Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659)

For other uses, see Franco-Spanish War (disambiguation).

Franco–Spanish War
Part of French-Habsburg rivalry
The war was driven by long standing French attempts to strengthen their borders with Habsburg Spain (red) and Habsburg Austria (yellow)
Date 19 May 1635 – 7 November 1659 (24 years, 5 months, 2 weeks and 5 days) Location Northern France, Catalonia, Spanish Netherlands, Northern Italy, the Rhineland, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean Result Treaty of the Pyrenees Territorial changes Artois and Roussillon annexed by France
Belligerents
France Savoy Modena and Regio (1647–1649; 1655–1659) Parma (1635–1637) Commonwealth (1657–1659)	Spanish Empire Modena and Reggio (1636–1646)
Commanders and leaders
Turenne Condé (until 1652) Jean de Gassion Choiseul Charles de La Porte de La Ferté Prince of Orange Bernard of Saxe-Weimar	Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand Francisco de Melo John of Austria Caracena Vélez Archduke Leopold Condé (from 1652)
Strength
France: c. 100,000–125,000	Spain: c. 200,000 (1640)
Casualties and losses
France: c. 200,000 to 300,000 killed or wounded 300,000 killed or wounded in combat	Spain: Unknown

The Franco-Spanish War, May 1635 to November 1659, was fought between France and Spain, each supported by various allies at different points. The first phase, beginning in May 1635 and ending with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, is considered a related conflict of the Thirty Years' War. The second continued until 1659, when France and Spain agreed to peace terms in the Treaty of the Pyrenees.

Major areas of conflict included northern Italy, the Spanish Netherlands and the Rhineland. France supported revolts against Spanish rule in Portugal (1640–1668), Catalonia (1640–1653) and Naples (1647), while Spain backed French rebels in the 1647 to 1653 civil war or "Fronde". Both also backed opposing sides in the 1639 to 1642 Piedmontese Civil War.

Prior to May 1635, France provided significant support to Habsburg opponents such as the Dutch Republic and Sweden, but had avoided direct conflict with Spain or Austria. The Franco-Spanish War began when France declared war on Spain, then shortly afterwards separately entered the 30 Years War against Austria. After the latter ended in 1648, fighting continued between Spain and France, with neither able to achieve decisive victory. France made some gains in Flanders and along the north-eastern end of the Pyrenees, but by 1658 both sides were financially exhausted, which led them to make peace in November 1659.

While relatively minor in extent, French territorial gains significantly strengthened their borders, while Louis XIV married Maria Theresa of Spain, eldest daughter of Philip IV. Although Spain retained its vast global empire, some commentators argue the Treaty of the Pyrenees marks the end of its position as the predominant European power.

Strategic overview

In the first half of the 17th century, Europe was dominated by the 1618 to 1648 Thirty Years' War, and the French-Habsburg rivalry, a contest for supremacy between France, and its Habsburg rivals in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Prior to May 1635, France avoided direct involvement, instead financing Habsburg opponents such as the Dutch Republic, and backing Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War. When the Peace of Prague (1635) seemed likely to end the fighting in May 1635, France declared war on Spain, then joined the 30 Years War against Austria. From 1640 onwards, it also supported insurgencies in Catalonia, Portugal, and Naples

For their part, the Habsburgs backed a series of Huguenot rebellions and conspiracies organised by feudal lords who resented their loss of power under Cardinal Richelieu and his successor, Cardinal Mazarin. The most significant included those led by Montmorency in 1632, the Princes des Paix plot by Louis, Count of Soissons in 1641, and Cinq-Mars in 1642. Spain also backed anti-government rebels in the 1648–1653 French civil war known as the Fronde.

The Spanish Road; Purple: Spanish dependencies; Green: Ruled by Austria; Orange: Ruled by Spain

Wider co-operation between the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs was limited since their objectives did not always align. Spain was a global maritime power, and Austria was primarily a European land power and focused on the Holy Roman Empire, which contained over 1,800 states, most of them extremely small. Although the Habsburgs had been Holy Roman Emperors since 1440, their control over the empire was weakened by the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, which continued in the period leading up to 1620. Reversing the trend was a major Habsburg objective during the Thirty Years' War, but failure was acknowledged by the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.

