Talk:Battle of Tours/Archive 1

message: I'm not about to intrude on what is apparently a war of some vitriol between at least two people here. But I just read the article, and if it isn't changed in the next two weeks, I have made a note to flag it for failure to adhere to a NPOV.   
    
- Any time an article uses exclamation points, and makes statements like, "This rather plainly puts the lie to those who ..." it is not written from a neutral point of view. The whole "Importance of the Battle" section needs to be re-written to present both claims: that the battle had machrohistorical importance (I tend to agree), and that the battle had much less importance because the Arab advance was already collapsing under its own weight, and the result at Tours merely ended the extended roaming raids into what became the land of the Franks. These two points of view, and the reasons and evidence offered to support them, can be presented without one side or the other needing to "triumph" in the article.  Doug 21:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: January 2006

message: 40000 to 60000 cavalry?  No way.  That kind of an army would have been impossible then.  40,000 cavalry required 40,000 horses, plus a tremendous number of mules or other pack animals.  The logistics aren't possible. Stargoat 19:53, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of combatants doesn't add up 

message: I have some comments on the paragraph quoted from Gibbon:
"A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire"
First: There was no straight victorious line, the Arab had been defeated in the Battle of Toulouse at 721.
Second: The Arab's base was Cordoba and not Gibraltar.
Third: The line from Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire was just short of 800 miles (1250 km) and the line from Cordoba was 650 miles (1050 km).
:Gibraltar is at the southern tip of Spain. Gibbon is quite entitled to use this as the base for this measurement.
"the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland;"
First: The repetition of a distance from Cordoba to the banks of the Loire would not cross the modern borders of Poland (let alone those at the time Gibbon wrote).
Second: Although the distance does reach the Highlands of Scotland, it is highly unlikely that that the Arabs would have been able to cross the channel and invade Britain.
:Gibraltar to Tours is 1700km by road. Tours to Poznan is 1500km. QED. England was not even united in the 8th century and was shortly to be invaded by the Vikings. There is no way the English could have resisted an invasion by Arabs who were at that stage a couple of centuries ahead in military technology.
"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."
First: Where is this Arabian fleet? Why didn't play any role in France. Why didn't it sail under protection from the Arab army into the mouth of the Rhome, the Garonne or the Loir?!
Second: Going into the mouth of the Thames is the easy part, it's the landing which is difficult.
Third: The Arabs never invaded a country through water (except Cyrus and Malta), they were invited into Spain.
:The Arab fleet dominated the Mediterranean. The primitive English fleet wouldn't have proved much of an obstacle. It couldn't resist the Viking fleet.
"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."
First: This part is completely false, it's written in the context of post-Catholic Church, but at 731 the Catholic Church had yet to be built.
Second: The Arabs were not spreading a religion.
:Don't know what this means. Gibbon was using a certain amount of hyperbole of course but had the Arabs not been stopped - who knows?
:Of course it is actually probable that the internal divisions that beset the Arab empire would have prevented any of this happening regardless of the result of Tours. We don't know, but it is interesting to speculate!
Exile 17:00, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  comments on Gibbon 

message: Will there be a movie about him. Perhabs depicting the Battle of Tours!
A couple of years ago, there was a story that Fox was considering a movie on him and the Battle of Tours -- but it is very politically sensitive, since essentially it paints him as the savior of western christianity against all-conquering Islam.  I think at some point someone will make a movie about his life, and in particular, Tours.
----
"..Norwich, the foremost authority on the Eastern Roman Empire..."
OK, Norwich is certainly one of the best on this period, but the "foremost"?What about Runciman?I think this is a bit absolute...
"Had the west fallen, it is doubtful Byzantium could have withstood Islam on her own." A more realistic viewpoint is....
Why is this viewpoint not realistic?If you are going to challenge one the best-established theories at least provide some arguments...Padem 13:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Movie on Karl Martell? 

message: Substituted at 20:05, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment