Ferdinand of Austria (16 May 1609 - 9 November 1641) was the younger brother of King of Spain Philip IV, mainly known for his double role as a Cardinal of the Catholic church and Infante (i.e. prince) of the Spanish Habsburg branch, although those two were only two of his many facets, which included being an aristocrat, dandy, churchman, statesman, strategist and diplomat. He was the last great general of the Spanish Empire, as well as their last hope during the shuffle of powers of the Thirty Years' War. His premature death sealed Spain's fall from hegemony in favor of France.
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 Boring, but Practical man, military history tends to overlook him too. He could be considered an enormous "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 his job of cardinal, which was imposed on him when he was just ten by Pope Paul V by Philip III's request, following the ancient nobiliary custom of giving a son to the Church.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 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 Holy Roman Empire, 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, 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 were 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 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy), and thus was sorely dependent on the Cardinal-Infante. Anyway, 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 Cool Versus Awesome premise, as it supposedly pitted the legendary Spanish tercios, a nigh-unbeatable kind of pike-and-shot army developed by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba 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 mostly 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 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. This made him quickly popular among the Flemish, and he followed with a series of victories against the Dutch, with his sights put in bullying them into peace or truce. Hus success resounded heavily in the court of King Louis XIII of France, whose minister Cardinal Richelieu 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 Spanish 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 a wild counterattack in Leuven. Even if the Spaniard was annoyed at the untimely increase in their list of enemies, he still felt able to utter the Badass Boast, "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 every time. 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, to open a possible final assault. The court of France suffered a Mass "Oh, Crap!": the royal family was evacuated from their capital, and only Louis XIII and Richelieu stayed to fight to the end. 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 History Repeats, the same having happened to his grandfather Philip II). 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 for Spain, and Ferdinand only used it to sow discord among the Dutch, warning of what might happen to them if France gained entry to their country, but the loss still carried the propaganda value of being the first big French victory, which gave Olivares and the rest of Ferdinand's enemies fuel to slander him in the Spanish court.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 initiated a counter-offensive against the French, but his health was starting to fail (the official report was a stomach ulcer caused by stress, with the inevitable rumors of poison) 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 talentless 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 Louis XIV, whose grand general Henri de La Tour arrived to meet absolutely no match for his own military brilliance;note and they lost their good relationships with the Holy Roman Empire, as the Spanish general's death caused a successional dispute about who would lead the common front. The writing in the wall had been so clear since Ferdinand's death that his own cousin and lieutenant Thomas Francis of Savoy deserted to the French shortly after.
Philip later sent in his bastard son John-Joseph of Austria to lead, but this only decently skilled aristocrat could never fill the shoes of the Cardinal-Infante. His spiritual successor among the ranks of the Habsburgs would probably be 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.
In fiction
- A fictional and enthroned version of him appears in Eric Flint's 1632
- He is a major character in Fernando Martínez Laínez's historical novel La batalla, sequel to his previous work La senda de los Tercios.
