Talk:Battle of Tours

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Good article Battle of Tours was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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Fri August 31st, 2007 I am reading Ivan Gobry ‘s book : Charlemagne, fondateur de l’Europe (Edition du Rocher) On page 22, Ivan reports: Cette memorable journee fut celled u Samedi 17 Octobre 733. La date traditionnelle de 732, apprise par tous les ecoliers ne figure que dans la Chronique de Moissac, redigee au IX siecle. Les autres auteurs indique celle de 733. Les historiens arabes celle de l’an 115 de l’hegire qui est l’equivalent de 733. He insiste that Charles could not have enrolled his army a year earlier and that Charles was reported to strategically waited for the “Sarrasins” to waste their power and ambition enjoying their plunder and the women they raped. PierreC9

[edit] GA Sweeps Review: Delisted

In order to uphold the quality of Wikipedia:Good articles, all articles listed as Good articles are being reviewed against the requirements of the GA criteria as part of the GA project quality task force. Unfortunately, as of November 16, 2007, this article fails to satisfy the criteria, as detailed below. For that reason, the article has been delisted from WP:GA. However, if improvements are made bringing the article up to standards, the article may be nominated at WP:GAN.

Although the article currently has a good number of inline citations, several sections throughout the article are lacking sources, including multiple quotes. Go through the article and add an inline citation for any statement that a reader may question over its verifiability. If you can find sources online, feel free to include those, although book sources are always great, which this article uses a lot of. However, the rest of the article looks fine considering meeting the broad, NPOV, and image requirements. I have listed the many statements that should be sourced, and if sources are added, please do consider renominating the article again.

Need inline citations:

  1. "According to one unidentified Arab, "That army went through all places like a desolating storm.""
  2. "The Umayyad horsemen then utterly devastated that portion of Gaul, their own histories saying the "faithful pierced through the mountains, trampled over rough and level ground, plundered far into the country of the Franks, and smote all with the sword, insomuch that when Eudo came to battle with them at the River Garonne, he fled.""
  3. "As Herman de Carinthia wrote in one of his translations of a history of al-Andalus, Eudes managed a highly successful encircling envelopment which took the attackers totally by surprise — and the result was a chaotic slaughter of the Muslim forces."
  4. "According to the Arabian sources the Franks drew up in a large square, with the trees and upward slope to break any cavalry charge."
  5. "Most historians through the centuries have believed the Franks were badly outnumbered at the onset of battle by at least 2-1"
  6. "But Gibbon believes, as do most pre and modern historians, that Martel had made the best of a bad situation."
  7. "The battle was still in flux when Frankish histories claim that a rumor went through the Umayyad army that Frankish scouts threatened the booty that they had taken from Bordeaux."
  8. "According to Muslim accounts of the battle, in the midst of the fighting on the second day (Frankish accounts have the battle lasting one day only), scouts from the Franks sent by Charles began to raid the camp and supply train (including slaves and other plunder)."
  9. ""All the host fled before the enemy", candidly wrote one Arabic source, "and many died in the flight"."
  10. "Gibbon makes the point that he did not move at once against Charles Martel, was surprised by him at Tours as Martel had marched over the mountains avoiding the roads to surprise the Muslim invaders, and thus the wily Martel selected the time and place they would collide:"
  11. "According to Creasy, the Muslims' best strategic choice would have been to simply decline battle, depart with their loot, garrisoning the captured towns in southern Gaul, and return when they could force Martel to a battleground more to their liking, one that maximized the huge advantage they had in their mailed and armored horsemen."
  12. "Martel believed it was vital to confine the Umayyad forces to Iberia and deny them any foothold in Gaul, a view many historians share."
  13. "Santosuosso notes that 'Uqba b. Al-Hajjaj converted about 2,000 Christians he captured over his career."
  14. "Western historians beginning with the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 stressed the macrohistorical impact of the battle, as did the Continuations of Fredegar."
  15. "The first camp essentially agrees with Gibbon, and the other argues that the Battle has been massively overstated—turned from a raid in force to an invasion, and from a mere annoyance to the Caliph to a shattering defeat that helped end the Islamic Expansion Era."
  16. "However, Creasy has claimed: "The enduring importance of the battle of Tours in the eyes of the Moslems is attested not only by the expressions of 'the deadly battle' and 'the disgraceful overthrow' which their writers constantly employ when referring to it, but also by the fact that no more serious attempts at conquest beyond the Pyrenees were made by the Saracens.""
  17. "has argued that the military defeat at Tours was amongst one of the failures that contributed to the decline of the Umayyad caliphate: "Stretching from Morocco to China, the Umayyad caliphate based its expansion and success on the doctrine of jihad--armed struggle to claim the whole earth for God's rule, a struggle that had brought much material success for a century but suddenly ground to a halt followed by the collapse of the ruling Umayyad dynasty in 750 CE. The End of the Jihad State demonstrates for the first time that the cause of this collapse came not just from internal conflict, as has been claimed, but from a number of external and concurrent factors that exceeded the caliphate's capacity to respond. These external factors began with crushing military defeats at Byzantium, Toulouse and Tours, which led to the Great Berber Revolt of 740 in Iberia and Northern Africa.""
  18. "Watson adds, "After examining the motives for the Muslim drive north of the Pyrenees, one can attach a macrohistorical significance to the encounter between the Franks and Andalusi Muslims at Tours-Poitiers, especially when one considers the attention paid to the Franks in Arabic literature and the successful expansion of Muslims elsewhere in the medieval period.""

Links/page numbers that should be converted to inline citations:

  1. "Essentially, many modern Muslim scholars argue that the first Caliphate was a jihadist state which could not withstand an end to its constant expansion. [3]" Convert the link to an inline citation.
  2. "The great German military historian Hans Delbruck said of this battle "there was no more important battle in the history of the world." (The Barbarian Invasions, page 441.)"
  3. "Louis Gustave and Chalres Strauss in Moslem and Frank; or, Charles Martel and the rescue of Europe said "The victory gained was decisive and final, The torrent of Arab conquest was rolled back and Europe was rescued from the threatened yoke of the Saracens." (page 122)"
  4. "Antonio Santosuosso points out in his book Barbarians, Marauders and Infidels: The Ways of Medieval Warfare, on p. 126 "they (the Muslims) called the battle's location, the road between Poitiers and Tours, "the pavement of Martyrs.""
  5. "Historian Robert Payne on page 142 in "The History of Islam" said "The more powerful Muslims and the spread of Islam were knocking on Europe’s door. And the spread of Islam was stopped along the road between the towns of Tours and Poitiers, France, with just its head in Europe.""

Again, if you address these issues and check the article against the rest of the GA criteria, consider renominating the article at WP:GAN and let me know and I'll look it over again (so you can avoid the current month+ backlog). If you feel this decision has been made in error, you may seek remediation at WP:GA/R. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article's history to reflect this review. Regards, --Nehrams2020 10:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geography?

Perhaps there should be details as to where the battle took place, in a separate section and not having to scatter landscape information throughout the article? --Sunsetsunrise (talk) 01:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

In the "background" section...the first paragraph. It is definitely not objective, but is there a reference for it? the_ed17 18:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

That works. =D the_ed17 04:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)