History UsefulNotes / TheWarOfTheSpanishArmada

The disaster of the English Armada gave back the naval supremacy to the Iberian Union, which utilized convoy systems and improved intelligence networks to frustrate further attacks, bringing much needed silver from America and beating the British in naval battles like the Berlengas, Almería, Flores and Blaye. The English did not yield, though, and both sides exchanged abundant privateer acts, pitting the English Sea Dogs against their [[ThePsychoRangers imperial counterparts]], the infamous Dunkirkers. Also in the 1590s, [[UsefulNotes/FrenchWarsOfReligion the war spread to France]], as Philip II started assisting the local Catholic League against the Protestant king Henry IV, harboring the hope to install his daughter Isabella in the throne and assimilate the entire country.[[note]]He actually had a point, as Isabella descended from the French royal house on her mother's side. Enthroning her would have required much more military pressure than Philip could afford, though, as the Salic Law impeded women from inherit the throne of France and many people over there were wary of Philip anyway.[[/note]] Fighting was waged in the Brittany, where Philip also intended to build strength to assist Catholic rebels in Ireland and threaten England again. In this conflict, however, the renowned Farnese died in action, taking with him Spain's hope to end anything anytime soon.

The war was mainly naval, as it was effectively fought between an island country and a nation whose domains at the time spread literally all around the world. The English, who entered the conflict to assist the Dutch Republic during its struggle against Spanish rule, deployed reinforcements in Europe and engaged in fearless sea attacks of varied intensity, to which Spain responded by maxing up their defenses and playing to counter while attempting a series of unsuccessful large-scale invasions against English mainland (an AwesomeButImpractical strategy Philip II was oddly obsessed with, possibly because he had previously lived there[[note]]As king ''jure uxoris'' with his first wife, Elizabeth's half-sister Mary I[[/note]]). At the end, with both sides having thrown everything but the kitchen sink and outlived the very monarchs that started the war, they ultimately signed a peace treaty that removed English presence from the Dutch conflict and restored the status quo.

With the reestablishment of Protestantism in England, English merchants in Spain were now vulnerable to be arrested by the Holy Office, better known as UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition. Despite English protests, Philip II refused to grant them immunity, and so English pirates like UsefulNotes/SirFrancisDrake now had a justification to pray on the rich target that was Philip's empire. They preyed on the Spanish treasure fleets and rich ports along the coast of the Indies, and also intruded successfully in the Atlantic slave trade, previously crammed by Portugal, with Drake's cousin Sir John Hawkins developing in 1562 a royally sponsored service. Although most of those attacks were ultimately more annoying than decisive, they vexed the Spanish greatly. In 1568, the Spanish navy saw the chance to strike a blow to Drake and Hawkins in San Juan de Ulúa, killing Drake's brother and giving him a reason for a personal vendetta against Spain.

The war was mainly naval, as it was effectively fought between an island country and a nation whose domains at the time spread literally all around the world. The English, who entered the conflict to assist the Dutch Republic during its struggle against Spanish rule, deployed reinforcements in Europe and engaged in fearless sea attacks of varied intensity, to which Spain responded by maxing up their defenses and playing to counter while attempting a series of unsuccessful large-scale invasions against English mainland (an AwesomeButImpractical strategy Philip II was oddly obsessed with). At the end, with both sides having thrown everything but the kitchen sink and outlived the very monarchs that started the war, they ultimately signed a peace treaty that removed English presence from the Dutch conflict and restored the status quo.

As the page's title implies, the average reader will surely know what we are talking about by learning this was the war of the Spanish Armada, that one time where the Spaniards gathered a giant fleet to invade England only to be wrecked by the brave English and a timely storm, as this is basically [[SmallReferencePools the only thing in the entire war that transcended into popular culture]], mainly due to a heavy dose of historical romanticization, decontextualization and, why not to say it, propaganda, a field in which Spain would be a perennial loser. Consequently, the reader might be surprised to find out that the Armada was not some sort of arc-ending final defeat for the Spanish Empire, but just a chapter more of a long war of attrition that featured multiple wins and losses in both sides, and whose immediate result actually leaned to the Spanish at the time.

