al-kasr

Updated: May 26, 2025

The battle of Al-Kasr al Kebir, in Morocco, about fifty miles south of Tangiers, was fought on August 4th, 1578. The king, Dom Sebastian, and the flower of the Portuguese nobility died on the field. As in Scotland after Flodden, there was not a house of name in Portugal which had not its dead to mourn.

J. A. (John Adam) Cramb - The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain: Nineteenth Century Europe

The nation which sent its bravest to die at Al-Kasr al Kebir is not a nation of adventurers. Nor do the instances of Phocaea, of the Cimbri, or the Ostrogoths afford any analogy here. Dom Sebastian's device fits not only his own career but the history of the race of which at that epoch he was at once the king and the ideal hero "A glorious death makes the whole life glorious."

J. A. (John Adam) Cramb - The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain: Nineteenth Century Europe