Differing Christian European leaders set aside their animosities to defeat Arabian invaders of France in one of the most decisive battles in world history.

Now that should be a movie. 

It Is called The Battle of Poitiers

It is a War Epic.

In the vein of Braveheart.

It is like The Northman meets 300: Rise of an Empire.

It follows a battle-hardened illegitimate son who had united his father’s kingdom, Charles Martel

And a French self-proclaimed prince Eudes

As they defend Christian Europe from Islamic invaders and raiders who seek to rape, pillage, and conquer the world.

Problems arise when Eudes shelters enemies of Charles and a new Muslim leader with a stronger army attacks France.

Together they will put aside their differences to defeat the invaders at the Battle of Poitiers.

The idea came to me when I read historical accounts that called Poitiers one of the most decisive battles in world history.

My unique approach would be a Game of Thrones-style conflict that is interrupted by an invasion matching that of the Sauron’s army in The Lord of the Rings.

A set piece would be when Charles Martel lines up his Frankish infantry to form a wall of shields. The Arab horsemen throw spears at the wall, but they cannot break it. Then the Franks begin to advance, slicing at the legs of the Arab riders and the flanks of their horses. One horse collapses and begins thrashing in pain. The ranks briefly break as the Franks shift to walk around the horse. One Frank kills the horse with a blow from his sword. A Moorish horseman sees the break in the line. He calls it out to his fellow horsemen and gallops toward the break. He throws a spear, killing a Frank. The line wavers as the man falls. Several horsemen are now charging the gap. Then the Franks, their discipline showing, close ranks. The charging horsemen meet an unbreakable wall of shields and are slain by the sword-wielding infantry behind it.

Audiences would want to see the film due to the epic struggle of good vs. evil, the excitement of medieval fighting, the intrigue and suspense of Middle Ages politics, and the world-changing event that is the battle of Poitiers.

Target audiences would be men, teens through forty, fans of Game of Thrones, El Cid, Vikings, The Last Kingdom, The Witcher, and The Lord of the Rings, players of the games Rise of Kingdoms and Ages of Empires, Middle Ages enthusiasts, history buffs and military historians.

Sources I have consulted for this post include Chapter 4: The Battle That Preserved a Christian Europe” in The Miracle of Freedom: 7 Tipping Points That Saved the World by Chris Stewart and Ted Steward, from Shadow Mountain, “Chapter Five: Landed Infantry, Poitiers, October 11, 732” from Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power by Victor Davis Hanson, from Doubleday, and Poitiers AD 732: Charles Martel turns the Islamic tide (Campaign) by David-Nicolle, from Osprey Publishing.

Ask just about anyone to name a religious-driven conflict between the Christian West and Islamic Middle East and they’ll most likely say the Crusades. After all, the cross-adorned robes of Crusaders and Knights Templar hold a powerful sway in popular imagination. Less widely known are the Islamic religious crusades that took place less than 500 years before the First Crusade. At near Blitzkrieg speed, Islamic crusaders had conquered the entity of the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Persia, The Caucus, parts of Central Asia, the edge of India, and the Mediterranean coast of North Africa just 100 years after the death of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed in AD 632. Driven by religious edicts and convictions that Islam would rule the world, a sort of 7th century Manifest Destiny, and desire for personal glory and booty, both material and human, both in this life and the one hereafter, the ancient jihadists were nearly unstoppable. After conquering modern-day Morocco in 708, it is claimed that the Muslim leader rode his horse out into the waters up to the steed’s belly, pointed his sword toward the Iberian Peninsula, and declared to Allah that if he had not been stopped by the sea he would have conquered that land for him.

In 710 first Islamic invaders, Arabs from the Umayyad Caliphate, landed on the peninsula. Known at the time as Moors, (Moors, Umayyad, Arabs, and Muslims will be used interchangeably from here on out) made their way across the Strait of Gibraltar. Many of the first Europeans they met were of the non-Christian Visigothic tribes. The Moors’ main opponent, King Roderick, was killed in AD 711 at the Battle of Guadalete. Due to rebellions and infighting among the Visigothic tribes, the Moors had captured nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula, renamed Al-Andalus, by 716. Some of the tribes made peace with them to retain some of their authority. They soon begin raiding across the Pyrenees mountains into the Gascony,  Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie, and Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes regions of modern France.

In AD 717 the first Muslim expedition ventured into Septimania, an area of southern France, ruled by King Ardo. By 718 the Moors had taken control of Narbonne in southeastern France. In 719 the Arabs attacked Septimania in earnest and King Ardo was overthrown. In 724 Umayyad fleets started raiding Sardinia, Corsica, and other islands off the coast of France. In 725 Islamic raids reach into Burgundy, Luxeuil-les-Bains, Sens, and Vosges Mountains. These raids will continue for the next several years. In 731 Muslim raiders defeated a local force led by a Bishop Emiland at Saint-Emiland in northern France. That same year reinforcements arrived in Al-Andalus from North Africa. In May or June of 732, the Moors’ main assault on Christendom in Western Europe began.

They were led by Abd al-Rahman Ibn Abd Allah al-Ghafiqi (hereafter referred to as Abd al-Rahman). Noted for his piety, Abd al-Rahman was counted among the tabi’un (disciples), a religious aristocracy within Islam. He was also good friends with the leaders of the second caliph in Damascus.

Abd al-Rahman’s first appearance in contemporary sources was in AD 721. After the Moors had been defeated and their leader Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani had been killed at the siege of Toulouse, he led the army back into Al-Andalus. Nine years later he became the frontier governor of Al-Andalus. Not everyone was pleased with his placement, accusing him of leniency toward his troops after Toulouse. Nevertheless, when he began his main assault on France, he had the full support of a united Islamic military infrastructure. Sources differ on the number of troops he had, with a conservative estimate of 80,000. Historians differ over whether the Moors brought siege equipment. What is certain is that many of their Berber allies brought their families with them, suggesting that Abd al-Rahman had resettlement in mind. He also had the support of Umayyad fleets attacking the French coast. While there would be plenty of looting and burning, which Umayyad fighters show as acts of piety, their main goal would be conquest.

Caught between the Islamic invaders coming from the Mediterranean and the Frankish “barbarians” of northern Europe was Odo the Great, also known as Eudes or Eudos, Duke of Aquitaine (hereafter referred to as Eudes). His regain over southwest France might have begun as early as AD 670 but was certainly cemented by the year 700. Some of his earliest fighting was against the Visigothic tribes in Spain. In 714 Eudes took advantage of the civil war raging among the Franks to declare himself a prince rather than a Frankish vassal.

In 721 Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani led Umayyad fighters in their first major assault on Eudes’ Aquitaine. The plan was to take the city of Toulouse, capture the Garonne River, and sweep across France to the Atlantic. He laid siege to the city in late April or early May. Eude’s was driven off early during the campaign. He returned in July with a force of Aquitanian, Gascon, and Frankish troops. The Umayyad had let down their guard, no longer maintaining their outer defenses or sending out regular scout patrols.

Eudes attacked on June 9th. The Umayyad, trapped between his forces and the city walls, fled in panic. Scattered around the countryside, they were easily cut down by Eudes’ forces. Al-Samh escaped but later died of wounds. Eudes put the number of Moors at 300,000 and claimed to have killed just as many in one day at a loss of only 1,500 men. Pope Gregory II declared Eudes a defender of Christianity. A miracle is associated with the battle in which bread sent by the Pope a year before survived long enough to be eaten by the troops. Despite Moorish raids into France as far north as Autun, there would not be another major Moor invasion until 732. Some historians credit Toulouse, not Poitiers, as the major turning point that halted the Umayyad invasion.

The clash at Toulouse was followed by four years of relative peace. In AD 725 Eudes sought an alliance with Muslim the governor of Cerdagne. Then in 729, he allied with Munusa, the Berber governor of Cerdanya, Munusa, who had rebelled against the Muslims. The alliance was cemented by a marriage between Munusa and Eudes’ illegitimate daughter.

In AD 731 Adb-Rahman invaded Munusa’s fiefdom, defeated his troops, and seized his castle. Munusa fled to the hills, where wounded and abandoned by his allies, he jumped to his death from a cliff. Some accounts claim that his queen Lampegia was sent to a harem in Syria.

When Abd-Rahman invaded Aquitaine in earnest the next year, Eudes was taken off guard. A possible reason for the surprise was the Umayyad leader breaking from tradition and instead of taking the normal invasion routes through the eastern Pyrenees, he emerged from the mountains’ western passes. For two months, Abd al-Rahman’s men would raid across much of much of Gascony and Aquitaine, raping and pillaging.

Eudes’s army took a stand at the port city of Bordeaux. The city fell and was sacked in June. Eudes regrouped near the Dordogne River but was defeated in the Battle of the River Garonne. The casualties of the battle were such that a chronicler wrote that “God alone knows the number of the slain.” Eudes then withdraws across the Loire.

His defeats were due to the Umayyad style of mounted warfare. Riders would crash into Eude’s infantry, break their lines, and scatter them. The horsemen would then ride down and slay the small groups and individuals trying to escape. Mounted warfare allowed Muslims to ravage the cities of Periqueux, Saintes, and Angoulme for the next two months, riding down civilians in the streets and sacking Christian religious institutions, such as the Basilica of Saint-Hilarie outside Poitiers.

The religious nature of the conflict was obvious in the targeted violence of the Umayyad. Cathedrals and shrines were explicitly targeted due to their renown throughout Christendom and the treasures and religious relics, like bones of saints and pieces of the cross, they contained. Two monks, Altigianus and Hilarinus, were martyred at Beze. Bishop Saint Ebbon led a resistance at Auxerre. A bishop-abbot named Chaffre was killed at Calmeliacu, a town thought safe due to its mountainous location. Chaffree is now celebrated as a saint on October 19. For help defending his priests and bishops, Eudes would have to look north toward an old rival in Paris.

Charles (a nice name if I may say so myself) was born circa AD 688, the illegitimate Pepin of Herstal, Duke and Prince of the Franks, and his mistress. His father’s Frankish kingdom included most of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, and southwestern Germany. Upon Pepin’s death in AD 714, his Queen Plectrude imprisoned Charles. A year later Charles was released or escaped, was declared Mayor of the Palace, with equivalent powers of a king, and began 18 years of civil war.

In AD 715 He defeated the armies of Plectrude and her Neustrian allies at the Battle of Cuisse-la-motte. He scored another victory at Verdun and then was defeated, for the only time in his life,  by Germanic Frisians at the Battle of Cologne. The following year Charles defeated the Frisians at the Battle of Amblève near Malmedy, Belgium. The next year he defeated an alliance of Neustrians and Aquitanians at the March 24 Battle of Crevecoeur-sur- l’Escaut near Cambrai in northern France. He followed that victory with another at Soissons, confirming his domination within the Merovingian Kingdom. Then he faced pagan Saxons in the east. He drove them back from the River Weser in 718. He then turned south to wage campaigns asserting dominance over Aquitaine and Provence.

He would have his first encounter with Eudes in AD 719. Chilperic II, a supporter of Queen Plectrude, had allied with the Duke of Aquitaine and fled into his territory for protection. Charles defeated Eudes at another battle of Soissons. Eudes gave up Chilperic II in exchange for Charles’s recognition of his independent dukedom. Charles agreed. Still in 721, when Eudes asked for help relieving the siege of Toulouse, Charles refused.

Charles then turned north again. Frisian resistance after the death of leader Radbod had collapsed. By the year 724he had defeated both them and the Saxons. The next year he defeated the Bavarians. In 1731 he began leading raids into the Berry region of Aquitaine.

These years of constant warfare would prove providential. They molded not only Charles into the leader he would need to be to face the Moors in battle, but also his men into the disciplined body of troops he would need to command. Through hardship, a bond of brotherhood had been forged that would withstand the coming assault. When the Franks would meet the Moors on the field of battle, they would not be fighting for personal glory and booty, but for their families, their farms, their religion, and their brothers standing next to them in tight ranks. And both they and Charles knew they could rely on each other.

An alliance between Charles and Eudes in 732 would be an uneasy one. They had fought each other over Bourges just a year before. Eudes had political alliances with pagan Basques, which caused Franks to refer to Aquitanians as pagans. Tensions were heightened when Charles faced a rebellion by a certain Rainfroit. In 721 Charles exiled Bishop Rigobert of Rheims, a supporter of Rainfroit, who sought refuge with Prince Eudes. An alliance was formed between Eudes and Rainfroit, which made Charles fear one against him. In 731 Charles exiled another bishop, Wandon of Fontenelle, into Aquitaine. Although Moors had raided along Rhone River in Charles’s domain the same year, the main reason he had ventured south was to find out Eudes’s military might and strategies.

