From THE LIFE OF GENERAL RAMÓN MORAGUES by Sir Reginald Wright-Twatt, Distinguished Professor of Aragonese History and Rat Sciences, Boilinoil College, Brokendownford University
...Moragues was appointed King's Marshal by Alfons V, apparently during one of the brief periods during which the King was capable of normal speech, sometime before 1438; his first well-known action was the suppression of the October 1438 Peasants' Rebellion in rural Catalonia. Moragues pitilessly crushed all opposition to King Alfons's rule. Alfons was granted the sum of 100 ducats by the city of Barcelona in thanks for their liberation from the murdering hordes of Green Smoke-crazed peasants, who had been bent on sacking the city and looting the King's personal private Smoke supply.
He first gained real fame, though, as the leader of the Great Expedition of 1440-42. Alfons, apparently at that time off the Smoke and on the cheap Valencian rotgut plonk--alcohol always seemed to make him violent--declared war on Granada and Algiers on 14 January 1440 for no particular reason. Castile and Portugal agreed to join Alfons on his adventure, in hope of some loot for themselves. Moragues led a force of 5000 crack Aragonese cavalry, known as Moragues's Marauders, south to join a Castilian army that was besieging the Granadan capital. Moragues surrounded and utterly defeated a Granadan cavalry regiment that tried to assault his rear near Ronda, before being checked by the approach of the entire Algerian army under Sharif Dontlikeit. Still, the Marauders reached the walls of Granada in time to join the siege of the city. When Dontlikeit's Algerians joined with the remnants of the Granadan army in a desperate attempt to lift the siege during June 1440, the Marauders drove them off, with Moragues himself leading the charge against the fleeing Moors and cutting them to pieces as they attempted to retreat to Murcia. Granada fell to Castile in January 1442 and was annexed by them; Algiers sued for peace at the status quo ante and Moragues, fearing for his life, urged the King to accept on the grounds that an overseas expedition to the coast of North Africa would be foolhardy. With the aid of Alfons's court jester, Joan Capella, the only man capable of humoring him, for once the King listened to his advisors, though he was so angry he supposedly ate three of his own toes.
Ramón Moragues earned a reputation in the Barcelona of the 1440s as a man of rare integrity and common sense; since Moragues was possibly the only person in the city who indulged neither in Valencian wine (the most popular variety was Mad Gos 20/20) nor in any of the various sorts of Smoke, he was frequently capable of speaking in public without falling over, and this gained him a great popular following. Several of his best-known wise aphorisms of the time are, "You know, it's really sort of stupid for us to go around invading other people all the time and getting everybody killed", "I think it would be a good idea if all the workers and peasants got enough to eat", and "All these public executions and sadistic ratfights are kind of disgusting". Moragues was, however, loyal to his monarch, and when King Alfons declared war on France in September 1445 he, of course, led the army.
Capella, the court jester, and Moragues had secretly been preparing for such an event, since they were fairly sure that they would find themselves at war again soon, and they had strengthened the fortifications of Aragon's cities on the northern frontier. They had also prepared a scheme for mobilizing the peasantry to arms; each man was given a spear and a bag of Green Smoke. The two were fairly sure that France would be Alfons's next target, as the King was wont to mutter something about wanting Bordeaux wine for his pre-post-after-before dinner drink rather than that foul, reeking Mad Perro stuff that he was used to. Capella had also made sure that the fleet was kept in seaworthy shape, quite an achievement when it is remembered that the typical Aragonese sailor lived on a diet of approximately 300 calories, a quart of 20/20, and a couple of ounces of Green Smoke a day, and stood about four feet three inches tall. When Princess Lesbianne of France divorced Alfons's bastard son, Pere "the Perverted", and when Pere soon afterward expired in an unfortunate incident involving some ropes, pulleys, and a male giraffe, Moragues knew that war was imminent.
When Alfons declared war, Moragues's army entered Languedoc and rapidly defeated the unprepared Franch army three times in rapid succession during autumn 1445. Meanwhile, the Aragonese detachment in Naples (the Kingdom of Naples had been annexed to Aragon in January 1442 when the Neapolitan King, Mario V "the Really Fat" died without children; it is rumored that the King was unable to produce a heir due to the great size of his stomach, which most likely left his marriage unconsummated and therefore illegal in the eyes of the Church. Alfonso decided he had the best claim to the Neapolitan throne and so took it. The Neapolitan nobility protested; they were, of course, all dismembered and then fed to the giant rats. The Semi-Voluntary Annexation led to, among other things, the introduction of ratfighting into Southern Italy, where it rapidly became both a popular entertainment and a major source of dietary protein) set sail for Provence, where they landed without opposition in February 1446.
