Battle of Teba - The Siege

The Siege

Meanwhile the siege engines arrived at Teba and operations began to open a breach in the walls of the castle. The Christian army was hampered by a lack of water and they were forced daily to drive their herds out of camp and eastwards down to the Guadalteba, an abundant river flowing two miles south of the castle. Uthman quickly identified this weakness and sent raiding parties to disrupt the watering details. Alfonso in turn set up a defensive screen of patrols to hold them off and there were regular skirmishes on the river and in the hills to the south.

In one of these encounters, it is possible that Sir James Douglas was killed. The 'Gran Cronica de Alfonso XI' refers to "the death of a foreign count through his own error", although some commentators prefer to think Douglas died in a more decisive encounter some days later.

Alfonso had other problems. The five hundred Portuguese knights declared their term of service was about to expire and withdrew, and one night the garrison of Teba sallied out to attack the siege lines and retired leaving a siege tower in flames. Uthman too faced difficulties. He had concluded he could not defeat the Christians in open battle and so devised a stratagem to force Alfonso to abandon the siege.