Pyrenees in the Iberian Peninsula. In 719 the forces of Al-Samh ibn Malik surged up the east coast, overwhelming the remaining Visigoth province of Septimania and establishing a fortified base at Narbonne. Control was secured by offering the local population generous terms, inter-marriage between ruling families or treaties. Further Umayyad expansion was halted on Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlanis defeat at the Battle of Toulouse. Wālis were installed in Girona and Barcelona. The Muslim forces however continued to raid their Gallic neighbours to the north, reaching as far as Autun. Peace was signed in 730 between the victor at Toulouse, the Duke of Aquitaine, and 'Uthman ibn Naissa (Munuza), a Berber rebel lord stationed in Cerdanya (maybe current-day Catalonia), a region that could act as a buffer state against Umayyad expansionism. The peace treaty was sealed with the marriage of the Duke’s daughter to Munuza. However, Munuza was defeated by a Umayyad military expedition (731) and another period of Muslim expansion commenced. Aquitaine (including the Duchy of Vasconia) pledged formal allegiance to the Frankish leaders several times (Odo in 732, Hunald in 736 after being defeated), but remained actually independent. In 737 Charles led an expedition to the Lower Rhone and Septimania, possibly seeing that the Umayyad thrust was threatening his grip on Burgundy (subdued in 736), but did not manage to subjugate and keep the region. Both Aquitaine and Septimania were still out of central Frankish control after Charles's death, but Pepin the Short was determined to subdue southern Gaul. In 759, after conquering Septimania from the Umayyad, the Carolingian king focused all his might in crushing Aquitanian resistance to central Frankish power. After a ruthless war of 8 years, Aquitainian independence came to an end. Toulouse was now under the grip of the new Carolingian king Charlemagne and access to Andalusian Hispania was open for him, despite sporadic rebellions in Vasconia during the next two decades (Basques subdued in 790 by Charlemagne's new loyal strongman in Toulouse William of Gellone). Pepin's son, Charlemagne, fulfilled the Carolingian goal of extending the defensive boundaries of the empire beyond Septimania, creating a strong barrier state between the Umayyad Emirate/Caliphate of Iberia and the Frankish Empire, besides tightening control over the Duchy of Vasconia by establishing the Kingdom of Aquitaine ruled by his son Louis the Pious in 781. Creation The Franks created the Hispanic March by conquering former north-eastern territory of the