The 1683 Siege of Vienna

Holy League vs Ottoman Turks

Islam's High-Water Mark

Prologue

After the fall of Acre in 1291 the Crusader states in the Holy Land were eliminated. With Israel back under Muslim domination, the armies of jihad began looking west again. The armies of the Ottoman Turks recommenced attacks on the dying Byzantine Empire and seized more of Turkey and Greece. However, the ancient fortress of Constantinople still managed to resist any attack.

That changed in 1453 when the city was attacked by 200,000 Turks. The 8,000 Byzantine defenders held out for weeks through cleverness and sheer guts, but the outcome was inevitable. Using large numbers of heavy cannon, the Turks finally broke through and sacked the city.

With the greatest fortress of the Medieval age taken, there seemed to be nothing to stop the Turkish advance. In the ensuing decades nearly the entire Balkan area was overrun. However, the Turks hit their first snag in 1529 when the armies of Sultan Suliman the Magnificent laid the first siege of Vienna. The 20,000 Austrian defenders managed to defeat several attacks and break the Turks' morale. Suliman retreated and Europe was saved, at least momentarily.

Suliman didn't quit, however. In 1565 he sent a great fleet and 30,000 men to capture the island of Malta, an excellent staging point for an attack on Rome. The badly outnumbered Knights Hospitaller based on Malta managed to hold out until winter forced a Turkish withdrawal. In 1571 a combined Catholic fleet defeated the Turkish navy decisively at Lepanto. With these twin Christian victories the Turks abandoned their plans to attack Rome by sea.

With the overland route now the only road to Rome, it was obvious Vienna would be attacked by the Turks again. However, after Suliman's death a series of weak and incompetent sultans reigned over the Ottoman empire, delaying the attack by over a century. The Austrians used this time well, transforming Vienna into the mightiest fortress of the late Reformation.

In 1681 the Turkish Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa, was forced to make peace the the Cossacks after a failed expedition to the Russia steppe. Probably in an attempt to atone for his failure, Mustafa convinced Sultan Mohamed IV to let him command an attack on Austria. In early 1683 an army of 168,000 Turks was assembled and marched on Vienna. Hapsburg Emperor Leopold, his family, and some 60,000 Viennese abandoned the capital, leaving Count Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg and 16,000 men to defend the city against the full might of the Turkish onslaught.

After cutting a bloody swathe through southeast Austria, Mustafa's army reached the gates of Vienna on July 14th. After the formalities of the Muslim offer of surrender and Christian rejection of said offer were over, the siege was on. Over the course of the next two months the battle would devolve into bloody, filthy, screaming hell.

The Siege

Vienna was truly a great fortress. The Danube and Wein rivers defended the north and eastern sides of the city, leaving only the south and western sides open to attack. The Viennese had cleared the ground on those sides, meaning the Turks would have to cross a wide stretch of open plain. That crossing would be made even more dangerous by the numerous cannons in Vienna's many bastions.

Rather than risk a long charge under heavy fire, the Turks began digging a series of trenches towards the walls. This was still very dangerous, as Vienna's cannons and snipers began to fill the trenches with corpses.

Despite Vienna's mighty defenses, however, the Turks continued to inch closer and closer to the city. Although Mustafa lacked the cannon-power necessary to demolish the city walls, his gunners were still able to cause a great deal of damage by firing into the city.

As critical as the war on the surface was, just as important was the war underground. Since the Turks lacked enough siege guns to destroy Vienna's walls, Mustafa brought along 5,000 Ottoman sappers, known to be the finest in the world. The sappers' job was to dig under the city walls and explode hundreds of pounds of gunpowder under critical points. The Turks exploded 40 mines under the walls of Vienna, each destroyed a vital spot in the walls and brought the trenches closer. The Austrians counter-dug. They managed to defuse one mine and also detonated their own mines under the Turkish trenches.

Above ground the fighting was fierce beyond imagination. As the trenches creeped closer and closer, Mustafa launched more and more assaults on the crumbling defenses of Vienna. Count Starhemberg and his men beat back fifty attacks over the course of the two months. As water and food ran low and garbage and the dead piled up, disease and sickness swept through the city. By September 11th, 75% of the defenders of Vienna were dead, wounded, or sick. Count Starhemberg was down to only 4,000 men and those left were exhausted. The walls were one mine away from being breached. At midnight, September 12th, the Viennese shot off their last signal rocket. It was a desperate plea to the relief force they had heard was on the way. If no help came, Vienna was down to it's last twenty-four hours.

