History UsefulNotes / CardinalInfanteFerdinand

Unlike those who came before him, he remains relatively unknown in Spanish pop culture due to the shortness of his career, comprising only seven years, which also contained enough victories over Spain's enemies for them not to write much about him either. Not being an innovator, but a BoringButPractical man, military history tends to overlook him too. He could be considered an enormous "[[ForWantOfANail what if]]" in history given that he died almost as a newbie in the European chessboard, in spite of which, he managed to leave a mark as probably the best general-diplomat of his brief time, standing out by his ability to read the battlefields, implement defensive lines and adapt to any setback.

He never really wanted the job of churchman, which was imposed on him when he was just ten by [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope Paul V]] by UsefulNotes/PhilipIII's request, following the ancient nobiliary custom of giving a son to the Church.[[note]]And also because Philip wanted to screw the Duke of Lerma, his corrupt former minister, who had asked for the the Archbishopric of Toledo, which Philip then asked to be given to Ferdinand instead. Paul V knew the kid was not cut out for the church and only accepted to make him a honorific cardinal, but when Philip insisted, the Pope gave up and made Ferdinand Archbishop of Toledo too. As cardinal is a higher rank, Ferdinand became a Cardinal-Infante and not an Archbishop-Infante.[[/note]] Ferdinand soon turned out to be a prodigy in just about everything but religion, and his coming of age led him to clash with Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, and not exactly over who had the best double title. Olivares, who was the minister of Ferdinand's king brother Philip, considered him a dangerous player in the court due to his growing influence in political and intellectual affairs, and was therefore chagrined when Ferdinand started his active career by being appointed Viceroy of Catalonia, initially to try to ease local tensions and more pragmatically to gain experience before being sent to the [[UsefulNotes/TheEightyYearsWar perpetually warring Netherlands]]. Spain was at a delicate moment, as although its interests had survived to the outbreak of the 30 Years War, they needed a big push forward and soon, not least to help their dynastic allies of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, and Ferdinand was deemed the most promising man for the mission.

His European campaign met a troubled start, with plenty of diseases and delays, not to mention that he was deprived of an invaluable adviser, the great general Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, Duke of Feria, who was keeping things going and who died of illness before they could meet. Undaunted, however, Ferdinand started working to reinforce the Spanish positions, re-open the lost supply artery known as the ''Camino Español'', and support the Holy Roman Empire's armies, those being led by his cousin King Ferdinand III of Hungary, who had recently lost his supreme commander Albrecht von Wallenstein. (Read: He had alienated Albrecht with unfounded suspicions and later had him assassinated for treason in a SelfFulfillingProphecy.) Ferdinand of Hungary was thus sorely dependent on the Cardinal-Infante. The two Ferdinands managed to merge their armies in front of the walls of Nordlingen, where the Protestant army led by Gustav Horn and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar committed a lethal mistake by underestimating the newcomers. Despite an admirably determined fifteen charges, the Protestants were repealed and utterly crushed in the counterattack, which undid all the Swedish advances in the war and launched the Cardinal-Infante to the military glory he always dreamed of.

The 1634 Battle of Nordlingen does attract more interest from military historians due to its CoolVersusAwesome premise, as it supposedly pitted the legendary Spanish ''tercios'', a nigh-unbeatable kind of pike-and-shot army developed by UsefulNotes/GonzaloFernandezDeCordoba but considered obsolete by this point, against the Swedish army, reformed by the famed Gustavus Adolphus in the most modern linear doctrines introduced by his mentor Maurice of Nassau. Reality is a bit more boring, as more recent historiography shows that neither the Spaniards were so outdated nor the Swedish so revolutionary -- the ''tercios'' had greatly adapted their classical pike blocks to the same linear formations previously introduced by Maurice and adopted by Gustavus, meaning Nordlingen was a battle between armies functionally similar in tactics and only different in experience and command. Textbooks also like to credit both Maurice and Gustavus with military innovations the Spanish, German and French armies had been employing for generations,[[note]]For instance, the change of ratio of firearms to pikes in favor to firearms, which is universally attributed to Maurice of Nassau but was already being used (and surpassed) by the French Huguenots; the change from blocks to smaller units, which is also attributed to Maurice despite being in vogue in all of Europe, including Spain; or counter-march volley fire, which the Spaniards had already used as early as 1586, almost a decade before Maurice officially published it.[[/note]] probably a result of the still wide usage of Protestant war sources that tried to picture their Catholic opponents as primitive and adverse to change.

