![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rampartsofcivilization.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/CHARLES-MARTEL.bmp\" "\\"CHARLES")
<\/a>\u00a0Pepin’s death in 714 led to a struggle for ascendancy, and the young Charles found himself in the position initially of prisoner, then ironically, defender of Austrasia, against cousins from the neighboring Duchy of Neustria, seeking to achieve a forced unification of the duchies.\u00a0 Not the first choice because of his illegitimacy, he proved to be the best choice, as this individual showed almost immediately unique battle skills of field interpretation and generalship that far exceeded his fellow combatants.\u00a0 ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rampartsofcivilization.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/714-the-Lands-of-the-Franks-at-the-time-of-Charles-Martel.jpg\" "\\"714")
<\/a>Thrust prematurely into an pitched battle for Cologne, the duchy capitol, Charles, with inferior forces, material, and choice of battleground, sustained what proved to be his one and only defeat on a battlefield.\u00a0 Charles the Warrior, however, was of special stuff.\u00a0 He showed a willingness to learn from his mistakes, identify opponent weaknesses, and develop completely unexpected tactics that soon overwhelmed his enemies. His loss at Cologne proved to be tactical.\u00a0 He retreated to the local mountains; replenished and drilled his forces, and then unexpectedly turned on the returning victorious Neustrian forces at Malmedy, routing them, and proceeding to conquer them. He then whirled and defeated his enemies residually in Austrasia, and soon was the unopposed ruler of both duchies.\u00a0 This illegitimate son of a concubine did what no conqueror typically does – he eschewed his opportunity to be named “king” and instead put forth administrative ‘kings” from his former enemies, while he continued to do what he did best, organize, develop and utilize a progressively invincible army.\u00a0 His understanding of power, and his lack of\u00a0personal “need” for a title, places Charles in every modern terms in comparison to the traditions of his time.\u00a0 King or not, Charles by 732 was in charge of a vast territory from the germanic Elbe river to the border with the Islamic colony in northern Spain, and with a tactical understanding rarely known in his time, recognized the true threats to his lands were not the squabbles of local tribes, but the powerful new force to the south.\u00a0 He prepared for it with his usual brilliance.<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Islamic generals were used to facing seasonal soldiers lacking discipline and coordination, and assumed no other capacities of the barbarians to the north.\u00a0 A brief foray in 721 with a strike force had not been successful at Toulouse, and they determined on their next efforts to conquer Aquitaine, the southern province of the Franks, to bring all their talents and resources to bear.\u00a0 In 732, at Poitiers near Tours, they meet the forces of Charles the Hammer, and discovered a different kind of opponent.\u00a0 Charles Martel was a brilliant preparer of troops and a spectacular real time field logician, positioning his highly disciplined troops in strategic positions that accentuated his return of the battlefield of the ancient Grecian phalanx, that with modern armour proved impenetrable to the arab light cavalry, and a talent for feigned retreat and flanking maneuver that was unheard of in his time.\u00a0 The Hammer put a crushing defeat on the Islamic forces and pushed them back into Iberia, where they showed no further stomach for Charles’ kind of battle.\u00a0 The battle proved so pivotal, that almost 1300 years after the event, Charles actions are by historians almost universally seen as preventing an Islamic domination over a weakened Europe, setting the stage for feudalism, trade associations, the Renaissance, and the tenets of western civilization this blog reveres today.\u00a0 King or not, Charles Martel proved to be a colossus of the western ideal.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Charles Martel was not done with the battle of Tours.\u00a0 With further consolidation of territories, Charles at the time of his death in 741 stood astride a new Frankish kingdom the\u00a0expanded the Roman Gaul, and set into place the structure that would become the Holy Roman Empire ruled by his grandson Charlemagne. He instituted the battlefield of the Medieval Age, with permanent armies, fielded with specialists, knights, armour, heavy cavalry,\u00a0and tactics of siege, discipline, and brutal power.\u00a0 He is remembered today for what did not develop further in Europe, the all consuming fire that was early Islam, permitting the early seeds of a new culture of individual capacity and creativity to eventually take root and supplant Islam as the citadel of intellectual development.\u00a0 Charles Martel cared not a wit for titles, but he understood his place in the world and the power necessary to form and develop his vision.\u00a0 He was one of the first, and very likely, one of the greatest\u00a0Defenders of the Ramparts of Civilization.<\/p>\n