Battle of Alcácer Quibir

The Battle of Alcácer Quibir was fought on 4 August 1578 near Ksar el-Kebir in northern Morocco, between a Portuguese-led army under King Sebastian I and the army of the Saadi sultan Abd al-Malik. It ended in a crushing Moroccan victory. Because Sebastian, his Moroccan ally and the sultan all died, Moroccans call it the Battle of the Three Kings. The loss of the childless king led within two years to Portugal's union with Spain.

The Saadi dynasty had risen to power in Morocco partly by resisting Portuguese footholds on the coast, and by the 1550s it ruled most of the country. When Sultan Abdallah al-Ghalib died in 1574 his son Muhammad II al-Mutawakkil succeeded him, but in 1576 the new sultan was overthrown by his uncle, Abd al-Malik, who had gained backing in Istanbul and troops from Ottoman Algiers. Abd al-Malik ruled as an Ottoman vassal, had Friday prayers said in the Ottoman sultan's name and reorganised his army on Ottoman lines. The deposed al-Mutawakkil turned to Portugal for help.

Sebastian had become king at the age of three in 1557 and was raised largely by Jesuits. He was eager to revive Portuguese glory in North Africa, and after a successful raid beyond Tangier in 1574 he planned a much larger campaign, which he framed as a crusade. Against the advice of his family, including his uncle Philip II of Spain, he spent heavily on a fleet and an army of about 23,000 men. Besides much of the Portuguese nobility, it included volunteers from Castile, German and Flemish mercenaries, and Italians under the English adventurer Thomas Stukley.

The fleet sailed from Lagos on 24 June 1578 and landed at Arzila, a Portuguese outpost, where al-Mutawakkil joined with some 6,000 Moroccan troops. Sebastian then marched inland. Abd al-Malik, although seriously ill, had raised a far larger army, put by various estimates at 60,000 to 100,000 men, and called on Moroccans to fight a holy war against the invaders.

The two armies faced each other near the Loukkos river. On 4 August the Moroccans advanced on a wide front, with strong cavalry wings meant to envelop the Portuguese. After opening volleys of musket and artillery fire, in which Stukley was killed, the Moroccan horsemen worked around both flanks. The Portuguese wings gave way, and the centre, having lost its commander, was overwhelmed. After about four hours the invading army had been destroyed. Thousands were killed, among them a large part of the Portuguese nobility, and thousands more were taken prisoner and enslaved; the figures given by different sources vary. Sebastian, last seen charging into the enemy, was never found.

Abd al-Malik also died during the battle, apparently of his illness, though some accounts claim he was poisoned; his death was kept from his troops until the victory was won. Al-Mutawakkil drowned in the river while trying to escape.

Abd al-Malik's brother, Ahmad al-Mansur, became sultan. Portuguese prisoners from the battle later served in the army he sent against the Songhai Empire, which fell at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591.

For Portugal the defeat was a catastrophe. Raising ransoms for the captives nearly bankrupted the kingdom. Sebastian's aged and childless kinsman, Cardinal Henry, took the throne but died in 1580 without an heir, ending the House of Aviz. Philip II of Spain then pressed his claim by force, defeated the rival claimant António, Prior of Crato, and was acclaimed king of Portugal in 1581. The two crowns stayed united until Portugal broke away in 1640, though Portugal and its overseas empire remained a separate realm.

Because no body was produced on the battlefield, legends grew that Sebastian had survived. Sebastianism, the belief that the lost king would one day return to save his people, became a lasting thread in Portuguese culture.

Our 1530 map shows Morocco and the Portuguese outposts on its coast in the decades before the battle, and the 1600 map shows the period of Spanish rule in Portugal.