Portuguese Capture of Ceuta
A Portuguese fleet took the North African city of Ceuta on 21 August 1415, in an assault that lasted a day and is conventionally treated as the beginning of European overseas empire. King John I sailed with some 200 ships and 20,000 men, accompanied by three of his sons, including the twenty-one-year-old Henry, later called the Navigator. The expedition had been prepared in secrecy for two years, with the destination concealed and rumours deliberately spread that it was aimed at Holland or at Granada. Ceuta sat on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar and was the northern terminus of the trans-Saharan caravan routes, through which West African gold reached the Mediterranean. It was also a base for corsairs. The garrison was surprised and the city fell with very few Portuguese casualties. What followed was disappointment. The caravans simply diverted to Tangier and other ports, and Ceuta became an expensive, besieged and commercially useless garrison that Portugal held for centuries at a loss. The strategic lesson drawn from that failure was the important one. If the gold could not be intercepted at the Mediterranean end, it might be reached at its source by sailing down the Atlantic coast — which is the origin of the Portuguese voyages that ran to Cape Bojador, Guinea, the Congo and eventually the Cape. Henry took the taking of Ceuta as his commission and spent his life on it. An attempt on Tangier in 1437 failed disastrously, and his brother Fernando died a hostage in Fez.
- Year: 1415 CE
- Category: Military
