Spain: Military History and Notable Events

1478 - 1834 - Spanish Inquisition (All Facts)

• It begun under the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, with reluctant permission from Pope Sixtus IV, who regarded it as a breach of Church privilege

  • Spain’s Catholic kings obtained Pope Sixtus IV’s consent to appoint the namesake members of the namesake institution

• It persecuted converted Jews and Muslims as well as Catholic intellectuals like Ignatius Loyola

  • Its main target was conversos

  • It denounced the Jews as blasphemers and usurers, and encouraged every form of intolerance towards them

• In Seville and Barcelona, many were being vigorously prosecuted

  • It spread to other cities in Aragon, despite local protests

• Each instance of the namesake institution began with edicts offering people a chance to confess their errors and also to denounce others

  • Only one informer was necessary for anyone to be charge

  • When anyone was convicted, they were liable to be “relaxed” (burnt alive)

• Institution in which most penitents / converts

  • suffered heavy fines

  • could not ride horses

  • could not bear arms

  • were forbidden to wear anything but the coarsest clothes

  • were sometimes forced to dress only in green, with cloth crosses on their clothes

• In the first 20 years of the namesake institution,

  • several thousand people were thought to have been burnt at the stake

  • more than 500 people were “relaxed” (burnt alive)

  • more than 5,000 people were “reconciled” by their confessions

  • many were sentenced to march for six Fridays to the cathedral, whipping themselves in the streets

1482 - 1492 - Granada War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the namesake Andalusian (Muslim) state in then-unified Spain was defeated by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain and their forces

• Conflict which ended the Reconquista of Spain that began more than 700 years prior

• Conflict after which the surrender of the namesake city was hailed by Christians as “the most signal and blessed day there had ever been in Spain whereas Muslims described it as one of the most terrible catastrophes to ever befall Islam

• War directed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, with months of continual skirmishing by the Christian armies eventually having worn down the beleaguered Muslims

• Conflict after which the Christian victors were considered to have been extremely generous, virtually granting all the Muslims their petitions in which they allowed Muslims to

  • emigrate freely

  • keep all arms except firearms

  • continue to enjoy their own communal life and maintain their own judicial system and local officials

  • continue to enjoy their own religion, free of interference

• Conflict after which bullfights were being held in celebration and people had rejoiced throughout Spain and in papal Rome while states such as Venice were sending more or less sincere congratulatory messages

1493 - Treaty of Barcelona (All Facts)

• Treaty signed between King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain and King Charles VIII of France

• Treaty in which King Charles VIII of France agreed to return Cerdagne and Roussillon to Spain

1494 - Treaty of Tordesillas (All Facts)

• Treaty signed between King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela of Spain and King John II of Portugal

• Treaty which

  • divided all the land explored on, discovered, owned, and/or controlled thus far by the two kingdoms; and any others that may be discovered in the future

  • divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Spain, along a meridian west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa, a line of demarcation that was about halfway between Cape Verde (already Portuguese) and the islands visited by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage

  • divided the lands, with the lands east of the demarcation line belonging to Portugal, and west of the demarcation line belonging to Spain, thus, in hindsight, slightly favoring Spain

1508 - 1516 - Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai / War of the Holy League (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the Valois (France) and Venice defeated the Habsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire) and England

• Conflict which began when King Louis XII of France, Pope Julius II and the namesake league sought to punish the Republic of Venice for annexing papal provinces on the Adriatic Sea and thus attacked and defeated the Republic of Venice as a result in the Battle of Agnadello

• Conflict in which Pope Julius II and the namesake league (including Venice, Spain, and Switzerland) then turned against France, whose foothold in northern Italy became too strong for the papacy and namesake league

  • Conflict in which Pope Julius II raised the cry to “clear the Barbarians out of Italy” (the French under King Louis XII), turning against the King of France after previously lifting the excommunication of Venice

• Conflict which saw protracted war in Lombardy, the Romagna, and Veneto in northern Italy

• Conflict in which King Francis of France secured the Duchy of Milan for the French

• Conflict which saw the following battles take place including

  • Battle of Agnadello

  • Siege of Mirandola

  • Battle of Ravenna

  • Battle of the Spurs

  • Siege of Tournai

  • Battle of Novara

  • Battle of Marignano

• Conflict which ended with

  • The Treaty of Fribourg

  • The Concordant of Bologna

1508 - 1511 - League of Cambrai (All Facts)

