willing.

Sometime in October (the exact date is disputed), on the road between Poitiers and Tours (and so it is sometimes called the Battle of Poitiers) less than 175 miles from Paris, Abd-ar-Rahman arrayed his cavalry against Charles’ solid block of Frankish footsoldiers, which at 30,000 was by some estimates half the size of the Arab and Berber army (Hanson speculates that the armies were more evenly matched).

The opposing forces sized each other up for a full week. And then on Saturday morning Abd-ar-Rahman ordered the charge. But his cavalry, which counted on speed, mobility, and terror to defeat dying empires and undisciplined tribes, could not splinter the better-trained and better-armed Frankish phalanx. At the end of the day’s carnage, both sides regrouped for the next day’s assault.

But at dawn, Charles and his men discovered that the Muslim army had vanished, leaving the booty stolen from ransacked churches behind, as well as 10,000 of their dead – including Abd-ar-Rahman himself. It was not the last Muslim incursion into Europe, but it was the beginning of the end.

Some contemporary historians downplay the magnitude of the Muslim threat, claiming that Abd-ar-Rahman’s force was only a raiding party. They minimize the significance of the battle’s outcome, too; at least one historian even claims that Europe would have been better off if Islam had conquered it. But Hanson notes that “most of the renowned historians of the 18th and 19th centuries… saw Poitiers as a landmark battle that signaled the high-water mark of Islamic advance into Europe.” Edward Creasey included it among his The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. Many believe that if Charles – whom the Pope afterward dubbed Martel, or “the Hammer” – had not stopped Abd-ar-Rahman at Tours, there would have been nothing to prevent Europe from ultimately becoming Islamic. Edward Gibbon called Charles “the savior of Christendom” and wrote in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776 that if not for Charles’ victory, “perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford.”

If only Gibbon could see Oxford now. Not only is the interpretation of the Koran taught there, but Islam thrives in Oxford, thanks partly to the patronage of dhimmi Prince Charles. In his essay “Islam in Oxford,” faux moderate Muslim scholar Muqtadar Khan writes smugly that “Gibbon would have been surprised to learn the lesson that military defeats do not stop the advance of civilizations and the globalization of Islam is unimpeded by the material and military weaknesses of the Muslim world.”

Apart from his dubious suggestion that Islam has anything to do with the advance of civilization, Khan is right. Today the Islamic invasion of Europe and the rest of the West is of the demographic, not military, sort. The continent faces an immigration crisis from at least one generation of young Muslims, many of whom not only are willfully unassimilated, but who are waging cultural and physical aggression against their hosts, establishing parallel communities ruled by sharia and “no-go” zones of violence toward infidels. “Nothing can stop the spread of Islam,” insists Islamic apologist Reza Aslan. “There are those who would try, but it simply will not happen. Absolutely nothing can stop the spread of Islam.”

But Charles Martel begged to differ in 732. The tide was turned back then, and if necessary it can be turned back again, by new Martels. The conflict is different now – it’s far from being as straightforward and elemental as two armies facing off – and so those new Martels won’t necessarily be soldiers. They will also be culture warriors and activists and ordinary citizens willing to put themselves on the front lines against this new incursion. We need “free citizens willing to fight for their own freedom and the values of their civilization” – as Charles Martel and his warriors once were.

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  • ML NJ

    In 732 at the Battle of Tours,
    Charles Martel defeated the Moors.

  • bob e

    oo rah for the charles the ‘hammer’ .. may we see him again soon ..

    • bob smith

      You missed the point made in the summary. Charles is in all of us who cherish our value system and culture.

      It is we who must be seen and seen now. I constantly challenge any and all politicians at every level of government on the issue of immigration and the threat Islam poses to our way of life. I speak straightforward to anyone on the need to stop immigration from all MUSLIM lands. What do you do? Wait to see people like me do something?

      • bob e

        i am of the same mind .. believe me

        • bob smith

          i believe you, no doubt. I just feel strongly that we must be vigilant to put ourselves forward at every instance to let all political stripes know that these muslims are not welcome and neither is their cultish islam

  • Hard Little Machine

    And they’re still mad about that.

  • objectivefactsmatter

    This is the plague we have yet to defeat.

    • Race_Dissident

      And infinitely more contagious than Ebola.

  • DowntotheBone

    “By 732 that fallen Roman empire had devolved into a patchwork of warring barbarian tribes.”

