Battle of Río Salado
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Battle of Río Salado | |||||||
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Part of the Reconquista | |||||||
Canvas of the battle by unknown 17th century author | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Crown of Castile Kingdom of Portugal |
Marinid Sultanate Emirate of Granada | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena Garci Lasso de la Vega II |
Yusuf I | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
22,000 8,000 knights[2][1] 12,000 infantry[2][1] 1,000 knights[2][1] 1,000 in Tarifa garrison[1] |
60,000[3] 7,000 knights[4] |
History of Spain |
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Timeline |
The Battle of Río Salado
Campaign
After
This invasion was a final attempt by the
Preliminary moves
During the winter of 1340, Abu Hasan gathered his fleet: 60 war galleys and 250 other ships concentrated at Ceuta under command of Muhammad ibn Ali al-Azafi.[9] They landed an army at Gibraltar, and on 8 April 1340 44 Muslim galleys and 35 leños met the Castilian fleet of 44 galleys and 7 naos, under Admiral Alfonso Jofre de Tenorio, in the straits.[9] Al-Azafi surrounded and destroyed the Castilian fleet; Tenorio himself lost his life, 28 galleys and seven naos were captured and only 11 of his galleys managed to reach Cartagena.[9] Five reached Tarifa.[9]
Abu Hasan crossed the Gibraltar straits on 14 August 1340, and all through the summer troops and supplies were ferried across to the Peninsula.[10] On 22 September the siege of Tarifa was formally established, with the help of Yusuf I.[11] However the Sultan made a serious mistake: believing it would take many months for the Castilians to rebuild a fleet, and in the hope of cutting down the enormous cost of maintaining his own fleet, Abu Hasan prematurely laid up most of his galleys and returned those of his allies, leaving only 12 at Algeciras.[11]
Meanwhile, Alfonso XI had sought the aid of the King of Aragón and of his father-in-law, King Afonso IV of Portugal.[12] The latter sent a Portuguese naval fleet led by Manuel Pessanha, Admiral of Portugal, and additionally paid for the services of 15 Genoese galleys led by commander Micer Gil Bocanegra.[12] With the addition of 27 ships hastily completed at Seville, the Christian fleets appeared in force in the Straits in October, cutting off the supply routes between Morocco and the Peninsula.[4]
Abu Hasan's position was now a difficult one, not only because the troops besieging Tarifa depended on supplies from Morocco, but also the Kingdom of Granada needed them, their forces having launched a series of limited attacks all along the frontier to hold the Castilians at bay. On 10 October, a severe storm wrecked 12 Castilian galleys, and the same day the Sultan launched an all-out assault against Tarifa, which was barely repulsed with heavy losses on both sides.[13]
Alfonso XI left Seville on 15 October 1340 with a relief army, joining the King of Portugal the next day.[14] They advanced to the line of the Guadalete River and there awaited further Castilian and Portuguese contingents. At last on 26 October the combined army, now 20,000-strong, crossed into enemy territory. When informed of their advance, Abu Hasan ordered the siege raised and his army took position on a hill between Tarifa and the sea.[4] Yusuf I placed his army on an adjacent hill.[4] On the 29th the Christian army reached the Deer Hill (Hayar al-Ayyal), 8 km (5.0 mi) from Tarifa and barely 250 metres from the beach. Between them and their adversaries was a 4,500m long valley crossed by the streams of La Jara and El Salado. With supplies running low, Alfonso XI decided to attack the next day.[4]
During the night, Alfonso XI had sent 1,000 horse and 4,000 foot troops to reinforce the Tarifa garrison,[2] hoping to surprise the enemy rearguard during the battle; they had met only slight resistance by the 3,000 light cavalry covering the Salado and reached Tarifa without difficulty.[4] However, the officer commanding the light cavalry informed Abu Hasan that not a single Christian had managed to enter Tarifa during the night; whether he made his report in good faith, or in fear of admitting failure will never be known, but this misinformation had serious consequences the next day.