Aragon's allies Castile and Portugal again reluctantly joined in the war, and both sent small detachments of soldiers to aid Alfons's troops. Scotland, Savoy, Provence, and Eire entered the war on France's side, and England took this opportunity to attack the Scots, thereby becoming Alfons's de facto ally.
During the winter of 1446, more peasant troops were raised, with the promise that they would be fed at least once daily should they join up. This was a powerful incitement in those times. They were immediately sent to reinforce the army in Provence, which was beseiging Avignon. Moragues sent a couple of cavalry raids into the Dauphiné during the spring and summer of 1446; at approximately the same time a Scottish fleet somehow slipped by the Aragonese fleet, which had put in for repairs at Marseille, and landed an army north of Naples. The Scots rapidly defeated the scratch forces that the Neapolitans could put together, and Alfons began raising an army in Sicily. The Aragonese fleet rapidly sailed in an attempt to catch the Scots off the Italian coast, but an inconclusive engagement with the Savoyard navy forced them back into port. In September 1446 the Aragonese finally managed to leave Marseille harbor; they quickly caught the Savoyards off Sardinia and completely wrecked their fleet, and then found the Scots blockading the harbor of Naples. The Scots fleet was scattered.
Meanwhile, Moragues was skillfully managing Alfons's main army in Languedoc, defeating first a Provençal expeditionary force and then a French attempt to relieve the siege of Narbonne. A surprise attack by the French in March 1447 temporarily relieved the city, but in June Aix-de-Provence fell to Rascapelota's Neapolitans backed up by Alfons's starving militias, who of course immediately sacked the city, killed all the women, and raped all the men. The livestock met an exceptionally sad double fate. Moragues trounced the French again in October near Narbonne. In December of that year Savoy, which lay defenseless before Aragon with its fleet destroyed, accepted peace in exchange for an indemnization of 70 ducats. In February 1448 a demoralized Provence, occupied by Rascapelota's men, paid 113 ducats in exchange for peace. There was, of course, much rejoicing in Barcelona, especially since Aragon received in addition the Duke of Provence's personal stash of Black Smoke, never before known in Aragon.
The phenomenal success of Moragues's armies after February 1448 can be attributed to several factors. Some sources say the morale of the Aragonese was raised by the surrender of two of their enemies, others attribute the success to Moragues's improved system of supply, which allowed the soldiers to occasionally eat regularly rather than digging for worms and grubs, their usual source of alimentation; others say the armies were fired up by generous rations of the novel Black Smoke. Narbonne finally fell to Moragues's men in April 1448; they immediately sacked the city and torched the Archbishop's Palace, which was full of the finest White Smoke and provided a psychedelic delirium to everyone nearby. It took about a month for the high to wear off, and it was not until the next month that Aragon's army began its Limousin campaign. It should be remembered that Brittany and the Dutch city states joined in the war against France at around this time, and that an English army was campaigning across northern France. Moragues defeated the French twice in quick succession; it seems that the French were distracted in their fighting ability by the large number of sheep in this area. It was and is well known, both then and today, that no Frenchman can resist a sheep.
Moragues beat the French again in November and Limoges fell in December 1448; it was, of course, duly sacked and a good time was had by all. The Aragonese pursued the French into the provinces of Guyenne and Berri during the following spring, and then invaded Auvergne. In June Rascapelota besieged Lyon and reinforced their siege of Toulouse, which fell in January 1450 and was sacked and pillaged; all boys between the ages of 10 and 13 were carried away by the Neapolitans and--you really don't want to hear about what happened to them. Fortunately, most survived, though anal herpes has been common in that region ever since. Meanwhile, the Scots army that had landed in Italy was soundly beaten by the Sicilians and forced to surrender; Scotland, under attack from England, paid 181 ducats in exchange for the return of their fleet and army.
Moragues and Rascapelota, as well as court jester Capella, were heartily sick of the war, and they took the extreme step of locking the King up in his throne room and refusing him all access to wine and Smoke. Sober, the King acceded to treat for peace with France, though he was so angry he chewed one of his biceps off. Two diplomats sent in winter 1450 returned with no success, but Moragues convinced the French to accept the terms that a third Aragonese delegation presented with a total victory over the remains of the French army in March 1450 in the province of Berri. France ceded Guyenne, Berri, and Limousin to Aragon. Alfons V had added a total of five provinces to the Aragonese lands, though he was only awake an average of two hours a day.