The war was mainly naval, as it was effectively fought between an island country and a nation whose domains at the time spread literally all around the world. The English, who entered the conflict to assist the Dutch Republic during its struggle against Spanish rule, deployed reinforcements in Europe and engaged in fearless sea attacks of varied intensity, to which Spain responded by maxing up their defenses and playing to counter while attempting a series of unsuccessful invasions against English mainland. At the end, with both sides having thrown everything but the kitchen sink and outlived the very monarchs that started the war, they ultimately signed a peace treaty that removed English presence from the Dutch conflict and restored the status quo.

The result of the war was complicated. On one hand, the English effort was [[LetsYouAndHimFight flat-out overturned]] - they had entered the war to help the Dutch, yet they failed to achieve anything truly decisive and found themselves forced to accept an infamous peace that only made them a mild asset for the Spanish Empire ''against'' the Dutch. On the other hand, although much relieved by the outcome, Spain lost tons of resources and several precious chances to conquer England, which [[AbortedArc went to stunt their highest ambitions]]. Their own failure not only prevented a possible victory in the Netherlands, but also affected their posterior plans to assimilate France and took down an insane project to start the conquest of ''China''. Aggrandized by revisionism or not, it is not said in vain that the defeat of Spanish Armada [[ForWantOfANail changed the course of History]], if at very long term.

Still, peace would not last long, being finally broken again by a second Anglo-Spanish war in 1625.

In the 1580s, King of Spain UsefulNotes/PhilipII of [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Habsburg]] had just become the monarch of the modernly called Iberian Union, a coalescence of the Spanish and Portuguese empires accomplished by inheriting both thrones, whose tentacles extended to almost every corner of the globe. As its natural, such a large empire was engaged in constant conflict, the main of them being in the Netherlands, where the United Provinces fought for independence. The rebels were Protestant countries, while the Iberian Union was a Catholic state, which translated into an additional [[ChurchMilitant conflict of religious consciences]]. In a related point, Philip had been married to a Catholic Queen of England, UsefulNotes/MaryTudor, but she had died in 1558 without giving an heir to help the Papal cause, leading to her half-sister, the Protestant [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethI Elizabeth]], to reach the throne and reinstate Protestantism in England.

With the reestablishment of Protestantism in England, English merchants in Spain were now vulnerable to be arrested by the Holy Office, better known as UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition. Despite English protests, Philip II refused to grant them immunity, and so English pirates like UsefulNotes/SirFrancisDrake, now had a justification to pray on the rich target that was Philip's empire. They preyed on the Spanish treasure fleets and rich ports along the coast of the Indies. The English also intruded successfully in the Atlantic slave trade, previously crammed by Portugal, with Drake's cousin Sir John Hawkins developing in 1562 a royally sponsored service. Although most of those attacks were ultimately more annoying than decisive, they vexed the Spanish greatly. In 1568, the Spanish navy saw the chance to strike a blow to Drake and Hawkins in San Juan de Ulúa, killing Drake's brother and giving him a reason for a personal vendetta against Spain.

Drake was sent in a pre-emptive strike to the Spanish Americas, where he captured shockingly the ports of Santo Domingo and Cartagena de Indias, forcing the Spaniards to pay a ransom. Meanwhile, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was sent to the Netherlands to help the rebellion, but this time their offensive was defeated by Philip's general UsefulNotes/AlexanderFarnese, prince of Parma (not to mistake with that [[Manga/{{Berserk}} Farnese]]). At this point, Elizabeth had the imprisoned Mary executed, which angered the Catholics and moved Pope Sixtus V to call for total action, especially given that her death meant Philip inherited the claim to the British throne. Philip and his most eminent admiral, UsefulNotes/AlvaroDeBazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz, were eager for a plan to invade England, and after too many discussions by letter with Farnese, they decided to assemble a great fleet to escort him and his fearsome ''tercio'' to the isles. Their plans were delayed, however, by several logistic troubles, a typhus epidemic, a destructive attack by Drake on their port of Cádiz in 1587, and Bazán's fateful death in the epidemic.

