Professor Yuval Harari published in 2007 a a book recently translated into Spanish where it deals with a type of military actions that were very frequent at the time:special or commando operations , which we would say in a more popular language. He defines these as military actions limited to a small area, executed in short intervals of time, planned, difficult and carried out by a relatively small force but capable of achieving disproportionate military or political results in relation to the resources invested. The secrecy in their preparation and the surprise factor would be other characteristics that define them. The purpose of this work is to address its presence in the Spanish Middle Ages , of which Harari inexplicably does not speak, and limit as far as possible his real influence in the development of war conflicts.
Special operations in the Middle Ages in Spain
There are many war actions carried out in this period that fall within the definition. The fact that in Spanish we even have several words to define some in particular gives us an idea of their abundance. The term trap , for example, it means an ambush of armed people in a hidden area, stalking the enemy to attack him carelessly or unprepared according to the definition of the RAE. We could cite several more that will appear in this brief article. Our chronicles and epic literature bring us multiple examples of these operations that illustrate the concept. The taking of fortresses and strongholds was one of the main military objectives and also extremely costly, since as a general rule the conquest of them was only achieved after a long siege or by assaults that required many means on the part of the attackers. Being able to access them by surprise or by trickery was one of the most common and most famous special operations. In the Song of Mio Cid , we are described several of these lucky coups that could lead to the acquisition of a plaza or fortress, such as the taking of Castejón being the doors open or the conquest of Alcocer, in the morning, according to expression of the anonymous author, to drive out his defenders in the belief that his attackers were retreating (see "Campidoctor. Tactics and weaponry in the time of the Cid" in Desperta Ferro Antigua y medieval No. 40:El Cid ). In contrast, the loss of a castle due to the carelessness or negligence of its guardians was extremely reprehensible. The 15th-century writer Alonso de Cartagena deserved death to those who lost a castle for these reasons.
The border wars between Christians and Muslims, as well as the multiple internal conflicts that the peninsular kingdoms experienced, made our territory abound in cavalgadas, razzias or algaras , troops on horseback who ran and plundered the enemy's land in a continuous succession of blows and counter-blows. A magnificent description of this type of operation is given by the so-called Romance de los Caballeros de Moclín . Made in the heat of the wars with Granada, it narrates the seizure of a mill and ends with a significant verse about what life was like on the border and the successive and almost permanent exchange of actions between one and the other. A father tells his son that he wants to avenge a cavalcade or raid by the Granadans:
Suffering this type of action was therefore normal and expected. The men of the time had to live with the hope of not being too damaged by them and getting future revenge.
Another of the objectives of the special operations in this period was the elimination of the opposing military leaders or the capture of rival monarchs. This could be a serious blow to the rival, cause the disintegration of the enemy army or obtain a decisive political advantage. The Muslim defenders of Cuenca, for example, being besieged by the Castilian army, tried a desperate way out to kill Alfonso VIII, an action that was unsuccessful but could have meant the end of the campaign and the preservation of the city for the Islamic world a few more decades. The kings could be subject to kidnapping as Juan II and Enrique IV of Castile well knew. The first was taken prisoner by his rival Juan de Navarra in the so-called Golpe de Ramaga , authentic coup in the fifteenth century. Don Enrique was a taciturn and melancholic man who liked solitude. One of his favorite places was El Pardo, where he used to retire to hunt even in the middle of the war against the nobles who had enthroned his half-brother Alfonso. Knowing this, the famous knight Pedro Arias Dávila devised a daring operation to kidnap the monarch in the nearby town of Fuencarral, where the court was temporarily staying. The conspirators managed to gain access to the royal rooms and even captured one of the monarch's pages, who fortunately was able to get to safety before being captured.
Very often special operations belong to a type of war where deception and betrayal are very present, something that did not fail to generate some doubts in the writers of the time. Saint Thomas Aquinas considered that one should not lie or break oaths in a just war, although he accepted the use of subterfuge under certain circumstances. Honore de Bauvet considered that these means could become counterproductive in the long run for going against the honor and fame of those who used it. Most likely, these last reservations are behind the fact that we hardly know anything certain about one of the most successful special operations of our Middle Ages, the death of King Sancho II during the siege of Zamora. Practically all the chroniclers of the time agree that his death was due to treason, but they do not go into details since the beneficiary of it and the probable instigator of it was King Alfonso VI, heir to the brother of the. The literary tradition, however, has bequeathed us a vision that perhaps partially reflects what happened. A knight, Bellido Dolfos, came out of the city and persuaded the king to accompany him to a point where the square could easily be taken. When the king was inspecting his possible access, he was treacherously assassinated by his presumed guide, who ran to take refuge within the walls. This fact would give rise to a cycle of romances and a song of deeds today lost. The Zamoranos would deny in the same having had participation in the death of the monarch. The famous legend of the Jura de Santa Gadea, where El Cid would force Don Alfonso to swear that he had nothing to do with the death of his brother, also has its origin in this dark murder. Nobody ever claimed or pretended to be a descendant of someone who remained in the collective memory as the protagonist of a terribly dishonorable act. Only in modern times have defenders of this gentleman appeared, whom some want to see as a defender or champion of Leonese independence against Castilian expansionism. If we realize, what happened may respond to a trick or defensive technique very common at the time. The defenders made their attackers believe the possibility of carrying out an assault-type special operation that would give them the square. They took the bait and began an attack that actually led them into an ambush where they would find death or defeat. This is what happened to King Don Sancho.
We can say in conclusion that special operations were very common in the Middle Ages Spanish as in all of Europe, in fact they were so abundant that they generated their own vocabulary within the military language. They were in the environment and the powers of the time had to be warned against them. The success of some of them caused admiration to their own contemporaries and even today they surprise us, but we cannot equate them in importance to the great and decisive battles in the open field such as the clashes of Las Navas de Tolosa, Muret or Salado.
The fact that historiography has not given them a special place is because, with few exceptions, they were not decisive nor did they serve to change the course of events. Castles and cities mostly surrendered by capitulation or were taken by assault, rarely was a small group of men able to take a fortified position. We can therefore recover them and give them their rightful place in military history, continue to enjoy even the displays of cunning and courage that the men of that time often gave, but we must not give them more importance than they really have or attribute to them a decisive weight in the peninsular or European future.
Bibliography
- Poem of Mio Cid . Colin Smith edition. Editorial Chair. 1998.
- The Old Ballad . Mercedes Diaz Roig edition. Editorial Chair. 2007.
- Romance of the Cid . Edited by Luis Guarner. Publisher Miñon. 1954.
- Richard Fletcher. El Cid . Editorial Nerea. 1999.
- Alonso of Cartagena. Doctrine of the Knights . Santiago de Compostela University. 1995.
- José Manuel Rodríguez García. Men of religion and information services . Work included in Men of religion and war:crusade and holy war in the peninsular Middle Ages, 10th-15th centuries, work coordinated by Carlos Ayala and J.S Palacios Ontalva. Editorial Flint. 2018.
- Eduardo Manzano. The medieval times , within the History of Spain collection by Josep Fontana and Ramón Villares. Critical Editorial Marcial Pons. 2015.