Poitiers Revised

Most Frenchmen with patriotic feelings point to the Battle of Poitiers as a defining moment in the history of France and of Europe. For it was in 732, somewhere near Poitiers (the exact location is disputed), that the Frankish hero Charles Martel defeated the Arab army, and paved the way for the continued growth and Christianization of France.

According to English Wikipedia, 19th century historians such as Gibbon accorded major importance to this battle:

Later Christian chroniclers and pre-20th century historians praised Charles Martel as the champion of Christianity, characterizing the battle as the decisive turning point in the struggle against Islam, a struggle which preserved Christianity as the religion of Europe; according to modern military historian Victor Davis Hanson, "most of the 18th and 19th century historians, like Gibbon, saw Poitiers (Tours), as a landmark battle that marked the high tide of the Muslim advance into Europe." Leopold von Ranke felt that "Poitiers was the turning point of one of the most important epochs in the history of the world."

Modern historians, however, are divided:

Modern historians, by contrast, are divided over the battle's importance, and considerable disagreement exists as to whether or not the victory was responsible — as Gibbon and his generation of historians claimed, and which is echoed by many modern historians — for saving Christianity and halting the conquest of Europe by Islam. However, there is little dispute that the battle helped lay the foundations of the Carolingian Empire and Frankish domination of Europe for the next century; most historians agree that "The establishment of Frankish power in western Europe shaped that continent's destiny and the Battle of Tours confirmed that power."

The following quote from Gibbon is in stark contrast to what we read today in books, newspapers, on the web, on television, and in our classrooms, where Islam is either extolled as a "religion of peace", or as a religion that has been "highjacked" by terrorists, or as a force preferable in any case to Christianity, or worse: as a reformable doctrine that can adapt to Western ways with our help. Gibbon felt otherwise:

"A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; 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. 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 Mahomet."

Somewhere along the way, Western Europe (and the United States) softened towards Islam, and began rejecting Christianity, as if it were an alien body.

The site of the Battle of Poitiers, though uncertain, is accepted by many French historians as being the village of Moussais-la-Bataille, in the commune of Vouneuil-sur-Vienne, between the cities of Châtellerault and Poitiers. It was there that the Festival called "732, Moussais-la-Bataille" was held, on Sunday July 26, 2010, organized by the Office of Tourism of Vouneuil-sur-Vienne.

There is nothing unusual about any of that. It isn't until you look at the program and the events offered to the public, that you may begin to wonder, as did both Novopress and François Desouche if the Arabs didn't come out of the battle of Poitiers victorious:

Live performances, juggling, multi-ethnic oriental and medieval music (musique métissée).

Note: "Musique métissée" is a new term for me. Now even music intermarries!

Tour and Lectures.

Oriental and regional market.

Exhibits at the Arab World Institute. (!)

Camel rides. (!)

Reading of tales by the "Causette" Association.

Games for children.

What happened to Charles Martel? What happened to the victory for Christianity? One François Desouche reader suggests two more events:

Self-flagellation

Group conversion to Islam

Here are a few more comments:

- But this is a nightmare! Have they all gone mad, or what? What are they trying to prove? Shame on those who, in the name of mental decrepitude, are selling us to the invader. Charles Martel, don't worry. There are still enough Gaulois left to vindicate the honor of France.

- If you are curious enough to go there and look at the names and faces of the municipal staff, you will not find a single Mohammed or Khader. Just regular Frenchmen like us! Which means that this is the type of person, with his boot-licking imbecilic radical chic initiatives, who is the worst of the gravediggers of the France we love.

- They left Poitiers in 732. They returned to Roissy in a 747.

- Why not have workshops and courses for beginners in beating, stoning, gang raping, etc... All these riches that Charles Martel wasn't able to see!

- They have a lot of nerve. I'd like to go strolling around one day in mecca with a pig on a leash.

Apparently revisionism concerning the Battle of Poitiers has been going on for some time. French Wikipedia quotes French writer Anatole France:

"The most fatal day in the History of France" was "the day of the Battle of Poitiers, when, in 732, Arab science, art and civilization withdrew before the Frankish barbarity."