In 1588, the 29,000 men in 130-150 ships that would be known as the Spanish Armada would finally sail away. However, the man that Philip had chosen to replace Bazán was Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, a [[GeneralFailure bureaucrat with almost zero military experience and even less talent]].[[note]]Guzmán, who had been originally brought in only to get the fleet together, had only a single naval skirmish in his resume and was reportedly so unfit for naval service that he got dizzy every time he got aboard a ship. In fact, he was too aware himself of this and actually [[CassandraTruth begged Philip by letter not to put him in command]], especially given that Bazán's younger brother Alonso was an infinitely better option, but the royal secretaries intercepted his letters and told the Duke to shut up and not to try Philip's patience. Certainly, the king could not wait any more and was overconfident that the finished plan had good chances regardless of the skill of the guy in charge.[[/note]] Under his (un)command, the armada soon met a chain of incidents mix of bad luck and just plain incompetence: they were delayed again by a storm in La Coruña, then met ''another'' storm in the Gulf of Biscay, then opted out of an attack on the British fleet in Plymouth that [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint would have made the entire armada unnecessary]], lost two important ships to a resultant British attack, and found out Farnese was late to the rendezvous due to miscommunication. The fleet was thrown into chaos with fire ships by Drake and Hawkins, losing five other vessels in skirmishes due to their disorganization, and Medina Sidonia ultimately gave in and ordered to return home. Easier said than done, bad weather hit them again, forcing them to take the long way back around Scotland and Ireland and wrecking further the fleet. 35 vessels and many thousands of men never returned to Spain.

Although Philip [[TheStoic stoically]] [[{{Facepalm}} facepalmed]] upon hearing the news, enough for him to call off an unrelated campaign against China at the other side of the world that would have been surely too much to chew at the time,[[note]]Not that it would have been easy in any case. The ''Empresa de China'' would have involved the Spanish and Portuguese forces in the Pacific allying with Japan to instigate a Chinese uprising and take over China. The only thing possible to foresee is that it would have been an UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat-level madness.[[/note]] luck favored him next, as a series of outbreaks of dysentery and typhus ravaged the British fleet (which put together actually matched the Armada in size) and gave them a bit of a kickback too. Still, Elizabeth desired to exploit the timely Spanish weakness with a counterattack, hoping to sink the enemy fleet, devastate the Peninsula and invade Portugal with the help of a local pretender to the throne, so she ordered to assemble a comparable English Armada of 27,000 men during the lapse. However, in a bout of irony, their preparation of the fleet would be just as bad as their Iberian homologues, as they either neglected or lacked necessary elements like experienced troops, cavalry and siege equipment, even although the fleet would be composed of a resounding 170-200 lighter vessels and commanded by veritable men of sea like Drake, Hawkins, Walter Raleigh and John Norreys.

In 1596, a Hispanic fleet under UsefulNotes/JuanDelAguila shockingly raided Cornwall, marking the first instance in a long time that the Spaniards had got their hands in the English country. Afterwards, Drake and Hawkins made an attempt to retaliate against the Spanish with an expedition to their overseas properties, but this time the local defenses sent them pinballing from one to another, and eventually both of the legendary English admirals died of tropical dysentery without achieving much. The Protestants managed to break the Spanish streak with a crushing victory in Cádiz under Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, after which Philip II declared bankruptcy, but in an almost oddly quick recovery, helped by his American riches and some "loans" from European bankers, Philip ordered the construction of a second, 120-ship Spanish Armada to assist Irish rebels against the English crown. Nothing came from this, though, as another storm (by this point almost a RunningGag) forced the fleet's commander Martín de Padilla to abort the plan.

Finally, the war between England and the Hispanic Monarchy ended with the Treaty of London in 1604. Its reception and strategic value was markedly different: the English were content that it protected their Protestant reform, but the resultant peace was unpopular and was seen as a capitulation and an abandonment of their continental colleagues; for the Spaniards, once the first pains of negotiating with heretics were dispelled, it was acknowledged as a huge advance, as the empire had effectively eliminated the threat of England from the Eighty Years War and now they could focus entirely on the Netherlands, with the addition that Iberian ships could now use English ports as naval bases (and vice versa if needed) to attack Dutch shipping. Even so, English privateers would come out from the war quite rich, which later allowed them to expand their colonization efforts, while the Spaniards, with a string of dead aspirations lying behind them due to the costs of the war, would not lack time to lament not to have gained control of the British Isles when they had the chance.