September 23, 1340 began the Benimerin siege of Tarifa [1]. It would be the last attempt of a North African power to settle and expand in the Iberian Peninsula [2]. The Battle of Salado was a direct consequence of the divergent ambitions between Christians and Muslims to control the Strait of Gibraltar [3]. In this brief essay we will try to synthesize the tactical development of one of the largest pitched battles that took place during the Reconquest, using both the bibliography and the available sources [4].
In September 1340, determined not to allow the Muslims to conquer the vital plaza of Tarifa, Alfonso XI communicated to the principals of the kingdom his firm will to help the plaza and to do so fight the Muslims in a great pitched battle. To ensure that the sultan's intentions were to respond to his challenge, the Castilian and Portuguese monarchs sent emissaries warning Abu al-Hasan to wait for them and offer battle in the Laguna de la Janda, to which the Moroccan haughtily replied that he would give battle to the Christians, but not where they wanted, but around Tarifa [5]. After showing off in Seville, the crusading army marched south in search of the enemy who, in the meantime, had spent his time trying to take the Castilian square, something that he did not come close to achieving at any time despite the great resources mobilized , due to the iron determination of the garrison, which was known to be supported from abroad and aware that a relief army was on the way.
The North Africans and their allies, knowing that the Crusader troops were approaching, lifted the siege, burned the siege engines and withdrew to the surrounding heights, adopting a clearly defensive position . Abu-l Hassan was confident of stopping the Christians thanks to his strategic position and numerical superiority . The Castilians, who were going through serious financial difficulties and needed to obtain a resounding victory that would remove the danger from Tarifa, were deployed in five corps with a clear offensive intent [6]:
- The rearguard, made up of a large number of laborers, in charge of the leader of the Cordoba council militia, Gonzalo de Aguilar, and the Leonese nobleman Pedro Núñez de Guzmán . The chronicle emphasizes that they were the worst quality troops of all those who were assembled for battle. As has already been said, the role of the Castilian-Leonese infantry was usually purely defensive.
- The core of the army, commanded by Alfonso XI himself , protected by the royal mesnaderos, as well as by episcopal and archiepiscopal hosts, together with a large number of fixed dalgo knights.
- The waterfront on the right flank was under the command of Alvar Pérez de Guzmán , who would command the knights of his own host, as well as other natives of the border, lightly armed to counteract the speed and flexibility of the Muslim cavalry.
- The waterfront on the left flank was commanded by the King of Portugal, Alfonso IV , father-in-law of the Castilian-Leonese monarch. The thousand Portuguese knights were joined by approximately another three thousand Castilians to reinforce that wing.
- The avant-garde, made up of the cream of the Castilian nobility. Led by Juan Núñez de Lara, Alonso Méndez de Guzmán and the nobleman, military writer and prolific writer, Don Juan Manuel . Along with the nobility contingents were the council militias of Seville, Jerez and Carmona.
The Muslims, for their part, divided their forces intofour large sections :
- The Muslim rear guard was made up of some 6,000 cavalry troops led by Hammu al-Asri . Abu-l Hassan kept this contingent as a reserve to help at that point in the battle where it was needed [7].
- The center of the Muslim device was under the orders of Abu al-Hasan himself. , in the area where the fight was expected to be tougher.
- The right flank was in charge of Yusuf I, Granadan monarch , located in an area of hills that offered an advantageous defensive position, with the center of the device occupied by the cavalry and its flanks by infants and Turkish archers.
- The left flank was under the command of the son of Abu al-Hasan , Abu Umar , protecting the area closest to the city of Tarifa, also in an area of hills that offered them a greater defensive advantage against the Crusaders.
As befitting the circumstances, it was the Christians who led the confrontation at all times, being the ones who started the fighting once Alfonso XI gave the order to cross the salty river , just after Gil de Albornoz, the archbishop of Toledo, had finished officiating the mass and giving a fiery speech that Monday, October 30, 1340.
