Battle of Alarcos
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| Reconquista |
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| Covadonga – Roncevaux Pass – Simancas – Atapuerca – Graus – Az-Zallaqah – Ucles – Ourique – Lisbon – Alarcos – Las Navas de Tolosa – Jerez – Granada – Alcazarquivir |
Battle of Alarcos (July 18, 1195), was a battle between an alliance of Almohads led by Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur and the Castilians cavalry led Pedro Fernández de Castro versus King Alfonso VIII; also referred as the Disaster of Alarcos.
The battle took place nearby Ciudad Real and has been considered as one of the bloodiest encounters between Christians and Muslims in the Iberian peninsula. The outcome of the battle threatened the stability of the kingdom of Castile, for a short period but the Almohad empire collapsed shortly afterwards.
Alfonso did not retreat to wait for reinforcements, and he decided to stay and fight. The Castilian army had no counterattack to this force. After the battle, the Almohad army pillaged the Spanish camp, as Alfonso and the commander Diego López de Haro escaped.
The subsequent counter-attack of the Castilians against the new African rulers culminates in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa seventeen years later.
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