    Mr. Tapson, I’m sure you’d agree that it would be reasonable to insert “Western” between “fallen” and “Roman” in the sentence above; since the Eastern (Byzantine) Roman Empire endured for another 700 years (admittedly as a rump state for its last century or so) after the Battle of Tours.
    The Byzantine Empire, although it lost a great part of its territory and population to the barbarians in the decades after 632; still did more than a little to slow down the advance towards Europe of the barbarians from Arabia/the Middle East.
    That aside, I completely agree that the Battle of Tours (Poitiers) was one of the defining/decisive battles in history, and was essential for the up-to-now survival of Civilization against barbarity.

    • tagalog

      By 732, the Roman Catholic Church was providing local leadership, the peoples of Europe were beginning to be called “Europi” (or something similar) because they were identified collectively. The claim of ongoing barbarian societies in constant warfare with one another is an exaggeration. The Franks and the German tribes had long been Christian.

      • Gary_L_Thompson

        It is true that Constatinople held on to Asia Minor centuries longer than Rome did Italy in the 400s after the outlying regions of the empire fell. However, the reasons for the Muslims meeting little resistance in the Fertile Crescent and North Africa were much the same as for the barbarians pouring across the frontiers. The reasons for the fall of Rome (destruction of family, socialism and high taxation, corruption, change of climate, etc.) were myriad and could (and have) take up whole volumes. However, the lack of “free citizens willing to fight for their own freedom and the values of their civilization” pretty much sums up the root of all the causes in one sentence (it was some revival of this in the rump Byzantines that allowed them to hold out as long as they did).

        From the day the Romans gave up on their Republic in favor of giving all power to a First Citizen, the Emperors could only delay the day of reckoning once the Roman people lost any personal stake in preserving their society. Unfortunately, the Ceasar (czar, kaiser) model persisted in Europe for millennia after, and the failure to understand that the replacement of bottom-up patriotism with top-down despotism being the root cause in Rome’s fall was the primary factor in the continuing failure to put Rome back together (Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler, even today’s EU technocrats). It explains how British and Japanese convinced they had a stake in the future of their small island nations could push around giant empires like Russia and China around a century ago. Unfortunately for the Axis, they failed to recognize the United States was a different animal from these empires, that the Ivy Leaguers’ efforts to warp the U.S. into a top-down bureaucratic state had progressed so poorly that there were still millions of “free citizens willing to fight for their own freedom and the values of their civilization” willing to march against them. Fortunately for Islam and unfortunately for western civilization, those American Progressives have made considerable progress since then in dismantling the foundations of the American Republic that still poses the greatest danger to the enemies of western civilization.

  • herb benty

    You see EU men turned into mush by PC socialism, EU men sitting on their hands while EU women and girls are raped by muslim “immigrants”, en masse. Is that America, Canada? I don’t think so, I for one will go on a rampage if our women begin to be raped by friggin muslims. Death to Islam!

    • Race_Dissident

      EU “men”? Please.

      • cajunwarthog

        And to think that so many of our “elected” want America to be more like Europe.

      • Michael Garfinkel

        Euro-Metro Sexuals?

    • http://southernrunner.blogspot.com loseyateefa

      This is what happens in the decades AFTER gun bans. This behavior can thrive when no one has easy access to firearms. Most of Europe has done away with individual gun ownership. That observation ALONE should be enough to argue for our 2nd Amendment Rights. I guess they forgot how to use spears, knives and machetes….. or don’t want to see the blood.

      • herb benty

        Well dear, That is a fact! With the Muslim threat, black gangs and vicious illegals, I can see why the commie Democrats wanted White, Christian, Conservative, Patriotic Americans stripped of protection! I don’t believe commies stop their nefarious activities, so, it may come to blood.

        • hopkins

          I certainly agree that guns make sense now more than ever before. I used to wonder if it was really necessary, without coming to a conclusion when I was sort of center liberal. The Europeans have been stripped of their guns in the age of Islamic fascism – they did not see it coming, as I did not either. Who could have imagined it in the age of stampeding toward a better world? Now guns make a lot of sense, and it is a crime that Britain is not armed. The muslims have machetes but the Brits have nothing. This will become more and more apparent to them. I think that even many centrist liberals will wake up to this. The black gangs and the muslims are more than enough reason to make guns perfectly sensible. History keeps repeating itself.

