How Charles Martel turned back the Caliphate

Charles the Hammer

The Islamic Caliphate exploded onto the world scene in the 630s AD.  In thirty years they took the wealthiest 75% of the Roman Empire, leaving the rest to huddle behind the mountains of Anatolia.  They entirely swallowed Rome's greatest adversary, the Sassanian Persian Empire.  By the end of the century, they pushed all the way to the Indus valley and to the straights of Gibraltar.  They crossed those straights and ended the Visigoth kingdom which for 250 years had ruled Spain.  In 717 they marched to the gates of Constantinople, the Roman capitol.  Only the massive Theodosian Walls and their secret weapon Greek Fire stopped their expansion into Europe from the east.

But the west remained, and Islamic raiders began crossing the Pyrenees into the kingdom of the Franks.  In 732, Charles Martel crushed the invaders at the battle of Tours.  This ended the invasion, securing Europe from the west.  It was the high water mark of the Caliphate and while it would achieve new heights in art and literature (notably the 1001 Nights), they never added more territory.  They had peaked in 100 years and the long slide to fracture had begun.

It's really not a surprise that Charles stopped him.  The chronicles of his day describe him as an unusually effective warrior, and his army as the best to be found.  His nickname, Martel - "The Hammer" - pre-dated the islamic invasion of his land.  He was a leader who brought victory.

He did this, as the clickbait links say, through this one weird trick: he took his army campaigning each year, every year.  The Franks were a feudal kingdom, where nobles were supposed to bring troops to support their Lord.  But a Lord could only expect as much support as he could enforce.  Charles determined to enforce his claims each year.  If a noble didn't show up when summoned then next year he would find Charles' army camped outside his castle asking why he hadn't come.  After a while everyone sort of fell in line and Charles was able to expand the borders of his realm.

His son and grandson continued this strategy and created the greatest kingdom in the west since the Roman Empire fell.  You've heard of his grandson, Charlemagne, who was so powerful that the Pope crowned him Roman Emperor on Christmas Day in 800 AD.

All because of one weird trick.

The Richmond rally is over.  It was a success in that everyone seemed polite and happy and cleaned up after themselves, but now the narrative is emerging: White supremacists wanted to start a civil war in Richmond.  And Governor Blackface and the Democrats are moving full steam ahead with their reindeer games.  So now what?

Well, you've demonstrated that you can put an army in the field.  Charles Martel can tell you how to use it.

But you need more than rallies.  Here are some things that you can do that will bring the hammer down on your enemies - but only if you can keep the campaign going.

Recall the Governor.  You had over 20,000 people attend the rally.  If each would commit to gathering 25 signatures on a recall petition, that would give you half a million signatures.  The media can't really spin that.  Yeah, this is hard and not as much fun as a rally.  Campaigning to win is hard.

Form a militia under the command of a County Sheriff.  Almost 100 counties in Virginia are sanctuary counties.  As the Legislature starts passing bills, find one of those 100 Sheriffs to deputize a militia to resist confiscation.  The media will try to spin this, but if these are all sworn deputies under the command of the Sheriff, that's a lot harder to spin.  Organize and train, under the Sheriff's authority. Then find anther Sheriff and do it again.  And another.  And another.  Yeah, this is hard and not as much fun as a rally.  Campaigning to win is hard.

Meet with the NRA, the GOA, and the Virginia state Republican Party to target weak democrats (for the general election) and weak Republicans (for the primary).  There are probably 20 or 30 of these, so those 20,000 rally attendees might be able to provide as many as 1000 volunteers for each opponent who will run against them.  For a local election, that's a big number.  It's important to target both Democrats and Republicans to show that this is a non-partisan effort.  It's important to work with these organizations because they have a lot of experience in this sort of work.  The media can't really spin this, other than saying it's politics.  Sure is - that's the point.  Yeah, this is hard and not as much fun as a rally.  Campaigning to win is hard.

If you think about it, there are probably a thousand other ideas that can hammer Governor Blackface. None of them will include putting on a rally.

Of course, this is hard, and not as fun, so you won't get your 20,000 turnout.  That's OK.  Even 2,000 or 3,000 is a really good start, as long as it's focused on a win.  Charles the Hammer kept his army in the field year in and year out until none could stand before it.  We've seen this before; it's not complicated, it's just hard.

It's just one weird trick.