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For the 11th Day of White History Month we celebrate the halt of Islamic expansion at 3 major battles, Covadonga 718, Toulouse 721 and Tours 732. For one hundred years the armies of the Caliphate had appeared unstoppable. The Persian empire was completely destroyed. The Byzantine empire was driven back to Anatolia, losing Egypt and the levant. The library of Alexandria burned, everything was destroyed in their wake. Constantinople was besieged, surviving only due to the Theodosian walls which were then impenetrable. In the war for North Africa the Greeks held out for decades but once it fell, the Caliphate was on border of Western Europe. Visigothic Spain fell in only 7 years. All except for one small mountain territory in the North, led by the Visigothic noble, Pelagius of Asturias.

In 718 AD, with as few as 300 fighting men, Pelagius declared his Kingdom would not submit to Muslim rule. The Umayyads marched thousands of men into the narrow mountain pass to subdue the rebllious lord. They were lured into attacking in a bottleneck outside the Cave of Covadonga. Asturian forces stood in front of the Cave where Pelagius had set a trap. A quarter of his men were hidden on either side of the narrow passage, allowing for a surprise attack on both Muslim flanks. Not knowing how many Asturian forces were, the Umayyad general ordered a retreat, which quickly turned into a rout where thousands of his men were slaughtered. The small kingdom won it's freedom, one-day destined to reconquer the entire Iberian Peninsula.

Now the Arab forces were concentrated on Francia. The first lesser known invasion into Aquitaine was halted by the great Merovingian lord, Odo the Great at the Battle of Toulouse 721 AD. In a letter to the Pope after the battle, Odo claims to have killed 375,000 Saracens in a single day while losing only 1,500. Some historians consider this likely to be an exaggeration.

Returning with their entire army, the Muslims were now determined to subjugate the Franks. Their King, Charles Martel, was the only monarch in Europe who could field an army large enough to face them. Older sources place the Umayyad army at 80,000 mostly mounted Saracens while the Franks had only 30,000 with virtually no cavalry. The Battle of Tours on October 10, 732 represents the farthest expansion of the Umayyad caliphate into Europe. The battle was extremely close, both sides fighting desperately, knowing the fate of Europe and their entire respective Civilizations would be decided here.

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