          • herb benty

            Up here in Canada, the “Progressives” ruled for many years. Ironically, the right-wing party is called the, “Progressive Conservative” party, and no, it is not the way your Democrats use the word. In Canada, and the world in the ’40′s, it meant progress, implying one who progresses. The difference of course is, progressing to what? In the old days it meant to Prosperity, Peace through Strength, Advances in all good endeavours. The Western Left, using PC and Alinski, hid their communism behind the word, Progressive”. And yes, gun ownership up here is made difficult, but not impossible. Every sane, responsible citizen should own weapons, we will need them. Our present, great PM, Stephen Harper has made “long gun” ownership, much easier, God Bless him.

          • paendragon

            Harper’s party dropped the word “Progressive” and so it’s now only the “Conservative Party of Canada.”

            It is almost impossible to own a gun in Canada, because all a cop needs to deny you a possession and acquisition license is for YOU to be attacked by someone else (so you can be labeled as having “been involved” in “an altercation”). Then they can slander you as being a potential “Danger To The Public Safety” (whatever THAT is) just on their say-so.

            Oh, and since Harper just signed the CETA global free trade deal, which allows foreign COMPANIES to sue Canada for work they have NOT done here, he’s basically sold the citizens out by selling the country off to the corporazi globalists, so I wouldn’t ask God to bless him just yet!

          • herb benty

            I live in British Columbia laddie, and own 2 weapons- and not a perfect record either. Harper hasn’t “sold the citizens out” to some trade deal. Lefties always accuse any right-wing led trade deal a “sell-out”, but not if a leftist gov’t signs it. There are no “corporazi globalists” leading us to RUIN. Governments sign deals, governments create “Globalism”. A few large companies are definitely on board, but they are not the leaders. People like Mulcair, Trudeau, Dion, McGuinty, Wynne, Suzuki etc. Those are some citizen of the world globalists, Obama, Merkel, Cameron and all Communist States and Islam. I’ll take freedom and capitalism anyday!

          • paendragon

            Herb: Unlike Ontario (where I live) I happen to know for a fact that BC has completely different case-law and judicial precedents regarding firearms ownership than criminal Ontario does – to wit: in Ontario, any given cop can slander a citizen with a generalized accusation that we “are” a “Danger To The Public Safety!” WITHOUT having to offer up ANY evidence whatsoever to support their fraudulent claims, (and thus the criminal Ontario judiciary presumes its citizens as Guilty Until Never Proven Innocent) but in BC your cops have to offer specific FACTS to support their rationales for such claims, i.e: evidence that one has actually committed an infraction, and give a date and location for same!

            Sadly, though, you are mistaken about Harper and CETA (no matter whose regime drafted it, HE signed it):

            http://vladdi.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/ceta-harpers-selling-canada-out-and-off-to-global-corporations/

            The COUNTRY of Canada can now be DIRECTLY sued by foreign COMPANIES, and not even in any real international law-courts. We will be sued in corporate star chambers, set up by and for only their own gains.

            Governments don’t creat globalism, they are hired (‘elected’) and supposedly tax-paid to maintain their national sovereignties and defend their citizenries.

            Unfortunately, though, in all reality: they DON’T.

            Their parties are all bought and OWNED by the global international banksters – by those who always fund both sides in all wars, and the reconstruction teams, too.

            ;-(

          • herb benty

            So, you think our very good PM. Harper did something wrong? I doubt it, those Trade pacts and Agreements always give other nations the right to a level playing field and an instrument to right a wrong. It is common. And No, Harper and Canadian companies are not in it for their own personal gain- it is for OUR COUNTRY. Conervatives BUILT Canada, we will not give it away like Trudeau or Mulcair- your real “globalists”. LEfTISM drools for One World Government, which is why they hate Harper, simple really.

          • paendragon

            So, you didn’t even bother to read the contents of CETA which I provided for you in that link?

            Well, then, you can conitinue to pretend that your generalizing opinion of something the facts of which you have chosen to ignore, is still just as valid as those facts, then, right? That’s certainly the way liberals “think!”

            Re: “Those trade pacts and agreements always” (etc.;) well, if so, Herb, then why bother to have new ones at all, ever – if and since “they’re always all the same!”?