What Wikipedia does not tell you (except in the footnote) is that Anatole France himself did not say it, rather one of his characters in the novel La Vie en Fleur says it in a teasing way. The character is Monsieur Dubois, and the title of the chapter containing the quote is "Monsieur Dubois Teases".

It is to be hoped that people who read this page of Wikipedia also read the footnote.

Wikipedia also cites Adolph Hitler who is supposed to have declared to Martin Bormann:

"If Charles Martel had been beaten at Poitiers, the world would have had a different face. Since the world was already condemned to the Jewish influence (and its by-product, Christianity, is such an insipid thing!), it would have been better if Islam had won. This religion rewards heroism, promises warriors joys in seventh heaven... Driven by a similar spirit, the Germans would have conquered the world. They were prevented from doing so by Christianity."

Note: Here we have a partial explanation for Hitler's rage against the Jews - they were responsible for Christianity, and Germany would have been better off with its pre-Christian pagan religions. The hatred of Christianity led him to exterminate its source. This is not very different from what Islam would do if it could - first, annihilate the Jews, then Christianity. Neo-pagan writers also espouse this view. Sigmund Freud too believed that the hatred of Christianity was the driving force behind Hitler's genocidal frenzy.

Then Wikipedia moves on to modern historians:

The importance of the battle is, even in our own time, so great in the imaginations of European and Arab peoples, that one historian goes so far as to deny it ever happened, attributing its invention to French chroniclers of the Late Middle Ages, who were trying to mask the defeat of Nouaillé (1356).

Note: Nouaillé refers to the other Battle of Poitiers in 1356, during the Hundred Years War, when the King of France was taken prisoner of the English.

Note too that the historian who denies that the battle ever took place is Nas E. Boutammina, a Muslim writer, whose book "La Bataille de Poitiers n'a jamais eu lieu" (The battle of Poitiers never happened) was published in Beirut in 2006.

Wikipedia concludes:

According to historians Françoise Micheau and Philippe Sénac: "Many voices have been raised in an attempt to put the battle in its proper place. To no avail, because, the event has become a symbol and has been passed on to posterity along with the hero Charles Martel. It belongs to that common ideological fund that holds that the French nation, Christian civilization, and European identity are founded on a staging of the clash of civilizations and the exclusion of the Other."

Note: The above quote is probably not translated well. But I had difficulty with their notion that the European ideological heritage can only perceive European identity in terms of a "staging" ("mise en scène") of the clash of civilizations. The authors seem to be saying that the only way Europeans can have a sense of identity is through re-enacting an imagined clash of civilizations and through the exclusion of the "Other". The "staging" may refer to wars, controversies over immigration, choice of textbooks, and feelings of national and religious pride, etc... anything that makes Europeans feel distinct from the "Other". If this is what they mean, it is only half the story - what about the "Other"? Doesn't the "Other" have the same need to feel distinct from the Europeans? Doesn't every civilization take particular pride in its accomplishments, waging wars offensively or defensively, patroling its borders, setting immigration quotas, in order to protect and preserve that which is distinctly their own?

Historian Suzanne Citron emphasizes the role of the battle of Poitiers in "the subconscious racist and anti-Arab impulses and in the illusion of the superiority of the white Catholic civilization."

Well, that's clear enough.

So we've come full circle, from a glorious battle won by a great Frankish hero to a minor event on the level of a fist fight, blown out of proportion by the fertile imagination of myth-indoctrinated racist anti-Arab people, i.e., the French.

Personally, I'll take Gibbon over Madame Citron.

FYI, there is a post on the Battle of Poitiers, dating from 2005, at the website of the Norwegian blogger Fjordman. He uses several old accounts from Arab chroniclers to show various points of view, and closes with the Chronicle of Saint Denis.

Illustration at top from Herodote.

Perhaps we shouldn't complain too much about camel rides in Poitiers. A quick Google will lead you to lots of information about camel riding all over the world. In 1942, camels were herded through the streets of New York. They're better looking than some of the two-legged creatures you are apt to see today on Fifth Avenue. Photo from Camelphotos.


Anyway, Poitiers now has at least two mosques. Review this post.