Having eliminated the obstacle, Ferdinand entered the Spanish Netherlands to replace his aunt Isabella Clara Eugenia as governor, being even happier that the local history of religious conflicts gave him the perfect excuse to take off his habits and forget about the whole church thing. Quickly popular among the Flemish, he followed with a series of victories against the Dutch with his sights put in bullying them into peace or truce. Those resounded heavily in the court of King UsefulNotes/LouisXIII of France, whose minister UsefulNotes/CardinalRichelieu realized that, if Spain managed to gain power in Northern Europe, France's interests would be seriously compromised, so Richelieu declared open war in 1635. The Netherlands were attacked by French and Dutch forces at the same time, but the Cardinal-Infante's defenses and organization prevailed and allowed him to beat both of them back in his counterattack. The Spaniard was annoyed at the untimely increase in their list of enemies, but he still felt able to utter the BadassBoast, "We have no reason to fear [French] arms, nor have we learned such fear from our predecessors".

By 1637, Ferdinand was making good on his prestige by usually trouncing the French and Dutch against all odds. He and his cousin Ferdinand III crafted a plan nicknamed the Crossing of the Somme, for which the Spanish and their allies captured the fortress of Corbie, near to Paris. The court of France suffered a MassOhCrap: the royal family was evacuated from their capital and only Louis XIII and Richelieu stayed to fight in case of a final assault. This never happened, as Ferdinand judged it too risky and reversed the advance, even against the opinion of the more impatient Germans, who speculated that committing to a big battle might have paid off (because HistoryRepeats, the same having happened to his grandfather UsefulNotes/PhilipII). Ferdinand did recommend standing firm at the Dutch border and moving into France again with focused force to capitalize on their grogginess and finish them off, but the chance passed due to delays and political infighting fed by Ferdinand's enemy Olivares. Meanwhile, the Dutch launched a similar campaign with all their might to capture the Spanish base of Antwerp; the Cardinal-Infante returned and frustrated it in a massive and highly publicized victory in Kallo.

As the wars dragged on, however, Philip IV lamented not having many lieutenants at the level of the Cardinal-Infante, as a Spanish fleet was badly steered and defeated by the Dutch navy at Battle of the Downs, which hammered morale even if the fleet did miraculously manage to land the reinforcements and supplies it carried. Ferdinand responded to this by sealing a trade treaty with Denmark which, while controversial, was greatly useful for their war effort. The French then concentrated their efforts in taking the Spanish Netherlander city of Arras, and because Ferdinand blundered for once and did not attack in time, the city surrendered. Arras had little strategic usefulness, but carried the propaganda value of being the first big French victory. Ferdinand used it to sow discord among the Dutch, warning of what might happen to them if France gained entry to their country, but it also gave Olivares and the rest of Ferdinand's enemies fuel to slander him in the Spanish court;[[note]]Mistrust on Ferdinand due to his youth and ambition was not new, and his own entourage since the beginning of the campaign carried orders to overrule him should he start something weird; it's just that Ferdinand was competent and charismatic enough that he never let them have reasons to.[[/note]] even worse, it came out that Ferdinand's circle had considered a marriage between him and Louis XIII's niece Anne Marie Louise so he could launch a French revolt against Richelieu, which slanderers spun into Ferdinand intending to betray Spain and join France to found his own kingdom in the Netherlands.

In the midst of turmoil caused by the rebellion of Portugal, who also tried to and would secede from the Spanish Empire, Ferdinand initiate a counter-offensive against the French, but his health was starting to fail (the official report was a stomach ulcer caused by stress, but rumors said that he was poisoned) and he died at just 32 the next year. With his death, which affected Philip IV to the point that the famously stoic king completely broke down on his throne, ''everything'' collapsed for Spain in Europe: they lost the Eighty Years War, with Ferdinand's replacement, the weak-willed Francisco de Melo, being forced to sign the Peace of Munster seven years later; they lost any hope in their struggle by France, soon led by UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, whose grand general Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne arrived to meet absolutely no match for his military genius;[[note]]Tragically, Ferdinand and Henri were almost the same age. Had Ferdinand lived, ''that'' would have been a CoolVersusAwesome.[[/note]] and they lost their good relationships with the Holy Roman Empire, as the Spanish general's death had caused a successional dispute about who would lead the common front.

He never really wanted the job of cardinal, which was imposed on him when he was just ten by [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope Paul V]], following the ancient nobiliary custom of giving a son to the Church. Ferdinand soon turned out to be a prodigy in just about everything but religion, and his coming of age led him to clash with Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, and not exactly over who had the best double title. Olivares, who was the minister of Ferdinand's king brother Philip, considered him a dangerous player in the court due to his growing influence in political and intellectual affairs, and was therefore chagrined when Ferdinand started his active career by being appointed Viceroy of Catalonia, initially to try to ease local tensions and more pragmatically to gain experience before being sent to the perpetually warring Netherlands. Spain was at a delicate moment, as although its interests had survived to the outbreak of the 30 Years War, they needed a big push forward and soon, not least to help their dynastic allies of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, and Ferdinand was deemed the best man for the mission.