Help WAS on the way. Emperor Leopold had called upon all his allies in the Holy League for aid, and aid came. An army of more than 60,000 men, composed of Austrians, Germans, and Poles was massing twenty miles northwest of Vienna at the city of Tulln. In command of this mighty Christian force was the devout king John III Sobieski of Poland.

Sobieski marched the Holy League army to Vienna through the Wienerwald, a rugged and mountainous region west of the city. The difficult terrain forced the League to abandon it's heaviest cannons, but it gained Sobieski the element of surprise. Mustafa had assumed that no force of any size could breach the Wienerwald mountains and thus did not defend the Khalenberg Heights just west of Vienna. It was on these heights that the Holy League army appeared at dawn, September 12th. It was just in the nick of time, Mustafa was already finishing the last mine needed to breach the walls of Vienna. If the Christians couldn't dislodge the Turks, Vienna would fall and all of central Europe would be open to Muslim invasion.

The Armies

The Holy League

The army of the Holy League was composed of roughly 30,000 Germans and Austrians along with 30,000 Poles. The infantry from all League nations fought in 'pike-and-shot' formation, with armored pikemen forming a protective box around the musketeers. When the musketeers ran out of ammunition the pikemen would fight it out like an ancient Greek phalanx.

The German/Austrian and Polish cavalry, however, were considerably different. German/Austrian cavalry fought using carousel tactics. Using these tactics horsemen fired pistols in the enemy lines and then fell back to reload. The 14,000 Polish Hussars who formed the core of the army fought more like Medieval knights. They typically charged headlong into enemy formations, although they also frequently used firearms. The Hussars wore plate armor and attached large wings to the back to intimidate their enemies. Years of fighting the Tartars, Russians, and Cossacks on the massive plains of eastern Europe had made the Hussars the the most effective cavalry in the western world.

The Ottoman Turks

The core of the Turkish army was composed of 12,000 Janisseries. These were the sons of Christians taken at an early age and hammered into a super-elite fighting force. The army was their life, as they were forbidden to leave to corp or marry. This formed a suicidally loyal force which would accomplish its mission or die trying. The Ottoman's chief military advantage was the vast numbers of soldiers the Sultan could amass. Aside from the Janisseries, cavalry, and sappers, however, the army was composed of conscripts who lacked significant training and discipline.

The Battle

Despite the appearance of the army of the Holy League at dawn, September 12th, the fate of Vienna was still very much in the balance. Mustafa's sappers were preparing the final mine needed to destroy the walls of the city. At the front lines Starhemberg and his men were fighting off yet another fierce assault. The Viennese moles were digging desperately to find and defuse the Turkish mine. The city was on the very verge of defeat.

The League needed an immediate attack. However, the Polish army had not arrived on the scene. The cavalry-centered Poles had suffered the worst delays in the Weinerwald and would not be able to reach Vienna before noon. Charles of Lorraine, the League's second-in-command, refused to wait and led the 30,000 Austrians and Germans on a dawn attack down the hill and into the Turkish lines. After brushing away the Turks' advance units, the sheer numbers of Turks stalled Charles' attack. As the battle on the northern portion of the plain intensified, the League's infantry lines were compacted to concentrate firepower and prevent the Christians from being overrun. Charles would need the Polish army to have any chance of saving Vienna.

Finally, the Polish forces arrived at around noon and charged the southern Turkish flank. However, disorganization and Turkish cannons forced Sobieski to fall back regroup. With the Poles forced back, the Germans stalled, and the last mine minutes away from detonating, Western Europe appeared doomed.

It was at this instant, by some Divine miracle, the Viennese diggers found and defused Mustafa's mine at last possible moment. When Mustafa discovered his sappers had failed and quick victory was impossible, he ordered a general attack on the relieving army.

However, the night before, Mustafa had kept many of his men in the trenches in the hope of exploiting the expected mine-breach. It would take time to redeploy them, and Sobieski was determined not to give him that time. A second charge of the Polish Hussars shattered the southern flank of the Ottoman army. The Turkish army collapsed and Mustafa had no choice but to retreat from the massacre and save what he could. King John III Sobieski sent this message to Pope Innocent XI, "We came, We saw, and God conquered."

