Battle of Guadalete

The Bataille of Guadalete indicates a decisive battle arrived in Hispanie on July 19th 711 (year 92 of the hégire) close to the Guadalete river, in Bétique (the Andalusia).

Strategic situation

The chronicles of the time evoke approximately: 10000 Moslem soldiers against: 100000 soldiers Visigoth.

At the time this battle the king Visigoth Rodrigue was put in failure and probably lost the life of the hands of the Moslem forces ordered by Tariq ibn Ziyad. This one was under the orders of Musa Ben Nusayr Al-Bekir, wali ( governor ) Omeyyade of the the Maghreb, which projects the invasion of Hispania, with the assistance of the Count Julien, governor of Septem (Ceuta) and vassal of Rodrigue, but with the bonds of fidelity with the king Witiza, by facilitating the crossing “of the Pillars of Hercules” which will take the name of Straits of Gibraltar, (of Jabal Tarik, “the mountain of Tarik”). The Arab chroniclers explain the participation of this last by the fact that he wants to draw revenge on the king from the Rodrigue Visigoths who had raped his daughter.

One year before, in July - August 710, Musa Ben Nusayr already had sent a forwarding, ordered by Tarif Ben Malik, with approximately 1700 Berbères, with an aim of recognizing the zone militarily.

It is very probable that Tariq unloads in the night from April 27th to 28th 711 with Tarifa (the town of Tariff), with 7.000 Berber, concentrates its troops on the Calpé Mount which since door its name, Gibraltar, then takes Cadiz (Carteya) and Algésiras (Al jazirah Al khadraa, green peninsula), where it faced Sancho, nephew of Rodrigue which came to its meeting.

This victory makes it possible Tariq to organize a cavalry which was seriously lacking to him. Moreover its army would have been reinforced by 5.000 other Berber envoys by Musa, it would have thus passed between 12.000 and 15.000 soldiers.

Rodrigue, was then occupied in the north of Spain fighting a rebellion of Vascons (Basque S); the news of the invasion is long in coming from to him, between two and three weeks, as soon as it in be informed, it went down again to forced march.

The crisis which the kingdom Visigoth in these fateful moments passed through, with continuous plots and fratricidal wars, considerably limited the room for maneuver of Rodrigo at the time of recruiting an army to deal with the enemy, being seen obliged to accept the interested assistance of the partisans of Witiza, ready to betray it. It could precipitately organize with Cordoue (Qurtubah) an army of 40.000 men and leave to the meeting Tariq.

Unfolding

The shock took place on July 19th, on Rio Wadi Lakkah, (Guadalete) meadows of Cadiz, although historians locates it close to Rio Barbate, between Medina-Sidonia and the lagoon of Janda, where in Medina-Sidonia itself (Fernandez Guerra there Saavedra, Lévi Provençal…), others still (Joaquin Valve) proposed a third localization, on banks of Guadarranque (in Arabic rear wadi Rinq) to a few kilometers in the north of Gibraltar.

During two days the two armies were measured in bloody skirmishes.

Beginning the battle the wire of Witiza and its partisans sow the discord in the rows of the partisans of Rodrigo, by betraying them, being withdrawn, and leaving deprived the sides of the army. The center of the army of Rodrigue resisted as much as it could but to the end it yielded.

The destruction of the wisigothic forces in front of the treason of the partisans of Witiza, the total ignorance in the manner of fighting Arab and the probable death of Rodrigue, leaves the open door to Tariq to conquer Tolède (Ṭulayṭulah) in 714. Rodrigue having recruited its “ comitatus ” and the “ spatarios ” of its royal guard, the city could not oppose an unspecified resistance.

Sudden Moslem advance, moved by the dissension in the rows of the Visigoths, after the disconcerting defeat of the army and the death of the king, increased by the fast fall of the capital which avoided the election of a new king and the establishment of a line of resistance.

Entreated were far from suspecting that their request for assistance to recover the throne in exchange of a tribute was going to be expensive to them and true intentions of conquest of the Arabs.

Other factors having made favourable this rout are to be taken into account. By finding the collaboration of the Jewish population, which was persecuted by Christian wisigothic monarchy, and of most of the Iberian population, which did not oppose resistance, exasperated by the continuous famines and the epidemics and eager of a political stability.

Consequences

Hardly two years later, towards 714, Musa Ben Nusayr would unload in Algésiras with one armed with 18 000 Berber and takes Saragossa (Medina Albaida Saraqusta). The two chiefs occupy the major part of the Iberian peninsula, which is almost entirely subjected in the name of the caliph Al-Walid Ier.

In 716, a new Moslem province, Jazirat Al-Andalus (Arab الأندلس), are made up. (Andalusia, the “ground of the Vandals”, in reference to the predecessors of the Visigoths, of a deformation of the word goth “landalhaut” without ground, a third assumption, would be of an expression Tamazight (language of Berber): of ass = Rio and read = cultivated ground).

The battle of Guadalete, which could have been only one simple confrontation, had like consequence the almost total conquest of the Iberian peninsula, the disappearance of the kingdom Visigoth of Hispanie, and the Moslem domination of the peninsula during almost eight centuries. The wisigothic populations and celtibères lost until their name, and became the Mozarabes with respect to their conquerors.

Only some pockets of resistance will resist that and there and the mountainous regions of North, Cantabrian Mountains and the Pyrenees, escaped the conquerors, who do not appear to be themselves troubled to establish their domination durably there. And where many Visigoths leave to voluntarily exile themselves.

Among the forces put in failure which fled towards north was most probably Pelayo, noble Visigoth, certainly the lance holder of king Rodrigue, precursor of the Reconquista after the Bataille of Covadonga.

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