            In FACT, though, this one DOESN’T give other NATIONS any “right” to a “level playing field” nor “to right a wrong” (and Good Lord! Do you realize how liberal those statements makes you sound!?) – this one only gives foreign COMPANIES the false right to directly sue our government.

            This trade agreement was designed by liberals, and yet finally signed by Harper.

            CAPISCE?!

      • mtman2

        Now that you brought that up// do U’all think that these Mooslims are staying unarmed in the UK and mainland Europe~?
        I think not, AND I think they’re secretly arming massively and will immigrate able bodied fighters by the boat loads , by hook or crook for the day of crushing multiple nations at once.
        Just a thought on the matter ~!

        • WhiteHunter

          Agreed. The IRA had no trouble at all acquiring whatever guns or explosives they wanted, in any quantity desired, and maintaining a nearly watertight code of omerta. Hard to imagine that the moes wouldn’t find all of that even easier than the fenians did.

          • mtman2

            They’d be stupid knowing what they are and wanna do, not to do this ; across the world. Think of that firefight ~?!

      • mtman2

        It is an innate dream of most normal boys to want to learn to be proficient with hand tools and arms to provide and protect.
        The boy scouts used to provide leadership, outdoors skills and the manly arts of how to as well as the proper cultural protocols. Only now the the militant queers want to intrude and push their way into the 99% of normal society and decimate healthy growth for young men ~!

        • Gary_L_Thompson

          Which is why it was so stupid for people to warn the Boy Scouts board giving in to the gay community would destroy the organization like happened in Canada–c’mon, wake up and see that odds-on that is their goal in the first place! When the Ivy League educational track just alluded to by WhiteHunter above monopolizes the production of future leaders, do you honestly think once those ISIS lovers graduate Harvard and infiltrate the boardrooms of corporate America, they would tolerate a competitor teaching leadership skills and true American values to the public and parochial school track?

    • hopkins

      Bravo. I don’t hear of rape gangs in France. It is curious that it is in Sweden and Britain, and I wonder if it is because Islam is clever in its wickedness – it molds itself to the culture it faces, the nature of the politically correct culture. It reminds me of an evil river, flowing into every crevice and cove that it is allowed. Because I speak French I can tell you that the apologists for islam are not a regular part of the French media, like it is in Britain. The Islamic apologists are household names in Britain.

      • herb benty

        The whole Islamic immigration thing is the definition of a , “Self-Defeating”policy, seeing their holy books command them to kill all unsubmissive people ON EARTH. They are quite simply put, nuts! Bloodlust and AK’s may make successful raiders, but they would be annihilated by EITHER, Russia, China OR the USA, so they know they cannot conquer the WHOLE world. I think their secret partner is Russia/China. Putin was jetting to Iran there for a while before this all hit the fan.

        • hopkins

          I read somewhere that the islamists are advising the chechyns on how to bring down Putin. I can’t believe that Putin is not going to wise up about the muslim threat to his country.

          • herb benty

            There is no “Muslim Threat” to Russia, China, USA…..any one of those three could erase Islam. Jihadists can pull off terrorist acts, but a full-fledged war against real modern armies, THAT ARE NOT HINDERED BY “RULES OF ENGAGEMENT”, well, that would be the end of “Islam”.

          • hopkins

            Yes, you’re right. No reason to be worried … unless politically correct democracies import muslims and they erode your cultlure from within. All we need is a strong president. Because of muslim birthright it could come down to the need to use nuclear weapons;.

          • herb benty

            It may indeed come to that. Those Iranian mullahs are creating nuclear bombs, TO USE THEM.

          • UncleVladdi

            Since all Chechnyens ARE muslims, they’re ALL islamic!
            Other than that, W.T.H is an “islamist,” anyway?!

            Islam-ist = islam-ish (i.e: “Sorta like islam, but not really!”)

            Whee! Instant libtardation!

            ;-)

          • hopkins

            I forgot about chechyns being muslims. I don’t understand why Putin hasn’t acted. Islamist = fascism I thought.

          • UncleVladdi

            ISLAM = fascist.

            Putin hasn’t acted because Russia is 50% muslim (and so is their Army) thanks to communist criminals Lenin and Stalin.

  • liz

    If Charles had lost the battle of Tours, there would BE no Oxford, period.
    Or civilization. The entire world would already be sunk in the stinking cesspool of Islam.
    Now the neo-parasites of the left are encouraging the paleo-parasites of Islam to join them in finishing off the “host” of civilization .

