Spain's Road to Empire

by Henry Kamen

  Since the Lutheran Reformation the complex maze of German affairs had been the focus of European politics: the Poles, Swedes, Turks, Italians and French had all been vigorously involved in what happened in Central Europe. Charles V had there experienced both triumph and defeat, and lost his good health in the process. The division in 1556 of his inheritance into a Germanic portion, under his brother Ferdinand, and a Hispanic one, under his son Philip, may seem to have created a parting of the ways for the Habsburg family. This, at least, is what has often been assumed. But Philip II was always conscious of the importance of maintaining an active link with his family in Vienna. There were close marriage ties, and he was also host in Spain to his nephews the children of the emperor, one of whom was Archduke Albert, later governor of the Netherlands, and another, Archduke Rudolf, later emperor.

  The king also maintained close diplomatic relations with the Austrian Habsburgs, on whom he relied for the recruitment of soldiers for his armies in Italy and the Netherlands. The Spanish empire did not extend to Germany, but it had fundamental interests there that Spanish leaders could not afford to neglect. The lifeline of the Vienna–Madrid connection depended on the continued succession of members of the Habsburg family to the Imperial throne, which was elective and therefore might easily pass out of Habsburg control. This fear was one of the reasons that led to a strengthening of relations through the treaty, signed in March 1617 at Vienna, between the Spanish ambassador Oñate and the heir to the Imperial throne, Archduke Ferdinand of Styria. Ferdinand's untroubled succession to the various territories he was due to inherit from his cousin, the childless emperor Matthias, was from his point of view the main business of the agreement. A further crucial component was Ferdinand's promise to cede to Spain, once he was emperor, the Imperial territory of Alsace, which Spain needed in order to transport its troops down the Rhine.

  Spain's renewed interest in Central Europe was a logical consequence of the truce with the Dutch. All the evidence demonstrated that the Dutch and other European powers were profiting from the peace of 1609 by eroding Spanish power throughout the globe. Over much of the Caribbean and in particular the coasts of Tierra Firme, the Spanish presence was so exiguous that non-Spanish settlers normally had little problem establishing themselves. In 1609 and 1619 English settlements were made in Guyana and the Amazon, and in 1626 a company to colonize in these areas was licensed by the English government, with the duke of Buckingham as one of the sponsors. Between 1609 and 1632 the English in the Caribbean settled the Bermudas, the Leeward Islands of Antigua, St Kitts and Nevis, and the island of Barbados. The Dutch in the same period established enduring settlements in Guyana, Curaçao and other islands, while the French were in Cayenne from 1625, and Martinique and Guadeloupe from 1635. These and later colonies were made possible quite simply because there was no Spanish presence in the area.

  The English, though not formally involved in the conflict between Spain and the Dutch, played a crucial role in the erosion of Spain's position in the Caribbean and the Pacific. But the Dutch everywhere were the greatest threat. They were in force from the 1590s in the Pacific, where the chief threat to Spain came with the foundation in 1602 of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC). Dutch inroads into the Hispano-Portuguese empire were serious enough to form an issue in the talks that attempted to bring peace in the Netherlands. The first significant attack on the Philippines was in 1600, when a Dutch vessel attacked the poorly defended town of Manila and sank a warship that had been rapidly constructed by Antonio de Morga. It was the beginning of a half-century of travails. In August 1614 an expedition sponsored by the VOC, consisting of four vessels and seven hundred men, entered the Pacific by the straits of Magellan. In July 1615 it attacked and destroyed off the coast of Lima the naval force put up by the viceroy; the Spaniards lost two frigates and five hundred men. The incident committed Spain to overhaul defences in the Pacific by fortifying the port of Callao and constructing ships. But little was done for over a century to defend the Pacific coasts adequately.

