[1483-1487 A.D.]
A plundering expedition had been organised against Malaga and it included the flower of Spanish chivalry. After some conflicts the force turned back, laden with plunder. In the mountainous passes of the Axarquia it met such treatment as Pelayo had once meted out to the Moslem invaders. From every height the Moors poured down volleys of arrows, shot, and stones. At night great fires were built to reveal their hiding places. Panic, fatigue, and famine made chaos of resistance and in two days over eight hundred were killed and sixteen hundred made prisoners. But of these a large proportion were the choice youth of Spain, and the grief at court was excessive.
In the meanwhile there had occurred a feud among the Moors that served the Christians a better turn than many victories. The old king of Granada, Mulei Abul-Hassan, had for Queen Ayesha; in his harem he had a Greek concubine and also a Christian woman of Andalusia, Isabella de Solis, daughter of the governor of Martos. She was called Zoraya by the Moors and she bore the king a son named Abu Abdallah, more famously called Boabdil. Mother and son, eager for power, planned intrigues which were punished with imprisonment. But they escaped and stirred up a revolution so successfully that the old king was dethroned and driven to Malaga, where he defeated the Christian foray just described.
So great was the enthusiasm among the Moors that Abu Abdallah saw it would be necessary to make some military success to counteract the prestige of his old father. He secured the aid of Ali Atar and with a force of some ten thousand raided the Christian territory and besieged Lucena about April 21st, 1483. The count of Cabra coming to relieve Lucena, Abdallah was caught between two armies. When Ali Atar fell, the Moors fled; but Abdallah’s horse giving out, he was captured—the first royal Moorish prisoner in Christian hands. His mother immediately sought to ransom him, and finally secured his release at the cost of an annual tribute, and a subservience to Spain. Thus the Christians not only divided the Moors among themselves, but gained a large faction as ally.[a]
PROGRESS OF THE WAR
Notwithstanding the importance of the results in the war of Granada, a detail of the successive steps by which they were achieved would be most tedious and trifling. No siege or single military achievement of great moment occurred until nearly four years from this period, in 1487; although in the intervening time a large number of fortresses and petty towns, together with a very extensive tract of territory, were recovered from the enemy. Without pursuing the chronological order of events, it is probable that the end of history will be best attained by presenting a concise view of the general policy pursued by the sovereigns in the conduct of the war.
The Moorish wars under preceding monarchs had consisted of little else than cavalgadas, or inroads into the enemy’s territory, which, pouring like a torrent over the land, swept away whatever was upon the surface, but left it in its essential resources wholly unimpaired. The bounty of nature soon repaired the ravages of man, and the ensuing harvest seemed to shoot up more abundantly from the soil enriched by the blood of the husbandman. A more vigorous system of spoliation was now introduced. Instead of one campaign, the army took the field in spring and autumn, intermitting its efforts only during the intolerable heats of summer, so that the green crop had no time to ripen, ere it was trodden down under the iron heel of war.
The apparatus for devastation was also on a much greater scale than had ever before been witnessed. From the second year of the war, thirty thousand foragers were reserved for this service, which they effected by demolishing farm-houses, granaries, and mills (which last were exceedingly numerous in a land watered by many small streams), by eradicating the vines and laying waste the olive gardens and plantations of oranges, almonds, mulberries, and all the rich varieties that grew luxuriant in this highly favoured region. This merciless devastation extended for more than two leagues on either side of the line of march. At the same time, the Mediterranean fleet cut off all supplies from the Barbary coast, so that the whole kingdom might be said to be in a state of perpetual blockade. Such and so general was the scarcity occasioned by this system, that the Moors were glad to exchange their Christian captives for provisions, until such ransom was interdicted by the sovereigns as tending to defeat their own measures.
Ferdinand, who appeared at the head of his armies throughout the whole of this war, pursued a sagacious policy in reference to the beleaguered cities. He was ever ready to meet the first overtures to surrender in the most liberal spirit; granting protection of person, and such property as the besieged could transport with them, and assigning them a residence, if they preferred it, in his own dominions. Many, in consequence of this, migrated to Seville and other cities of Andalusia, where they were settled on estates which had been confiscated by the inquisitors, who looked forward, no doubt with satisfaction, to the time when they should be permitted to thrust their sickle into the new crop of heresy whose seeds were thus sown amid the ashes of the old one. Those who preferred to remain in the conquered Moorish territory, as Castilian subjects, were permitted the free enjoyment of personal rights and property, as well as of their religion; and such was the fidelity with which Ferdinand redeemed his engagements during the war, by the punishment of the least infraction of them by his own people, that many, particularly of the Moorish peasantry, preferred abiding in their early homes to removing to Granada or other places of the Moslem dominion.
Isabella, solicitous for everything that concerned the welfare of her people, sometimes visited the camp in person, encouraging the soldiers to endure the hardships of war, and relieving their necessities by liberal donations of clothes and money. She caused also a number of large tents, known as “the queen’s hospitals,” to be always reserved for the sick and wounded, and furnished them with the requisite attendants and medicines at her own charge. This is considered the earliest attempt at the formation of a regular camp hospital on record.