1476 in Iberia and France : the Fall of Catalonia
"Oncques Aragon ne vit d'armée plus décourageante que celle de la France, car plus elle vaincquait, plus elle croissait", Histoire de France : 1470-1490, Where the Spider dwells
The winter of 1476 was a relatively short one for Iberia since military operations hardly did stop in Castille and Aragon saw French moves taking place from March onwards. Two of the most important war operations took place during the very month of March : the Battle of Toro, on March 1st, in Castilla, demoralized the Isabellista party, while the Siege of Girona started ten days later.
Battle of Toro
The Battle of Toro has been seen more than once as the moral turning-point in the Castillan Succession War. After it, the Isabellista force combined never equaled in size the Juanista one, never mind the Portuguese army, and the few battles won over the Juanistas didn't prove sufficient to cover up for the waning Aragonese support to the war, being embroiled in a war of their own.
On the Juanista side, the Portuguese and Castillans had fielded approximately 5000 footmen, including missile troops, and 3500 horsemen. The army center was built around the Castillan and Portuguese knights, by adding to this core 4 bodies of footmen. The Archbishop of Toledo and a few Portuguese nobles manned a relatively weak left wing while the elite forces of the Portuguese army under Prince Joao of Portugal covered the right wing.
On the Isabellista, the mostly Castillan army fielded 4000 footmen and missile troops with 2500 horsemen. While popular milicias, hidalgos' troops and the Royal Guard made up the center, the left wing was made of heavy cavalry (mostly knights) and the right wing of 6 divisions of light cavalry.
Joao was the first one to send his troops into the battle, directly onto the heavy cavalry, pinning it and slowly butchering it. The fight was more or less equal, but slowly turned to Joao's favor, until the knights broke. Quarter of Joao's men were left to the center, while the rest with Joao pursued the heavy cavalry. The loss of his heavy cavalry disturbed Fernando enough for him to return to Isabellista Zamora. He thus handled the command of Isabellista troops to Cardinal Mendoza, which sent his men against the rest of the Juanista army. While the left wing ended up fighting a delaying action, the elite troops of the Portuguese army helped the Juanista center block, and then repel the Isabellista center. When Joao finished mopping up the knights, gaining large amounts of prisoners in the meantime, he returned to the battlefield and ended up attacking the Aragonese-Castillan force in the back, which finished it as a fighting force.
The Juanistas then enjoyed a regular sacking of the Isabellistas' camp, and returned to theirs.
It took both the stature of Cardinal Mendoza and Prince Fernando of Aragon for the Isabellistas to regroup. The next day of the battle was basically a hour-long staring contest the Juanista force won.
While the Juanistas took something like 1300 casualties, the Isabellista ones, including the captured knights, ranged in the 1900. Far from being a bloodless battle, it still proved less bloody than L'Escale. The propaganda hit scored by the Portuguese allowed to keep themselves in the war by reducing their people's disgust for the war, while the Isabellistas were discredited and slowly the Juanistas started growing in numbers all across Castille.
Siege of Girona
The French army had not remained idle during the last few months after L'Escale. While the 10 thousand-strong Aragonese army had suffered from a casualty rate of 70%, the French 15% still was a dent in their army they had to recover from. This is where the troops in training were handy : there were more than 10 thousand troops still in training when the French army entered Catalonia, and an additionnal 3 thousand started training after the battle of L'Escale.
It is a 20-thousand strong French army that left Perpignan and Empuries under Jean de Comminges in early March to lay siege to Girona. A large garrison of 1000 had been kept in Empuries in case the Aragonese try to attack them while busy in their siege, and 5000 more had been left in Dax should the Navarrese attack.
The French army that left to Girona counted 70 canons, 4000 missile troops, 3000 knights, 2000 lancers and 10700 foot soldiers. This was half more than whatever population and troops probably laid in Girona.
The first step of the siege was gathering ressources. The French bought whatever they could in the days before the siege started and brought from Languedoc the rest. The city, after winter, was far from having stored all the food it could, and when the 3000-strong remains of the Aragonese army of L'Escale were counted, it was obvious that Girona wouldn't last long. Meanwhile, Juan II de Aragon hadn't managed to recruit troops enough to challenge or even significantly distract the French force.
On April 1st, Girona surrendered. The remains of the Aragonese army were treated as prisoners of war, but the city wasn't looted as the French had only spent a short siege with abundant foodstuffs and correct climate conditions and the French Maréchal had forbidden to loot the city.
French progress in Catalonia
Early in the war, the French had only taken over the coast. Now, they had to take over the mainland. The French army, with reinforcements, split into three equivalent groups of 7000 men. They were to take minor cities in inner Catalonia.
The Maréchal sent the following orders to his men :
- Offer them money to surrender, up to 20000 livres.
- If they surrender without actual fighting taking place, they can keep their walls and don't get looted.
- If they surrender after some fighting, the walls will have to be destroyed.
- If the walls are breached and the guards surrender, same as above.
- If the guard fights, kill all the guard.
- If civilians attack (only the captain is allowed to decide what is attack), the city gets looted.
The scheme worked well enough that before September ended, only Tarragona and Barcelona weren't kept by a small French guard. Berga, in Cerdagne, had been looted.
Some cities in Aragon had also been seized , but they were kept undefended as the French army had to be ready for the next step : the Siege of Barcelona.