His European campaign met a troubled start, with plenty of diseases and delays, not to mention that he was deprived of an invaluable adviser, the uber-general Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, Duke of Feria, who was keeping things going and who died of illness before they could meet. Undaunted, however, Ferdinand started working to reinforce the Spanish positions, re-open the lost supply artery known as the ''Camino Español'', and support the Holy Roman Empire's armies, those being led by his cousin King Ferdinand III of Hungary, who had recently lost his supreme commander Albrecht van Wallenstein. (Read: He had alienated Albrecht with unfounded suspicions and had him assassinated for treason in a SelfFulfillingProphecy.) Ferdinand of Hungary was thus sorely dependent on the Cardinal-Infante. The two Ferdinands managed to merge their armies in front of the walls of Nordlingen, where the Protestant army led by Gustav Horn and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar committed a lethal mistake by underestimating the newcomers. Despite an admirably determined fifteen charges, the Protestants were repealed and utterly crushed in the counterattack, which undid all the Swedish advances in the war and launched the Cardinal-Infante to the military glory he always dreamed of.

The 1634 Battle of Nordlingen attracts a lot of interest from military historians due to its CoolVersusAwesome premise, as it supposedly pitted the legendary Spanish ''tercios'', a nigh-unbeatable kind of pike-and-shot army developed by UsefulNotes/GonzaloFernandezDeCordoba but considered obsolete by this point, against the Swedish army, reformed by the famed Gustavus Adolphus in the most modern linear doctrines introduced by his mentor Maurice of Nassau. Reality is a bit more boring, as more recent historiography shows that neither the Spaniards were so outdated nor the Swedish so revolutionary -- the ''tercios'' had greatly adapted their classical pike blocks to the same linear formations previously introduced by Maurice and adopted by Gustavus, meaning Nordlingen was a battle between armies functionally similar in tactics and only different in experience and command. Textbooks also like to credit both Maurice and Gustavus with military innovations the Spanish, German and French armies had been employing for generations,[[note]]For instance, the change of ratio of firearms to pikes in favor to firearms, which is universally attributed to Maurice of Nassau but was already being used (and surpassed) by the French Huguenots; the change from blocks to smaller units, which is also attributed to Maurice despite being in vogue in all of Europe, including Spain; or counter-march volley fire, which the Spaniards had already used as early as 1586, almost a decade before Maurice officially published it.[[/note]] probably a result of the still wide usage of Protestant war sources that tried to picture their Catholic opponents as primitive and adverse to change.

Having eliminated the obstacle, Ferdinand entered the Spanish Netherlands to replace his aunt Isabella Clara Eugenia as governor, being even happier that the local history of religious conflicts gave him the perfect excuse to take off his habits and forget about the whole church thing. Quickly popular among the Flemish, he followed with a series of victories against the Dutch with his sights put in bullying them into peace or truce. Those resounded heavily in the court of King UsefulNotes/LouisXIII of France, whose minister UsefulNotes/CardinalRichelieu realized that, if Spain managed to gain power in Northern Europe, France's interests would be seriously compromised. So Richelieu declared open war. The Netherlands were attacked by French and Dutch forces at the same time, but the Cardinal-Infante's defenses and organization prevailed and allowed him to beat both of them back in his counterattack. The Spaniard was annoyed at the untimely increase in their list of enemies, but he still felt able to utter the BadassBoast, "We have no reason to fear [French] arms, nor have we learned such fear from our predecessors".

By 1637, Ferdinand was making good on his military prestige by trouncing the French and Dutch against all odds. He and his cousin Ferdinand II crafted a plan nicknamed the Crossing of the Somme, for which the Spanish and their allies captured the city of Corbie, near to Paris. The court of France suffered a MassOhCrap: the royal family was evacuated from their capital and only Louis XIII and Richelieu stayed to fight in case of a final assault. This never happened, as Ferdinand judged it too risky and reversed the advance, even against the opinion of the more impatient Germans, who speculated that committing to a big battle might have paid off (because HistoryRepeats, the same having happened to his grandfather UsefulNotes/PhilipII). Ferdinand did recommend standing firm at the Dutch border and moving into France again with focused force to capitalize on their grogginess and finish them off, but the chance passed due to delays and political infighting fed by Ferdinand's enemy Olivares. Meanwhile, the Dutch launched a similar campaign with all their might to capture the Spanish base of Antwerp; the Cardinal-Infante returned and frustrated it in a massive and highly propagandized victory in Kallo.

