page_title: Granada War
section_title: Last stand at Granada
hierarchical_section_title: Granada War / Chronology / Last stand at Granada
context_page_description: The Granada War was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1491, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It ended with the defeat of Granada and its annexation by Castile, ending all Islamic rule on the Iberian peninsula.
  The ten-year war was not a continuous effort but a series of seasonal campaigns launched in spring and broken off in winter. The Granadans were crippled by internal conflict and civil war, while the Christians were generally unified. The Granadans were also bled economically by the tribute they had to pay Castile to avoid being attacked and conquered. The war saw the effective use of artillery by the Christians to rapidly conquer towns that would otherwise have required long sieges. On January 2, 1492, Muhammad XII of Granada surrendered the Emirate of Granada, the city of Granada, and the Alhambra palace to the Castilian forces.
  The war was a joint project between Isabella's Crown of Castile and Ferdinand's Crown of Aragon. The bulk of the troops and funds for the war came from Castile, and Granada was annexed into Castile's territory.
context_section_description: With the fall of Baza and the capture of al-Zagal in 1490, it seemed as if the war was over; Ferdinand and Isabella believed this was the case.  However, Boabdil was unhappy with the rewards for his alliance with Ferdinand and Isabella, possibly because lands that had been promised to him were being administered by Castile. He broke off his vassalage and rebelled against the Catholic Monarchs, despite holding only the city of Granada and the Alpujarras Mountains. It was clear that such a position was untenable in the long term, so Boabdil sent out desperate requests for external aid. The Sultan of Egypt mildly rebuked Ferdinand for the Granada War, but the Mamluks that ruled Egypt were in a near constant war with the Ottoman Turks. As Castile and Aragon were fellow enemies of the Turks, the Sultan had no desire to break their alliance against the Turks.  Boabdil also requested aid from the Kingdom of Fez (modern Morocco), but no reply is recorded by history.  North Africa continued to sell Castile wheat throughout the war and valued maintaining good trade relations. In any case, the Granadans no longer controlled any coastline from where to receive overseas aid. No help would be forthcoming for Granada.
  An eight-month siege of Granada was to began in April 1491.  The situation for the defenders grew progressively dire, as their forces for interfering with the siege dwindled and advisers schemed against each other. Bribery of important officials was rampant, and at least one of the chief advisers to Boabdil seems to have been working for Castile the entire time. After the Battle of Granada a provisional surrender, the Treaty of Granada, was signed on November 25, 1491, which granted two months to the city. The reason for the long delay was not so much intransigence on either side, but rather the inability of the Granadan government to coordinate amongst itself in the midst of the disorder and tumult that gripped the city. After the terms, which proved rather generous to the Muslims,  were negotiated, the city capitulated on January 2, 1492. The besieging Christians sneaked troops into the Alhambra that day in case resistance materialized, which it did not.  Granada's resistance had come to its end.
caption: The Alhambra.
exif: {"Image Make": "Digital Camera", "Image Model": "ND-4020 Digital Camera", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2013:10:19 11:43:36", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Copyright, NYTECH Corp, 03", "Image ExifOffset": "296", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "922", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7115", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/70", "EXIF FNumber": "963/100", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2003:01:01 02:08:04", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2003:01:01 02:08:04", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6129/1000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "28/5", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "44/5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/10", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "41/20", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Daylight", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "137/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2304", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1728", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "796", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0/0", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}