With North Africa in their hands the Moslems did not long
delay the invasion of Spain. In 711 A.D. an army of Arabs and Berbers, under their
leader Tarik, crossed the strait which still bears his name [13] and for the
first time confronted the Germans. The Visigothic kingdom, already much
enfeebled, proved to be an easy prey. A single battle made the invaders masters
of half of Spain. Within a few years their hosts swept northward to the
Pyrenees. Only small districts in the northern part of the Spanish peninsula
remained unconquered.
[13] Gibraltar = Gibal al Tarik, "the mountain
of Tarik."
THE MOSLEM ADVANCE IN GAUL
The Moslems were not stopped by the Pyrenees. Crossing
these mountains, they captured many of the old Roman cities in the south of
Gaul and then advanced to the north, attracted, apparently, by the booty to be
found in Christian monasteries and churches. In the vicinity of Tours they
encountered the great army which Charles Martel, the chief minister of the
Frankish king, had collected to oppose their advance.
BATTLE OF TOURS, 732 A.D.
The battle of Tours seems to have continued for several
days. Of its details we know nothing, though a Spanish chronicler tells us that
the heavy infantry of the Franks stood "immovable as a wall, inflexible as
a block of ice" against the desperate assaults of the Moslem horsemen.
When the Franks, after the last day's fighting, wished to renew the struggle,
they found that the enemy had fled, leaving a camp filled with the spoils of
war. This engagement, though famous in history, was scarcely decisive. For some
time afterward the Moslems maintained themselves in southern Gaul. It was the
Frankish ruler, Pepin the Short, who annexed their possessions there and drove
them back across the Pyrenees to Spain.