Aftermath

The victory at Vienna was wildly celebrated across Europe. Sobieski and his men welcomed as conquering heroes by the citizens of Vienna. Propaganda and messages were spread across the entire continent praising the bravery and valour of Count Starhemberg and his soldiers. Mustafa was soon executed for his failure and news of that event was spread across Europe as well. Much of this material was sent to France, where short-sighted Louis XIV had stayed out of the fighting in the hope of the defeat of his Germanic rivals.

After Vienna, the Hapsburgs of Austria began taking the offensive in the Balkans. There they won another great victory at the city of Budapest, which had been under Turkish domination for more than 150 years. This battle was even more damaging to the Turkish psyche. Defeat before the walls of Christian city was bad enough, but to lose lands they considered Islamic was the ultimate humiliation.

The humiliation would not stop there. The newly Westernized and modernized nation of Russia was looking to expand and saw the Black Sea region as prime real estate. The armies of Peter the Great took the mighty port/fortress of Azov in 1696 and Russia became the great power on the Black Sea. Over the next 200 years Turkish power would wane until the Sultan controlled only the Holy Land, Syria, and Turkey.

The Austrians came to dominate Central and Southeastern Europe. Their preeminence lasted until the German victory at the Battle of Koniggratz in 1866. This defeat marked the end of Austria's days as THE Central European power, but the they still maintained a close second place until 1918.

In a grand stroke of irony both the Austrian and Turkish empires would collapse during the same war while fighting for the same side. After the victory of the Allies in 1918, the borders of Austria were reduced to their traditional boundaries. The Ottoman Caliphate was disbanded (yet another humiliation for the Islamic world) and a secular Turkish state was established.

The benefits of Islamic defeat have been discussed in earlier posts so they will not be covered in great detail here. It is enough to know that if Vienna had fallen, the Turks would have poured through Europe. This would have radically changed future events and perhaps have ended Western culture. Starhemberg's stubborn defense of Vienna, the skill of the Viennese moles, and Sobieski's superior leadership saved the Western world and marked the beginning of the end for the Turks.

Next Week-Valcour Island: America vs Great Britain.

The Battle of Arsuf

Crusaders vs. Saracens

The Great Battle of the Great Crusade

Prologue

After Tours the war between Muslims and Christians quieted down somewhat, but it never really ended. Spanish Christians began chipping away at Moorish domains in the Iberian peninsula. Sicily was taken by the Arabs in in the 9th century and was retaken by Norman Christians in 1060. The Byzantines and Turks fought each other on-again, off-again for decades, but neither side ever achieved a breakthrough.

All that changed in 1071 when the Seljuk Turks won a crushing victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert. The Turks swept through Asia Minor and the Holy Land, depriving the Byzantines of their prime sources of men, money, and grain. When Pope Urban II heard of the plight of Christians in the newly conquered lands and realized the danger now posed by the Turks, he called the First Crusade in 1096.

The army of the First Crusade reached the Holy Land in 1098. Despite being abandoned by their Byzantine allies and outnumbered by their Muslim enemies, the Crusaders took Jerusalem one year later. They established the Kingdom of Jerusalem and a number of other Crusader States to protect Christian pilgrims. The Sultans of Egypt and the Turks, however, did not respond to this counter-attack by lying down. War raged nearly continuously between the Crusader states and Muslims.

After the unsuccessful Second Crusade in 1145, (meant to recover outlying Crusader territories lost a few years earlier) a new leader rose among the Saracens. His name was Saladin. When rouge knights began attacking his caravans he reopened war with the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1187 the Army of Jerusalem made a critical mistake and pursued Saladin too deep into the desert. The exhausted and thirsty crusaders were decimated at the Battle of Hattin. With the bulk of the Christian armies in the Holy Land destroyed, Saladin quickly seized numerous critical cites in the region and pushed the Crusader states to the edge of extinction.

In response, a Third Crusade was called. The army raised was one for the ages: it was composed of the three kings of the three great powers of Christendom and their forces. Frederick I of Germany, Phillip II of France, and Richard the Lionhearted of England all lead forces to fight the Saracens.