First attempt to cross the Salado
The battle [8] began with the attempt of the Christian vanguard to ford the course of the Salado , something that could not be carried out at first, due to the hard resistance shown by the Marinid vanguard that covered that sector. The young and enthusiastic Alfonso XI, barely 28 years old at the time, soon grew impatient with the delay of his vanguard in crossing the Salado, so he sent a message to Don Juan Manuel to find out why the lead was not crossing the Salado. river. Added to the monarch's impatience was that of the knight García Jofre Tenorio who demanded that Don Juan Manuel launch the hosts to try to cross the ford decisively. Faced with the indecision of the Castilian nobleman, his ensign took the banner to try to cross the river, but Don Juan Manuel in an inexplicable act hit him on the head with a mace, knocking him off his horse. This strange attitude made most of the components of the Castilian forward mistrust the tycoon and that de facto the Christian avant-garde was led solely by Juan Núñez de Lara.
In an attempt to resolve the confusion created by the indecision of Don Juan Manuel and establish once and for all a bridgehead on the other side of the Salado river, the brothers Gonzalo and Garcilaso Ruiz de la Vega (vassals of don Fadrique and don Fernando, bastard sons of the king) turned to the right managing to cross the Salado by a small bridge from Roman times. The irruption of the Castilian knights over this bridge surprised the Muslims, who at first retreated and had to take refuge in the bulk of their device. However, shortly after, they violently counterattacked the knights who had already crossed the river, putting them in a very compromised situation, since the Christian host that had managed to cross the river barely numbered 800 troops , while the Muslim device that faced them had 2,500 horsemen.
Alfonso XI knew how to react intelligently and flexibly to battle development. Despite the fact that his orders had not been carried out due to the inexplicable attitude of Don Juan Manuel, the Castilian-Leonese monarch saw the opportunity clearly, and to prevent the knights who had crossed the river from being annihilated, he sent Alvar Pérez de Guzmán along with 1500 heavy horsemen . The aid of the right flank was effective, and after a very hard hand-to-hand fight, the Muslim resistance was broken in that sector. Faced with this first setback, Abu al-Hasan , who had a great numerical superiority, ordered his son Abu Umar, in charge of the Muslim left flank, to charge with 3000 Marinid horsemen against the Castilians who had managed to establish a bridgehead on the other side of the Salado. The Muslim cavalry charge was so brutal that it forced the Castilians to fall back to their initial positions and abandon the bridgehead they had established [9].
Second attempt, and crossing the Salado
Faced with these setbacks, Alfonso XI, in person, advanced towards Salado. The leaders of the crusading vanguard, Juan Núñez de Lara and the master of Santiago Alfonso Méndez, seeing that the king was advancing and they had not yet forced the passage of the river, now they did, they crossed together with the entire vanguard Christian engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the benimerines who guarded the fords of the river. The Christian push made the Benimerin device shudder. The banners of Juan Núñez de Lara and Alfonso Méndez together with part of the vanguard managed to flank the Muslim device and climb a small hill that was to the right of the benimerines. It was at this point that the battle began to spiral out of control and the feats of arms that led to the Christian victory happened much more quickly and in a disorderly manner.
The section of the Castilian vanguard, which had managed to outflank the Muslims, launched a mad frontal attack against the Marinite royal , which was much further behind the device established by Abu-l Hassan. The leaders of the vanguard, without a doubt, intended to attack from the hill that they had won over the great agglomeration of forces that the North Africans kept in the center of the device, however, the desire for loot of the Castilian forces He made the vanguard section disregard the combat and go quickly to steal the riches gathered by Abu-l Hassan in his royal one.
At the same time that the section of the Castilian vanguard that had flanked the Muslims was dedicated to attacking the Benimerin royal, the forces that were inside the plaza of Rate , commanded by Juan Alfonso de Benavides, went out into the open field and frontally attacked the superior Muslim forces that were in charge of protecting the real, some 3,000 horsemen and 8,000 pawns, who despite their great numerical superiority, soon gave up the fight, leaving the palenque of Abu-l Hassan totally unprotected , as well as his numerous wives, who were also there. Some of the components of the Benimerin rearguard fled towards Algeciras, while others descended from the heights and joined the central body, where at that time there was also very hard fighting.
