Granada War

The Granada War (Guerra de Granada) was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1492, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs (los Reyes Católicos) Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It ended with the defeat of Granada and its annexation by Castile, ending Islamic rule, Al-Andalus, on the Iberian peninsula and completing the Reconquista.

The ten-year war was not a continuous effort: it was a series of seasonal campaigns launched in the spring and postponed in the winter. The Granadans were crippled by internal conflict and civil war; meanwhile the Christians were generally unified. The war also saw the effective use of artillery by the Christians to rapidly conquer towns that would have required a long siege otherwise. The decisive Battle of Granada concluded the war. On January 2, 1492 Muhammad XII of Granada (King Boabdil) surrendered the Emirate of Granada, the city of Granada, and the Alhambra palace. It is still celebrated every year on that date by the City Council of Granada.

The war was a joint project between Isabella's Kingdom of Castile and León, and Ferdinand's Crown of Aragon. The bulk of the troops and funds for the war came from Castile, and Granada was annexed into Castile's lands. The Crown of Aragon was less important: apart from the presence of King Ferdinand himself, Aragon provided naval collaboration, guns, and some financial loans. Aristocrats were offered the allure of new lands, while Ferdinand and Isabella centralized and consolidated power. The aftermath of the war saw religious and ethnic differences sharpen, as the Jews and the Muslims were forced to either convert to Christianity or be exiled. This, too, helped create the future Spain by defining it as the guardian of Christianity; tensions flared between "old Christians" and "new Christians" (conversos), those who had converted.

Iberia and Al-Andalus in the late 15th century
The Emirate of Granada had been the sole Muslim state in Al-Andalus - Iberia - for more than a century by the time of the Granada War. The other remnant states of the Caliphate of Córdoba (taifa) had already been conquered by the Reconquista. Pessimism for Granada's future existed even then; in 1400, Ibn Hudayl wrote "Is Granada not enclosed between a violent sea and an enemy terrible in arms, both of which press on its people day and night?" Still, Granada was wealthy and powerful, and the Christian kingdoms were divided and fought amongst themselves. Granada's problems began to worsen after Emir Yusuf III's death in 1417. Succession struggles made it such that Granada was in an almost constant low-level civil war. Loyalty to clan was stronger than that to the Emir, making consolidation of power difficult. Often, the only territory the Emir really controlled was the city of Granada itself. At times, the emir did not even control all the city, but rather one emir would control the Alhambra, and another the Albaicín, the most important district of Granada.

This internal fighting greatly weakened the state. The economy declined, with Granada's once world-famous porcelain now disrupted and challenged by Manises near Valencia. Taxes were still imposed at their earlier high rates to support Granada's extensive defenses and large army, despite the weakening economy. Ordinary Granadans paid triple the taxes of (non-tax-exempt) Castilians. The heavy taxes that Emir Abu-l-Hasan Ali (1464–85) imposed contributed greatly to his unpopularity. These taxes did at least support a respected army; Hasan was successful in putting down Christian revolts in his lands, and some observers estimated he could muster as many as 7,000 horsemen.

The frontier between Granada and Andalusia was in a constant state of flux, "neither in peace nor in war." Raids across the border were common, as were intermixing alliances between local nobles on both sides of the frontier. Relations were governed by occasional truces and demands for tribute should one side have been seen to overstep their bounds. Neither country's central government intervened or controlled the warfare much.

King Henry IV of Castile died in December 1474, setting off the War of the Castilian Succession between Henry's daughter Juana la Beltraneja and Henry's half-sister Isabella. The war raged from 1475–1479, setting Isabella's supporters and the Crown of Aragon against Juana's supporters, Portugal, and France. During this time, the frontier with Granada was practically ignored; the Castilians did not even bother to ask for or obtain reparation for a raid in 1477. Truces between the sides were agreed upon in 1475, 76, and 78. In 1479, the Succession War concluded with Isabella victorious. As Isabella had married Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469, this meant that the two powerful kingdoms of Castile and Aragon would now stand united, free from inter-Christian war which had helped Granada survive.

