Las Navas De Tolosa
On the 16th of July, 1212, was fought the great battle which broke the
Moorish power in Spain. During the two centuries before fresh streams of
invasion had flowed in from Africa to yield new life to the Moslem power.
From time to time in the Mohammedan world reforms have sprung up, and been
carried far and wide by fanaticism and the sword. One such body of
reformers, the Almoravides, invaded Spain in the eleventh century and
carried all before it. It was with these that the Cid Campeador had to
deal. A century later a new reformer, calling himself El Mahdi, appeared
in Africa, and set going a movement which overflowed the African states
and made its way into Spain, where it subdued the Moslem kingdoms and
threatened the Christian states. These invaders were known as the
Almohades. They were pure Moors. The Arab movement had lost its strength,
and from that time forward the Moslem dominions in Spain were peopled
chiefly by Moors.
Spain was threatened now as France had been threatened centuries before
when Charles Martel crushed the Arab hordes on the plains of Tours. All
Christendom felt the danger and Pope Innocent III. preached a crusade for
the defence of Spain against the infidel. In response, thousands of armed
crusaders flocked into Spain, coming in corps, in bands, and as
individuals, and gathered about Toledo, the capital of Alfonso VIII., King
of Castile. From all the surrounding nations they came, and camped in the
rich country about the capital, a host which Alfonso had much ado to feed.
Mohammed An-Nassir, the emperor of the Almohades, responded to the effort
of the Pope by organizing a crusade in Moslem Africa. He proclaimed an
Algihed, or Holy War, ordered a massacre of all the Christians in his
dominions, and then led the fanatical murderers to Spain to join the
forces there in arms. Christian Europe was pitted against Moslem Africa in
a holy war, Spain the prize of victory, and the plains of Andalusia the
arena of the coming desperate strife.
The decisive moment was at hand. Mohammed left Morocco and reached Seville
in June. His new levies were pouring into Spain in hosts. On the 21st of
June Alfonso began his advance, leading southward a splendid array.
Archbishops and bishops headed the army. In the van marched a mighty force
of fifty thousand men under Don Diego Lopez de Haro, ten thousand of them
being cavalry. After them came the troops of the kings of Aragon and
Castile, each a distinct army. Next came the knights of St. John of
Calatrava and the knights of Santiago, their grand-masters leading, and
after them many other bodies, including troops from Italy and Germany.
Such a gallant host Spain had rarely seen. It was needed, for the peril
was great. While one hundred thousand marched under the Christian banners,
the green standard of the prophet, if we may credit the historians, rose
before an army nearly four times as large.
ALFONSO VIII. HARANGUING HIS TROOPS UPON THE EVE OF BATTLE.
Without dwelling on the events of the march, we may hasten forward to the
12th of July, when the host of Alfonso reached the vicinity of the Moorish
army, and the Navas de Tolosa, the destined field of battle, lay near at
hand. The word navas means "plains." Here, on a sloping spur of the
Sierra Morena, in the upper valley of the Guadalquiver, about seventy
miles east of Cordova, lies an extended table-land, a grand plateau whose
somewhat sloping surface gave ample space for the vast hosts which met
there on that far-off July day.
To reach the plateau was the problem before Alfonso. The Moslems held the
ground, and occupied in force the pass of Losa, Nature's highway to the
plain. What was to be done? The pass could be won, if at all, only at
great cost in life. No other pass was known. To retire would be to
inspirit the enemy and dispirit the Christian host. No easy way out of the
quandary at first appeared, but a way was found,--by miracle, the writers
of that time say; but it hardly seems a miracle that a shepherd of the
region knew of another mountain-pass. This man, Martin Halaja, had grazed
his flocks in that vicinity for years. He told the king of a pass unknown
to the enemy, by which the army might reach the table-land, and to prove
his words led Lopez de Haro and another through this little-known mountain
by-way. It was difficult but passable, the army was put in motion and
traversed it all night long, and on the morning of the 14th of July the
astonished eyes of the Mohammedans gazed on the Christian host, holding in
force the borders of the plateau, and momentarily increasing in numbers
and strength. Ten miles before the eyes of Alfonso and his men stretched
the plain, level in the centre, in the distance rising in gentle slopes to
its border of hills, like a vast natural amphitheatre. The soldiers,
filled with hope and enthusiasm, spread through their ranks the story that
the shepherd who had led them was an angel, sent by the Almighty to lead
his people to victory over the infidel.
