The greatest enthusiasm was aroused by this appointment. Nobles and peasants alike, ambitious of serving under a prince of the blood, flocked by hundreds to the royal standard. The new commander, although inexperienced, perfected his arrangements with all the caution and skill of a veteran. The army was thoroughly reorganized. Disorder was checked. Outlaws and beggars were expelled from the camp. As far as the annoying feudal regulations would permit, discipline was enforced. Licensed brigandage, which had done so much to destroy the efficiency of the troops, was punished with impartial rigor. Under these improved conditions the army, which had hitherto resembled a disorderly mob, now assumed the appearance of a compact and formidable force. Meanwhile, the insurgents had not been idle. Instructed by experience and adversity, Ibn-Ommeyah introduced many necessary reforms into his civil and military administration; purchased arms in Africa; invited the presence of corsairs; procured supplies; and, dividing his territory into districts whose arrangement facilitated mutual support and defence, awaited with resolution and confidence the approach of the enemy. The first operations of the campaign were favorable to the Moriscoes, whose successes, while neither material nor decisive, nevertheless resulted in substantial additions to their ranks. Although able to bring several thousand men into the field, their want of artillery, ignorance of engineering science, and traditional dependence on partisan warfare made their victories worthless. The latter were obtained in skirmishes where but a few hundreds were engaged, the nature of the ground and the opportunities for surprise giving unperceived assailants the advantage.
Irritated by these reverses, a decisive step, long contemplated, and frequently from politic motives postponed, was now resolved upon by the government. The rumor of impending revolt was diligently circulated throughout Granada. As no evidence was subsequently disclosed to confirm this report, it was probably entirely fictitious, but it accomplished the object for which it was promulgated. A panic seized the excitable populace, and a universal demand arose for the expulsion of the Moriscoes. The authorities were quick to profit by the commotion and the fears which their own perfidy aroused; and, at a concerted signal, twenty thousand arquebusiers, with lighted fuses, occupied the approaches to the Albaycin. The Moriscoes, when ordered to assemble in their churches, anticipating a massacre, abandoned themselves to despair. It required all the influence of the municipal authorities, and the royal word of Don John of Austria himself that their lives would be spared, to reassure the terror-stricken prisoners. Crowded together in the aisles, they passed an agonizing and sleepless night. The next morning the males between the ages of ten and sixty years, with their hands bound behind them, were conducted outside the walls, where a decree of perpetual banishment was pronounced against them and their kindred. A few days of grace were accorded to these unfortunates to dispose of, or rather to sacrifice, their personal property; and then, divided into several companies, each escorted by a strong guard, they began their journey towards central Andalusia, Estremadura, and Castile, whither, for purposes of security, it had been decided to conduct them.
The exiles were about eleven thousand in number. They included the descendants of the wealthiest and noblest Moorish families of Granada, and, indeed, of the entire Peninsula. Many of them traced their ancestry back to the princely families of the khalifate, eminent alike for intellectual accomplishments and military renown. In their keeping were the ancient traditions of their race; the rare memorials of the Moslem conquest and domination; the remnants of Arabic literature which had escaped the destructive zeal of Ximenes and the exhaustive search of prying alguazils and inquisitors. Their houses still displayed the splendid decorations peculiar to the palmy days of the emirate; marble halls and alabaster fountains; hangings of embossed and gilded leather; stuccoes that in elegance of design and delicacy of execution equalled those of the Alhambra. In the Vega were many estates, cultivated by their dependents, which returned each year a large and profitable income. All of these landed possessions were unceremoniously appropriated by the Spaniards, and the personal effects sold by the exiles yielded scarcely a tithe of their value. Driven by force from their homes, and despoiled on every side, the Moriscoes pursued their sorrowful way. Reared in comfort and affluence and accustomed to luxury, they were ill-fitted for a long and toilsome journey. Few of the multitude that started arrived at their destination. The hardships incident to travel and exposure to the burning heat proved fatal to hundreds. Many expired from grief, from hunger, from disease. Others were wantonly killed by their guards, who plundered, without hesitancy or compunction, both the living and the dead. When this source of profit was exhausted, the strongest men and the most attractive women were sold as slaves. The condition of the few survivors who arrived at Seville was so deplorable that even the compassion of ecclesiastics, whose lives had been passed in the infliction of persecution and torture, was excited. The greater portion of the inhabitants, however, regarded these victims of tyranny with indifference or curiosity. The sufferings of tender youth, of decrepit age, of beauty in distress, awakened no sympathy; and if any feelings were exhibited by the throngs that lined the highways along which, under a scorching sun, the fainting exiles staggered, they were those of bitter enmity and of exultation at the misfortunes of heretics who had forfeited all title to humanity through the inherited blood of a despised and conquered race.
