The Battle of Los Alporchones is fought in the context of the Spanish Reconquista between the Emirate of Granada and the combined forces of the Kingdom of Castile and Murcia resulting in a Christian
The commander who won the Battle of Los Alporchones wasn't even supposed to be there. Alonso Fajardo el Bravo led just 700 Castilian and Murcian troops against a Granadan force three times larger near Lorca on March 17, 1452. His men were outnumbered, but they'd positioned themselves on higher ground and used the terrain's narrow passages to funnel the enemy cavalry into chaos. The Christians killed over 1,500 Granadan soldiers and captured their commander. This wasn't some grand crusade—it was a border skirmish that shouldn't have mattered. But the victory secured Murcia's frontier for decades and proved that Granada's military power was crumbling from within. Forty years later, when Ferdinand and Isabella finally conquered Granada, they were just finishing what Fajardo's 700 had started.
March 17, 1452
574 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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