The Moslem invasion of France was carried on with varying success for several years. In 732 occurred the so-called battle of Tours, in fact fought near Poitiers, when Charles Martel and a Frankish army defeated the Moslems. It was not this battle which caused the retreat of the invaders from France, but rather a civil war in Spain eight years later, necessitating a return to the peninsula. The Berbers of Africa had risen in revolt against their Arabic rulers, and had defeated both them and a Syrian force sent to the latter’s assistance. Thereupon the Spanish Berbers rose as well. For a time they were successful, but the emir was able finally to subdue them, being aided by the Syrian army in Africa, which he had induced to come to Spain. Then followed a terrible war between the Syrians and the emir, because the promises to the former had not been fulfilled. The struggle ended with a grant of some of the state lands in southern Spain to the Syrians, who were to receive the government’s third of the produce, but not the title to the lands. Shortly afterward there was another civil war, this time between the Shiite and Sunnite Arabs, caused by the harsh treatment of the former by a Sunnite governor. The war lasted eleven years, being then given a new turn by the intervention of a man who was to play an important part in the history of the period. [Sidenote: Coming of Abd-er-Rahman to Spain.] Other parts of the Moslem world had been afflicted by the same sort of internal strife as that which was occurring in Spain. In particular there was a dynastic struggle, which resulted in the dethronement of the caliphs of the Ommayad family and in the rise to power of the Abbasside caliphs. The Ommayads were ordered to be put to death, but one of them, a youth named Abd-er-Rahman, contrived to escape. He took refuge successively in Egypt and northwestern Africa, and in 755 came to Spain with the object of establishing himself there. This he was able to do, though not without a struggle, setting himself up as emir with his capital in Cordova, and proclaiming his independence of the caliph. [Sidenote: Abd-er-Rahman I.]