No beneficial consequences resulted from this measure, as cruel as it was unwise. The insurgents continued their depredations. Every straggler was killed; and no foraging party whose force was less than that of a regiment could hope to return. The Moriscoes by degrees became more daring, and it was no longer safe for individuals to venture beyond the limits of the camp. The encounters were all to the advantage of the rebels; and the great city of Almeria, by the merest accident, escaped falling into their hands. The latter, however, were not only unable to cope with the entire power of the Spanish monarchy, but were even unprovided with the means necessary for the retention of their paltry conquests. Even in a situation where unity was more than ever indispensable to self-preservation, the irrepressible tendency of the Arab mind to factional disturbance began to manifest itself. Nine centuries of national disaster had been insufficient to repress the tribal hatred and the thirst for private vengeance which had sapped the vitality and finally torn into fragments the realm of a vast and splendid empire. The Moor was incapable of profiting by experience. The law of reprisal, that accursed legacy of his Bedouin forefathers, had never been lost sight of, even amidst all the culture and all the wisdom of his civilization. It was the most powerful and effective weapon that his enemies possessed, and it was eternally used to his prejudice. To its aid the Reconquest was far more indebted than to the energy of Alfonso VI. or to the craft of Ferdinand the Catholic. It won more battles than all the conquering sovereigns from Pelayus to Isabella. No Castilian prince had ever failed to recognize its importance or to profit by its employment. And now, in the remote Alpujarras, the last resort of Moorish valor and ambition, it was again to be wielded with even more fatal and demoralizing effects than had ever marked its use since the troublous epoch which followed the decline of the Ommeyade supremacy.
The popularity of Ibn-Ommeyah had of late greatly suffered through the strictness of the discipline which he had inaugurated and the oppressive acts of his advisers, for the most part men of obscure lineage and grasping avarice. The soldiers, accustomed to the exercise of the greatest freedom in their conduct and in their treatment of the enemy, viewed with unconcealed disgust the restraints to which they were subjected. In the councillors of their king, the rich Moriscoes, who had forfeited their lives and expended their treasure in sustaining his pretensions, saw a band of robbers, who abused the opportunities of their positions for their own pecuniary benefit. Especially were those whose wealth made them conspicuous the objects of the selfish animadversion of these base-born officials. No person of eminence, whether civilian or military officer, was safe from the denunciation of informers. The experience of Ibn-Ommeyah, and his frequent escapes from premeditated treachery, had made him impulsive, vindictive, and cruel. Constantly exposed to danger, he was only too ready to listen to the voice of suspicion, and in the court of a despot the punishment follows swiftly upon the accusation. Besides the alienation of many of his principal adherents from the above-mentioned causes, Ibn-Ommeyah had recently gained for himself, by an egregious act of folly, the enmity of one of the most powerful tribes in the kingdom.