Mohammed and his men had been told on the previous day by their scouts
that the camp of the Christians was breaking up, and rejoiced in what
seemed a victory without a blow. But when they saw these same Christians
defiling in thousands before them on the plain, ranged in battle array
under their various standards, their joy was changed to rage and
consternation. Against the embattled front their wild riders rode,
threatening the steady troops with brandished lances and taunting them
with cowardice. But Alfonso held his mail-clad battalions firm, and the
light-armed Moorish horsemen hesitated to attack. Word was brought to
Mohammed that the Christians would not fight, and in hasty gratulation he
sent off letters to cities in the rear to that effect. He little dreamed
that he was soon to follow his messengers in swifter speed.
It was a splendid array upon which the Christians gazed,--one well
calculated to make them tremble for the result,--for the hosts of Mohammed
covered the hill-sides and plain like "countless swarms of locusts." On an
eminence which gave an outlook over the whole broad space stood the
emperor's tent, of three-ply crimson velvet flecked with gold, strings of
pearls depending from its purple fringes. To guard it from assault rows of
iron chains were stretched, before which stood three thousand camels in
line. In front of these ten thousand negroes formed a living wall, their
front bristling with the steel of their lances, whose butts were planted
firmly in the sand. In the centre of this powerful guard stood the
emperor, wearing the green dress and turban of his ancestral line.
Grasping in one hand his scimitar, in the other he held a Koran, from
which he read those passages of inspiration to the Moslems which promised
the delights of Paradise to those who should fall in a holy war and the
torments of hell to the coward who should desert his ranks.
The next day was Sunday. The Moslems, eager for battle, stood all day in
line, but the Christians declined to fight, occupying themselves in
arranging their different corps. Night descended without a skirmish. But
this could not continue with the two armies so closely face to face. One
side or the other must surely attack on the following day. At midnight
heralds called the Christians to mass and prayer. Everywhere priests were
busy confessing and shriving the soldiers. The sound of the furbishing of
arms mingled with the strains of religious service. At the dawn of the
next day both hosts were drawn up in battle array. The great struggle was
about to begin.
The army of the Moors, said to contain three hundred thousand regular
troops and seventy-five thousand irregulars, was drawn up in crescent
shape in front of the imperial tent,--in the centre the vast host of the
Almohades, the tribes of the desert on the wings, in advance the
light-armed troops. The Christian host was formed in four legions, King
Alfonso occupying the centre, his banner bearing an effigy of the Virgin.
With him were Rodrigo Ximenes, the archbishop of Toledo, and many other
prelates. The force was less than one hundred thousand strong, some of the
crusaders having left it in the march.
The sun was not high when the loud sound of the Christian trumpets and the
Moorish atabals gave signal for the fray, and the two hosts surged
forward to meet in fierce assault. Sternly and fiercely the battle went
on, the struggling multitudes swaying in the ardor of the fight,--now the
Christians, now the Moslems surging forward or driven back. With
difficulty the thin ranks of the Christians bore the onsets of their
densely grouped foes, and at length King Alfonso, in fear for the result,
turned to the prelate Rodrigo and exclaimed,--
"Archbishop, you and I must die here."
"Not so," cried the bold churchman. "Here we must triumph over our
enemies."
"Then let us to the van, where we are sorely needed, for, indeed, our
lines are being bitterly pressed."
Nothing backward, the archbishop followed the king. Fernan Garcia, one of
the king's cavaliers, urged him to wait for aid, but Alfonso, commending
himself to God and the Virgin, spurred forward and plunged into the thick
of the fight. And ever as he rode, by his side rode the archbishop,
wearing his chasuble and bearing aloft the cross. The Moorish troops, who
had been jeering at the king and the cross-bearing prelate, drew back
before this impetuous assault, which was given force by the troops who
crowded in to the rescue of the king. The Moors soon yielded to the
desperate onset, and were driven back in wild disarray.
