"The Sword and the Swastika: How a Medieval Warlord..." Topic

… BECAME A FASCIST ICON

"On a fall day in the early 8th century, somewhere between the French cities of Poitiers and Tours, a Muslim army crashed into the serried ranks of a force led by a powerful Frankish noble: Charles, Mayor of the Palace and son of Pippin of Herstal. In the ensuing battle, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi — governor of the Muslim territories in Al-Andalus (Spain) — was slain, and his troops were routed. This confrontation between two Dark Age warlords echoed through the ages and acquired a potent symbolism, all despite the fact that medievalists know relatively little about the principal protagonists and the respective orders of battle, let alone how the fight actually unfolded.

Indeed, the battle of Poitiers (or Tours, as it sometimes known in the English-speaking world), has been framed as one of history's most decisive military struggles, on par with the battles of Thermopylae or Waterloo. Commentators have presented the victory of Charles — later given the martial cognomen of Martel, or "the hammer" — as a civilizational as well as a military triumph, crediting the Frankish warrior with having stanched the Muslim expansion into Western Europe.

Edward Gibbon famously speculated that, had Abdul Rahman prevailed at Poitiers…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Courtesy of War on the Rocks

I've been in a few discussions about how some of the modern enmity from the Middle East to the "West" is because the "crusades started it all".

Point out the location of Poitiers on a map and the date, well before the first crusade, and get some very surprised looks from the modern marginally educated.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand