134. EXPANSION OF ISLAM IN NORTH AFRICA AND SPAIN
NORTH AFRICA SUBDUED
Though repulsed before the impregnable walls of Constantinople, the Arabs continued to win new dominions in other North Africa parts of the Christian world. After their occupation of Egypt, they began to overrun North Africa, which Justinian, little more than a century earlier, had reconquered from the Vandals. [10] The Romanized provincials, groaning under the burdensome taxes imposed on them by the eastern emperors, made only a slight resistance to the Moslem armies. A few of the great cities held out for a time, but after the capture and destruction of Carthage [11] in 698 A.D., Arab rule was soon established over the whole extent of the Mediterranean coast from Egypt to the Atlantic.
ARABS AND BERBERS
Islam made in North Africa one of its most permanent conquests. After the coming of the Arabs many of the Christian inhabitants appear to have withdrawn to Spain and Sicily, leaving the field clear for the introduction of Arabian civilization. The Arabs who settled in North Africa gave their religion and government to the Berbers, as the natives of the country were called, and to some extent intermingled with them. Arabs and Berbers still comprise the population of North Africa, though their once independent states have now been absorbed by European powers. [12]
SUBJUGATION OF SPAIN BEGUN, 711 A.D.
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, [14] 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.
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, [15] 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. [16]