The siege of Algeciras (1342–1344) was undertaken during the Reconquest of Spain by the Castilian forces of Alfonso XI assisted by the fleets of the Crown of Aragon and the Republic of Genoa. The objective was to capture the city of Algeciras, called Al-Jazeera Al-Khadra by the Arabs who occupied it. The city was the capital and the main port of the European territory of the Marinid Empire.
The siege lasted for twenty one months. The population of the city, about 30,000 people including civilians and Berber soldiers, suffered from a land and sea blockade that prevented the entry of food into the city. The Emirate of Granada sent an army to relieve the city, but it was defeated beside the Río Palmones. Following this, on 26 March 1344 the city surrendered and was incorporated into the Crown of Castile. This was one of the first military engagements in Europe where gunpowder was used.
Background
Moorish threat to Castile
Algeciras was formerly part of the Emirate of Granada. In 1329 the city was taken over by the King of Morocco, who made it the capital of his European domains. Forces from Granada and Morocco recovered the nearby city of Gibraltar in 1333. In 1338 Abd-Al-Malik, son of the king of Morocco and ruler of Algeciras and Ronda, launched raids against the Castilian territories in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. In one of these raids he was killed by Castilian soldiers and his body taken back to Algeciras, where it was buried.
Abd-Al-Malik's father Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman crossed the strait in 1340, defeated a Spanish fleet and landed in the city. On the grave of his son he swore to defeat the Castilian king. He first went to the town of Tarifa, to which he laid siege. King Alfonso XI of Castile, overwhelmed by the incursions of the new North African force and the possibility of losing the city of Tarifa, gathered an army with the help of King Afonso IV of Portugal. The two armies, Castilian-Portuguese and Moroccan-Granadan, clashed near Tarifa's Los Lances beach in the Battle of Río Salado (30 October 1340). The defeat of the Muslims in this battle encouraged Alfonso XI and convinced him of the need to take the city of Algeciras, since it was the main port of entry of troops from Africa.
Preparations
Starting in 1341, Alfonso XI began to prepare the necessary troops to lay siege to the city. He ordered construction of several ships and secured the services of the Genoese fleet of Egidio Boccanegra and squadrons from Portugal and Aragon. On land, besides his Castilian troops and troops from Aragon, there were many European crusaders, and he was supported by the kings of England and France. The campaign was financed by extending the alcabala tax on bread, wine, fish, and clothing to include sales of all goods. The courts of Burgos, León, Ávila, and Zamora were called in 1342 to approve the new tax.
Alfonso XI met with the Portuguese Admiral Carlos Pessanha in El Puerto de Santa María and heard from Pero de Montada, Admiral of the Aragon squadron, that it was heading for Algeciras. He then left for Getares Cove, just 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from the city, to check the status of the galleys at his disposal. On his arrival at Getares, Pero de Montada informed the king that he had intercepted several ships carrying food to the city, and that the galleys of Portugal and Genoa had engaged eighty Moorish galleys in combat, captured twenty-six of them and forced the others to take refuge in African ports. According to the Castilian knights, this was the time to encircle the city, since it should have limited supplies. The king, however, felt he still had too few troops in place. Most of his forces were in Jerez de la Frontera awaiting his orders, while the troops defending Algeciras had already been warned of their arrival.
The king returned to Jerez, assembled his council and informed them of the state of the city. He sent orders to the admirals at Getares to intercept any boats trying to supply the city and to try to capture some Algecireño who could inform them about the condition of the two towns. He also sent orders to his almogavars to do the same on land. The king's knights advised him about the best places to establish the main base where the King and nobles would live, and the vulnerable points where they could do most damage to the city's defenses. It was only needed to move troops to Algeciras, build bridges over the Barbate River and over a stream near Jerez, and send ships to the Guadalete River to carry food for the troops.
On 25 July 1342 Alfonso XI left Jerez accompanied by his troops and the officials and knights who were to assist him in the siege of Algeciras. These included the Archbishop of Toledo, the Bishop of Cádiz, the Master of Santiago, Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán y Coronel, Pero Ponce de León, Joan Núñez, Master of Calatrava, Nuño Chamizo, Master of Alcántara, Fray Alfonso Ortiz Calderón, Prior of San Juan, and the councils of Seville, Cordoba, Jerez, Jaén, Écija, Carmona, and Niebla.
On 1 August the Castilian troops and their allies arrived at Getares, comprising a force of 1,600 mounted soldiers and 4,000 archers and lancers. The troops and squadrons of Aragon, Genoa, and Castile took their positions.
On 3 August the headquarters were established on a knoll to the north of Algeciras. The king lived in the tower there in the early months of the siege surrounded by the knights and nobles who accompanied him. The Torre de los Adalides (Tower of the Champions), named for that time, gave an excellent view of the Muslim city and of the roads that communicate with Gibraltar and eastern Andalusia.
Algeciras
Al-Jazeera Al-Khadra was the first city founded by Muslims when they arrived in the Iberian peninsula in 711. In the fourteenth century the city was two separate towns with their own walls and defenses. Between the two towns was the Río de la Miel. The river mouth formed a wide inlet which acted as a natural harbor protected by the Isla Verde ("green island"), which the Muslims called Yazirat Umm Al-Hakim. The north town, Al-Madina, called Villa Vieja ("old town") by the Spaniards, was the older of the two and was founded in 711. It was surrounded by a wall with towers and a deep moat protected by a barbican and a parapet. The entrance to the Villa Vieja from the Gibraltar road was protected by a massive gateway called the Fonsario, near the main city cemetery. This entrance was the weakest point of the defensive works and therefore the best defended.
