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The 1437 Battle of Tangier, sometimes referred to as the Siege of Tangiers, refers to the attempt by a Portuguese expeditionary force to seize the Moroccan citadel of Tangier, and their subsequent defeat by the armies of the Marinid sultanate of Morocco. The Portuguese expeditionary force, led by Prince Henry the Navigator, Duke of Viseu, set out from Portugal in August, 1437, intending to seize a series of Moroccan coastal citadels. The Portuguese laid siege to Tangier in mid-September. After a few failed assaults on the city, the Portuguese force was attacked and defeated by a large Moroccan relief army led by vizier Abu Zakariya Yahya al-Wattasi of Fez. The Moroccans subsequently encircled the Portuguese siege camp and starved it to submission. To preserve his army from destruction, Henry negotiated a treaty promising to return the citadel of Ceuta (captured earlier in 1415) to Morocco, in return for being allowed to withdraw his troops. As it turns out, the terms of the treaty were never fulfilled, the Portuguese decided to hold on to Ceuta and allowed the Portuguese hostage, the king's own brother Ferdinand the Holy Prince, to remain in Moroccan captivity, where he perished in 1443. The Tangiers fiasco was a tremendous setback for the prestige and reputation of Henry the Navigator, who had personally conceived, promoted and led the expedition. Simultaneously, it was an enormous boon to the political fortunes of the vizier Abu Zakariya Yahya al-Wattasi, who was transformed overnight from an unpopular regent to a national hero, allowing him to consolidate his power over Morocco. This was the first of four attempts by the Portuguese to seize the city of Tangier in the 15th century. == Background == The Moroccan citadel of Ceuta, on the southern side of the Straits of Gibraltar, had been seized in 1415 in a surprise attack by the Kingdom of Portugal. (See Battle of Ceuta). The Marinid rulers of Morocco had tried to recover it in a 1418–19, but failed. The assassination of the Marinid sultan in 1420 sent Morocco reeling into political chaos and internal disorder for the next few years, giving the Portuguese time to entrench themselves in Ceuta.〔Julien, pp. 195–96〕 Whatever its original objectives, the capture of Ceuta had profited the Portuguese little.〔Russell, 2000, various place, e.g. p. 135, 142, 143, 152〕 The Moroccans had cut off all of Ceuta's trade and supplies from the landward side. Ceuta became little more than a large empty, windswept fortress-city, with an expensive Portuguese garrison that had to be continually re-supplied from across the sea. There had been no follow-up Portuguese campaigns in North Africa, with the result that the Ceuta garrison had little to do, beyond sitting tight and eating through the king's treasury. There were growing calls in the Portuguese court to simply withdraw the troops and abandon Ceuta.〔Russell, 2000〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Tangier (1437)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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