As the wars dragged on, however, Philip IV lamented not having many lieutenants at the level of the Cardinal-Infante, as a Spanish fleet was badly steered and defeated by the Dutch navy at Battle of the Downs, which hammered morale even if the fleet did miraculously manage to land the reinforcements and supplies it carried. Ferdinand responded to this by sealing a trade treaty with Denmark which, while controversial, was greatly useful for their war effort. The French then concentrated their efforts in taking the Spanish Netherlander city of Arras, and because Ferdinand blundered for once and did not attack in time, the city surrendered, which had few strategic usefulness but carried the propaganda value of being the first big French victory. Ferdinand used to to sow discord among the Dutch, warning them of what might happen to them if France gained entry to their country, but it also gave Olivares and the rest of Ferdinand's enemies fuel to slander him in the Spanish court; even worse, it came out that Ferdinand's circle had considered a marriage between him and Louis XIII's niece Anne Marie Louise so he could launch a French revolt against Richelieu, which slanderers spun into Ferdinand intending to betray Spain and join France to found his own kingdom in the Netherlands.

In the midst of turmoil caused by the rebellion of Portugal, who also tried to and would secede from the Spanish Empire, Ferdinand initiate a counter-offensive against the French, but his health was starting to fail (the official report was a stomach ulcer caused by stress, but many rumors said that he was poisoned) and he died at just 32 the next year. With his death, which affected Philip IV to the point that the famously stoic king completely broke down on his throne, ''everything'' collapsed for Spain in Europe: they lost the Eighty Years War, with Ferdinand's replacement, the weak-willed Francisco de Melo, being forced to sign the Peace of Munster seven years later; they lost any hope in their struggle by France, soon led by UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, whose grand general Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne arrived to meet no match for his military genius; and they lost their good relationships with the Holy Roman Empire, as the Spanish general's death had caused a successional dispute about who would lead the front.

He never really wanted the job of cardinal, which was imposed on him when he was just ten by [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope Paul V]], following the ancient nobiliary custom of giving a son to the Church. Ferdinand soon turned out to be a prodigy for just everything but religion, and his coming of age led him to clash with Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, and not exactly over who had the best double title. Olivares, who was the minister of Ferdinand's king brother Philip, considered him a dangerous player in the court due to his growing influence in political and intellectual affairs, and was therefore chagrined when Ferdinand started his active career by being appointed Viceroy of Catalonia, initially to try to ease local tensions and more pragmatically to gain experience before being sent to the perpetually warring Netherlands. Spain was at a delicate moment, as although its interests had survived to the outbreak of the 30 Years War, they needed a big push forward and soon, not least to help their dynastic allies of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, and Ferdinand was deemed the best man for the mission.

Having eliminated the obstacle, Ferdinand entered the Spanish Netherlands to replace his aunt Isabella Clara Eugenia as governor, being even happier that the local history of religious conflicts gave him the perfect excuse to take off his habits and forget about the whole church thing. Quickly popular among the Flemish, he followed with a series of victories against the Dutch with his sights put in bullying them into peace or truce. Those resounded heavily in the court of King UsefulNotes/LouisXIII of France, whose minister UsefulNotes/CardinalRichelieu realized that, if Spain managed to gain power in Northern Europe, France's interests would be seriously compromised. So Richelieu declared open war. The Netherlands were attacked by French and Dutch forces at the same time, but the Cardinal-Infante's defenses and organization prevailed and allowed him to beat both of them back in his counterattack. The Spaniard was annoyed at the untimely increase in their list of enemies, but he still felt sure to utter the BadassBoast, "we have no reason to fear [French] arms, nor we learned such fear from our predecessors".

By 1637, Ferdinand was making good his military prestige by trouncing the French and Dutch against all odds. He and his cousin Ferdinand II crafted a plan nicknamed the Crossing of the Somme, for which the Spanish and their allies captured the city of Corbie, nearby to Paris. The court of France suffered a MassOhCrap: the royal family was evacuated from their capital and only Louis XIII and Richelieu stayed to fight with everything in case of a final assault. This never happened, as Ferdinand judged it too risky and undid the advance, even against the opinion of the more impatient Germans, who speculated that risking to a big battle might have paid off (because HistoryRepeats, the same had happened to his grandfather UsefulNotes/PhilipII). Ferdinand did advise to stand firm in the slugglish Dutch border and penetrate again in France with focused force to capitalize on their grogginess and finish them off, but the chance passed due to delays and political infighting fed by Ferdinand's enemy Olivares. Meanwhile, the Dutch launched a similar campaign with all their might to capture the Spanish base of Antwerp, although the Cardinal Infant returned and frustrated it in a massive and highly propagandized victory in Kallo.