  The most immediate danger to Spanish interests appeared to come from Europe. In May 1618 the Estates of Bohemia, one of the few kingdoms in Europe to have an elective monarchy, began a revolt that ended in them deposing their Catholic ruler, the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand of Styria. Ambassador Oñate, who was in Vienna when he received news of the uprising, became deeply concerned and by January 1619 had come round to thinking that only Spain could save the situation. ‘It seems to be necessary for your Majesty to consider which will be of greater service to you,’ he wrote, ‘the loss of these provinces or the despatch of an army of fifteen to twenty thousand men to settle the matter.'100 The typically chauvinist reaction might have fallen on stony ground but for the predominance in the councils of Spain at that moment of Baltasar de Zúñiga, who had served with distinction in the army and also as ambassador, and now had the ear of Philip III. Thanks to his arguments, aid to Vienna was seen as a necessary part of an overall strategy in Europe of defence against the Dutch (who were giving support to the rebels in Prague). Money was advanced to Spain's friend Ferdinand of Styria, who in the same week that he was removed from the throne of Bohemia was elected unanimously by the German princes as Holy Roman emperor at Frankfurt-on-the-Main.

  Meanwhile in the course of the year 1619 the Spaniards gave solid proof of their friendship and of their impressive capacity to raise troops in all parts of the continent. They had already sent a Belgian general, Charles Longueval, count of Bucquoy, to take command of the troops that Ferdinand was raising. In the spring of 1619 a detachment of around seven thousand Belgians and Irish was also sent across from the southern Netherlands. In the summer ten thousand Italians were recruited in Naples under their captains Carlo Spinelli and Guillermo Verdugo, and sent through the Brenner Pass into the Habsburg lands.101 This time the commitment was more substantial and more lasting than in 1532; it has been estimated that in total the Spaniards were financing half the infantry available to the new emperor.102 There were few Spaniards, but the soldiers were drawn from all the European territories governed by Spain: there were Castilians, Neapolitans, Belgians, Germans, Florentines. Among the officers in this international force was the Valencian general Baltasar de Marradas, who became one of the supreme commanders of the Imperial army and settled down subsequently in the large complex of estates that he purchased in southern Bohemia. There were extensive military movements on all sides, but as yet no sign of war despite the observation of the English ambassador at The Hague that ‘this business of Bohemia is like to put all Christendom in combustion’.103

  The fateful move to war was made when in August 1619 the Calvinist elector of the Palatinate, Frederick, decided to accept the crown of Bohemia offered to him by the rebels. It was a decision that threatened to overturn the entire political, religious and military order of Germany. In the Spanish Council of State the gloomy ministers foresaw only an ‘eternal war’ if the Protestants gained control of the Holy Roman Empire. The Catholic powers therefore acted, and decisively. In July 1620 the fifteen thousand troops of the Catholic League headed by Bavaria, marched into the regions of Austria allied with the Czechs, and thence into Bohemia, where they joined the Imperial troops under Bucquoy. On 8 November 1620 they inflicted a shattering defeat on the Czech and German Protestant forces in the battle of the White Mountain, just outside Prague. Only a handful of Spanish troops was involved in the victory, which was achieved in large measure by the Neapolitan infantry and Florentin cavalry.104 The Bohemian revolt was finished. Frederick fled into exile after having reigned for one short winter (a scornful Europe called him the Winterkönig, the Winter King) and peace seemed to return to a Central Europe that had been in turmoil.

  In reality, the war was just beginning. The big debate in Spain was not over Bohemia, where everyone agreed on the need to intervene, but over the Dutch. By the middle of 1620 the Dutch had supplied some five thousand men as military assistance to the Estates of Bohemia, and
they took part in the White Mountain. Spain was prepared to continue confronting the Dutch wherever they threatened Spanish interests, but was it prepared to renew the war against them after the impending expiry of the Twelve Years Truce in 1621? Zúñiga declared explicitly in the Council of State in April 1619 that the two principal aims of the past conflict – conquering the Dutch provinces, and restoring the Catholic faith by force of arms – were now completely out of the question and unrealizable. His words were uncompromising:

  We cannot reduce those provinces to obedience by force of arms. Whoever considers the matter carefully and dispassionately can only be impressed by the great power of the provinces, both by land and by sea. What is more, that state is at the height of its greatness, whereas ours is plunged in confusion. To promise ourselves that we can conquer Holland is to aim for the impossible and delude ourselves.