Provocations and responses
The truce of 1478 was still theoretically in effect when Granada launched a surprise attack against Zahara in December, 1481, as part of a reprisal for a Christian raid. The town fell, and the population was enslaved. This attack proved to be a great provocation, and factions in favor of war in Andalusia used it to rally support for a counterstrike, quickly moving to take credit for it, and backed a wider war. The seizure of Alhama and its subsequent royal endorsement is usually said to be the formal beginning of the Granada War. Abu Hasan attempted to retake Alhama by siege in March, but was unsuccessful. Reinforcements from the rest of Castile and Aragon closed off the possibility of retaking Alhama in April 1482; King Ferdinand himself formally took command at Alhama on May 14, 1482.

The Christians next tried to besiege Loja, Granada, but failed to take the town. This setback was balanced by a twist that would prove to aid them greatly, though: on the same day as Loja's relief, Abu Hasan's son, Boabdil, rebelled and styled himself Emir Muhammad XII. The war continued into 1483. Abu Hasan's brother, Al-Zagal, defeated the Christian army near Malaga. However, at the battle of Axarquia, the Christians were able to defeat and capture King Boabdil. Ferdinand II and Isabella I had previously not been intent on conquering all of Granada. With the capture of King Boabdil, though, Ferdinand decided to use Boabdil to conquer Granada entirely. In a letter of August 1483, Ferdinand wrote "To put Granada in division and destroy it We have decided to free him.... He [Boabdil] has to make war on his father." With Boabdil's release, now as a pseudo-Christian ally, the Granadan civil war would continue. A Granadan chronicler commented that Boabdil's capture was "the cause of the fatherland's destruction."

In 1485, the fortunes of the Granadan internal conflict shifted yet again. Boabdil was expelled from the Albayzín, his base of power, by Hasan's brother al-Zagal. Al-Zagal also took command of the nation itself, dethroning his aging brother who died shortly thereafter. Boabdil was obliged to flee to Ferdinand and Isabella's protection. The continuing division within the Muslim ranks and the cunning of the Marquis of Cádiz allowed the western reaches of Granada to be seized with unusual speed in 1485. Ronda fell to him after a mere fifteen days, thanks to his negotiations with the city's leaders. Ronda's fall allowed Marbella, a base of the Granadan fleet, to come into Christian hands next.

Boabdil was soon released from Christian protection to resume his bid for control of Granada. For the next three years, he would act as functionally one of Ferdinand and Isabella's vassals. He offered the promise of limited independence for Granada and peace with the Christians to the citizenry; from the Catholic Monarchs, he extracted the title of Duke for whatever cities he could control.

Seizure of Málaga
Málaga, the chief seaport of Granada, was the main objective of the Castilian forces in 1487. Granadan leader al-Zagal was slow to march to attempt to relieve the siege and was unable to safely harass the Christian armies due to the ongoing civil war; even after he left to attempt to save Malaga, he was forced to leave troops in the Alhambra to defend against Boabdil and his followers.

The first main city to be attacked, Vélez-Málaga, capitulated on 27 April 1487. Local supporters of Boabdil directly aided the Christian besiegers. Málaga held out during an extended siege that lasted from 7 May 1487 until 18 August 1487 with a bitter resistance; its commander preferred death to surrender, and the African garrison and Christian "renegades" (converts to Islam) fought tenaciously fearing the consequences of defeat. Near the end, the notables of Malaga finally offered a surrender, but Ferdindad wasn't interested, as generous terms had already been offered twice. When the city finally fell, Fernandez punished almost all the inhabitants for their stubborn resistance with slavery. Renegades were burned alive or pierced by reeds. The Jews of Malaga, however, were spared, as Castilian Jews ransomed them from slavery.

Historian William Prescott considered the fall of Málaga the most important part of the war; as the chief port of Granada, Granada could not reasonably continue on as an independent state without it.