While the looting of the Benimerin royal was taking place, Alfonso XI had already managed to cross the river and the Castilian forces had established contact with the bulk of the Muslim contingent, much larger in number. Determined to kill or capture Abu-l Hassan, Alfonso XI ordered the forces remaining around him to charge into the center of the enemy device , where the sultan of the Maghreb was. This was the critical moment of the battle, since the forces that protected the Castilian monarch were greatly diminished by the march of part of his vanguard towards the Benimerin riches contained in the real, and the combat that part of his forces waged on his right, They were a bit far from him. The center of the Muslim army took advantage of this moment of weakness to savagely counterattack the small troops that protected Alfonso XI, since in case of killing or capturing the monarch, the result of the battle would be totally sealed in favor of the North Africans. The Benimerines unleashed a hail of arrows that almost killed Alfonso XI , sticking an arrow into the saddle of the young and intrepid king. Faced with the criticality of the situation, the monarch remained calm and harangued his hosts so that they would not faint
Alfonso XI himself tried to personally join the fray, having to be stopped by Gil de Albornoz, Archbishop of Toledo, just before charging his horse into the center of the fight. The troops that protected the person of the king were the flower and cream of the Castilian hosts , chosen knights and raised in the monarch's own house , whose fidelity and value were unquestionable. The chronicle has left us some of their names:Sancho Sánchez de Rojas, Garci García de Grijalba, Íñigo López de Orozco and Juan Estébanez de Castellanos.
Despite the direness of the situation, the royal hosts kept the type against the benimerines. It was at that moment when the Christian rearguard, under the command of Gonzalo de Aguilar came to the aid of the king. The council militia of Córdoba was joined by those of Écija, Zamora and the Bishop of Mondoñedo, Álvaro Pérez de Biedma. This reinforcement managed to alleviate the critical situation in which the center of the Christian deployment found itself. The Muslims, who for a moment came to caress victory, saw how it eluded them again, since, to the renewed impetus of the Castilian center, now the troops that had previously assaulted the real were added. About to be hemmed in from all directions, the North Africans made a disorderly escape towards Algeciras, leaving the Christians owners of the battlefield and, therefore, victorious.
In parallel to the clash between the Moroccan sultan and the king of Castile, the kings of Granada and Portugal they also fought tenaciously on a higher stretch of the Salado River.
The Castilian/Portuguese contingent under the orders of Alfonso IV engaged in combat against the Andalusian troops, with the battle on that flank very even, even leaning dangerously in favor of the Granadans, not However, the Castilian infantry, commanded by Pedro Núñez de Guzmán , arrived at just the right moment to reinforce the exhausted Portuguese and Castilian knights, thus defeating the hosts of Yusuf I and putting them to flight.
Conclusion
The Christian victory was unappealable and it resonated throughout Christendom, however, the Castilian logistical circumstances prevented obtaining a greater return from the victory, as expressed by the Archbishop of Toledo Gil de Albornoz [10].
The battle of Salado was a heavy defeat for Abu-l Hassan, who from that moment, and especially after the loss of Algeciras four years later, had to redirect his expansionary policy only in North Africa . Alfonso XI, on the other hand, full of joy after his victory, did not miss the opportunity and the following year he conquered the squares of Alcalá la Real, Priego, Carcabuey, Rute and Benamejí [11]. In 1344 it was Algeciras that passed into Castilian hands [12], and despite the fact that Gibraltar could not be conquered due to the death of Alfonso XI in 1350, the so-called "problem of the straits" was resolved since from then on no North African power tried to settle in the Iberian Peninsula .
Bibliography
- AYALA MARTÍNEZ, Carlos, PALACIOS ONTALVA, Santiago and RÍOS SALOMA, Martín (eds.), Guerra Santa y Cruzada en el Estrecho. The western peninsular in the first half of the fourteenth century , Madrid, Flint, 2016.