• (Temporary, short-lived) Military Alliance between King Louis XII of France, Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope Julius II and the Papacy, and King Ferdinand of Spain aimed at conquering the Republic of Venice and its Italian possessions that initiated the Fourth Italian War / namesake War

• Alliance which was the brainchild of Pope Julius II, ostensibly set up as a “Holy League” against the Ottoman Turks

  • The pope’s more immediate use for the league was to recover for the papacy the towns of the Romagna region under Venetian rule

  • However, the French gained too strong a foothold in northern Italy; and the namesake league eventually turned against France during the Fourth Italian War / namesake War

1509 - Battle of Agnadello (All Facts)

• Battle in which Louis XII and his French forces, with support from France’s allies in the League of Cambrai (the Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy, and Spain) defeated the Republic of Venice during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

• Battle which allowed Pope Julius II to reoccupy the Romagna

• Venice would eventually ally with France in the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

• Battle which gave France a much stronger foothold in northern Italy

• Battle after which the League of Cambrai turned against France, recognizing how strong it was becoming in the region of northern Italy

1511 - Siege of Mirandola (All Facts)

• Battle in which Pope Julius II and his forces, with help from the Habsburgs (Spain) and the Republic of Venice, defeated France during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

• Battle that was part of Pope Julius II's campaign to keep France from dominating northern Italy during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

1512 - 1529 - Conquest of Navarre (All Facts)

• War begun by King Ferdinand and completed by King Charles

• War which begun when Pope Julius II declared the Holy League of Cambrai against France, and Navarre attempted to remain neutral

  • Ferdinand used this as an excuse to attack Navarre

• War in which the namesake kingdom was fully conquered by the end of the reign of King Charles

1512 - Battle of Ravenna (All Facts)

• Battle in which France defeated Spain and the League of Cambrai / Holy League during the Fourth Italian War

• Battle in which honors were declared even

1513 - Battle of Novara (All Facts)

• Battle in which Milan, with help from Pope Leo X and his “Holy League, along with Switzerland, defeated France and the Republic of Venice during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

1519 - 1521 - Conquest of the Aztec Empire (All Facts)

• Campaign of military conquest to conquer the lands that became Mexico (New Spain) led by Hernan Cortes

• Campaign in which Hernan Cortes

  • first landed at Veracruz (modern-day Mexico) with over 500 Spanish troops in search of gold

  • made sure there would be no retreat and ordered his 700 men to burn the Aztec ships before marching inland to the high plateau of Mexico and Tenochtitlan

  • then marched on Tenochtitlan which Moctezuma II and the Aztecs surrendered without a fight

  • found Tenochtitlan to be a “well organized and most orderly” center where 60K people traded goods daily

  • returned Moctezuma II’s messengers fitted with clothes for a god sent to him with a terrifying show of firepower

  • took prisoners in a skirmish at Tabasco, including a beautiful female slave named Marina / La Malinche

  • burned a steady and bloody road uphill with armor, crossbows, firearms, cannons, and horses (all unknown to the Aztecs)

  • committed the Massacre at Cholula

  • was supported by tribes long suppressed by the Aztecs that flocked to him

  • led Moctezuma II away after he and Moctezuma had met in Tenochtitlan, where, since, the arrival of his expeditionary force, Moctezuma II was not seen since; and thus, nine months of bloody conquest was over

• When Pedro de Alvarado and Cortes’s Spanish expeditionary forces had told Aztecs to go to a temple courtyard for a religious festival, they massacred them all soon after without warning

  • This unleashed general warfare in which the Aztecs, armed with bows, had besieged their own capital and cut off the freshwater for it

• Campaign in which Cuauhtémoc, Moctezuma II’s successor, drove back Cortes and his forces from Tenochtitlan; where they retreated to Tlaxcala

• Campaign in which Tenochtitlan was besieged by Cortes and his forces a second time

  • Cortes returned to Mexico, after being away for some time, with official Spanish blessing

  • Since the siege of Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma II died in captivity and Cortes returned to lift the siege

  • This time, however, there was tougher resistance from the Aztecs, who exchanged formal war procedures for guerrilla tactics

  • This siege was fought in boats across lakes and canals, and ashore among city streets

  • As Cortes led his people out, they were ambushed and many were killed

  • On their way out to the coast they wiped out another Aztec village and left an epidemic of smallpox

• Campaign in which Aztecs beheaded Spanish prisoners and Spanish horses, displaying the heads of both on the same racks

• Campaign in which Tenochtitlan was deprived of drinking water and were forced to surrender their capital a second time to Cortes and his men