However, things soon began to go wrong for the Crusaders. Frederick captured the city of Iconium, capital of the Turks, but he drowned soon afterwards and his leaderless army was picked apart by Turkish horse archers. The unsupported French army did little after landing at the port of Tyre. Richard was delayed, he stopped at Sicily to free his imprisoned sister and was delayed further by uncooperative officials in Cyprus. After the Cypriots reneged on an agreement with Richard, he conquered the island. The great Western counter-punch was disintegrating.

When Richard finally landed in the Holy Land the situation began to improve for the Crusaders. The armies were united under Richard's banner and laid siege to the port of Acre. The port fell in mid-July 1191, giving the Christians a base in the Levant. However, Richard, Phillip, and Duke Leopold of Austria (Frederick's successor) fell victim to political in-fighting. Leopold took his entire army back to Germany. Phillip claimed sickness and returned to France, although he did leave his men and some money to pay them with. Richard would now have to fight Saladin alone.

In September 1191, the Anglo/French Crusader army began marching south along the coast of Israel. Richard aimed to capture to port of Jaffa and use it as a staging area for his drive on Jerusalem. Saladin and his army shadowed the Crusaders, looking for any opportunity to destroy Richard. Richard kept his army in tight defensive formations to deny Saladin any opening. The two armies kept marching, watching and waiting.

Finally, as Richard neared Jaffa, Saladin made his move at Arsuf. He had to destroy the Crusaders before they could build a power base in Israel. Richard had looked to avoid a pitched battle, which was considered to be too risky by Medieval tacticians, but now he had no choice. The fate of the Holy Land now hung in the balance

The Armies

Crusaders- The army of the Crusaders was composed of English and French knights, along with supporting spearmen and archers. Richard had also recruited the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar, elite warrior-monks who had been fighting the Saracens for decades. The medieval knight dominated the battlefield in the 12th Century, and for good reason. They sons of nobles, trained from birth to fight and equipped with the best weapons and armor in the western world. A full charge of mounted knights could defeat even the toughest infantry.

In addition to his western knights, Richard had recruited the Turkoples. These were local Christians who were excellent horse archers and gave Richard a balance of heavy and light cavalry.

Infantry was of secondary importance to the cavalry. Most foot soldiers were peasants and lacked the training and equipment of knights. Historians have estimated the size of Richard's force to be between 12,000 and 20,000 men. Richard would need every last one of them if he had any hope of retaking Jerusalem.

Saracens- Saladin's army was the antithesis of Richard's. The Saracen army was composed of light infantry and light cavalry. The Muslims were faster and more maneuverable, but lacked the durability to survive a head-on confrontation with heavily armed Crusaders. Saracen tactics were to exhaust and demoralize their enemies with hit-and-run cavalry attacks, then swarm in and massacre anyone left.

Saladin's army was probably composed of between 20,000 and 30,000 men. It was an army that destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Hattin and wreaked havoc across the Holy Land. Saladin and his Arabs were determined to drive the Crusaders into the sea or die trying.

The Battle

On September 7th, Saladin began harassing the Knights Hospitaller at the rear of Richard's column. He hoped to pick the Crusaders apart with archers, then finish them with a cavalry attack. The heavily armored Hospitallers lost few men to the arrows, but they lost many horses. The Hospitallers sent numerous requests to Richard for a charge before they lost too many horses. Richard repeatedly denied them their request, as he realized the last thing he needed was for Saladin to isolate and destroy a part of his army. The arrows continued to rain down.

Finally, the Hospitallers could hold themselves back no longer. They charged and drove back the Saracen archers. They also became separated from the main army. Richard had hoped to avoid this scenario, but when he saw the Saracens moving to surround the errant knights he had no choice but to launch a general cavalry attack. The English and French knights and infantry flanked the flankers and routed the Saracen army. Richard chased the Saladin's army for short distance, but soon stopped the pursuit and reorganized his forces. He was afraid Saladin would be able to ambush and destroy his troops if he let them become too scattered. The Battle of Arsuf was over. The final casualty figures were 700 Crusaders to 6,700 Saracens.