  Both he and other counsellors of Philip III, however, were not quite sure where the bottom line could be drawn in terms of negotiating a renewal of the truce. In the end, the deliberations centred on three main conditions. The first of these concerned obtaining freedom of worship in the United Provinces for the Catholics, who were still a majority of the population. The other two directly affected the survival of the empire as a business concern. They were emphasized in a letter from the king to Archduke Albert in February 1621, explaining that the truce could only be extended if the Dutch ceased trading in the Asian archipelagos, and opened the estuary of the River Scheldt, Antwerp's access to the sea. Otherwise, the renewal of the truce without these conditions ‘would result in the complete ruin of these kingdoms’, that is, of Spain. There was no mistaking the general preference for war. As the councillors in Madrid stated, ‘during the truce Holland has increased its wealth, waged wars in Germany against the Habsburgs, and infested both America and Asia with its shipping, all of them reasons that make it indispensable to redeem religion, honour and justice through resort to arms’. They apparently viewed Spain as a sort of world policeman, ‘safeguarding’ it against subversion. Philip III died a few days before the expiry of the truce, and was succeeded by his son Philip IV, who was seconded at all times by his special adviser Gaspar de Guzmán, later Count Duke of Olivares. Philip was a sensitive, conscientious ruler, and his long reign of forty-four years was destined to have decisive consequences for the evolution of Spain's empire. But the long shadow of conflict continued to dominate. The drift of opinion in Madrid was still controlled by Zúñiga, and it headed towards war.

  In Brussels the Belgians had their own priorities, of which the most important was to defend their territorial integrity against the Dutch and their allies. When the army of the Catholic League had moved into Austria and Bohemia, that of Flanders under Spinola on 5 September crossed the Rhine into Frederick of Bohemia's principality, the Rhine Palatinate. Frederick was far away in Bohemia. His homeland was almost defenceless apart from a small force of two thousand English volunteers who were holding the key fortresses of Frankenthal and Mannheim, while the capital Heidelberg was defended by German and Dutch troops. It became common in Protestant propaganda of the time to present the terrible spectre of Spanish troops marching unimpeded through the defenceless principalities of Western Europe. In reality, Spanish troops were inconspicuous in the forces that invaded the Palatinate. Spinola's invading army in 1621 included 20,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, of which around 40 per cent were Germans, 28 per cent Italians, 12 per cent Belgians, and 10 per cent Spaniards, together with some Portuguese.105 The principal commanders under Spinola were the Belgians Count Henry van den Bergh and Count Berlaymont. Spinola himself had to return to Brussels (with part of his army) in July 1621 because of the death of Archduke Albert earlier that month, but he left behind some eleven thousand troops under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. They held the greater part of the Palatinate until Imperial troops in 1622 completed the occupation of the territory by capturing Heidelberg and Mannheim; Frankenthal surrendered shortly after.

  The Spanish monarchy was now well poised to defend its commitments in Europe. Possession of the Palatinate, though not an absolute necessity, assured the lines of communication between the Alps and the Netherlands. In July 1620 the army of Milan marched into and occupied the strategic route through the Valtelline into the Germanic lands. Meanwhile in the southern Netherlands a major new initiative was under way. The Brussels government in 1620 made an agreement with a Flemish contractor for the building and equipment at Ostend of twelve armed attack vessels. The return of Spinola from the Palatinate shortly after strengthened the army, which was made ready for a possible campaign.

