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16
Castile After Rio Salado
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In the previous installment, you read about the kingdom of Aragon pretty much abandoning their efforts against the Genoese to invade Castile. While this may sound like leaving the Venetians to their own fate and rather cold, to be fair to the Aragonese its pretty hard to understate this golden opportunity. You see, when Alfonso XI of neighboring Castile had died, he was leaving a kingdom with no clear successor, but with host of bastards (10 of them in total) vying for control. Each of them were scrambling to find a patron, power base or whatever they can use to outmaneuver their brothers to the throne. A succession war was clearly in the works. The latest in the downward spiral.

But how does that benefit Aragon you might ask? Couple of ways. The obvious ways are that it weakens Castile, giving Aragon proportionally more influence on the peninsula and of course weakening a potential rival. Another is the potential to go and seize territory during the chaos. The border disputes of Aragon and Castile were… lively, to put it one way and here is a good time to press your claims and get away with it. And yet another reason to invade is to prop up a friendly king. Preferably one that’s pliable… Anyways, point is Aragon had a lot to gain. Far more than wasting ships and men on an annoying stalemate in the Adriatic.

But lets give some backstory first: Why is Castile going so badly?

Well, back in 1341, the Castilians were making a large, costly assault on the Muslim lands. The intent wasn’t conquest per se, but to seize the strategic Strait of Gibraltar, which had, along with other territories such as Algeciras, been part of the Marinid Sultanate and was their primary staging ground for launching invasions on the European continent and beat back a massive Marinid invasion at the time. Alfonso XI realized the strategic value (or wanted a cheap shot at glory, your pick) and realized he needed to obtain these lands. With his allies the Portuguese on one side and volunteers (and loans) from the Papal states on another, Alfonso gathered a massive host by the standards of the day and marched south to destroy the Marinid threat. One army under his direct control would destroy the Muslim forces on land, while his and his allies’ armadas would match the Marinids at sea.

He failed. Disastrously. The initial battle between the was lost decisively thanks to the Marinid Sultan playing a bit more cautiously and keeping his fleet in Algeciras rather than send them back and disengage (the Marinids were kinda short on cash at the time), meaning the Castilian fleet isn’t able to match their enemies, and, thus gets systematically destroyed upon meeting a larger enemy. It gets worse: The army sent to fight the Nasrids gets crushed as the Marinid Sultan, Abu Al-Hasan, feeling more secure with the Castilian fleet eliminated, ferried more troops from the Maghreb to back up the Nasrid forces. Troops are additionally raised by the Moroccans bribing various Rif tribes with promises of plunder and land. With the channel clear, the army gets safely ferried and bolsters the mainland forces.

And here’s where it gets worse: As you expected, Alfonso’s army was smashed. Brutally. But what you might not have guessed is that Alfonso himself got captured and transferred in custody to Fes as a prisoner of the Sultan. Here the Marinids have gained the upper hand. (Oh by the way, that relief fleet the Portuguese sent out also suffered pretty badly facing the Corsairs and eventually was forced to withdraw). Meanwhile the combined Marinid-Nasrid army is marching pretty much unopposed in Andalusia and Algarve, looting whatever and whoever they can down south. The Iberians scramble to respond and do manage to raise another army and fleet (the latter paid almost entirely by Papal loans). Eventually the Marinids were stopped outside Badajoz but at that point basically everything south of Seville has been sacked.

So the Sultan agrees for peace. Alfonso returns to his throne, for a heavy price. Already having gotten the money he needed, the Sultan wasn’t interested in reparations- he wants land. And he gets it. Most of the province of Seville is lost and many a border town near Granada (pretty much everything up to Jaen more or less) is ceded to either him or the Nasrid Emirate. Portugal on the other hand gets off easy- just a few reparations and most of the shipyards in the Algarve set on fire.

But of course it doesn’t end there. Alfonso returns to find his kingdom in debt to the Pope and his allies. So he has to raise taxes, which lessens his popularity back home. And then the plague comes next. And then his son and heir Peter dies. And a couple of peasant revolts that have to be put down. Eventually, he dies “suddenly and mysteriously” in 1355, leaving Castile with no king and 10 pretenders, which is where Aragon at that point begins to look giddy.
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