1519 - Cholula Massacre (All Facts)

• Massacre of the namesake Aztec city and its 6K inhabitants in less than 2 hours by Hernan Cortes and his Spanish expeditionary forces during the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire

1520 - 1521 - Revolt of the Comuneros (All Facts)

• Revolt of the namesake cities of the (former) Kingdom of Castile in the Kingdom of Spain against the Flemish administration of (the new) King Charles led by Juan de Padilla

  • Revolt prompted by King Charles’ having left Spain after bring crowned there as king to go to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor

• Revolt in which the Castilian rebels protested against

  • high taxes

  • top jobs going to King Charles’ foreign advisors

• Revolt in which the Castilian rebels appeared to have temporary control over all of Spain, with the revolt spreading to Catalonia and Andalucia

  • However, their “junta” collapsed after a split between rebel leaders

1521 - Battle of Villalar (All Facts)

• Battle in which King Charles’s Royalist forces defeated Juan de Padilla and his Comuneros forces, ending the Revolt of the Comuneros

• Battle after which Juan de Padilla was executed

1521 - Fall of Tenochtitlan (All Facts)

• Battle in which Hernan Cortes and his Tlaxcalan forces defeated and set fire to the namesake Aztec capital city during the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire

1521 - 1526 - Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which Charles V and the Habsburgs (the Holy Roman Empire and Spain) defeated King Francis and the Valois (France)

  • Conflict upon which King Francis of France lost his war with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V for supremacy in Europe

• Conflict which saw the

  • Holy Roman Empire’s invasion of Champagne

  • Battle of Bicocca

  • Siege of Marseilles

  • Battle of Pavia

• Conflict which saw

  • a modernization of European military forces, especially with regards to new arms (guns), defenses (Bastion Fort), and tactics / strategies

  • new tactics being developed for mounted troops using new carbines (arquebus) and horse pistols, which became the masters of the battlefield, replacing and eventually contributing to the elimination of armored cavalry and knights in armor

  • the implementation of the Bastion / Star Fort (“trace italienne;” a circuit of low, thick walls punctuated by square bastions), which

    • replaced the high and thin walls of the Middle Ages as new defenses

    • were designed to absorb the punishment of the heavy siege guns which were a part of every successful army by that time

    • changed the entire pattern of warfare because the cities protected by them could no longer be taken by traditional methods of blowing a hole in the walls and pouring infantry through the breach and instead forced towns to be encircled by siege-works and batteries and starved and frightened into submission

    • essentially made warfare more a matter of engineering and logistics

  • the advent of the gun bring about great changes at sea since

    • ships no longer rammed and boarded each other, but pounded each other with formidable arrays of guns firing through ports in ships’ sides

    • gunships eventually set the pattern which all maritime nations must have followed if they wanted to avoid facing inevitable defeat

• Conflict which ended with the Treaty of Madrid

1522 - Battle of Bicocca (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Habsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire), supported by the Papacy and the Duchy of Milan, defeated the Valois (France), supported by the Republic of Venice and Switzerland, during the Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War

• Battle after which the imperial army of the Holy Roman Empire occupied the Republic of Genoa, where a doge who supported Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was appointed

1525 - Battle of Pavia (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Habsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire) defeated King Francis and the Valois (France) during the Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War

• Battle which took place in Lombardy in Italy

• Battle before which

  • Pope Clement VII tried and failed to mediate between its two parties and battle was joined before first light in the morning

• Battle which began when

  • King Francis of France decided to lay siege to the namesake city; with an army of French and Italian infantry, German and Swiss mercenaries, and a strong train of artillery

• Battle during which

  • the siege initially went well; the French guns having broke down the defenses and King Francis’s regiments having stormed into the breaches

  • Antonio de Levya, the Spanish governor of the namesake town, had built new fortifications inside the walls, making it so that the French were routed by the namesake town’s defenders

  • the French forces retreated to mount a classic siege throughout the winter

  • King Francis, reinforced by Venetian troops, became sure of victory as the namesake town ran short of food and ammunition

  • the imperial forces of the Holy Roman Empire had been gathering at the town of Lodi, near the namesake, and had had marched on the namesake earlier in the month catching King Francis between the anvil of the namesake and the hammer of the attacking imperial army

  • the French guns have King Francis and France the advantage at first, but, he eventually ordered his forced to cease fire, since he believed in chivalry rather than guns

  • King Francis led his knights in a disorganized charge without waiting for the infantry and in the shambles that ensued 6K Frenchmen died