The details of the meeting between the two old enemies have been lost to history. Perhaps Eudes promised Charles lands or bonds. Perhaps Charles decided to set aside personal animosity for the protection of Christianity and the glory of the Catholic Church. What is known is that the two men agreed that Charles would be in charge of the military operations. He issued a “general bond” and quickly raised an army over the summer, consolidating his old tripartite. Many of the men who answered his call were from regions he had conquered over the previous years close to the threat of Moorish raids. They were taking up arms to defend their homes from danger.

Abd-Rahman’s objection was Saint Martin at Tours, considered one of the most sacred in Christendom. It was also a key position on the frontier between Frankish Neustria and the principality of Aquitaine. He began heading that way in late September. Meanwhile, Charles crossed the Lorie River at Orleans with a massive army, combined with Eudes’ men, and marched toward Tours. Moorish scouts and vanguards began clashing with the Christians and withdrew from Tours. After being outflanked, they withdrew across the river Vienne. Charles camped before Tours.

Abd-Rahman’s forces were scattered about looking for loot and winter forage. He gathered them at an abandoned Roman mansio known as Poitiers. Charles decamped and crossed the Vienne. He positioned his army at the top of a hill, flanked by two forests, which concealed his numbers and intentions. For a few days in early October, the two sides felt each other out with scouting and skirmishing. Charles refused to come out of his position and fight Abed-Rahman on the ground of his choosing, a field. Then on October 10th, it was time for battle.

The Umayyad attacked at sunrise. They charged uphill and through the woods. Charles’s assorted army of spearmen, light infantry, farmers, peasants, and aristocratic nobles faced them in a phalanx formation in the Roman tradition. The formation stood for hours and hours as Umayyad shot arrows from their mounts and flayed the Franks with sword blows and spear thrusts. They hoped their attacks and irregular movement of the phalanx would result in gaps for a flood of horsemen to exploit and pour through. They struck at the flanks and sides of the Christian army, but they could not dislodge, outflank, or surround them. Some say Abd al-Rahman tried to personally kill Charles. With great blows of their swords, the Franks beat down the Muslims.

Charles had made the right decision in keeping his infantrymen in one position. The Franks wore chainmail or leather jerkins covered with metal scales. They carried round shields nearly three feet in diameter, carved out of heavy hardwood, constructed with iron fittings, and covered with leather. The conical iron helmet protected their heads. This added up to seventy pounds of arms and armor. Keeping them in one position preserved their strength. As individuals hulking all the armor and weaponry across a field, they would have been easy targets for the Arabian horsemen. But in a dense formation, shoulder to shoulder with their brothers, they were invincible.

They were literally a wall of infantry, described as a frozen glacier by one chronicler. Unable to penetrate the wall, the Arabs shot arrows, cast javelins, or slashed with their long swords. Some rushed head-on into the wall. The Frank, their shields upraised, lodged spears into the horsemen’s legs or the face and flanks of their mounts. Once the horses’ legs were sliced, they easily fell, and the rider became vulnerable to attack. Then the Franks slashed and stabbed with their swords to cut down the horseless riders, all the time smashing their shield against the enemy’s exposed flesh. Then the Franks began advancing, trampling and stabbing the fallen riders at their feet. Still, they stayed in formation among the dust and confusion of battle as they struck at anything ahead of the phalanx. Thus, they fought from sunup to sundown.

There is debate over whether Charles ordered an all-out counterattack. Some historians say that such an attack surrounded the Arabs in a pincher movement. Others believe it was beaten back. But what is certain is that Charles swayed his line of infantry, waving and gaps forming, and he ordered Eudes to outflank the enemy. Eudes led a force of horsemen around the east wood, across a field, and attacked the Moors’ camp. The Moors, used to having easily ridden down and slain individuals for personal glory, were disheartened after hours of useless attacks against waiting lines of armored spearmen. With the cry went up that the enemy was in their camp, they rushed back to their tents to protect their booty. The Berbers rushed back to defend their families. It would be in the camp that Abd-Rahman would meet his end. His body would be found later by the Franks, pierced by several spears. Some say the Moors beat back the attack upon the camp. But then the next morning, when the Franks arose expecting to face the Moors again, they found them to be gone, their camp abandoned. And Charles was now called Charles Martel, “The Hammer.”

