Without the complex military machine that his forebears had
built up over the course of the eighth century, it would have been
impossible for Charlemagne to revive the Roman empire in the West.
"Early Carolingian Warfare" is the first book-length study of how
the Frankish dynasty, beginning with Pippin II, established its
power and cultivated its military expertise in order to reestablish
the "regnum Francorum," a geographical area of the late Roman
period that includes much of present-day France and western
Germany. Bernard Bachrach has thoroughly examined contemporary
sources, including court chronicles, military handbooks, and late
Roman histories and manuals, to establish how the early
Carolingians used their legacy of political and military techniques
and strategies forged in imperial Rome to regain control in the
West.Pippin II and his successors were not diverted by
opportunities for financial enrichment in the short term through
raids and campaigns outside of the regnum Francorum; they focused
on conquest with sagacious sensibilities, preferring bloodless
diplomatic solutions to unnecessarily destructive warfare, and
disdained military glory for its own sake. But when they had to
deploy their military forces, their operations were brutal and
efficient. Their training was exceptionally well developed, and
their techniques included hand-to-hand combat, regimented troop
movements, fighting on horseback with specialized mounted soldiers,
and the execution of lengthy sieges employing artillery. In order
to sustain their long-term strategy, the early Carolingians relied
on a late Roman model whereby soldiers were recruited from among
the militarized population who were required by law to serve
outside their immediate communities. The ability to mass and train
large armies from among farmers and urban-dwellers gave the
Carolingians the necessary power to lay siege to the old Roman
fortress cities that dominated the military topography of the
West.Bachrach includes fresh accounts of Charles Martel's defeat of
the Muslims at Poitiers in 732, and Pippin's successful siege of
Bourges in 762, demonstrating that in the matter of warfare there
never was a western European Dark Age that ultimately was
enlightened by some later Renaissance. The early Carolingians built
upon surviving military institutions, adopted late antique
technology, and effectively utilized their classical intellectual
inheritance to prepare the way militarily for Charlemagne's
empire.
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