Charles Martel Quotes
Do not march or precipitate your attack. The Saracens are like a torrent which is dangerous to stem … Be patient till they have loaded themselves with the encumbrances of wealth.
Martel’s strategy was to allow the Saracen invaders to take a few towns and accumulate plenty of booty. This would slow them down as an army, and many of the individual soldiers was carrying looted goods of one kind or another.
Charles Martel, ~ 688–741, Duke and Prince of the Franks, Military Leader & De Facto Ruler of France, Advice to Odo, Duke of Aquitaine on fighting the Islamic invaders, Poitiers, France, October 732
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The juxtaposition of scenes of murder and brutality together with God and holy purposes seems foreign to us today. It is extant among some Islamic groups who exult in similar scenes while calling to God. This “barbarity” is historically not just Islamic but was typical of Christians as well. Beheading was common in the Crusades, and it is still popular among some of the Islamic extremists who look to the “old days” as a model for them today.
Although jihad was a duty of Muslims, it was not a duty to die in a fight against overwhelming odds which was determined to be 2 to 1. So 2 Muslims could run from 4 but not 3.
There are many who claim that the Prophet was the originator of the tactic of the Iraqis of fighting an insurgency war from within the cities. This quotation is citied. Many Iraqi insurgents believe that they are following the dictates of the Prophet.
Although the two men differed on a very important issue, each admired the other and acquitted themselves politely throughout. Congress explicitly gave the President the powers that he had exercised and won the dispute. But Dixon had also won, and upheld the law as it existed until it was changed.
He was a strong believer in surprise attack and preemption.
Not understanding this point has been the cause of much difficulty for military leaders from the war of 1812 through the Iraq war, the success or failure of the effort depended on a successful peace.
Clausewitz’book is one of the political classics that is read bby the George by almost every national leader and senior military officer in the world. This basic principle was totally violated George W. Bush and his administration team when, in the aftermath of September 11, they ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, and then before they could get that nation stabilized, ordered the invasion of Iraq which was very successful but there was no plan for the occupation after the initial victory. The Bush administration not only did not plan the last step of either war, but they had almost no planning for the any of the steps after the initial invasions.
He was arguing for a preemptive attack rather than wait to be attacked.
The only reason this quotation became known is that in 2010, Wikileaks got hold of tens of thousands of secret U. S. State Department diplomatic cables and released it on the Internet. The major Muslim leaders of the Middle East, privately urged the United States to attack Iran to prevent them from developing a nuclear bomb. At the same time, they publicly expressed their love and respect for their fellow Muslims. In actuality the Persians are ethnically very different from the Arabs and have always seen Persia as the natural leader of the Middle East if not more of the world. The Persians have always looked down on the Arabs and the Arabs have resented it. Further, most Iranian Muslims are Shiites and most Arabs Sunni. Fundamentally, they each believe that the other is a true heretic to Islam.
The Muslims had internal wars but they had—and still have--two sets of morality as to the laws of war. This illustrates the classic Islamic discrimination against non-believers to which the minority of Muslim terrorists still adhere,
Charles Martel was a Frankish statesman and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and Pepin's mistress, a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles, also known as “The Hammer” (in old French, Martel), successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly [...] effective in battle".