As the wars dragged on, however, Philip IV lamented not having many lieutenants at the level of the Cardinal-Infante, as a Spanish fleet was badly steered and defeated by the Dutch navy at Battle of the Downs, which hammered morale even if the fleet did miraculously manage to land the reinforcements and supplies it carried. Ferdinand responded to this by sealing a trade treaty with Denmark which, while controversial, was greatly useful for their war effort. The French then concentrated their efforts in taking the Spanish Netherlander city of Arras, and because Ferdinand blundered for once and did not attack in time, the city surrendered, which had few strategic usefulness but carried the propaganda value of being the first big French victory. Ferdinand used to to sow discordy among the Dutch, warning them of what may happen to them if France gained entry to their country, but it also gave Olivares and the rest of Ferdinand's enemies fuel to slander him in the Spanish court; even worse, it came out that Ferdinand's circle had considered a marriage between him and Louis XIII's niece Anne Marie Louise so he could wage a French revolt against Richelieu, which slanderers spun into Ferdinand intending to betray Spain and join France to found his own kingdom in the Netherlands.

Ferdinand of Austria (16 May 1609 - 9 November 1641) was the younger brother of King of Spain UsefulNotes/PhilipIV, mainly known for his double job of Cardinal of the Catholic church and infante of the Spanish [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Habsburg]] branch, although those two were only two of his many facets, which included being an aristocrat, dandy, churchman, statesman, strategist and diplomatic. He was the last great general of the Spanish Empire, as well as their last hope during the shuffle of powers of the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar. His premature death sealed Spain's fall from hegemony in favor of France.

He never really wanted the job of cardinal, which was imposed on him when he was just ten by [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope Paul V]], following the ancient nobiliary custom of giving a son to the Church. Ferdinand soon turned out to be a prodigy for just everything but religion, and his coming of age led him to clash with Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, and not exactly over who had the best double title. Olivares, who was the minister of Ferdinand's king brother Philip, considered him a dangerous player in the court due to his growing influence in political and intellectual affairs, and was therefore chagrined when Ferdinand started his active career by being appointed Viceroy of Catalonia, initially to try to ease local tensions and more pragmatically to gain experience before being sent to the perpetually warring Netherlands. Spain was in a delicate moment, as although its interests had survived to the outbreak of the 30 Years War, they needed a big push forward and quickly so, not less to help their dynastic allies of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, and Ferdinand was deemed the best man for the mission.

His European campaign met a troubled start, with plenty of diseases and delays, not to mention he was deprived of an invaluable adviser, the uber-general Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, Duke of Feria, who was keeping things around and died of illness before they could meet. Undaunted, however, Ferdinand started working to reinforce the Spanish positions, re-open the lost supply artery known as the ''Camino Español'', and support the Holy Roman Empire during the war, those being led by his cousin King Ferdinand III of Hungary, who had recently lost his supreme commander Albrecht van Wallenstein (read: he had alienated Albrecht with unfounded suspicions and had him assassinated for treason in a SelfFulfillingProphecy) and was thus sorely dependent on the Cardinal-Infante. The two Ferdinands managed to merge their armies in front of the walls of Nordlingen, where the Protestant army led by Gustav Horn and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar committed a lethal mistake by underestimating the newcomers. Despite an admirably strongheaded fifteen charges, the Protestants were repealed and utterly crushed in the counterattack, which undid all the Swedish advances in the war and launched the Cardinal-Infante to the military glory he always dreamed with.

The 1634 Battle of Nordlingen attracts a lot of interest by military historians due to its CoolVersusAwesome premise, as it supposedly pitted the legendary Spanish ''tercios'', a nigh-unbeatable kind of pike-and-shot army developed by UsefulNotes/GonzaloFernandezDeCordoba yet considered obsolete by this point, against the Swedish army, reformed by the famed Gustavus Adolphus in the most modern linear doctrines introduced by his mentor Maurice of Nassau. Reality is a bit more boring, as more recent historiography shows that neither the Spaniards were so outdated nor the Swedish so revolutionary -- the ''tercios'' had greatly adapted their classical pike blocks to the same linear formations previously introduced by Maurice and adopted by Gustavus, meaning Nordlingen was a battle between armies functionally similar in tactics and only different in experience and command. Textbooks also like to credit both Maurice and Gustavus with military innovations the Spanish, German and French armies had been employing for generations,[[note]]For instance, the change of ratio of firearms to pikes in favor to firearms, which is universally attributed to Maurice of Nassau but was already being used (and surpassed) by the French Hugenotes; the change from blocks to smaller units, which is also attributed to Maurice despite it was a vogue in all of Europe, including Spain; or the counter-march volley fire, which the Spaniards already used as soon as 1586, almost a decade before Maurice officially published it.[[/note]] probably a result of the still wide usage of Protestant war sources that tried to picture their Catholic opponents as primitive and adverse to change.