France faced the same issue of diverging objectives with its allies. The war coincided with the period of economic supremacy known as the Dutch Golden Age, and by 1640, many Dutch statesmen viewed French ambitions in the Spanish Netherlands as a threat. Unlike France, Swedish war aims were restricted to Germany, and in 1641, the Swedes considered a separate peace with Emperor Ferdinand III.

From the late 16th century, Italy, especially the Kingdom of Naples, was the primary source of money for the Spanish Army of Flanders. As a result, much of the fighting focused on the Spanish Road, a land supply route connecting Spanish possessions in Italy with Flanders but also passing through areas considered vital to French security, like Alsace. The independent Duchy of Savoy and Spanish-held Duchy of Milan were strategically important to the Road but also provided access to the vulnerable southern borders of France and Habsburg territories in Austria. Richelieu aimed to end Spanish dominance in those areas, an objective that had been largely achieved at his death in 1642.

Until the advent of railways in the 19th century, water was the primary means of bulk transportation, and campaigns focused on control of rivers and ports. Armies relied on foraging, while the feeding of the draught animals essential for transport and cavalry restricted campaigning in the winter. By the 1630s, the countryside had been devastated by years of constant warfare, which limited the size of the armies and their ability to conduct operations. Sickness killed far more soldiers than combat. The French army that invaded Flanders in May 1635 had been reduced by desertion and disease from 27,000 to under 17,000 by early July.

Background

Louis XIII, French ruler from 1610 to 1643

The Thirty Years' War began in 1618 when the Protestant-dominated Bohemian Estates offered the Crown of Bohemia to Frederick V of the Palatinate, in place of the conservative Catholic Emperor Ferdinand II. Most of the Holy Roman Empire remained neutral and viewed it as an inheritance dispute, and the revolt was quickly suppressed. However, when Frederick refused to admit defeat, Imperial forces invaded the Palatinate and forced him into exile. The removal of a hereditary prince changed the nature and extent of the war.

The removal of a hereditary prince changed the nature and extent of the war, and combined with the Counter-Reformation presented a direct threat to Protestant states within the empire, as well as external rulers holding Imperial territories. They included the Dutch Prince of Orange, hereditary ruler of Nassau-Dillenburg, and Christian IV of Denmark, who was also Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. That presented Richelieu with additional opportunities to weaken his Habsburg opponents in Spain and the Empire but avoid direct conflict.

As a result, Catholic France supported the Protestant Dutch Republic in its war against Spain and funded first Danish and then Swedish intervention in the Empire. In 1630, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden invaded Pomerania partly to support his Protestant coreligionists, but he also sought control of the Baltic trade, which provided much of Sweden's income. The Swedish intervention continued after his death at Lützen in 1632 but caused tensions with Saxony and Brandenburg-Prussia, whose lands were devastated by the plague and famine that accompanied the war. A significant Imperial-Spanish victory at Nördlingen in September 1634 forced the Swedes to abandon southern Germany, and most of their German allies used the opportunity to make peace with Ferdinand II at Prague in April 1635.

The other major European conflict of the period was the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Spain and the Dutch Republic, suspended in 1609 by the Twelve Years' Truce. The Spanish strongly objected to its commercial provisions, and when Philip IV became king in 1621, he resumed the war. The cost proved extremely high and increased after 1628 by a proxy war with France over the Mantuan succession. The Spanish Empire reached its maximum nominal extent under Philip's rule, but its size and complexity made it increasingly difficult to govern, or enact essential reforms. However, its depth of resources consistently allowed it to recover from defeats that would have shattered other powers, and new regulations passed in 1631 and 1632 were key to the improved Spanish military performance in the first part of the war.

In 1628, the Dutch captured the Spanish treasure fleet, which they used to finance the capture of 's-Hertogenbosch the following year. The powerful Amsterdam mercantile lobby saw that as an opportunity to end the war. Negotiations ended without result in 1633 but strengthened the peace party. The Peace of Prague led to rumours of a proposed Austro-Spanish offensive in the Netherlands and led Louis XIII of France and Richelieu to decide on direct intervention. In early 1635, they signed an agreement with Bernard of Saxe-Weimar to provide 16,000 troops for a campaign in Alsace and the Rhineland, formed an anti-Spanish alliance with the Dutch and signed the Treaty of Compiègne with Sweden.