Siege of Baza
al-Zagal lost prestige from the fall of Málaga, and Boabdil took over all of the city of Granada in 1487; he additionally controlled the northeast of the country with Vélez-Rubio, Vélez-Blanco, and Vera. al-Zagal still controlled Baza, Guadix, and Almería. Boabdil took no action as the Christian forces took some of his land, perhaps assuming it would shortly be returned to him.

In 1489, the Christian forces began a painfully long siege of Baza, the most important stronghold remaining of al-Zagal's. Baza was highly defensible as it required the Christians to split their armies, and artillery was little use against it. The siege lasted 6 months; supplying the army caused a huge budget shortfall for the Castilians. Occasional threats of deprivation of office were necessary to keep the army in the field, and Isabella came personally to the siege to keep morale of both the nobles and the soldiers high. After 6 months, al-Zagal surrendered, despite his garrison still being largely unharmed; he had become convinced that the Christians were serious about maintaining the siege as long as it would take, and further resistance was useless without the long-term hope of relief, which there wasn't. Baza was granted generous surrender terms, unlike Málaga.

Last stand at Granada
With the fall of Baza and the capture of al-Zagal, in 1490 it seemed as if the war was over. Ferdinand and Isabella thought this was the case. However, Boabdil was unhappy with the rewards for his alliance with Ferdinand and Isabella, possibly because lands that had been promised to him were being administered by Castile. He broke off his vassalage and rebelled against the Catholic Monarchs, despite holding only the city of Granada and the Alpujarras Mountains. It was clear that such a position was untenable in the long term, so Boabdil sent out desperate requests for external aid. The Sultan of Egypt, An-Nasir Muhammad, mildly rebuked Ferdinand for the Granada War, but the Mamluks that ruled Egypt were in a near constant war with the Ottoman Turks. As Castile and Aragon were fellow enemies of the Turks, the Sultan had no desire to break their alliance against the Turks. Boabdil also requested aid from the Kingdom of Fez (modern Morocco), but no reply is recorded by history. North Africa continued to sell Castile wheat throughout the war and valued maintaining good trade relations. Furthermore, the Granadans no longer controlled any coastline with which to receive overseas aid in any case. No help would be forthcoming for Granada.

An eight-month siege of the Emirate of Granada began in April 1491. The situation for the defenders grew progressively more dire, as their forces for interfering with the siege dwindled and advisers schemed against each other. Bribery of important officials was rampant, and at least one of the chief advisers to Emir Boabdil seems to have been working for Castile the entire time. After the Battle of Granada provisional surrender, the Treaty of Granada (1491), was signed on November 25, 1491, which granted two months to the city. The reason for the long delay was not so much intransigence on either side, but rather the inability of the Granadan government to coordinate amongst itself in the midst of the disorder and tumult that gripped the city. After the terms were negotiated, which proved rather generous to the Muslims, the city capitulated on January 2, 1492. The besieging Christians sneaked troops into the Alhambra that day in case resistance materialized, which it did not. Granada's resistance had come to its end.

Tactics and technology
The most notable facet of the Granada War was the power of bombards  and cannons to greatly shorten the many sieges of the war. The Castilians and Aragonese started the war with only a few artillery pieces, but Ferdinand had access to French and Burgundian experts from his recent wars, and the Christians aggressively increased their forces. The Muslims, however, lagged far behind in their use of artillery, generally only using the occasional captured Christian piece. The historian Weston F. Cook Jr. wrote "Gunpowder firepower and artillery siege operations won the Granadan war, and other factors in the Spanish victory were actually secondary and derivative." By 1495, Castile and Aragaon controlled 179 pieces of artillery total, a vast increase from the paltry numbers seen in the War of the Castilian Succession.