    • dotherightthing4

      Yeah–there would be no Ben Affleck and Hollywood elite–wonder if these bozos know that. Of course they don’t.

  • Kafir911

    This video with Tom Trento and Clare Lopez will help put the Battle of Tours into perspective. PLEASE take an hour of your time to watch it.

    http://drrichswier.com/2014/10/09/video-clare-lopez-lesson-islamic-state/

  • Lee Scott

    “The conflict is different now…”

    It is much the same as battling a cancer. The best time to cure it is to cut out the tumor before it has metastasized and spread throughout the body, but that time has long passed. Islam has infiltrated our cities, our schools, our governments and our institutions, so that now the battle is not one of armies facing each other across a battlefield, but, figuratively, now one of hand-to-hand street fighting, as the walls have been breached.

    Eventually, but probably too late, we will realize that the enemy is not ‘radical Islam’, but Islam itself; that our ideals of religious freedom, tolerance and diversity are defenseless against an ideology that preaches slavery and intolerance.

    When are we going to make the distinction that any ideology that preaches the things that Islam preaches does not qualify as a religion? It must be fought with every tool at our disposal, and the first step is to identify it for what it truly is, a despicable scourge that needs to be vilified, ridiculed, isolated from civilized society, and ultimately eliminated.

    It is totally incompatible with the ideals of enlightened western civilization, and allowing to co-exist amongst us will be the end of us.

  • johninohio1

    The best descriptor for Mohammad is ‘sociopath’ or ‘psychopath’.

    • Virgil Hilts

      Or schizophrenic!

  • me_geefb

    Battle of Vienna – 1683 Muslims [Ottoman Turk types] tried to invade Europe and continued their killing ways murdering people in cities that surrendered and prisoners. A lot has changed since then! or maybe nothing but names and places. [Ref. Syria-Iraq and a little turkey]

  • me_geefb

    and the “religion” of piehss ..

  • tagalog

    I think the battle of Tours/Poitiers is undergoing a resurgence among Westerners since 9/11. I’ve read Levering’s book and I think he can be refuted on a half-dozen grounds on the thesis that Europe would have been better off if ruled by the Muslims of Spain.

    • nobullhere

      All these battles need to be known in the West – Tours in 732, Toulouse in 721, the Reconquista from 722 – 1492, the Siege and Battle of Malta in 1565, Lepanto in 1571, the Sieges and Battles of Vienna in 1529 and 1683, and Zenta in 1697, and that the outcomes of these battles safeguarded Western civilization. And we ought to remember those fallen civilizations over the centuries as a reminder that no civilization is pemanent, and will disappear without trace if it is allowed to do so, to shake us out of our complacency.

      • tagalog

        You’re right, of course; the history you recite reminds us that the war we are fighting today is not just against a new fight against outlier extremist jihadists, but is merely the latest chapter in a number of conflicts in which the West has resisted Islamic conquest.

        There is no sure guarantee that Islam would have maintained a unified Muslim state if they had succeeded in conquering Europe; Muslim rule was divided by the time of the Battle of Tours, while Europe was not divided except for the tribes in North Africa; second, it is a certainty that dhimmitude would have insured that would be NO religious equality, but second-class citizenship for Christians and Jews under an Islamicized Europe; third, Muslims have a spotty record on racial equality, and their treatment of the Berbers in the conquest of Spain is ample testament to Arabic claims of racial superiority; fourth, on sexual equality, Islam falls far behind the rest of the world, and did so at the time of Tours; fifth, the Christians of Europe would have engaged in holy war with the Muslims encroaching from Spain, so holy war would have continued for a long time, probably centuries.

        Additionally, when the Muslims weren’t on jihad, they were fighting holy wars with each other; sixth, while it seems likely that Europe might have enjoyed an intellectual boost from Islamic preservation of the Greek advances, it isn’t certain if Islam would have eliminated the rise of the reason-based universities, along with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

        Seven: slavery was perfectly justified in the Muslim world, and remains so to this day; eighth, Islam insists on a theocratic state; do we really think that’s an improvement on what the West has done? Ninth, the demands of Islam have frozen Muslim societies into forms that lost their validity in the West centuries ago (and not in an attractive way), so it’s difficult to be persuaded that Islamic culture and knowledge would have nudged Western society forward in the 8th and 9th Centuries.