Among the most distinguished families of Granada was that of the Beni-Alguazil-al-Karimi, in which was vested, by hereditary right, the office of vizier of the district of Ujijar. Inherited rivalry, the pride of conscious merit, and the jealousy of power had made the Beni-Alguazil the enemies of the house of Ibn-Ommeyah. Their hostility, manifested upon more than one occasion, had aroused the apprehensions of the Moorish prince; and the assassination of Miguel de Rojas, the chief of the tribe, was, not without probability, attributed to his instigation. In consequence, the Beni-Alguazil, while unwilling to assist the Christian foe, maintained a suspicious and sullen demeanor, and, with the characteristic vindictiveness of the Arab, awaited patiently the moment of reprisal. With a perfidy natural to his character, and from the effects of which he was ultimately destined to perish, Ibn-Ommeyah had adopted the custom of promoting to favor and apparent confidence those whom he had already marked for destruction. Among those who shared this perilous honor was Diego Alguazil, a member of the rival clan, whose animosity had been soothed by the gifts and the consideration he received at the hands of his sovereign. In his harem was a lovely slave, the perfection of whose charms, imprudently disclosed by her master, aroused the curiosity and inflamed the desires of Ibn-Ommeyah. Considerations of policy or justice were of trifling moment where the ungovernable passions of the Moorish king were concerned; the slave was rudely appropriated without apology or compensation; and this arbitrary invasion of the rights of a subject raised up for Ibn-Ommeyah an implacable enemy. The ambition of the beautiful Zahrâ, who aspired to the position of Sultana, was disappointed by her continuance in an inferior rank, and, her hopes thus blasted, she found in her former master a pliant and serviceable instrument of revenge. The support of other malcontents, dissatisfied with the cruelty and arrogance of their king, was readily secured; the fears of the royal guard of six hundred Turks were excited by an ingenious, but discreditable, stratagem; and Ibn-Ommeyah, torn from the arms of his women and thrown into prison, perished miserably before morning at the hands of the executioner. His death seemed not entirely unjustifiable, for he proclaimed with his last breath his secret and unshaken belief in the Christian religion. The hypocrisy, which, for the sake of luxury and power, could feign attachment to a creed that upon the slightest pretext it was ready to betray, was not unworthily punished by the treachery of a slave. Ibn-Abu, a cousin of Ibn-Ommeyah, succeeded to the empty honors and dangerous responsibilities of a tottering throne. The treasures of the palace and the seraglio were divided among the conspirators. The guards, whose fidelity to the new administration was suspected, were disbanded; the unpopular officials, deprived of the power which they had abused and the wealth which they had accumulated by extortion and perfidy, were despoiled and exiled; and the new King, crowned at Lanjar with all the pomp which the limited resources that a fugitive court and an impoverished treasury could command, assumed, with an appearance of confidence, the direction of a government divided against itself and confronted with the combined and resistless power of the Spanish monarchy.
Ibn-Abu, when invested with the royal dignity, of whose precarious character he was perfectly aware, but whose acceptance he was afraid to refuse, was far past the prime of life. In the course of an eventful and romantic career, he had undergone many exciting and hazardous experiences. From his youth identified with the party hostile to the Christians, his fidelity to the Moslem cause had been severely tested on numerous occasions. Implicated with the monfis, he had submitted to torture and had been sent to the galleys rather than betray his comrades. Again, for refusing to disclose the hiding-place of his sovereign, he was subjected to a shocking and indescribable mutilation. His sufferings had confirmed his loyalty and intensified his hatred; the noble qualities with which he was endowed endeared him to his countrymen; but his indecision, his lack of energy, and his inability to profit by the means at his disposal in the presence of any sudden exigency unfitted him for the position of responsibility to which he had been so unexpectedly promoted. In spite of the disadvantages under which he labored, he, however, soon placed his forces upon a more effective footing, and his position was greatly strengthened by the discord of his enemies.
