2 January 1492

[jai]

Family commitments forced me to temporarily interrupt the column that I will leave in any case when Martin returns.
Since I have little time to write I think the writing will be very long...

Today I will try to speak broadly about an event which was a turning point in European and world history : The "Reconquista"...a 800-year journey that ended on January 2, 1492 with the conquest of Granada

it all began on a hot summer day ... July 17 711
The battle of the Rio Barbate or battle of the lagoon of La Janda was fought near the Guadalete river, in Betica (Andalusia, Spain), between the army of the Visigoths led by king Rodrigo and the Arab-Berber forces commanded by Ṭāriq b. Ziyād in the framework of the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Rodrigo's defeat and death ended the Visigothic rule in Spain and marked the beginning of the Arab conquest.

Ṭāriq would have been under the orders of Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr, governor (wali) of Qayrawan (North Africa, or Ifriqiya), who, in agreement with the Count of Ceuta Giuliano, governor and vassal of King Rodrigo but accomplice of the dethroned King Witiza, would have planned the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, thus crossing the Strait of Gibraltar (from the Arabic Jabal al-Ṭāriq, "the Mount of Ṭāriq") in the night between 27 and 28 April 711.

It is very likely that Tāriq landed in Ṭarīfa with 7,000 Berber infantry, reaching Carteya (Cadiz) and then Algeciras, repelling the attack launched by Bancho or Sancho, Rodrigo's brother-in-law, who had come to meet him.

While all this was taking place, the Visigothic king was clashing in the north of the Iberian Peninsula with the Basques in Pamplona. The news reached him only 2 or 3 weeks later. The crisis that undermined the Visigothic kingdom in those fateful years, with continuous plots and fratricidal wars within the nobility to seize the throne considerably limited Rodrigo's room for maneuver when recruiting an army with which to face the invasion, forcing him to accept the interested offer of the supporters of his opponent Witiza, without understanding what betrayal was about to be perpetrated by them. Be that as it may, he was able to hastily organize an armed crowd of 40,000 men in Cordoba and set out to confront Tāriq.

The collision took place at Wadi Lakka, in the current region of Cadiz, although there are historians who place the site of the collision in the vicinity of the Barbate River, on the bank of the Guadarranque or in Medina-Sidonia. For two days both sides tested each other in bloody skirmishes. Once the battle began, Witiza's sons and their supporters sowed discord within Rodrigo's ranks, betraying him and retreating, thus leaving the flanks of his army exposed, terrifying the monarch's supporters. The center of Rodrigo's army resisted as long as it could but eventually gave way.

The destruction of the Visigothic force for the deception of Witiza, the total ignorance of the Arab-Berber way of fighting and the probable death of Rodrigo opened the gates of the kingdom to Tāriq, allowing him to take over Toledo in 714.

Some time after Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr, he landed in turn in Algeciras under the command of 18,000 Arabs who strengthened the Tāriq contingent, continuing the occupation of the Iberian lands reaching the territories bordering the valleys of the Ebro, Asturias and Galicia, it is not clear whether there was also the intention of reaching the Pyrenees and then invading the rest of Europe through the Franco-Merovingian Kingdom.

the images are taken from my recent trip to the region and some images taken from the web

keep it going....

 

[Airkid]

Good work again Jai. Many thanks!

Phil

 

[jai]

you will understand that illustrating, even if broadly speaking, 800 years of military history in a single discussion is a very difficult undertaking, so I will take a leap in time to reach our date in question ...

After Abu l-Hasan 'Ali came to power he did not recognize his vassalage towards Castile, on the contrary, surprisingly, in 1481, he conquered the castle of Zahara. The Castilian forces reacted immediately and on February 26, 1482, they occupied Alhama de Granada, a town about thirty kilometers from Granada.
The war that will bring the long years of the reconquest to an end had begun and will last about ten years.

Hernán Pérez del Pulgar, who was in the conquest of Alhama de Granada and participated in the war until the surrender of Granada.