• Battle which ended when

  • King Francis of France had his horse shot from under him by an arquebus (a new type of gun at the time) and demounted, fought on foot, only to have his face blooded and his having surrendered his sword to the enemy

• Battle after which

  • King Francis of France was held captive by Lannoy (the viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples)

  • King Francis of France essentially lost his war with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V for supremacy in Europe

  • King Francis of France was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

1526 - Treaty of Madrid (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between King Francis of France (Valois) and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain (Habsburgs), which ended the Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War

• Peace Treaty in which

  • Holy Roman Emperor Charles V agreed to

    • release King Francis of France from captivity

  • King Francis of France agreed to

    • abandon and concede Burgundy to the Holy Roman Empire

    • give up claims to Flanders, Artois, Tournai, and all of Italy

    • pardon the rebel Charles of Bourbon

• Peace Treaty which was declared null and void by King Francis of France following his release from captivity

1529 - Treaty of Zaragoza (All Facts)

• Treaty between King Charles of Spain and King John III of Portugal which confirmed the prior Treaty of Tordesillas, by which Spain and Portugal had divided up the New World

  • This relied on the confirmation given in the Badajoz Conference held prior

• Treaty which fixed the dividing line between the Spanish and Portuguese in the Pacific Ocean 17 degrees easy of the Moluccas

• Treaty in which the Portuguese regained control of the archipelago in return for paying compensation to King Charles of Spain

1529 - Treaty of Barcelona (All Facts)

• Treaty between King Charles of Spain and Pope Clement VII of the Papacy, in which the two leaders settled their differences

1532 - 1572 - Conquest of the Inca Empire (All Facts)

• Campaign of military conquest to conquer the lands that became (Spanish) Peru led by Francisco Pizzaro

• Campaign in which Francisco Pizzaro

  • had with him only 150 soldiers, including 62 horsemen

  • held Atahualpa hostage with a fortune in gold to be ransomed

  • and his Spanish forces defeated Atahualpa and his Incan forces in the Battle of Cajamarca

  • traveled over thousands of miles with a small force with no supply lines against apparently overwhelming odds

  • clearly paid his dividends as the remnants of Atahualpa’s army limped away from its own tribal territory ahead of the Spanish invaders upon their defeat

  • emulated Hernan Cortes’ strategy of conquering by exploiting the prior Incan Civil War so as to divide and rule

  • continued to march towards and eventually enter the Incan capital city of Cusco following the Battle of Cajamarca

1532 - Battle of Cajamarca (All Facts)

• Battle in which Francisco Pizzaro and his Spanish forces defeated Atahualpa and his Incan forces

• Battle in which Francisco Pizzaro

  • used surprise brilliantly, occupying peacefully some long, low buildings round three sides of a square in the upland valley of the namesake town

  • invited Atahualpa to meet him

    • When Atahualpa came, Pizzaro handed him a Christian prayer book, which Atahualpa threw down

  • then sprang his ambush of two hidden cannons, which blasted point blank range into the packed Incan ranks, while panic did the rest

  • led a squad which snatched Atahualpa from his litter while Pizzaro’s soldiers butchered the survivors

• Battle in which, in just two hours, 7K native Incans died and their leader was held captive

1535 - Conquest of Tunis (All Facts)

• War in which King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles and his forces defeated Hayreddin Barbarossa and his Ottoman Turk forces

• War in which 60K allied troops took the namesake city, along with the port of La Goleta and the bulk of Barbarossa’s fleet of 80 galleys

• War in which King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles allowed his soldiers five days of pillaging and 30K inhabitants were reported to have been killed

• War which began when King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles chose to invade after Barbarossa’s fleet had ravaged southern Italy at the behest of the Turkish sultan

  • As a result, King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles believed that Spanish possession of the namesake would effectively cut off Barbarossa from Constantinople

• War in which a combined fleet of Spanish and Genoan galleys sailed from Barcelona to Sardinia, where more ships joined their fleet with 22K German and Italian troops

• War in which King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles’ shock troops, the formidable “tercio” were the first to land at La Goleta, followed by artillery and a detachment of cavalry

• War in which Barbarossa chose to remain behind the walls, trusting the extreme heat to wear down the enemy

  • War in which many of King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles’s forces dying of dysentery

• War in which Barbarossa had not reckoned with the firepower of the fleet and land-artillery who pounded the walls for give hours before the infantry broke through, causing the namesake to fall more easily