Phase I: 1635 to 1648 Treaty of Westphalia

Les Avins

Dunkirk

Brussels

Leuven

Valenciennes

Maastricht

Corbie

Lens

Arras

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1635–1659; key locations in northern France and the Spanish Netherlands (current Belgium borders shown; Arras, Valenciennes and Dunkirk were part of the Spanish Netherlands)

In May, a French army of 27,000 invaded the Spanish Netherlands and defeated a smaller Spanish force at Les Avins and besieged Leuven on 24 June, where they were joined by Dutch reinforcements. Disease and lack of supplies quickly reduced the besieging army, which withdrew in the face of a relief force under Ottavio Piccolomini on 4 July. Led by Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, the Spanish took the initiative and captured Limbourg, Gennep, Diest and Goch and besieged Dutch garrisons in the Duchy of Cleves. The French retreated across the border, and the Dutch, under Frederick Henry, marched urgently on the strategic position of Schenkenschans. Captured by the Spanish on 28 July, it was recovered only after a long and costly siege.

After that failure, the States General of the Netherlands opposed further large-scale land operations in favour of attacks on Spanish trade. In the campaign of 1636, Philip switched his focus to recovering territories in the Low Countries, while a Franco-Savoyard offensive in Lombardy was defeated at Tornavento in June. A Spanish incursion led by Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand into northern France captured the key fortified town of Corbie in August, but despite causing panic in Paris, the campaign did not continue past Corbie due to high risks deemed by the Cardinal-Infante, and the attack was not repeated as the Cardinal-Infante himself would fall ill not long after in the coming years.

As agreed at Compiègne in 1635, the French replaced Swedish garrisons in Alsace. Prior to his death in 1639, Bernard of Saxe-Weimar won a series of victories over the Imperials in the Rhineland, notably the capture of Breisach in December 1638. Severing the Spanish Road meant the Spanish armies in Flanders had to be resupplied by sea, which made them vulnerable to attack by the Dutch States Navy, which destroyed a large Spanish fleet at the Battle of the Downs in 1639. Although most convoys managed to get through, that illustrated the difficulties Spain faced in sustaining its war effort in the Low Countries.

With Spanish resources stretched to the limit in Europe, the Dutch used the opportunity to attack their possessions in the Americas, Africa and Asia, especially those belonging to the Portuguese Empire, which was also ruled by Philip IV. Spanish inability to protect those interests caused increasing unrest in Portugal. Damage to the economy and tax increases imposed to pay for the war led to protests throughout Spanish territories, which in 1640 erupted into open revolts in Portugal and Catalonia. In 1641, the Catalan Courts recognised Louis XIII of France as Count of Barcelona and the ruler of the Principality of Catalonia. However, they soon found the new administration differed little from the old, which turned the war into a three sided contest between the Franco-Catalan elite, the rural peasantry and the Spanish.

Breisach

Rheinfelden

Mergentheim

Mannheim

Tuttlingen

Zusmarshausen

Nördlingen

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1635–1648; key locations Rhineland campaign

Louis XIII died on 14 May 1643, and was succeeded by his five-year-old son, Louis XIV, whose mother, the former Spanish princess, Anne of Austria, took control of the Regency Council that ruled in his name. Five days later, Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, then known as the duc d'Enghien, defeated the Spanish Army of Flanders at Rocroi. Less decisive than often thought, the battle led to the loss of the veteran army and ended Spanish dominance of the European battlefield. It also gave Condé, a member of the royal family and the effective ruler of large parts of eastern France, leverage in his struggle with Anne and Cardinal Mazarin.

Despite some successes in northern France and the Spanish Netherlands, including victory at Lens in August 1648, France was unable to knock Spain out of the war. In the Holy Roman Empire, Imperial victories at Tuttlingen and Mergentheim were offset by French success at Nördlingen and Zusmarshausen. In Italy, French-backed Savoyard offensives against the Spanish-ruled Duchy of Milan achieved little because of lack of resources and the disruption caused by the 1639 to 1642 Piedmontese Civil War. Victory at Orbetello in June 1646, and the recapture of Naples in 1647 left Spain firmly in control of the region.

The 1648 Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War, recognised Dutch independence and ended the drain on Spanish resources. Under the October 1648 Treaty of Münster, France gained strategic locations in Alsace and Lorraine, as well as Pinerolo, which controlled access to Alpine passes in Northern Italy. However, the peace excluded Italy, Imperial territories in the Low Countries and French-occupied Lorraine. Although Emperor Ferdinand was now at peace with France, the fighting between France and Spain continued.