Eliminated the obstacle, Ferdinand entered the Spanish Netherlands to replace his aunt Isabella Clara Eugenia as governor of the land, being even happier that the local history of religious conflicts gave him the perfect excuse to take off his habits and forget about the whole church thing. Quickly popular among the Flemish, he followed with a series of victories against the Dutch with his sights put in bullying them into peace or truce. Those resounded heavily in the court King UsefulNotes/LouisXIII of France, whose minister UsefulNotes/CardinalRichelieu realized that, if Spain managed to gain force in Northern Europe, France's interests would be seriously compromised, for which Richelieu declared open war. The Netherlands were attacked by French and Dutch forces at the same time, but the Cardinal-Infante's defenses and organization prevailed and allowed him to beat both of them back in his counterattack. The Spaniard was annoyed at the untimely increase in their list of enemies, but he still felt sure to utter the BadassBoast, "we have no reason to fear [French] arms, nor we learned such fear from our predecessors".

As the wars dragged, however, Philip IV lamented not to have many lieutenants at the level of the Cardinal-Infante, as a Spanish fleet was badly steered and defeated by the Dutch navy at Battle of the Downs, which downed morale even if it miraculously managed to land the reinforcements and supply it carried. Ferdinand answered to this by sealing a trade treaty with Denmark which, while controversial, was greatly useful for their war effort. The French then concentrated their efforts in taking the Spanish Netherlander city of Arras, and because Ferdinand blundered for once and did not attack in time, the city surrendered, which had few strategic usefulness but carried the propaganda value of being the first big French victory. Ferdinand used to to sow discordy among the Dutch, warning them of what may happen to them if France gained entry to their country, but it also gave Olivares and the rest of Ferdinand's enemies fuel to slander him in the Spanish court; even worse, it came out that Ferdinand's circle had considered a marriage between him and Louis XIII's niece Anne Marie Louise so he could wage a French revolt against Richelieu, which slanderers spun into Ferdinand intending to betray Spain and join France to found his own kingdom in the Netherlands.

In midst of turmoil caused by the rebellion of Portugal, who also tried and would secede from the Spanish Empire, Ferdinand initiate a counter-offensive against the French, but his health was starting to fail (the official report was a sstomach ulcer caused by stress, but many rumored he was poisoned) and he died at just 32 the next year. With his death, which affected Philip IV to the point that the famously stoic king completely broke down on his throne, ''everything'' collapsed for Spain in Europe: they lost the Eighty Years War, with Ferdinand's replacement, the weak-willed Francisco de Melo, being forced to sign the Peace of Munster seven years later; they lost any hope in their struggle by France, soon led by UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, whose grand general Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne arrived to meet no match for his military genius; and they lost their good relationships with the Holy Roman Empire, as the Spanish general's death had caused a successional dispute about who would lead the front.

Philip later sent in his bastard son John-Joseph of Austria, but the only decently skilled aristocrat could never fill the shoes of the Cardinal-Infante. His spiritual successor among the ranks of the Habsburgs would be probably Raimondo Montecuccoli, an Italian genius in making who had originally served under Ferdinand in Nordlingen, but by then it would be, as they say, too little, too late. Officially celibate, Ferdinand only left an illegitimate daughter, Marie Anne, who rather appropriately became a nun.

He never really wanted the job of cardinal, which was imposed on him when he was just ten by [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope Paul V]], following the ancient nobiliary custom of giving a son to the Church. Ferdinand soon turned out to be a prodigy for just everything but religion, and his coming of age led him to clash with Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, and not exactly over who had the best double title. Olivares, who was the minister of Ferdinand's king brother Philip, considered him a dangerous player in the court due to his growing influence in political and intellectual affairs, and was therefore chagrined when Ferdinand started his active career by being appointed Viceroy of Catalonia, initially to try to ease local tensions and more pragmatically to gain experience before being sent to the perpetually warring Netherlands. Spain was in a delicate moment, as although its interests had survived to the outbreak of the 30 Years War, they needed a big push forward and quickly, not less to help their dynastic allies of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, and Ferdinand was deemed the best man for the mission.

