The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [15]
To return to France, Charlemagne chose the same pass as had Abd-al-Rahman in his ill-fated 732 conquest of Europe. Throughout history this was the pass chosen for conquest. Though narrow and rugged, it is wide enough for an army. It is easier to cross than the neighboring Ispegui pass, which leads up to sheer gray rock and narrow waterfalls, by means of a narrow ledge of a road along the mountainside. Smugglers used the cloud-covered crests of the Ispegui pass, preferring its inaccessibility. But armies always chose Roncesvalles.
Early twentieth-century smuggler apprehended by the Spanish at the Ispegui Pass.
The Basques, being greatly outnumbered, waited in the pine woods in a place known in Basque as Orreaga, literally, the place where the pine trees grow, which has been translated into Spanish as Roncesvalles, valley of the pines, and into French as Roncevaux. The Basques allowed the huge Frankish army to pass, climbing up to the windswept heights today known as Ibañeta. From there, the Pyrenees can be seen all the way across to the rugged mountains of Basse Navarre. But after Ibañeta the army had to thin out to single file to drop down along a mountain trail to the rocky valley of waterfalls that parts the Pyrenees. Charlemagne made it through and up to the steep mountainside village of Valcarlos, where wild apples still grow in the steep woods. While waiting in Valcarlos, the rear guard, commanded by his nephew Roland according to the poem (though some records write of an official named Hruodlandus), was attacked.
The Basques ran out of the forest with rocks and spears, attacking the Franks, who were sluggish with their heavy arms. There, on the bald heights of Ibañeta where wild purple crocus push through the grass, according to one account written only about fifty years later, the Basques killed every trapped Frank. Possibly some escaped, but it is certain that they killed Roland or Hruodlandus, two others close to Charlemagne, and a significant part of the force. Then the Basque forces simply dispersed, going home to their mountain villages, so that there was no Basque army for Charlemagne to pursue in vengeance. Pamplona was left to revert to Muslim rule.
At the end of the poem, tears are rolling over the white beard of Charlemagne as he says, “Oh God, how hard my life is.” But, in fact, Charlemagne never recorded the encounter. The Basque attack of August 15, 778, was to be the only defeat Charlemagne’s army ever suffered in his long military career.
The first record of the battle was written in 829, after the death of Charlemagne, and states that the French army, although far larger, was defeated by Basques. The Basques built few monuments to their victories. In Pasajes San Juan, the great Guipúzcoan port, along the little street that follows the deep water harbor cutting into the mountains, stands a nearly forgotten stone shrine, built in 1580, that commemorates the Basque victory over Charlemagne.
The lesson of the battle of Roncesvalles should have been: Do not to alienate the Basques. Yet somehow, in the ensuing centuries, Roland became the battle’s hero—in time, even to the Basques. The Basques went on to other battles against Franks and both with and against Muslims, against the Vikings and even the Normans. With their small population, ambush remained a favorite technique. But throughout northern Navarra, folk legends developed that are still heard today of a local character, a giant of Herculean strength named Errolan—Roland. Basque myth had become Christianized.
Constant warfare was changing Basque society. The people moved into fortified towns. A military chain of command