, that there was not one person left. Charles eliminated three entire peoples with hundreds and maybe thousands of years of history behind them. 4. SpainBut nobodys perfect. The Muslims, called the Moors, held Spain. The remaining Christians in the Spain asked Charles to help them. Charles led a great army over the Pyrennes and won back a couple of cities, but he never won any big battles, couldnt really negotiate with the Moors, and finally had to return home. He didnt really lose, but he didnt really gain anything either. The whole thing was pretty minor, except for one fairly trivial incident that occurred during the retreat. During his retreat into the mountains, Charles had accumulated a fair amount of booty. The mountains were a good place for an ambush, not least because they were infested with Muslims and Basques, neither of whom liked Franks. So Charles set up a rear guard to cover his retreat. Their job was to make sure that no one snuck up on Charles. Once they were safely over the mountains, this rear guard could then catch up with everyone else. The captain of these defenders was a young Breton prince named Roland. And, as surmised, this rearguard was ambushed and all were killed, while the rest of the Franks made it home safely. Such things probably happened quite often, but his one had a poet. No one knows who the original author is, but the SONG OF ROLAND, is still around. Roland is to the French what King Arthur is to the Britains, but perhaps with a little bit more basis in history. The poem is however about an insignificant action during a retreat after an expedition whose success was mixed at best. Hardly the stuff of legends, but there you have it. Charlemagne fought continuously for over 20 years. A whole generation of Europeans great up with him as their commander and king. They gave him great prestige, lots of land, and huge amounts of plunder. After 20 years of fighting, Charlemagne wanted to cash in his chips a...