By 1637, Ferdinand was making good his military prestige by trouncing the French and Dutch against all odds. He and his cousin Ferdinand II crafted a plan nicknamed the Crossing of the Somme, for which the Spanish and their allies captured the city of Corbie, nearby to Paris. The court of France suffered a MassOhCrap: the royal family was evacuated from their capital and only Louis XIII and Richelieu stayed to fight with everything in case of a final assault. This never happened, as Ferdinand judged it too risky and undid the advance, even against the opinion of the more impatient Germans, who speculated that risking to a big battle might have paid off. Ferdinand did advise to stand firm in the slugglish Dutch border and penetrate again in France with focused force to capitalize on their grogginess and finish them off, but the chance passed due to delays and political infighting fed by Ferdinand's enemy Olivares. Meanwhile, the Dutch launched a similar campaign with all their might to capture the Spanish base of Antwerp, although the Cardinal Infant returned and frustrated it in a massive and highly propagandized victory in Kallo.

In midst of turmoil caused by the rebellion of Portugal, who also tried and would secede from the Spanish Empire, Ferdinand initiate a counter-offensive against the French, but his health was starting to fail (the official report was a sstomach ulcer caused by stress, but many rumored he was poisoned) and he died at just 32 the next year. With his death, which affected Philip IV to the point that the famously stoic king completely broke down on his throne, ''everything'' collapsed for Spain in Europe: they lost the Eighty Years War, with Ferdinand's replacement, the weak-willed Francisco de Melo, being forced to sign the Peace of Munster seven years later; they lost any hope in their struggle by France, soon led by UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, whose grand general Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne arrived to meet no match for his military genius; and they lost their good relationships with the Holy Roman Empire, as the Spanish general's death had caused a successional dispute about who would lead the front. Philip later sent in his bastard son John-Joseph of Austria, but the only decently skilled aristocrat could never fill the shoes of the Cardinal-Infante.

In midst of turmoil caused by the rebellion of Portugal, who also tried and would secede from the Spanish Empire, Ferdinand initiate a counter-offensive against the French, now led by UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, but his health was starting to fail (the official report was a sstomach ulcer caused by stress, but many rumored he was poisoned) and he died at just 32 the next year. With his death, which affected Philip IV to the point that the famously stoic king completely broke down on his throne, ''everything'' collapsed for Spain in Europe: they lost the Eighty Years War, with Ferdinand's replacement, the weak-willed Francisco de Melo, being forced to sign the Peace of Munster seven years later; they lost any hope in their struggle by France, whose grand general Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne, arrived to meet no match for his military genius; and they lost their good relationships with the Holy Roman Empire, as the Spanish general's death had caused a successional dispute about who would lead. Philip later sent in his bastard son John-Joseph of Austria, but the only decently skilled aristocrat could never fill the shoes of the Cardinal-Infante.

Ferdinand of Austria (16 May 1609 - 9 November 1641) was the younger brother of King of Spain UsefulNotes/PhilipIV, mainly known for his double job of Cardinal of the Catholic church and infante of the Spanish [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Habsburg]] branch, although those two were only two of his many facets, which included being an aristocrat, dandy, churchman, statesman, strategist and diplomatic. He was the last great general of the Spanish Empire, as well as their last hope during the shuffle of powers of the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar, where his premature death sealed Spain's fall from hegemony in favor of France.

He never really wanted the job of cardinal, which was imposed on him when he was just ten by Pope Paul V, following the ancient nobiliary custom of giving a son to the Church. Ferdinand soon turned out to be a prodigy for everything but religion, and his coming of age led him to clash with Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, and not exactly over who had the best double title. Olivares, who was the minister of Ferdinand's king brother Philip, considered him a dangerous player in the court due to his growing influence in political and intellectual affairs, and was therefore chagrined when Ferdinand started his active career by being appointed Viceroy of Catalonia, initially to try to ease local tensions and more pragmatically to gain experience before being sent to the perpetually warring Netherlands. Spain was in a delicate moment, as although its interests had miraculously survived to the outbreak of the 30 Years War, they needed a big push forward and quickly, not less to help their dynastic allies of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, and Ferdinand was deemed the best man for the mission.

His European campaign met a troubled start, with plenty of diseases and delays, not to mention he was deprived of an invaluable adviser, the uber-general Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, Duke of Feria, who was keeping things around and died of illness before they could meet. Undaunted, however, Ferdinand started working to reinforce the Spanish positions, re-open the lost supply artery known as the ''Camino Español'', and support the Holy Roman Empire during the war, those being led by his cousin King Ferdinand III of Hungary, who had recently lost his supreme commander Albrecht van Wallenstein (read: he had alienated Albrecht with unfounded suspicions and had him assassinated) and was thus sorely dependent on the Cardinal-Infante. The two Ferdinands managed to merge their armies in front of the walls of Nordlingen, where the Protestant army led by Gustav Horn and Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar committed a lethal mistake by underestimating the reinforcements. Despite an admirably strongheaded fifteen charges, the Protestants were repealed and utterly crushed in the counterattack, which undid all the Swedish advances in the war and launched the Cardinal-Infante to the military glory he always dreamed with.

