Juan de Austria

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Don Juan de Austria, contemporary portrait
Signature Juan de Austria.PNG

Don Juan de Austria (Knight Johann von Österreich ; * February 24, 1547 in Regensburg , † October 1, 1578 in Bouge , part of today's Namur ) was the commander of the Spanish fleet and governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. He was the illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V and the civil Regensburg Gürtler's daughter Barbara Blomberg .

Life

youth

Coat of arms of Don Juan de Austria

Don Juan de Austria was conceived in the Kaiserherberge Goldenes Kreuz in Regensburg. He grew up without knowing his true parentage. On his father's secret orders, he was separated from his mother at the age of three and brought to Spain under the name Gerónimo . Charles V appointed his violinist Franz Massy and his wife Anna de Medina to be the foster parents of the boy, who was entrusted to them by Charles' valet Adrian de Bues (= Adrian du Bois) as his son. From 1554 he lived with Don Luis Quijadas and his wife Magdalena de Ulloa, learned to read and write and received a professional education. His father did not reveal himself to his son until his death, although he met him at least once personally, but recognized him as a biological child in his will. Karl's successor on the Spanish throne, King Philip II , introduced his half-brother to court as Don Juan de Austria in 1559 after the death of the abdicated emperor , as his father had decreed in his will. Together with his nephew of the same age, the Infante Don Carlos and his cousin Alessandro Farnese , he studied at the high school in Alcalá de Henares .

First war missions

His wish to participate in the defense of Malta against the Turkish siege in 1565 was rejected by King Philip II. However, in 1568 he appointed Juan commander of the Spanish Mediterranean fleet.

His nephew Don Carlos wanted him to be an ally in his plans for a coup d'état against the royal father. Don Juan remained loyal to his half-brother and king and thus did not make a pact with the crown prince, but rather revealed his plans to the king.

From 1569 to 1571, Juan de Austria led the bloody battle against the rebellious Moors in the Andalusian Alpujarras ( 2nd uprising in the Alpujarras (1568–1571) ).

Because of the growing danger of Turks in the Mediterranean - the Ottoman Empire was just conquering the Venetian Cyprus - the Holy League was founded in the Vatican . At the instigation of Pope Pius V , the young Don Juan de Austria was appointed captain-general of the seas in 1571 as commander-in-chief of the fleet , in whose ranks there was also the famous Genoese admiral Giovanni Andrea Doria (the adopted son of Andrea Doria ), who found himself difficult wanted to submit to the command of the much younger emperor's son.

Lepanto

The winners of Lepanto (from left: Don Juan de Austria, Marcantonio Colonna , Sebastiano Venier )

Juan de Austria led the fleet of the Holy League (ships from Spain, Venice, Savoy , Genoa , Malta, Tuscany and papal ships) on October 7, 1571, victoriously in the naval battle of Lepanto against the Ottomans , after it had lasted in the weeks before Watching the enemy fleets had given. This sea battle is the last sea battle that was fought with galleys. After his victory, he returned to Messina in triumph and then went to Naples . He left his share of the spoils of war to the wounded, including the great Spanish poet Miguel de Cervantes , who lost his left hand in this battle. After his victory at Lepanto, Popes Pius V and Gregory XIII commemorated him . reward with a kingdom.

Tunis

Juan de Austria

First he set out in 1573 with the Spanish fleet from Naples to North Africa to fight the pirates there, allied with the Turks. Juan de Austria succeeded in conquering Tunis , which, however, was soon recaptured by the Turks. Another attack on the Turks was forbidden don Juan by the king. The wedding with the Scottish Queen Maria Stuart , brought up by the Pope in conversation, also failed due to the contradiction of his royal half-brother.

Governor of the Netherlands

At the request of Philip II, Don Juan should take over the governorship in the Netherlands instead, since the situation there threatened to escalate after the death of the previous governor Don Luís de Zúñiga y Requesens . First, don Juan traveled to his half-brother in Spain to discuss his marriage plans with him. However, Philip II succeeded in persuading Don Juan to accept the position of general governor of the Netherlands. In October 1576 he left Spain and first traveled to Luxembourg , where he met his mother for the first time. On February 12, 1577, Don Juan signed the Eternal Edict with the Dutch States General and was able to move into Brussels on May 1, 1577 . He began with the withdrawal of the hated Spanish troops, but could not assert himself, withdrew to Namur , occupied the citadel of Namur in a coup d' état and began to secretly raise an army with borrowed money because the Spanish king refused to pay him.

death

Sarcophagus of Don Juan de Austria in El Escorial , Spain
Monument of Don Juan de Austria in Regensburg
Head of the Don Juan de Austria monument in Regensburg

In December 1577, Don Juan de Austria, who had meanwhile fallen ill, was declared a public enemy by the States General . He managed to win another victory over the Protestant army with his troops. His personal secretary, Juan de Escobedo, who was posted to Spain, was murdered in Madrid; Don Juan also barely survived an assassination attempt in the Netherlands, which was planned by the English on him, as the English Queen Elizabeth I feared that he might marry Maria Stuart and liberate her by force with an army or that he might could succeed in subjugating the Netherlands. He withdrew to the field camp at Bouge near Namur, where he probably died of typhoid at the age of 31 . But there are also reasons to assume that he was killed by poison in his food over a long period of time, especially since Austria had been wasting away for months.

At the request of his half-brother, King Philip II of Spain, the body of Don Juan de Austria was to be transferred to Spain. To do this, it was cut up and smuggled in saddlebags through France to Madrid, where it was reassembled. Ultimately, he was buried in El Escorial , the burial place of the Spanish kings. His body rests in Chapel 5 of the Pantheon of the Infants . His heart was solemnly buried in Namur, Belgium .

He left two daughters from his affairs.

Afterlife

After the Battle of Lepanto, Andrea Calamech created a bronze statue of Juan, which was erected in Messina in 1572. Since 1978, a copy of this statue on Zieroldsplatz has been a reminder of Don Juan de Austria in his native Regensburg .

The Spanish Navy named one unprotected cruiser of Velasco class of Juan de Austria. The Don Juan de Austria was launched in 1887 and was lost to a US Navy squadron in the Spanish-American War in 1898 in the Battle of Manila Bay . Rescued and repaired after the battle, it served as the gunboat USS Don Juan de Austria in the US Navy from 1900 to 1919 .

A tercio (regiment) of the Legión Española is named after him to this day. It is the Tercio "Don Juan de Austria", 3 ° de la Legion, stationed in the small town of Viator in the province of Almería , where the majority of the units of the Spanish Legion are stationed and where their headquarters are located.

In 1946 a Spanish sailing ship was to be named after Don Juan de Austria, was also laid down under this name, but when it was completed in 1952 it was delivered to Chile as Esmeralda because Spain was in arrears with payments for saltpeter. The Esmeralda now serves as a sailing training ship.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Illustration by Frans Hogenberg from 1577: Inzugk of the Illuminated Don Johan in Brussell, on May 1st, 1577 ( digitized )
  2. ↑ DANFS: Don Juan de Austria ( Memento from February 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

literature

Web links

Commons : Juan de Austria  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
1576–1578 		Alessandro Farnese
personal data
SURNAME Juan de Austria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johann of Austria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Commander of the Spanish fleet and governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1547
PLACE OF BIRTH regensburg
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 1578
Place of death Bouge (Namur)