The Battle of Three Kings

The Battle of Alcer Quibir‚ Ksar el-Kebir in Arabic, Wadi al-Makhazin in Moroccan tradition‚ lasted about four hours on the afternoon of August 4, 1578. It was one of the most consequential battles in history, and it killed every leader on both sides.

The backstory is a tangle of dynastic disputes. Morocco's Saadian sultan Abd al-Malik had seized the throne from his nephew Muhammad II al-Mutawakkil. Muhammad fled to Portugal and convinced the young King Sebastian I that an invasion of Morocco would be a crusade‚ a chance to spread Christianity and extend Portuguese power.

Sebastian landed at Arzila with perhaps 17,000 men, including Portuguese nobles, Spanish volunteers, and German mercenaries. They marched inland toward Ksar el-Kebir, where Abd al-Malik waited with 50,000 Moroccan troops.

Sebastian had no tactical plan beyond a cavalry charge. The Moroccan forces outflanked him immediately. Within hours, the Portuguese army collapsed.

All three kings died. Sebastian was killed in the fighting‚ his body was never definitively identified, spawning legends that he would return. Muhammad II drowned trying to flee across a river. And Abd al-Malik, already dying of illness, collapsed during the battle and was found dead in his litter.

The victory fell to Abd al-Malik's brother, Ahmad, who would become al-Mansur‚ the Victorious.

Portugal's losses were catastrophic: Sebastian, the cream of the nobility, the flower of a generation. The ransom demands for the surviving prisoners bankrupted the treasury. Two years later, with no heir (Sebastian was unmarried and childless), Portugal was absorbed by Spain under Philip II. It would not regain independence until 1640.

Morocco, by contrast, entered a golden age. Ahmad al-Mansur used the ransom money to build the El Badi Palace. He conquered Timbuktu. He corresponded with Elizabeth I of England. The battle that destroyed Portugal made him one of the richest rulers in the world.

The site of the battle is near modern Ksar el-Kebir, in northern Morocco. There is a monument, rarely visited. The skulls of the Portuguese dead were displayed in Moroccan cities for decades; the bones were eventually returned to Portugal.

Every August 4, the date is remembered‚ although the interpretation differs depending on which side of the Mediterranean you're on. Portugal calls it a disaster. Morocco calls it a triumph.

Both are correct.