Phase II: 1648 to 1659

Tornavento

Turin

Mantua

Casale

Milan

Cremona

Pinerolo

Genoa

Modena

Pavia

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Northern Italy; key locations 1635–1659 (note Pinerolo, ceded to France in 1648)

When financial pressure forced Philip IV of Spain to declare bankruptcy in 1647, he focused on retaking Catalonia, while remaining on the defensive elsewhere. Although many of the troops captured at Rocroi soon returned to service, in their absence much of Flanders was overrun, including Dunkirk, a centre for Spanish privateer attacks on Dutch and French shipping. However, Spain's position improved when the Dutch war ended in 1648, along with the outbreak of civil war in France, the Fronde.

The resulting turmoil allowed Philip to retake much of Flanders, including Ypres, but neither side was able to win a significant advantage. In 1650, Spanish success in crushing the Neapolitan Revolt was offset by the loss of Barcelona to French-backed Catalan rebels. Mazarin forced Condé into exile in the Spanish Netherlands in 1651, where his immense prestige in territories adjacent to the Spanish possession of Franche-Comté made him a valuable ally for Philip.

Over the course of 1652, Spain recaptured both Dunkirk and Barcelona, and although limited combat continued in Roussillon, the front by 1653 had stabilised along the modern Pyrenees border. However, doing so forced Philip into bankruptcy again, while the end of the Fronde allowed Mazarin to resume attacks on Milan, possession of which would allow France to threaten Habsburg Austria. The attempt failed despite support from Savoy, Modena and Portugal. By now, the two antagonists were exhausted, with neither able to establish dominance. From 1654 to 1656, major French victories at Arras, Landrecies and Saint-Ghislain were offset by Spanish victories at Pavia and Valenciennes. Under pressure from Pope Alexander VII, Mazarin offered peace terms but refused to accept Philip's insistence for Condé to be restored to his French titles and lands. Since the Spanish king viewed this as a personal obligation to Condé, the war continued.

France had previously relied on the Dutch to provide naval support against Spain, which ended after Westphalia. In 1657, Mazarin replaced the loss by negotiating an anti-Spanish alliance with the Commonwealth of England. That expanded the scope of the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660), and France withdrew support for the exiled Charles II of England, whose supporters joined the Spanish as a result. After the Anglo-French capture of Dunkirk in June 1658, Philip requested a truce, which Mazarin refused, but once again success proved illusory. On 15 August, Spain won an important victory at Camprodon in Catalonia, Oliver Cromwell's death in September led to political chaos in England, and fighting in northern Italy ended when French allies Savoy and Modena agreed to a truce with the Spanish commander, Caracena.

Treaty of the Pyrenees and marriage contract

Philip IV of Spain, ruler from 1621 to 1665

On 8 May 1659, France and Spain began negotiating terms; the death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658 weakened England, which was allowed to observe but excluded from the talks. Although the Anglo-Spanish War was suspended after the 1660 restoration of Charles II, it did not formally end until the Treaty of Madrid (1667).

Under the Treaty of the Pyrenees, signed on 5 November 1659, France gained Artois and Hainaut along its border with the Spanish Netherlands, as well as Roussillon. These were more significant than often assumed; in combination with the 1648 Treaty of Münster, France strengthened its borders in the east and south-west, while in 1662, Charles II sold Dunkirk to France. Acquisition of Roussillon established the Franco-Spanish border along the Pyrenees, but divided the historic Principality of Catalonia, an event still commemorated each year by French Catalan-speakers in Perpignan. In addition to these territorial loses, Spain was forced to recognize and confirm all of the French territorial gains at the Peace of Westphalia.

France withdrew support from Afonso VI of Portugal, while Louis XIV renounced his claim to be Count of Barcelona, and king of Catalonia. Condé regained his possessions and titles, as did many of his followers, such as the Comte de Montal, but his political power was broken, and he did not hold military command again until 1667.

An integral part of the peace negotiations was the marriage contract between Louis and Maria Theresa, which he used to justify the 1666 to 1667 War of Devolution, and formed the basis of French claims over the next 50 years. The marriage was more significant than intended, since it was agreed shortly after Philip's second wife, Mariana of Austria, gave birth to a second son, both of whom died young. Philip died in 1665, leaving his four-year-old son Charles as king, once described as "always on the verge of death, but repeatedly baffling Christendom by continuing to live."