Aftermath- Richard took Jaffa soon afterwards. However, Saladin switched to a strategy of scorched earth and hit-and-run, which kept Richard from ever being able to retake Jerusalem. Richard's army was too small to protect it's supply lines inland and attack Jerusalem simultaneously. After a year of stalemate, Richard and Saladin signed a truce that left Saladin in charge of Jerusalem but allowed Christian pilgrims access to the city. Richard also retained control of Cyprus, Acre, Jaffa, and the other cities his Crusaders had taken. He gave these territories to a revitalized Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The results of the Third Crusade were not what the Christian powers had hoped for, but they were still very good. Although the revitalized Crusader states would still be destroyed a century later,(Acre was the last city to fall, in 1291) the extra decades the Muslims had to spend fighting in Israel were of incalculable value to the west. By A.D.1300 Western civilization began showing the first signs of a great Renaissance. The Byzantine Empire also used the time to recover, although this only delayed it's fall until 1453.In short, Arsuf ensured that the Third Crusaders would not leave Israel without achieving good results. Those results were centuries of extra time to regroup for Western Civilization. The Christians would need every last one of those years to prepare for the next battle covered in this blog: The Siege of Vienna- Coming next week.

Battle of Tours

Franks vs. Moors, A.D.732

Prologue



After Zama Rome's empire spread across the entire Mediterranean world. In 200 years Rome stretched his borders from the Nile to the Thames. Roman power and glory climaxed just before and during the life of Christ under the first emperor Augustus Caesar and his son Tiberius. However, the Caesar dynasty collapsed thirty years later. Tiberius' vengeful, self-absorbed, and ineffective descendant Nero incited a military revolt in A.D. 68.



After the death of Nero, Rome began a slow decline. Occasionally, strong emperors like Hadrian and Constantine would manage to stop, or even reverse the decline. However, centuries of barbarian attacks, corruption, and ineffective emperors finally culminated in A.D. 410, when an army of Goths sacked the city of Rome, the first invaders to do so in 700 years. Although Rome managed to hold onto some shadows of its former power and territory until A.D. 476, the intervening 66 years were little more than the death rattle of the mightiest empire in history.



After A.D.476 the fates of Eastern and Western Europe made a major split. The eastern half of the old Roman empire, ruled from the massive city of Constantinople on the Hellespont, remained fairly peaceful and stable for more than a century. Western Europe, however, fell into what is now called the Dark Age. The tribes that had defeated Rome began fighting each other for control the region, with none ever truly gaining supremacy. This pattern continued in western Europe for more than 200 years.



Outside of Europe, however, time marched on. In A.D.632 Mohammad died. His followers soon began a bloody military campaign to bring Islam to all corners of the earth. They met with unprecedented success early on. In less than a century the Arabs took Egypt, Israel, Syria, Persia, North Africa, and Spain. This was not enough, however, and the Omayyad Caliphs soon began considering further conquests. The Byzantine Empire and India were too strong to overthrow, but the 'barbarian' kingdoms of western Europe appeared ripe for invasion.


In A.D.721 a first attempt to invade the lands north of Spain was quickly defeated by Duke Odo of Aquitaine. The Muslims returned, however, in A.D.732, with an army of 80,000 men. Odo was crushed and the Muslim invasion swept through France, burning, looting, and raping. While the Arabs cut a bloody swathe through southern France, Odo fled to Paris, which was the capital of the Frankish tribes. There he made a protection deal with the Palace-Mayor of the Franks, a man named Charles Martel.


Charles was no stranger to war. Born the illegitimate son of the earlier Palace-Mayor Pippin in A.D. 686, Charles had to fight to secure his position. He had been imprisoned in 714, escaped to exile in late 715, and began a civil war that culminated three years later. After his victory at over his rivals at the battle of Soissons Charles seized the rank of Palace-Mayor. This title was important because, while the Franks had a king, the Palace-Mayor was the person with the real political power.


Charles spent the next several years expanding Frankish power and keeping an eye of developments in Muslim Spain. He realized he would need well trained and heavily armed men to repel any Muslim invasion. This would be very expensive, however, and the Franks didn't have the funds to spare. To get the money Charles took an extremely controversial step. He seized Church lands and used the money to fund the training of a 30,000 man army. This action left him with a force more powerful than any seen in western Europe since the days of the Caesars. It also nearly got him excommunicated. However, Charles managed to -barely- avoid that disastrous outcome.

As A.D.732 dragged on, the Muslims began acquiring a vast amount of stolen treasure from the cities and monasteries they had devastated. Looking to increase this hoard, they then turned towards the monastery at Tours, reputed to be the richest in France. Charles anticipated this, however, and marched his army to Tours. He took back roads to avoid detection.The move paid-off handsomely when the Arabs were taken by surprise to find the Frankish army waiting for them on a wooded hill near Tours in early October.