The south town, Al-Binya, called Villa Nueva ("new town") by the Spaniards, was built by the Marinids of Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Abd Al-Haqq in 1285. It was on a plateau that had once held the industrial neighborhood of Iulia Traducta, the Roman Algeciras. The steepness of its perimeter helped its defense, so it was not necessary to build such strong defenses as those of the Villa Vieja. The Villa Nueva housed the fortress and the troops who had been established in the city. Algeciras had about eight hundred horsemen and twelve thousand crossbowmen and archers, with a total population of thirty thousand people, according to information from captives given to the King of Castile in the early days of the siege.
Phases of the siege
Opening moves: August–October 1342
From 3 August 1342, after the main camp had been established, the king of Castile commanded the Royal Engineers to study the places where troops were to be positioned. The main aim was to prevent the departure of troops from the city and the entry of reinforcements from the Tarifa and Gibraltar roads. Algeciras was to fall from hunger rather than by force of arms.
There followed a period of skirmishing between the two armies. One day as dawn broke a force of three hundred cavalry and a thousand foot sallied out from Algeciras towards a section of the siege lines occupied by the Master of Santiago, Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, Pero Ponce de León, and the Seville contingent. While the Christians prepared to meet this attack, a visiting German count accompanied by six fellow countrymen rode forward without waiting for the others. Seeing the Moors fall back, the foreigners charged in pursuit,ignorant of the Moorish stratagem. They were caught when the retreating defenders suddenly counter attacked and the handful of knights were soon fighting for their lives. The count was killed and his companions were only saved by the arrival of their Spanish allies who drove the Moors back into the city, under a hail of arrows from the ramparts. After the king had seen the damage that could be done, in the next few days he had a trench dug around the Villa Vieja from the Río de la Miel to the sea to prevent attacks from the city. Shelters were built next to the trenches and soldiers were posted at regular intervals to stand guard at night. The king moved his headquarters closer to the city and sent several of his men to conquer the Cartagena Tower in the city of Carteia, from where they could observe the movements of the Marinids of Gibraltar.
With war between Peter IV of Aragon and the Kingdom of Majorca imminent, the Aragonese fleet left the siege in September 1342. Siege engines were sent to a position near the northwest gate of the city, where two great towers prevented attack and protected the defenders. During construction of these machines, several of the defenders attacked from the Puerta de Xerez to prevent placement of the engines.
The Algecireños' strategy was to provoke the besiegers into coming closer to the walls. This technique, with which they had killed the Count of Lous, was not known to the Christian knights unaccustomed to the border war, and many men died during the early months of the siege. In the raid on the siege towers, the king's equerry Joan Niño died, as did the Master of Santiago and other men.
The siege dragged on, and the King of Castile sent several of his men to seek help in order to maintain the siege. The Archbishop of Toledo was sent to meet with the King of France while the Prior of St. Joan went to call on Pope Clement VI, who had just been installed.
The besiegers had more problems than they had expected at the start of the siege. During the first days of October there was a huge storm. The camp in the northwest was sited in a traditionally flooded area, and turned into a swamp. The defenders took advantage of the confusion created by the storm to attack during the night, causing extensive damage. Floods in the camp and in the encircling lines required the headquarters and the larger part of the troops to move to the mouth of the river Palmones, where they spent the remainder of October 1342. Soon after the main Christian camp had moved, the Algecireños gathered all their forces in the Villa Vieja to make a desperate attack against their besiegers. The Muslim knights were able to reach the newly established Christian camp and kill many Christian knights including Gutier Díaz de Sandoval and Lope Fernández de Villagrand, vassals of Joan Núñez and Ruy Sánchez de Rojas, vassal of the Master of Santiago.
First winter: November 1342–April 1343
The situation deteriorated gradually in both the city and the besieging camp. Food was scarce in the Christian camp after the flooding and the crowd of troops and animals in unsanitary conditions caused the spread of diseases. In November, Peter IV of Aragon sent ten galleys commanded by Mateu Mercer to meet his treaty obligation. The Portuguese king Afonso IV sent another ten galleys under Admiral Carlos Pessanha, but they stayed for only three weeks, and their departure boosted the morale of the defenders. The Castilian forces continued to have difficulty maintaining an adequate fleet for supply and offense. However, Algeciras grew short of food due to the sea blockade.
During the first months of siege the Spaniards continued to launch rocks at the walls of the city, while the defenders tried to cause losses in direct combat or with weapons such as ballistae, which could shoot large projectiles. In December 1342, troops sent by the councils of Castile and Extremadura reached the Christian camp, and with them the siege became tighter. They began to place a large number of Genoese ballistic engines around the city, while the defenders continued to shoot arrows at those installing the machines. During January 1343 the continuing struggles in the lines round the city weakened both sides. A large fortified bastida, a wooden tower commanded by Iñigo López de Orozco, was built facing the Puerta del Fonsario, and from this tower missiles could be shot over the city wall. The first bastida was soon burned by a force that sallied from the city, but another was built and continued shooting against the city throughout the siege.