During the first year, the war was unfavorable to the Castilian forces, in fact Ferdinand was defeated in Loja, a city west of Granada, which he had besieged, and pursued by Muslim forces as far as Cordova (July 1482).
In the spring of 1483 he attacked south but was unable to take Malaga

or Vélez-Málaga, but while Ferdinand was defeated, in April a Muslim contingent led by Boabdil of Granada, son of the sultan of Granada, who had ousted his father, he laid siege to Lucena, south of Cordova, where a Spanish command, under the command of the Count of Cabra, on 23 April 1483, entered the camp of the Moors and took Boabdil prisoner.
At this point the diplomatic skill of the Catholic Monarchs and their advisers intervened.

Dato che nel regno di Granada era in corso una guerra civile tra il padre (Muley Hacen) e lo zio (al-Zaghal) contro i seguaci di Boabdil per il controllo del sultanato, i Re Cattolici permisero a Boabdil di poter riacquistare la libertà a patto che aiutasse le truppe castigliane nella guerra contro i territori controllati dal padre e dallo zio.
Approfittando delle lotte intestine tra padre e figlio, Ferdinando e i suoi comandanti conquistarono città e fortezze nei dintorni di Granada. Tra il 1483 ed il 1487 caddero in mano castigliana, Zahara, Álora, Setenil, Cártama, Coin, Ronda (maggio del 1485)

Marbella, Loja (May 1486, with the decisive use of heavy artillery), a good part of the fortresses fell into the hands of the Castilian of the Vega de Granada (fortresses of Íllora, Moclín, Montefrío and Colomera), and on the Vélez-Málaga coast and finally Malaga (May 7, 1487).
Meanwhile Muley Hacen had died (1485) and had named his successor, not his son, Boabdil, but his brother, al-Zaghal, so the civil war continued between uncle and nephew.

In 1487, Boabdil, who in order to keep the throne was too condescending and submissive to the Catholic Monarchs, lost the support of most of his subjects who gathered around his uncle, al-Zaghal, who led in person, with admirable courage resistance, so that in Boabdil practically remained the only city of Granada.

In 1488 the war lost its intensity both due to the plague that raged in Andalusia,

and because Ferdinand was busy summoning the Catalan and Aragonese cortes and finally for problems that arose with the kingdom of Navarre, where conflicts had arisen with the queen mother, France (regent of Navarre). However al-Zaghal freed Almería from the siege and repelled the besiegers.

In 1489, after moving the base of operations to Murcia, Ferdinand began to occupy the less defended localities in the north-east of the kingdom of Granada, Vera, Vélez-Blanco and Vélez-Rubio and then put the siege to Almería and Baza, a fortress that defended al-Zaghal's headquarters in Guadix.

1489 was perhaps the hardest year of the war and Queen Isabella came to sell her personal jewels, to continue to finance military operations, with the result that Baza finally fell in December 1489 and shortly after Almería fell (1490) and soon after fell Guadix, Almuñécar and Salobreña, which led to the surrender of al-Zaghal with the consequent cession of the eastern part of the kingdom of Granada, which he controlled.

Only Granada remained, where Boabdil, as he had promised several times, did not decide to open the gates of the city, so the Catholic Monarchs set up camp near the walls of the city that was besieged. In 1491 the camp of the Catholic Monarchs burned down so it was decided to build a new enclosed camp (on the Roman model), which was called, Santa Fe. Negotiations were opened before the end of the year to negotiate the surrender; the agreement with Boabdil was reached by the future el Gran Capitán, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba on November 25, 1491 (Treaty of Granada) and provided for two months for the delivery of the city, which was delivered ahead of schedule. The official entry of the Catholic Monarchs into the Alhambra fortress palace on January 2, 1492 is still commemorated today by the municipal authorities of the city of Granada

The war was over and the reconquest completed. The kingdom of Granada was kept separate kingdom subjected to the kingdom of Castile and the Catholic Monarchs undertook to guarantee the people and goods of the Muslims who wanted to stay in Granada, while all those who wanted to leave could do so taking all their property with them; maintenance of the Koranic law and religion and release of all prisoners of war.

 

[jai]

Good work again Jai. Many thanks!

Phil

thanks

I think we can easily create a substantial collection of figures set in the phases of the siege and conquest of Granada.

or even just set in the rich rooms and courtyards of the Alhambra

 

[grasshopper]

Sir: that was superb!...

 

[Nap]

Sir: that was superb!...

Just seen this ...very interesting to look through

Thanks

Nap