charges. For seven days, the two armies engaged in minor skirmishes. The Umayyads waited for their full strength to arrive. 'Abd-al-Raḥmân, despite being a proven commander, had been outmanoeuvered; he had allowed Charles to concentrate his forces and pick the field of battle. Furthermore, it was impossible for the Umayyads to judge the size of Charles' army since he had used the trees and forest to screen his true numbers. Charles' infantry was his best hope for victory. Seasoned and battle-hardened, most of them had fought with him for years, some as far back as 717. In addition to his army, he also had levies of militia which had not seen significant military use except for gathering food and harassing the Muslim army. While many historians through the centuries have believed that the Franks were outnumbered at the onset of battle by at least two to one, some sources, such as the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754, disagree with that assertion. Charles correctly assumed that 'Abd-al-Raḥmân would feel compelled to give battle, and move on and try to loot Tours. Neither side wanted to attack. Abd-al-Raḥmân felt he had to sack Tours, which meant he had to go through the Frankish army on the hill in front of him. Charles' decision to stay in the hills proved crucial, as it forced the Umayyad cavalry to charge uphill and through trees, diminishing their effectiveness. Charles had been preparing for this confrontation since the Battle of Toulouse a decade earlier. Gibbon believes, as do most historians, that Charles had made the best of a bad situation. Though allegedly outnumbered and without any heavy cavalry, he had tough, battle-hardened infantrymen who believed in him implicitly. At a time in the Dark Ages when permanent armies had been non-existent in Europe, Charles even took out a large loan from the Pope after convincing him of the impending emergency, in order to properly train and maintain a full-size army largely composed of professional infantry. Moreover, as Davis points out, these infantrymen were heavily armed. Formed into a phalanx formation, they were able to withstand a cavalry charge better than might be expected, especially as Charles had secured the high ground – with trees before him to further impede any cavalry charges. The failure of Arab intelligence extended to the fact that they were totally unaware of how good his forces were; he had trained them for