First Siege of Gibraltar

First Siege of Gibraltar
Part of the Spanish Reconquista
View of Gibraltar from the West.
Date 1309 – 12 September 1309 Location Gibraltar Result Victory for the Kingdom of Castile
Belligerents
Kingdom of Castile Order of Santiago Order of Calatrava	Emirate of Granada
Commanders and leaders
Ferdinand IV of Castile Juan Núñez II de Lara Alonso Pérez de Guzmán Fernando Gutiérrez Tello Garci López de Padilla Juan de Castilla el de Tarifa	Muhammed III Abu'l-Juyush Nasr
Strength
Thousands (Unknown)	1,200 defenders

The First Siege of Gibraltar was a battle of the Spanish Reconquista that took place in 1309. The battle pitted the forces of the Kingdom of Castile (mostly those from the military councils of the city of Seville) under the command of Juan Núñez II de Lara and Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, against the forces of the Emirate of Granada who were under the command of Sultan Muhammed III and his brother, Abu'l-Juyush Nasr.

The battle resulted in a victory for the Kingdom of Castile, one of the few victories in what turned out to be a disastrous campaign. The taking of Gibraltar greatly increased the relative power of Castile on the Iberian Peninsula though the actual city was later recaptured by Muslim forces during the Third Siege of Gibraltar in 1333.

On 19 December 1308, at Alcalá de Henares, King Ferdinand IV of Castile and the ambassadors from the Crown of Aragon, Bernat de Sarrià and Gonzalo García agreed to the terms of the . Ferdinand IV, supported by his brother, Pedro de Castilla y Molina, the archbishop of Toledo, the bishop of Zamora, and Diego López V de Haro agreed to wage war against the Emirate of Granada by 24 June 1309 which was also when a previous peace treaty between Granada and Castile was set to expire. It was further agreed that the Aragonese monarch, James II, could not sign a separate peace accord with the Emir of Granada. A combined Aragonese-Castilian navy was also formed to support the siege in a blockade of the coastal Granadian towns. It was also stipulated that the Kingdom of Castile would attack the towns of Algeciras and Gibraltar and that the Aragonese forces would attempt to conquer the city of Almería.

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