Opposing forces
A Spanish contemporary chronicle estimated Abu Hasan's army at 40,000
The Castilians mustered 8,000 knights and 12,000 infantry.[1] The Portuguese brought 1,000 knights and Tarifa kept a garrison of 1,000 men, who took part in the battle.[1] Alfonso sent 3,000 Castilian knights to help the 1,000 Portuguese knights attack Yusuf's 7,000 Granadan knights on the left.[4] The Castilian infantry consisted of municipal militias, stationed in the middle, and soldiers from Asturias and the Basque territories, who were armed and equipped with lances, crossbows, helmets, and shields and were located next to Afonso IV's knights.[4]
Battle
The council of war decided that the Castilian King would attack the Sultan's main army, while the Portuguese host, reinforced by 3,000 Castilians, would engage
In the center,
Alfonso now found himself dangerously isolated, with the right wing at some distance and the vanguard attacking the enemy camp.[17] Abu Hasan ordered a general attack and the Castilian King himself was about to engage in hand-to-hand combat when the Archbishop of Toledo, Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz, grabbed his reins and prevented it.[17] The timely arrival of the Castilian rearguard balanced the situation, and when the forces which had been sacking the Sultan's camp advanced down the hill and engaged the enemy from the rear, Abu Hasan's surrounded army broke and fled towards Algeciras.[17]
Meanwhile, the Portuguese military contingent had crossed the Río Salado, and when Pedro Nuñez reinforced them the whole Granada contingent broke and left the field.[17] The battle took just three hours from 9 a.m. until noon.[17]
The allied Castilian and Portuguese pursuit against the Muslims was ruthless, ending at the Guadamecí River, 6 km from the battlefield, although many remained in the hills, sacking the Sultan's rich camp.[17] Little mercy was shown here, and many of the Sultan's wives were killed, including his first wife Fatimah (daughter of the Sultan of Tunis) and Aysa (daughter of the noble Abu Yahya ibn Yaqub).[17] Other kinfolk of Abu Hasan were taken captive, including his sister Umalfat, his son Abu Umar Tasufin, and his nephew Alí. Many notables were killed in the battle or the rout, such as Abu Tabit ibn Fath Allah, Abu Muyahid Gazi ibn al-Ka's, and Muhammad ben Yahya ben Abi Bakr, also the famous writer from Granada, Abdullah ben Salmun, and the popular imam Ibn al-Khatib.
Both Abu Hasan and Yusuf reached Algeciras; the Sultan took refuge at Gibraltar, and that same night crossed to Ceuta in a galley.[15]
Aftermath
The Marinids had suffered a decisive defeat and moved back to Africa.[15][1]
Never again was a Muslim army able to invade the
Notes
- ^ Sometimes cited in English as 'Battle of Salado', mirroring the Spanish Batalla del Salado.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l O'Callaghan 2011, p. 187.
- ^ a b c d e Hillgarth 1976, p. 342.
- ^ a b c d e O'Callaghan 2011, p. 188.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k O'Callaghan 2011, p. 177.
- ^ a b Segura González 2010, p. 6.
- ^ a b O'Callaghan 2011, p. 162.
- ^ O'Callaghan 2011, p. 167.
- ^ a b O'Callaghan 2011, p. 174.
- ^ a b c d O'Callaghan 2011, p. 172.
- ^ O'Callaghan 2011, pp. 174–175.
- ^ a b c d O'Callaghan 2011, p. 175.
- ^ a b O'Callaghan 2011, p. 173.
- ^ O'Callaghan 2011, pp. 175–176.
- ^ O'Callaghan 2011, p. 176.
- ^ a b c O'Callaghan 2011, p. 183.
- ^ a b c d O'Callaghan 2011, p. 180.
- ^ a b c d e f g O'Callaghan 2011, p. 182.
- ^ O'Callaghan 2011, p. 189.
- ^ O'Callaghan 2011, p. 198.
- ^ O'Callaghan 2011, p. 216.
Sources
- O'Callaghan, Joseph F. (2011). The Gibraltar Crusade: Castile and the Battle for the Strait. ISBN 978-0812223026.
- Hillgarth, J. N. (1976). The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250–1516. Vol. I. Clarendon Press.[ISBN missing]
Further reading
- Azeredo, António Carlos de (2007). Guimarães (in Portuguese). Oporto: Caminhos Romanos. ISBN 978-989-95232-3-4.
- Huici Miranda, Ambrosio (2000) [First published 1956]. Las Grandes Batallas de la Reconquista durante las Invasiones Africanas (in Spanish). Granada: Univ. of Granada. ISBN 843382659X.
- MacKay, Angus (1977). Spain in the Middle Ages. Basingstoke: MacMillan. OCLC 642077471.
- Rubiera Mata, María Jesús; al Hasan Alī ibn Muhammad, Abū (1982). Ibn al-ŷayyāb, el otro poeta de la Alhambra (in Spanish). Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra: Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura. ISBN 8485622162.
- Segura González, Wenceslao (2005). "La batalla del Salado (año 1340)" (PDF). Al Qantir: Monofrafías y documentos sobre la Historia de Tarifa (in Spanish) (3): 1–32. ISSN 2171-5858.
- — (2010). "El desarrollo de la batalla del Salado (año 1340)" (PDF). Al Qantir (9): 1–29. ISSN 2171-5858.