Battle of Toulouse (721)

Battle of Toulouse
Date 9 June 721 Location Toulouse, France Result Aquitanian victory
Belligerents
Aquitaine	Umayyad Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Odo of Aquitaine	Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani

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.

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.

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.

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