Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659)
Les Avins - Leuven - Tornavento - Guetaria - Fontarrabie - Corbie - Diedenhofen 1639 - Turin - Aire-sur-la-Lys - Honnecourt - Barcelona - Cartagena - Diedenhofen 1643 - Rocroi - Orbetello - Fort Mardyck - Dunkirk - Rethel - Bordeaux - Lens - Arras - Valenciennes - Battle of the Dunes
The Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659) between the kingdoms of Spain and France took place largely parallel to other major conflicts, in particular the Thirty Years War and the Eighty Years War . It was ended by the Peace of Pyrenees of 1659. With him the era of dominance of Spain ended and the era of French domination in Europe began.
Prehistory and historical context
In 1618 the Thirty Years War broke out in Central Europe , which began as a religious war in the first phase . At this stage of the war, the Catholic side was successful with the Catholic League and the Austrian line of the Habsburg Monarchy , supported by members of the Spanish Habsburg line . This alliance, led by the commanders Tilly and Wallenstein , was able to defeat the Protestant German imperial princes. King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway , who intervened on the side of the Protestants, was also defeated militarily. From 1630 the conflict escalated with the intervention of King Gustav Adolf of Sweden on the part of the Protestants. The Swedes were able to achieve great military successes against the imperial troops , which also included Spanish contingents, and penetrated as far as southern Germany. In 1634, however, the Swedish armies were defeated in the battle for Regensburg and in the battle of Nördlingen . Then, in the Peace of Prague in 1635 , a compromise was reached between the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II and some Protestant imperial princes with the Saxon elector Johann Georg I as their leader. The Swedes continued the war, supported by the rest of the Protestant imperial princes and France.
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Similar to French armies, Spanish armies were also involved in two other European theaters of war. In 1628, Spanish troops intervened in the Mantuan War of Succession , which broke out after the main line of the Gonzaga dynasty had died out. French troops stood on the opposite side . In addition, after the armistice had expired in 1621, the war with the States General (the " Eighty Years War ") flared up again. The course of the war was initially favorable for Spain. The Spanish general Ambrosio Spinola was able to conquer Breda in 1625 and the Spanish admiral Fadrique de Toledo destroyed a Dutch fleet near Gibraltar in the same year. However, the Dutch were supported by French subsidies and the Dutch pirate war led to a considerable disruption of Spain. In 1627, the Dutch admiral Piet Pieterszoon Heyn captured a large Spanish silver fleet in the waters around Cuba . After that, the Dutch were able to increasingly take the offensive and achieved successes in the Spanish Netherlands .
Outbreak of war and course
After the Peace of Prague between Emperor Ferdinand II and the Catholic League on the one hand and Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony on the other, which almost all Protestant imperial estates joined, peace in Central Europe seemed within reach. From 1635, however, at the instigation of the ruling minister, Cardinal Richelieu , France entered the war as a participant in the war on the side of Sweden and against Spain as the emperor's ally. French armies invaded the Spanish Netherlands and the Free County of Burgundy, which was under Spanish rule . In the battle of Les Avins in 1635, the French were victorious. In return, the Spanish and Imperial armies under the command of the Cardinal-Infante Don Fernando and the Equestrian General Jan von Werth undertook campaigns from the Spanish Netherlands into northern France and temporarily threatened the capital Paris. The policy of the leading Spanish minister, Olivares , which aimed at greater centralization of Spain while restricting traditional self-government rights, the high tax pressure and the economic crisis due to the many wars led to internal uprisings in Spain. In 1640 there was an open uprising of the Catalan provinces against the central government in Madrid. It came to the " revolt of the reapers ", the Spanish viceroy in Barcelona was killed and a meeting of the estates declared the secession from Castile and proclaimed Louis XIII. from France to sovereign in Catalonia. In the same year there was also the uprising and secession of Portugal, which had been united with the Spanish crown in personal union since the Portuguese royal family Avis died out in 1580 . The uprising in Catalonia was brought back under control by the Spanish central power after years of fighting, but Portugal, along with its colonial empire, was permanently lost to the Spanish Empire. In 1643 the Spanish suffered the most devastating defeat of the war in the Battle of Rocroi against the French. When the French crossed the Rhine under Turenne in 1646 and invaded Bavaria, the land connection between the Spanish possessions in Italy and the Spanish-Burgundian possessions was finally cut off. A revolt that broke out in 1647 in the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily , which were under Spanish rule, was brought back under control.
Because of the unacceptable burden of war, Spanish politics had sought peace negotiations from 1640 onwards. In 1646 peace was made with the northern Netherlands, which ended the Eighty Years War . The peace negotiations in Münster and Osnabrück, which had been going on since 1643, came to a conclusion in 1648 ( Peace of Westphalia ). The state of war between Spain and France continued, however, as Spain refused to comply with the French demand for the cession of all of Catalonia. In the Battle of Lens in 1648 the French were again victorious. In the years 1648 to 1653, however, Spain was given a respite, as France was weakened by internal unrest, in particular the revolt of the Fronde nobility . After 1653 the war broke out again openly and after 1655 England under Oliver Cromwell entered the war on the French side against Spain.
After the French remained victorious in the Battle of the Dunes in 1658, the state of war was finally ended with the Peace of the Pyrenees , which was concluded on November 7, 1659 . Spain ceded areas north of the Pyrenees - the county of Roussillon and the northern half of the Cerdanya - to France. France also received territorial concessions in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. In return, France ended its support for Portugal in the Restoration War . The state of war between Spain and England was only ended two years later.
literature
- WL Bernecker, H. Pietschmann: History of Spain. 2nd edition, Kohlhammer Stuttgart [u. a.] 1997, ISBN 3-17-014226-7 .
- H.-O. Sieburg: History of France. 5th adult Ed., Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1995, ISBN 3-17-013664-X .