Thanks Arthur- you and Geforce are a mine for Dutch history. 🙂

Tactics like this managed to keep the war affordable for the Republic, and since the city of Amsterdam wasn’t bothered much by the Spaniards the Republic could afford to take it easy in waging the war. As a matter of fact, one of the few large-scale battles between the Spanish and the Republic (Nieuwpoort, 1600) was because the army of the Republic accidentally bumped into the Spanish army. The original mission of the Republic’s army was to go out and destroy a nest of pirates around Dunkirk, which was hampering the trade of the Republic.

I thought the Duke of Parma conquered most of the Netherlands, or he just conquered the major cities? 🙂

Anyone remember the ending of Dumas’ Man in the Iron Mask? D’Artagnan buys the farm while he’s storming a fortress in what I would presume to be Spanish Flanders. Far be it for Dumas to be historically accurate, but was D’Artagnan storming a Spanish held city, or some other place in Holland (non-Spanish held)?

They were not incompetent, just, their days were behind them.

I am of the mind that the Spanish were incompetent sailors. I don’t recall them ever winning any major naval engagement? :confused: Yet, despite being poor sailors, they seemed to be decent infantry. Their tercios upheld their military hegemony really until the Duc d’Enghien destroyed them at Rocroi in 1643.

It simply didn’t have the money, not even with the overseas possessions.

That’s another item I’m curious about- how much were they expending to maintain their Spanish Netherlands and/or other areas of suzerainty? The amount of silver and gold that they were importing from the New World was considerable, yet not even enough to build warships to protect their treasure fleets. And this wasn’t just in the waning years of the Spanish Empire either.

I have a question for you seafaring pot smoking Dutch pirate guys. 🙂

Does anyone have more info on Admiral Tromp’s annihilation of the Spanish Fleet? I hear that the spanish fleet he defeated was much bigger than the armada that the English trounced.