  • Biff Henderson

    Nice piece.

  • ObamaYoMoma

    Islam must be targeted and eradicated once and for all. Otherwise jihad will ravage the war perpetually until one day Islam and its followers become supreme and at the same time the world enters a new Dark Ages.

  • De Doc

    These days all of us must be able to call forth the courage of the Frankish warriors of 732.

  • RSnyder

    ‘[The] new Martels won’t necessarily be soldiers’ but some of them will. Is it possible, when the day arrives that it becomes a necessity, that islam in Europe can be beaten back or into submission without a series of bloody clashes? Then what? Destroy all mosque/hives of hatred and prohibit the building of new ones? A lot to fight about one day.

  • hopkins

    Wish France could get this message. There will be a black and white battle eventually, maybe sooner rather than later. At least in France this subject is being discussed quite frequently now, thanks to Marine Le Pen. She is a master at dealing with the politicallyl correct press. All support possible should be given to her in the 2017 election. If she is elected this could come to a head sooner rather than later, and while there are still enough people to fight it.

  • Libslayer

    Islam is evil.
    Ultimately the cancerous poison of Islam, the religion of a viscous seventh century lunatic, must be defeated utterly.
    There is nothing good about Islam.
    Nothing.
    But the war to eradicate it will not begin until the world’s greatest Muslim appeaser, Barack HUSSEIN Obama is no longer sabotaging America from within, as his beloved Koran commands.
    Islam means death, and until Islam is eliminated the threat will remain.

  • Hugo Fitch

    Assuming he existed at all…

  • nobullhere

    There are actually THREE 9/11s where the Jihad was stopped then thrown back – Malta on September 11th 1565, Vienna on September 11th 1683, and Zenta on September 11th 1697. And our dumb politically correct so-called leaders were scratching their heads as to why Osama bin Laden chose September 11th to reignite the Jihad against the West.

    • Barbaracvm

      Which is why we do not study history. If we don’t know what happened on a certain date we will continue to be surprised. Being history dumb and politically correct we will allow the enemy to beat us. Fighting a modified war will cause us to loose. Kissinger came up with this in the 1950′s. Which has been credited for why the US lost the Vietnam War.

  • peterp77

    Very inspiring piece of history and one that all lovers of freedom should learn about and study. Massive respect to Charles Martel. This should be taught in all Western schools so that younger people today can learn about the threat of Islam and how it nearly conquered Europe.

  • peterp77

    What a shame today’s Europeans no longer have the fighting spirit of Charles. Instead of confronting Islam as he did, they accommodate and appease it, slowly digging their own graves in the process.

    • achantus

      But that would never have happened if not for the fact that Europeans have been preconditioned for this kind of response trough decades of socialistic indoctrination. Hundred years ago, they would have fought, now they don’t. So what has happened in Europe in the last hundred years? Socialism happened! It has destroyed everything.

      • peterp77

        I would also add cultural Marxism…ie multiculturalism and “diversity.

  • Gee

    Let me get this 10,000 dead is a raid? In whose pea brain?

  • Gary_L_Thompson

    As far as David Levering Lewis’s having the notion that it would have been better for the Battle of Tours to have a different outcome, he was not alone (see my commentary on http://lenbilen.com/2013/11/29/2323/).

  • Gary_L_Thompson

    Well, from what I’ve heard, when Muhammad initially found his prophecies weren’t coming true, he never engaged in the practice again in his life except for a self-fulfilling prophecy that he was going to arrive in a city the next day. Odd prophet indeed, for a god who claimed to be the creator and master of time and space.

  • mtman2

    These type of people have lost 1/2 their souls, redemption
    is possible but not probable and is why through history societies, even OURS can fail ~!

  • stonefellow

    The favorite weapon of the Frankish soldiers was the throwing axe, and they used it very effectively against the Muslims. They saved Europe from the scourge of Islam, only to be given away by the liberals at the end of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

  • bruce lorraine

    Sometimes the old ways are the best. A little bacon wrapping and beheading
    will go a long way to halt the onslaught of islam. Take what they fear most and use it against them, deny them paradise.

  • hopkins

    I hope this to be true. The usual rules are out the window now. Now strongmen have their value, unfortunately. That means we have gone backward; and democracy now is revealing its weakness. Immigration means that democracy can be hijacked.