- BENEYTO, Juan, Cardinal Albornoz. Chancellor of Castile and leader of Italy , Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1950.
- Chronicle two seven primeiros kings of Portugal , ed. Carlos da Silva Tarouca, 2 vols., Lisbon, Portuguese Academy of History, 1952.
- GARCÍA FERNÁNDEZ, Manuel, Andalusia:War and Border , Seville, Andalusian Culture Fund, 1990.
- Great Chronicle of Alfonso XI , ed. Diego Catalán, 2 vols., Madrid, Gredos, 1977.
- HUICI MIRANDA, Ambrosio, The great battles of the Reconquest during the African invasions (Almoravids, Almohads and Benimerines) , Granada, University of Granada, 2000 (1st ed. 1956)
- MUÑOZ BOLAÑOS, Roberto, “El Salado 1340. The end of the Strait problem”, University Magazine of Military History , 2 (2012), p. 153-185.
- O´CALLAGHAN, Joseph F., The Gibraltar Crusade. Castile and the Battle for the Strait , University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2011.
Notes
[1] O´CALLAGHAN, The Gibraltar Crusade , p. 174-175.
[2] MUÑOZ BOLAÑOS, “El Salado 1340…” pp. 155-156.
[3] Since 1331, with the rise to power of Abu-l Hassan, the Marinids had launched an energetic and aggressive foreign policy that led them once again to be interested in to dominate both shores of the strait, as well as to try to expand in the Iberian Peninsula. In 1333 they took control of Gibraltar, and between the summer of 1338 and the Battle of Salado, a true "total war" took place in Lower Andalusia and the land borders with the Kingdom of Granada. GARCÍA FERNÁNDEZ, Andalusia:War and Border , p. 56-68.
[4] Nowadays, the already classic study by Ambrosio Huici Miranda is unavoidable, which together with the works of Wenceslao Segura González, Roberto Muños Bolaños and Nicolás Agrait, allow us to know with a high degree of detail the development of the great pitched contest.
[5] CSPRP , p. 331-333; GCAXI, chap. CCCXV and CCCXVI.
[6] The details of the Christian deployment in GCAXI , chap. CCCXXIV and CCCXXVIII.
[7] GCAXI , chap. CCCXXIX.
[8] For the development of the battle we have been guided by HUICI MIRANDA, The Great Battles… , p. 360-379.
[9] “And when the king of Benamarin saw this and saw so many Christians from the other side of the river, he sent to send the infant Aboamar his son to go with the people that he had to undertake that fight (...) And so bravely and so bravely did the infant Aboamar with his people come to fight those Christian knights, who by force of arms and by kindness of knighthood made them lose land and boluer against whom was the front of the king don Alonso de Castilla”. GCAXI , chap. CCCXXX.
[10] “The victory was incredible. Neither the number of dead nor the volume of the defeat can be calculated. Two women were found in the red tent of the Benamarín (…) four older daughters and two younger ones, and many concubines. In addition, they left behind many donkeys, donkeys, camels, and tents, as well as precious jewels and other priceless spoils, which our cavalrymen, peons, and auxiliary groups took as loot. The nobles, as they fought out of zeal for the faith, despite encountering so many things, did not stop to take their share, but buying time with it, set out to pursue the Moors, whose camp was completely annihilated. Seeing the victory obtained by the favor of heaven, the aforementioned king, my lord, raises attentive prayers to God, praying that he removes from the Christian land the terrible stench of the children of darkness, whose triumph could have led Christianity to ruin. , if their irruption had not been stopped. Too bad we didn't have provisions for more than two days! If we had been supplied for a month, there is no doubt that we could conquer the castle of Algeciras!”. BENEYTO, Cardinal Albornoz… , p. 329-332.
[11] GARCÍA FERNÁNDEZ, Andalusia:War and Border , p. 74-75.
[12] O´CALLAGHAN, The Gibraltar Crusade , p. 174-175.