This was the beginning of the end. Treason in the Moorish ranks came to
the Christian aid. Some of Mohammed's force, who hated him for having
cruelly slain their chief, turned and fled. The breaking of their centre
opened a way for the Spaniards to the living fortress which guarded the
imperial tent, and on this dense line of sable lancers the Christian
cavalry madly charged.
In vain they sought to break that serried line of steel. Some even turned
their horses and tried to back them in, but without avail. Many fell in
the attempt. The Moslem ranks seemed impervious. In the end one man did
what a host had failed to perform. A single cavalier, Alvar Nunez de Lara,
stole in between the negroes and the camels, in some way passed the
chains, and with a cheer of triumph raised his banner in the interior of
the line. A second and a third followed in his track. The gap between the
camels and the guard widened. Dozens, hundreds rushed to join their daring
leader. The camels were loosened and dispersed; the negroes, attacked
front and rear, perished or fled; the living wall that guarded the emperor
was gone, and his sacred person was in peril.
Mohammed was dazed. His lips still repeated from the Koran, "God alone is
true, and Satan is a betrayer," but terror was beginning to stir the roots
of his hair. An Arab rode up on a swift mare, and, springing to the
ground, cried,--
"Mount and flee, O king. Not thy steed but my mare. She comes of the
noblest breed, and knows not how to fail her rider in his need. All is
lost! Mount and flee!"
All was lost, indeed. Mohammed scrambled up and set off at the best speed
of the Arabian steed, followed by his troops in a panic of terror. The
rout was complete. While day continued the Christian horsemen followed and
struck, until the bodies of slain Moors lay so thick upon the plain that
there was scarce room for man or horse to pass. Then Archbishop Rodrigo,
who had done so much towards the victory, stood before Mohammed's tent and
in a loud voice intoned the Te Deum laudamus, the soldiers uniting in
the sacred chant of victory.
The archbishop, who became the historian of this decisive battle, speaks
of two hundred thousand Moslem slain. We cannot believe it so many,
despite the historian's statement. Twenty-five Christians alone fell. This
is as much too small as the other estimate is too large. But, whatever the
losses, it was a great and glorious victory, and the spoils of war that
fell to the victors were immense. Gold and silver were there in abundance;
horses, camels, and wagons in profusion; arms of all kinds, commissary
stores in quantities. So vast was the number of lances strewn on the
ground that the conquering army used only these for firewood in their
camp, and did not burn the half of them.
King Alfonso, with a wise and prudent liberality, divided the spoil among
his troops and allies, keeping only the glory of the victory for himself.
Mohammed's splendid tent was taken to Rome to adorn St. Peter's, and the
captured banners were sent to the cities of Spain as evidences of the
great victory. For himself, the king reserved a fine emerald, which he
placed in the centre of his shield. Ever since that brilliant day in
Spanish annals, the sixteenth of July has been kept as a holy festival, in
which the captured banners are carried in grand procession, to celebrate
the "Triumph of the Cross."
The supposed miracle of the shepherd was not the only one which the
monastic writers saw in the victorious event. It was said that a red
cross, like that of Calatrava, appeared in the sky, inspiriting the
Christians and dismaying their foes; and that the sight of the Virgin
banner borne by the king's standard-bearer struck the Moslems with terror.
It was a credulous age, one in which reputed miracles could be woven out
of the most homely and every-day material.
Death soon came to the leaders in the war. Mohammed, sullen with defeat,
hurried to Morocco, where he shut himself up in gloomy seclusion, and
died--or was poisoned--before the year's end. Alfonso died two years later.
The Christians did not follow up their victory with much energy, and the
Moslems still held a large section of Spain, but their power had
culminated and with this signal defeat began its decline. Step by step
they yielded before the Christian advance, though nearly three centuries
more passed before they lost their final hold on Spain.