  Even while talks between both sides over a renewal went on, the truce between Spain and the Dutch expired officially on 9 April 1621, with majority opinion on both sides resigned to the war. From his position in Brussels, where he could observe at close quarters the situation both in Germany and in the United Provinces, Spinola in the spring of 1621 conveyed to Madrid, through his envoy Carlos Coloma, his inflexible opinion that war was the only sensible option. ‘If the truce is extended we condemn ourselves to suffer permanently all the ills of peace and all the risks of war.’106 The so-called ‘peace’ had been ruinous, and was costing two million ducats a year just for the army of Flanders. But if war was chosen it must be done properly. All other theatres of war must be shut down. Spain must withdraw from any commitment to Germany or the Palatinate, and must reduce defence measures, currently estimated at two millions a year, in the Pacific. The Dutch, finally, must be attacked where they are strongest, at sea, by supporting the Flemish corsairs and by maintaining two strong fleets, one in the Atlantic and one in the Mediterranean. Coloma outlined to ministers in Madrid the gains made by the Dutch in Asia: ‘they have established now in the East twenty-three trading posts and as many forts; they have seized all the trade in cloves; innumerable ships of theirs have captured or sunk both Castilian vessels in Maluku and the Philippines and Portuguese vessels in India; they have aided and aid all the rulers of the archipelago and coasts who are our enemies; and finally they have acquired there as much power, credit and reputation in twelve years, as the Castilians and Portuguese acquired in one hundred and twenty’.107

  In July 1621 the king instructed Isabella that a state of war now existed, but for a long time ministers in Madrid, Brussels and The Hague were not reconciled to it and continued, even while the soldiers were on the march, with diplomatic contacts in search of peace.

  The Dutch did not intend to be caught unprepared. At the same time as the land army was being restructured by Maurice of Nassau, the overseas enterprise was rejuvenated by the foundation in 1621 of the Dutch West India Company, the WIC (West-Indische Compagnie), which three years later in May 1624 occupied by surprise and with virtually no opposition the chief town of Brazil, Bahia. The substantial Dutch fleet of 26 warships with 3,300 men had as its second in command Vice-Admiral Piet Heyn. The dimensions of the conflict would clearly be intercontinental, extending through all the seas of the world. It was in every sense a world war, with the Dutch and the Spaniards as the main protagonists, and the survival of Spain's empire as the stake. The outbreak of hostilities with England in 1625 (commented on below) further complicated the scene. At war after the 1620s with the world's chief maritime powers, England and the United Provinces, Spain came face to face with the hideous reality of imperial responsibility.

  The great worldwide apparatus of Spanish power was now put to the test. And it proved itself remarkably well. Spain faced two main theatres of conflict: in the Netherlands, where it attempted to contain a conflict that had now, thanks to the Thirty Years’ War, extended itself to the Germanic lands and Central Europe, and in East Asia, where it was defending the spice trade. Spain itself was unable to produce in sufficient quantity any of the essentials required for maintaining a war: men, armaments, shipping. Its only recourse, on which it now depended entirely, was the business network created by American silver. This was the most fearsome antagonist of its enemies, who
expended all their energies on attempting to destroy or at least undermine it. In addition, Spain counted in Europe on the fundamental input of its two partners, Belgium and Italy, who in the seventeenth century made perhaps their most profound contribution to the survival of the empire. And outside Europe, as we shall see, Spain since the 1580s was in the unprecedented position of being able to count on the Portuguese.

  To encourage Spinola in his role as leader of the war effort, Philip IV in 1621 conceded him the Spanish title of marquis of Los Balbases, made him a grandee and granted him the Golden Fleece. The supreme commander continued to be faced with fundamental problems of men and money, especially on the part of Spain, whose participation in the war became progressively smaller. ‘There are very few Spanish soldiers to count on’, Spinola complained to Madrid in June 1622, at a time when the government there was urging him to depend less on Protestant soldiers from Germany and the British Isles. He pleaded for Italian troops to be sent from Milan. Decisions in Brussels were now tending to be made with minimal reference to Spain. The most significant of them was the decision to besiege the city of Breda. The resolution was made, without the knowledge of or prior consultation with Madrid, by Spinola and a small group of the high command in Brussels in 1624. It was a brilliant move. Breda was garrisoned by Justin of Nassau, natural brother of the Stadholder Maurice. ‘The marquis Spinola’, the artist Peter Paul Rubens wrote from his home in Antwerp, ‘is more and more determined to take the place, and believe me there is no power can save the town, so well is it besieged.’108 It surrendered finally on 5 June 1625, after a nine-month siege. By coincidence, Maurice himself died shortly before the surrender, asking on his deathbed for news about the siege. Though Spinola stayed on three more years in the Netherlands, it was his last campaign there.