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Little has been said about this centenary, because noone can use it to pose on pictures because of it. Exactly 700 years ago, besides saving the Byzantine empire from the Turkish advance, the almughavars devastated Greece. It was a feat only comparable to the conquest of America by bands of adventurers with nothing to lose but the skin – which was being devaluated – and with everything to win if they managed to stay alive. [political criticism here, not worth translating and unrelated to the article]
In the sunrise of the XIV century, the Byzantine Emperor asked for help to slow down the Turkish advance, and the crown of Aragon sent their feared Catalan Companies. To get rid of them. They were composed by almughavars: mercenaries hardened by the Reconquista and the wars in Southern Italy. The officers, mostly Catalans were also from Aragon, Valencia, Navarre and Mallorca. As of the soldiers, the core came from the mountains of Aragon and Catalunya; but the stories mention Names from Granada, Navarre, Asturias and Galicia. They were fast and fierce, with light equipment, fighting on foot in open formations, with extreme cruelty, and they entered the fight with the 4 bars (red and gold) of the flags of Aragon. Their battle cries were Aragon, Aragon, and the feared, Desperta, ferro.
The story is long, tremendous, hard to explain in short. 6500 almughavars just landed in Greece destroyed very superior Turkish forces, killing in the first battle 13000 enemies, not leaving alive – those were times separated from the good vibes and the dialogue between civilizations – any male older than 10. On a second battle, from 20000 turks, only 1500 escaped. And, after lesser skirmishes, in a third massacre, annihilated another 18000. Apart from that – Spaniards despite everything – they spent their time stabbing among themselves in internal disputes, or killing others in a purely insolent way, like those 3000 genoese they killed in Constantinople on some sort of drinking reunion that ended in bloodbath.
At this point, obviously, the Emperor Andronicus II was asking himself if he had been right employing such brutes. So his son Michael invited Roger de Flor, the boss of the almughavars, and for dessert made his alan mercenaries kill Roger and another hundred officers. This happened the 4th of April of 1305. After this the greeks thought that the almughavars, without officers to organise them would surrender. But that was ignorance on their part. When the immense Byzantine army appeared to subjugate them, they heard a mass and comulgated. Then they shouted “Desperta ferro”, and “Aragon, Aragon”, and threw themselves against the enemy, devastating 26000 byzantines in the blink of an eye. This tells Ramon Muntaner who was there “A hand was not raised to wound that did not strike on flesh”.
It didn’t stop here. Once the almughavars knew that 9000 alan mercenaries – those who killed Roger de Flor - were on their way home, licensed and with their families, the almughavars pursued them, massacred 8700 and took their women. After this was done, for a long time, and despie being surrounded by enemies, they rampaged through Greece, plundering and burning everything that stood in their way. This was the famous Catalan Revenge. And when there was nothing left to plunder or burn, they founded the duchies of Athens and Neoatria: catalan-aragonese states, loyal to the king of Aragon, that persisted for 3 generations until with time, the quiet lifestyle and the comfort, they got soft – the son, a knight, the grandson, a beggar – and were engulfed, with the rest of Greece by the Turkish tide that would reach its peak in the fall of Constantinople.
And this is the story of the almughavars. You have to admit it is a good story.
Looks impressive, doesnt it?