The 1634 Battle of Nordlingen attracts a lot of interest by military historians, not only for being so decisive, but also because it supposedly pitted the legendary Spanish ''tercios'', a kind of pike-and-shot army held as unbeatable for the previous century yet considered obsolete by this point, against the Swedish army, reformed by the famed Gustavus Adolphus in the most modern linear doctrines introduced by his master Maurice of Nassau. Reality is a bit more boring, as more recent historiography shows that neither the Spaniards were so outdated nor the Swedish so revolutionary -- the ''tercios'' had greatly adapted their classical pike blocks to the same linear formations previously introduced by Maurice and adopted by Gustavus, meaning Nordlingen was a battle between armies functionally similar in tactics and only different in experience and command. Textbooks also like to credit both Maurice and Gustavus with military innovations the Spanish, German and French armies had been employing for generations,[[note]]For instance, the change of ratio of firearms to pikes in favor to firearms, which is universally attributed to Maurice of Nassau but was already being used (and surpassed) by the French Hugenotes; the change from blocks to smaller units, which is also attributed to Maurice despite it was a vogue in all of Europe, including Spain; or the counter-march volley fire, which the Spaniards already used as soon as 1586, almost a decade before Maurice officially published it.[[/note]] probably a result of the still wide usage of Protestant war sources that tried to picture their Catholic opponents as primitive and adverse to change.

By 1637, Ferdinand was making good his military prestige by trouncing the French and Dutch against all odds. He and his cousin Ferdinand II crafted a plan nicknamed the Crossing of the Somme, which he entasked to his cousin Thomas Francis of Carignano, for which the Spanish and their allies captured the city of Corbie, nearby to Paris. The court of France literally panicked: the royal family was evacuated from their capital and only Louis XIII and Richelieu stayed to fight with everything in case of a final assault. This never happened, as Ferdinand judged it too risky and undid the advance, even against the opinion of the more impatient Germans, who speculated that risking to a big battle might have paid off. Ferdinand did advise to stand firm in the slugglish Dutch border and penetrate again in France with focused force to capitalize on their grogginess and finish them off, but the chance passed due to delays and political infighting fed by Ferdinand's enemy Olivares. Meanwhile, the Dutch launched a similar campaign with all their might to capture the Spanish base of Antwerp, although the Cardinal Infant returned and destroyed them for a much needed propagandizable victory.

As the wars dragged, however, Philip IV lamented not to have many lieutenants at the level of the Cardinal-Infante, as a Spanish fleet was badly steered and defeated by the Dutch navy at Battle of the Downs, which downed morale even if it miraculously managed to land the reinforcements and supply it carried. Ferdinand answered to this by sealing a trade treaty with Denmark which, while controversial, was greatly useful for their war effort. The French then concentrated their efforts in taking the Spanish Netherlander city of Arras, and because Ferdinand blundered and did not attack in time, the city surrendered, which had few strategic usefulness but carried the propaganda value of being the first big French victory. Ferdinand used to to sow discordy among the Dutch, warning them of what may happen to them if France gained entry to their country, but it also gave Olivares and the rest of Ferdinand's enemies fuel to slander him in the Spanish court; even worse, it came out that Ferdinand's circle had considered a marriage between him and Louis XIII's niece Anne Marie Louise so he could wage a French revolt against Richelieu, which slanderers spun into Ferdinand intending to betray Spain and join France.

In midst of turmoil caused by the rebellion of Portugal, who also tried and would secede from the Spanish Empire, Ferdinand initiate a counter-offensive against the French, now led by UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, but his health was starting to fail (the official report was a sstomach ulcer caused by stress, but many rumored he was poisoned) and he died at just 32 the next year. With his death, which affected Philip IV to the point that the famously stoic king completely broke down on his throne, ''everything'' collapsed for Spain in Europe: they lost the Eighty Years War, with Ferdinand's replacement, the weak-willed Francisco de Melo, being forced to sign the Peace of Munster seven years later; they lost any hope in their struggle by France, whose grand general Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne, arrived to meet no match for his military genius; and they lost their good relationships with the Holy Roman Empire, as the Spanish general's death had caused a successional dispute about who would lead. Philip later sent his bastard son John-Joseph of Austria, but the only decently skilled aristocrat could never fill the shoes of the Cardinal-Infante.