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The Battle of Toulouse (721) was a victory of an Aquitanian Christian army led by Duke Odo of Aquitaine over an Umayyad Muslim army besieging the city of Toulouse, and led by the governor of Al-Andalus, Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani. The victory checked the spread of Umayyad control westward from Narbonne into Aquitaine. ==The battle== Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, the ''wali'' (governor) of Al-Andalus, built up a strong army from Umayyad territories to conquer Aquitaine, a large duchy in the southwest of modern-day France, formally under Frankish sovereignty, but in practice almost independent in the hands of the dukes of Aquitaine. Ian Meadows states that Al-Samh's aim was to take the Garonne River valley, capture Toulouse and open up a vast territory stretching all the way to the Atlantic and back south through Andalusia to the Mediterranean and the Maghrib.〔(Ian Meadows, "The Arabs in Occitania", Arab and Islamic Cultures and Connections, Saudi Aramco World )〕 Al-Samh's army included siege engines, infantry, a few horsemen and a number of mercenaries, as well as Basque slingers. He besieged the city of Toulouse, then Aquitaine's most important city, and Duke Odo of Aquitaine, also known as Eudes, immediately left to find help. He asked the assistance of Charles Martel, who in turn preferred to wait and see rather than help his southern rival.〔 Odo returned three months later with Aquitanian and Frankish troops, just as the city was about to surrender, and attacked the Umayyad investing force on June 9. The exact origin of the Frankish troops is not certain, but they may have hailed from southern Aquitanian areas, e.g., in the Lower Rhone, where naturalized Franks had settled down decades or centuries before. The Aquitanian victory was essentially the result of a classic enveloping movement by Odo. After Odo originally fled, the Umayyads became overconfident, and instead of maintaining strong outer defenses around their siege camp, and continuously scouting, did neither. Thus, when Odo returned, he was able to launch an almost total surprise attack on the siege force, scattering it with the first attack, and slaughtering units that were resting or fled without weapons or armour. Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani managed to get away with a fraction of his forces, but died shortly thereafter, leaving Anbasa ibn Suhaym Al-Kalbi (721-725) as governor. The number of soldiers who engaged in the battle has been grossly inflated to about 300,000 on Odo's side (Al-Maqqari), and a death-toll of 375,000 on the assaulting Umayyad troops.〔 At any rate, the figures give a rough idea of the dimensions of the confrontation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Toulouse (721)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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