For seven days neither side moved. The Muslims hoped the Christians would come to attack them on the plain below the hill. Charles knew such a move would be suicide and stayed in his strong defensive position. Finally, winter broke the deadlock. Charles and his northmen were prepared for the oncoming cold, but the Muslim commander Abd er Rahman knew his men were not. The only way to winter quarters was through the Frankish army, so on the seventh day Rahman ordered a full-scale attack. The spiritual and political future of Europe was about to be decided.


The Armies


Franks- The Frankish army was composed almost entirely of infantry. These men were farmers Charles had whipped into fighting shape over the previous months and years. They were better armored and armed than their Muslim counterparts. The signature Frankish weapon was a short throwing axe called the Francisca. The Francisca had only a short range, but it could go through any armor in the world. Their training had hardened them and their do-or-die situation would undoubtedly drive to fight even harder. However, they were outnumbered nearly 3-to-1 and facing a fierce and undefeated enemy with far superior cavalry. The future of Christianity looked grim.



Moors- The Moorish army was composed of Muslims from North Africa and Spain. They were mostly unarmored and carried spears and scimitars. Cavalry victories at Adrianople (A.D.378) and Ad Decimum (A.D.533) had left horsemen the dominant unit of the day, and the Moors had thousands of cavalry. They used this fact to devastating effect, outmaneuvering and destroying their infantry-based enemies in Spain and southern France. The Frank's excellent choice of battlefield had reduced some Moorish advantages, but Abd er Rahman still held a 50,000 man numerical superiority and his men were inflamed with Islamic fervor. Despite not properly scouting the enemy or the terrain, it still looked as though the Moors would break through and take the Koran to all corners of Europe at the point of a sword.


The Battle- The exact details of the battle of Tours are still unknown. The two main sources of information from the Dark Ages, Christian monks and Muslim scribes, either hyped the battle beyond all reasonable proportions or severely downplayed it. For example, some Christian sources have Arab casualty figures in the hundreds of thousands over the course of a seven day struggle. On the other hand, what little Muslim material exists mostly concentrates on excusing the outcome of the battle.


Regardless of the shortage of hard evidence, some basic facts about the battle are generally agreed on by historians:

1. The Franks were considerably outnumbered by the Moors.


2. The Franks fromed a square at the top of a wooded hill.


3. The Muslims attacked that square.


4. The Franks didn't break.


5. The Muslims didn't stop attacking.


6. Scouts from Charles infiltrated the Muslim camp and began freeing prisoners and treasure.


7. Moors began sneaking back to their camp to protect their loot, and the trickle quickly became a flood.


8. Abd er Rahman attempted to stop the mass desertion/retreat, but was surrounded and killed.


9. The Moorish army never reorganized and fled back to Spain, abandoning all their stolen treasure and slaves.

Aftermath

Charles was hailed as the savior of Christendom for his stunning victory at Tours. The Church VERY quickly forgot his earlier offenses. His men named him 'The Hammer'. The Frankish Palace-Mayor became an 8th-century rock star.

Charles would continue to attack Muslim holdings in southern France for the remainder of his life. Under his rule the Franks would continuously rise in power in France. Under his son Pippin, the Franks continued that tradition. Charles' grandson eventually conquered and ruled France, Germany, and northern Italy. The grandson became so powerful he abandoned the title of Palace-Mayor and had the Pope crown him Emperor of Rome. The grandson's name was Charlemagne. He would become known as the greatest ruler of the Dark Ages.

The effects of the battle of Tours were not confined to the rise of one family's political fortunes, however. The expulsion of Islam from northern Europe allowed for nearly everything good in modern Western culture to grow and thrive. Without Islam, science, based on the idea of a logical and orderly universe, was reborn in western monasteries. Without Islam, chivalry, the idea that is the bedrock of western social thought and based on gender equality, grew and thrived. Principles of the Rule of Law, music, and art were all preserved to flourish later. Charlemagne's empire, the Holy Roman Empire, gave the west a level of stability not seen for centuries. That stability allowed the peoples of Europe to begin rebuilding their civilization. In short, Tours saved the Western World.

Next Week- The Battle of Arsuf.