Ancient chronicles put the number of dead at a few thousand Franks while hundreds of thousands of Arabs perished. Victor Davis Hanson puts the number of Moors present at 20,000 to 30,000, with 10,000 killed. Wounded Arabs, lying on the ground at the feet of the Franks, were most likely killed as the Europeans advanced across the field. So many were killed that Muslims declared the road from the battlefield “The Pathway of the Martyrs.”

But what is certain is that the Battle of Poitiers, or Tours, was a major battle in the Islamic conquest of Europe. Charles would go on to fight the Umayyad at Sernhac in 736 and Provence in 739. In 740 the Berbers revolted in North Africa over taxation and unfair payment of soldiers, causing the Moors to withdraw many troops from the Iberian Peninsula. In 759 the last Muslim foothold in France was retaken. By 915 the Muslims were expelled entirely from the southern border of France.

Many historians call Poitiers/Tours one of the most important battles in the history of the world. “Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet,” mused Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 7. Leopold von Ranke called Poitiers “one of the most important epochs in the history of the world” (History of the Reformation, vol. 1, p. 5.) “The progress of cavillation, and the development of nationalities and governments of modern Europe,” says Edward Creasy. “From that time forth went forward in a not uninterrupted, but ultimately certain career. (Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, p. 167). Hans Delbruck said of Poitiers that there was “no more important battle in world history” (The Barbarian Invasions, p, 441).

Others are skeptical, considering the clash nothing more than a skirmish that stopped an inconsequential raid. The jihadi juggernaut had already been stopped at other places, most notably at Jul 15, 717 – Aug 15, 718 Siege of Constantinople. Tradition holds that the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula started on 28 May 722. Then there was the Berber revolt two decades later.

But I believe the Battle of Poitiers should be honored and remembered, especially with a movie. First, the battle is important because of what did not occur. Charles Martel was not killed. His son, Pepin the Short, would go on to reconquer Christian lands. And his grandson, Charlemagne founded the Holy Roman Empire, becoming known to history as the Father of Europe. Secondly, remembering the battle honors those who saved Christian Europe from Islamic tyranny. In Sharia Law, there is no self or representative government and no separation of church and state. The contemporary treatment of women and LGBTQ individuals in predominantly Muslim countries is adherent. Many of the modern countries from which the forces of Abd-Rahman’s army came are now awash in civil and human rights violations, tribal infighting, backward thinking regarding education, and poverty. Some still practice slavery. With all due respect to peaceful practitioners of the Islamic faith, I thank my Triune God that the Judo-Christian and Greco-Roman worldviews were allowed to freely grow at places like Oxford into the civil rights and liberties that many around the world now enjoy. Thirdly, the Crusades have been used to create a victimhood and sense of oppression in young Muslim minds. In one of the many eye-rolling incidents of the past decade, President Barrack Obama did a whataboutism regarding the modern atrocities of ISIS by pointing the finger at Christian Crusades in the 11^th and 12^th centuries. Space does not allow a discussion of the Crusades here, but one can dream that a remembrance of the original crusades by Muslims in the 7^th and 8^th centuries and their deadly folly at places like Tours could cause young Muslim men to think twice about allowing a victimhood mindset to send them down a path of violence and instead choose peace.

Of course, the Battle of Poitiers would make an exciting movie. The epic scale is on par with any fantasy novel. Charles’ years-long battle for his kingdom and uneasy alliance with Eudes gives George R. R. Martin a run for his throne. When discussing epic movies, most people think of Ridley Scott, Mel Gibson, or Steven Spielberg. However, I would like to see one of the production companies Huayi Brothers Entertainment, Legendary Pictures, or With Well Go USA Entertainment get behind the project. I would like to see Chinese directors like John Woo, or Guan Hu, South Korean directors like Kang Je-gyu or Kim Han-min, or other directors from East Asia take the helm. Many films from that part of the world have the epic scale, sheen, finesse, human interest, and story pacing that many American historical films lack.

Because it is an exciting, epic, and rousing tale of defending one’s homeland and religion from foreign invaders at a battle that changed the history of the world, why I believe Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers should be a movie.