and Egyptian
fleets in the Bosphorus.

The great retreat began. The Arab soldiers started back through
Asia Minor, but only 30,000 out of the original force of 180,000
lived to reach Tarsus. The fleet set sail for the AEgean, and as
in the similar retreat of a half century before, the Arabs were
overwhelmed by a storm with terrible losses. The Christian ships
picked off many survivors, and the Christians of the islands destroyed
others that sought shelter in any port. It is said that out of
the original armada of 1800 vessels only five returned to Syria!
Thus the third and supreme effort of the Saracen ended in one of
the greatest military disasters in history.

The service of the Christian fleet in the salvation of the empire
at this time is thus summarized by a historian:

"The fleet won most of the credit for the fine defense; it invariably
fought with admirable readiness and discipline, and was handled in
the most masterful manner. It checked the establishment of a naval
blockade at the very outset, and broke it when it was temporarily
formed in 718; it enabled the army to operate at will on either
shore of the Bosphorus, and it followed up the retreating Saracens
and completed the ruin of the great armament."[1]

[Footnote 1: THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, Foard, p. 170.]

The winning stroke in this campaign was the tremendous naval victory
at the mouth of the Bosphorus, and this, even more emphatically
than Constantine's victory in 677, deserves to be called another
Salamis. Not only did it save the Christian empire but it checked
the Caliphate at the summit of its power and started it on its
decline. Not for thirty years afterwards was the Saracen able to
put any considerable fleet upon the sea.

It was ten years after the Arab defeat at Constantinople that the
armies of the west began the other part of Muza's project--the
conquest of the Franks. By this time the Frankish power was united
and able to present a powerful defense. In six bitterly contested
battles between Tours and Poitiers in 732 Charles Martel defeated
the Arabs in a campaign that may well be called the Marathon, or
better, the Plataea, of the Middle Ages, for it completed the work
done by the imperial navy at Constantinople. From this time forward
the power of the Saracen began to ebb by land and sea.

As it ebbed, the new cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice began to
capture the trade and hold the control of the sea that once had
been Saracen, unt