Aftermath and historical assessment

Maria Theresa of Spain, whose marriage to Louis XIV was part of the peace negotiations

Traditional scholarship viewed the war as a French victory that marked the start of France's rise, replacing Spain as the predominant European power. More recent assessments argue this relies on hindsight, and that while France made crucial strategic gains around its borders, the outcome was far more balanced. One view is that the two parties effectively settled for a draw, and that had France not moderated its demands in 1659, Spain would have continued fighting.

"The (1659 treaty) was a peace of equals. Spanish losses were not great, and France returned some territory and strongholds. With hindsight, historians have regarded the treaty as a symbol of the 'decline of Spain' and the 'ascendancy of France'; at that time, however, (it) appeared a far from decisive verdict on the international hierarchy".

"Spain maintained her supremacy in Europe until 1659, and was the greatest imperial power for years after that. Although (its) economic and military power suffered an abrupt decline in the half century after (1659), (it) was a major participant in the European coalitions against Louis XIV, and the peace congresses at Nijmegen in 1678, and Ryswick in 1697".

David Parrott, Professor of Early Modern History at New College, Oxford claims the Peaces of Westphalia and the Pyrenees both reflected mutual exhaustion and stalemate, not a "military diktat imposed by victorious powers". Elsewhere, he labels the Franco-Spanish War as "25 years of indecisive, over-ambitious and, on occasions, truly disastrous conflict".

Financial and military impact

Taking on the Spanish Empire, then the strongest military power in Europe, required French forces of unprecedented size and an associated expansion of the taxation and supply base needed to support them. To meet these needs, official estimates for the army expanded from 39,000 in 1630 to around 150,000 shortly before the declaration of war in May 1635. However, at this stage the French state was unable to support such large numbers; of the 27,000 men who took part in the invasion of the Spanish Netherlands in May of the same year, fewer than 15,000 remained a month later. Throughout the war, both sides struggled to support offensives outside their own boundaries; the Spanish invasion of northern France in 1636 collapsed due to lack of supplies and was not repeated.

The Battle of Rocroi (1643) is often seen as the end of the battlefield supremacy of the tercios.

Including those supplied by Bernard of Saxe-Weimar and paid by France, between 1635 and 1642 official troop levels averaged 150,000 to 160,000, with a peak of 211,000 in 1639. These are based on official muster rolls and should be treated with caution, since officers were paid for numbers reported, rather than those actually present; in addition, during this period on average another 10% was absent due to sickness, although most generally recovered. Parrott estimates variances between "Reported" and "Actual" averaged up to 35% for the French and 50% for the Spanish, although John A. Lynn suggests an average of 60%.

Throughout the war, military strategy and objectives were often secondary to finding adequate provisions, especially given the primitive infrastructure then available. It was not until the 1660s that Louvois created systems which allowed France to sustain an army of nearly 200,000 men for extended periods, and crucially ensure co-ordinated strategy between different fronts. At the start of the war, the more experienced Spanish were better equipped while their resources made it easier to replace losses. The French sought to negate those advantages by fighting on multiple fronts and supporting anti-Spanish forces in Catalonia, Naples and Portugal. Loss of Dutch naval support after 1648 severely impacted France's ability to challenge the Spanish at sea, until replaced with the English alliance in 1657.

At its peak in 1632, the Spanish army contained around 300,000 regulars, exclusive of local militia, who were in general suitable only for garrison duty. In 1632, only 30% of the Castilian militia possessed firearms, and although this briefly improved, by 1659 this had fallen to less than 13% of the 465,000 listed in their registers. The Spanish state increasingly relied on its Italian territories for recruits and money, historian Davide Maffi calculating Milan provided around 4,000 recruits per year, along with 6 million scudi in taxes. From 1631 to 1636 alone, Naples provided 3.5 million scudi, significant naval resources and 53,500 recruits, more than Castile from a population half the size.

The Spanish retake Naples, April 1648

In addition to its own army and navy, from 1630 to 1643 Naples supplied an average of 10,000 recruits a year, an annual subsidy of one million ducats to support other areas of the Spanish Empire, and paid a third of Milan's expenditures. As a result, its public debt quintupled and by 1648 interest payments constituted 57% of revenue, while taxes tripled between 1618 and 1688, crushing the southern Italian economy. In October 1647, revolts in Sicily and Naples were quickly suppressed, but they exposed the weakness of Spanish rule in Italy and alienation of the local elites from Madrid. In 1650, the governor of Milan claimed only Parma could be relied upon.

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