Primitive arquebuses also saw use in the war, though only to a small degree. Heavy cavalry knights were a much smaller factor in the Granada War than seen in earlier warfare. Light cavalry jinetes took on a more prominent role instead. The open-field battles in which cavalry were the most important were rare; the Granadans, badly outnumbered, generally avoided such battles. The Castilians also employed a large number of supporting men; a huge force of workers were mustered in 1483 to destroy crops and pillage the countryside rather than engage directly in battle. Coordination and logistics was difficult given the mountainous terrain, but the Christians diligently built a series of roads through the mountains to supply their troops with food and supplies.

Politically, many nobles insisted on controlling their own forces, but Ferdinand and Isabella were still able to exercise a large degree of control in directing the army as a whole. The Granadans, meanwhile, were beset with the civil war, preventing the establishment of a unified command. The army was almost completely Castilian; Aragonese and foreign mercenary participation existed, but was minimal. Of the Castilian army, Andalusia contributed far more troops than the other territories, with much of its population conscripted into the war. The nobility provided the majority of the expensive cavalry.

The Granada War would prove to be valuable training for Castile's participation in the Italian Wars, where the Castilian armies and tactics such as the tercio would acquit themselves well.

Consequences
The surrender of Granada was seen as a great blow to Islam and a triumph of Christianity. Other Christian states offered their sincere congratulations to Ferdinand and Isabella, while Islamic writers reacted with despair. In Castile and Aragon, celebrations and bullfights were held. People rejoiced in the streets.

The Treaty of Granada (1491) terms for Granada's surrender were quite generous to the Muslims, considering how little they had left to bargain with. They were similar to the terms offered to towns which surrendered earlier, when the outcome of the war was in doubt. For three years, Muslims could emigrate and return freely. They were allowed to keep weapons, though not firearms. (This provision was to be annulled a month later, though.) No one would be forced to change religion, not even former Christians who'd converted to Islam. Boabdil was offered money and the rulership of a small principality in the mountainous Alpujarras, an area that would have been difficult to control in any case. At first, most of conquered Granada was treated respectfully and so predominantly stable for seven years, though the Alhambra Decree of 1492 expelled the Jews that were not converso Marranos.

King Boabdil soon found his position intolerable. He left for Morocco in Oct 1493, where he would die some forty years later. Eventually, Castile started to revoke some of the more tolerant attributes of the treaty. This initiative was led by Archbishop Cisneros, who ordered the burning of valued Arabic manuscripts and other measures detrimental to the Muslims (and Jews).

This sparked a revolt &mdash; sometimes called the First Rebellion of the Alpujarras &mdash; that ended in many Muslims being forced to choose between baptism and exile (or execution). Tensions from then onward would remain high, and Castile was obliged to maintain a large military force in Granada to deter future revolts. Isabella also strengthened the Spanish Inquisition, and Ferdinand brought the Inquisition to Aragon where previously it had not held power.

Castile was the main beneficiary of the war and completely annexed Granada. After all, Castile had also spent by far the majority of the money and manpower to prosecute the war. The conquest of Granada meant little for Aragon's strategic position, but it did help secure Castilian support in Italy and France, where Aragon's interests lay. Granada had presented a potential ally to France to act as a thorn in Castile and Aragon's side, much as Scotland did to England. Granada's conquest removed this weakness, enabling a more aggressive foreign policy.

Increasing oppression of the Moors - now known as Moriscos or "New Christians" - led to a second revolt throughout the province - particular in the Alpujarra - in 1568. This time almost all the Moriscos of Granada were expelled to other regions.

Cultural influence
An entire genre, romances fronterizos, developed around stories of the war and the battles on the Granadan frontier which reached their culmination in Granada's fall. Ginés Pérez de Hita wrote an early example of historical fiction, Guerras civiles de Granada, a romantic account of the war that emphasized chivalry and heroism on both sides. A number of stories and songs appear to have been sponsored by the royal government to help steel morale for the long struggle; Sobre Baza was a poem written in 1479 encouraging persistence in the long siege. The song "Setenil, ay Setenel", written in 1484, hoped that Ferdinand would conquer "as far as Jerusalem." The song "Una sañosa porfía" by Juan del Encina puts the depiction of the war in the lips of King Boabdil himself.