After a short foray in July of 710 AD, Muslim forces from North Africa invaded the Christian Iberian Peninsula (modern day Spain and Portugal) in the spring of 711, and within two years, with the exception of the extreme northwestern portion of the peninsula, had successfully overpowered and conquered the Visigothic Christian realms of Iberia.[1] Not only did it take the Frankish forces under Charles Martel to stop the Muslim horde at the battle of Poitiers in 732 from further intrusions into Western Europe, it would take nearly eight centuries for the Iberian Christians to re-take the peninsula from the Muslims. Why were the Muslims able to so quickly invade, conquer, and subdue nearly the entire Iberian Peninsula, whose Christian forces greatly outnumbered the Muslim forces, yet Charles Martel was able to route the Muslims from his land in just one battle?
The Iberian Peninsula had a long and somewhat sordid history prior to the Muslim invasion. Before the coming of the Romans, the peninsula saw several groups of intruders, including Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Celts, all who eventually overlaid the peninsula's original Paleolithic peoples. However, it wasn't until after the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) and the establishment of Iberia as a Roman province that the peninsula began to see any real form of unity.[2]
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