The reforms inaugurated by Don John of Austria proved impracticable when their full import became known to the soldiers and they began to experience the inconveniences attendant upon military restraint. Feudal customs also interfered with the enforcement of discipline; and the lords, fearful of a retrenchment of their own privileges, indulged their vassals in acts of rapine prejudicial to the well-being of the entire army. The quarrels and recriminations of the Marquis de Mondejar and the Marquis de los Velez, so far from being extinguished by the appointment of a commander-in-chief, became more aggravated and violent than ever. The power of the latter was hampered by contradictory orders from Madrid, and the prosecution of energetic measures was prevented by incessant and acrimonious disputes. As soon as the prospect of booty was diminished, the army was threatened with dissolution. Desertions were so common and their effect was so demoralizing that all reviews were abandoned, in order that the enemy might not become acquainted with the diminished numbers of their antagonists. Scores of officers were cashiered for peculation; but their successors, unintimidated by the penalty, followed, without hesitation, their disgraceful example. In the markets of the city, the government supplies were publicly exposed for sale by the commissaries. The camp was filled with spies. Not only had many Moriscoes enlisted with the object of betraying their comrades, but the Spaniards themselves constantly sold both official secrets and arms to the rebels. Entire garrisons mutinied because of the necessary precautions instituted by their commanders; and it was not unusual for parties organized for robbery to leave their posts in violation of the express orders of the general. Of these marauders few returned, but their fate failed to deter others; the love of plunder prevailed over every other incentive; and the safety of the troops was often jeopardized by the misconduct of unprincipled adventurers, whose insolence and insubordination even the highest authority seemed unable to restrain. These breaches of order and discipline were by no means confined to the ranks; every grade of the military was affected; and no less a personage than the Marquis de los Velez himself assumed the right to act independently of the commander-in-chief, and to disregard all orders from head-quarters unless they suited his convenience or promoted his interest.
The army of Ibn-Abu amounted to twelve thousand men, of whom four thousand were thoroughly drilled arquebusiers. This force, though for the most part well equipped, experienced in war, aided by the advantages of situation, and fighting for liberty on its own ground, was unable to accomplish any important result, even when engaged with a demoralized enemy. The achievements of the Moriscoes, limited to the blockade of a few fortresses and to marauding expeditions that harassed the cultivators of the Vega, are scarcely worthy of notice, still less of detailed narration. In the vicinity of Orgiba and Baza their troops appeared in force, but retired at once at the approach of the Christians. It was only by the practice of treacherous methods that the Moorish tactics ever prevailed. The want of stability and resolution which had proved fatal to the permanence of the Hispano-Arab empire survived in the final operations of the Morisco rebellion. The superior steadiness of the Spanish infantry invariably carried the day, even against overwhelming odds. The Moors were easily disheartened; after a trifling repulse it was impossible to rally them; and, even when protected by fortifications, they could not withstand the dogged pertinacity which was a prominent trait of the Castilian.
With the appearance of Don John of Austria in the field, hostilities were prosecuted with more rigor and with greater cruelty. The unimportant but bloody successes of the Moors had infused into the Spanish soldiery an even more pitiless spirit than before. The Austrian prince, at first disposed to leniency, soon became, through association and prejudice, as unfeeling as the meanest soldier in the ranks. The siege and assault of Galera, which was the turning-point of the war, exemplified, in a striking degree, the dominant principle which actuated the minds of those who directed the campaign. That town, situated upon an isolated rock, was one of the most strongly fortified places in Spain. In addition to its position, its facilities for defence were excellent. Its garrison was composed of three thousand veterans. Its supplies were ample, and the prudence of Ibn-Abu, who fully appreciated its value, had long before filled to overflowing its magazine and its arsenal. Two falconets, one of which had been captured from the Marquis de los Velez, defended the castle, an unusual advantage, for the Moriscoes were generally unprovided even with such insignificant artillery. A concealed gallery cut through the mountain, and extending below the bed of the river at its base, provided the inhabitants with water, whose existence, unknown to the enemy, made its destruction impossible. In addition to the garrison, the walls of Galera sheltered a population of five thousand, including residents and refugees.