The Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of the Highway of the Martyrs (Arabic: معركة بلاط الشهداء, romanized: Maʿrakat Balāṭ ash-Shuhadā'), was fought on October 10, 732 AD during the Umayyad invasion of Gaul. It resulted in victory for the Frankish and Aquitanian forces, led by Charles Martel, over the invading the Umayyad Muslim forces.
Many historians, including Edward Gibbon, have credited the Christian victory as an important factor in curtailing the spread of Islam in Western Europe. In the following centuries, chroniclers of the ninth century, gave Charles the nickname of Charles Martel (the hammer) because of his brutal and relentless battlefield tactics, famously described as crushing his enemies like an iron hammer, but without attributing it to a single battle, as he had many victories under his belt.
Details of the battle, including the number of combatants and its exact location, are unclear from the surviving sources. Most sources agree that the Umayyads had a larger force and suffered heavier casualties. Notably, the Frankish troops apparently fought without heavy cavalry. The battlefield was located somewhere between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, in northern Aquitaine in western France, near the border of the Frankish realm and the then-independent Duchy of Aquitaine under Odo the Great.
The Muslim leader, Al-Ghafiqi, was killed in combat and the Umayyad army withdrew after the battle. Charles emerged strengthened and Odo weakened.
The battle helped lay the foundations of the Carolingian Empire and Frankish domination of western Europe for the next century. Most historians agree that "the establishment of Frankish power in western Europe shaped the continent's destiny and the Battle of Tours confirmed that power."
Most chronicles report the event in 732 AD in brief and similar terms just recalling that Charles fought the Saracens on a Saturday in October.
Charles's victory is widely believed to have stopped the northward advance of Umayyad forces from the Iberian Peninsula and to have prevented the Islamization of Western Europe.
Losses during the battle are unknown, but chroniclers later claimed that Charles Martel's force lost about 1,500 while the Umayyad force was said to have suffered massive casualties of up to 375,000 men.
The Frankish realm under Charles Martel was the foremost military power of western Europe. During most of his tenure in office as commander-in-chief of the Franks, the Frankish kingdom consisted of north and eastern France (Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy), most of western Germany, and the Low Countries (Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands).
This domain had begun to progress towards becoming the first real imperial power in western Europe since the fall of Rome. However, it continued to struggle against external forces such as the Saxons, Frisians, and other opponents such as the Basque-Aquitanians led by Odo the Great (Old French: Eudes, or Eudo), Duke of Aquitaine and Vasconia.
The Umayyads delayed their campaign late in the year probably because the army needed to live off the land as they advanced. They had to wait until the area's wheat harvest was ready and then until a reasonable amount of the harvest had been stored.By all accounts, the invading forces were caught off guard to discover a large force sitting directly in their path to Tours. Charles achieved the total surprise he had hoped