The Heirs of Drake (Iberian Peninsula 1905-1906)
By December 1905, the Holy Empire of Spain had lost the war of public opinion. To the relief of many Portuguese treasurers, it had not cost them a long and expensive propaganda campaign. The Spanish commanders had done it alone with their atrocities and war crimes.
Part of the reason was the mentality of many Generals sent to the frontlines. The Duke of Granada and the senior officers he had gathered around him were all above fifty years old, and most treated this new war like they had treated the former one. This was a grave error. The world, while far from a peaceful place, was not burning everywhere and there were journalists and neutral parties observing with interest what was happening in the Iberian Peninsula.
Moreover, during the Great War Imperial Spain had been protected in the newspapers by the Entente censorship. This protection had been banished in 1902, and Madrid would realise weeks after the invasion’s start what it really meant.
The Spanish army was not popular in Europe, but even its most vocal opponents in Western and Central Europe didn’t believe Madrid tolerated the loss of discipline the massacres and the ‘food requisitions’ the rumours implied. But by December 1905, the average reader in the streets of Paris, London or Copenhagen was forced to acknowledge that, far from exaggerating the rampage of the Spanish troops, perhaps their envoys on the frontlines were understating the merciless monster hunting the Portuguese militia. The awful revelations spread, and soon the Spanish were presented like the Barbarian hordes which had brought the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Luis III, retrenched in Lisbon, supported this version of events decisively, but as his army was small and his lands under enemy occupation, it was the English expeditionary force which was truly making the real choices on the ground.
Still, many nations broke their diplomatic relationships with Spain when the war crimes were confirmed. Sicily and Tuscany were the first to order their ambassadors to leave Madrid, followed by Ireland, Denmark and Greece. Added to the fact England was already at war and cutting Spain from its Atlantic trade, and the situation wasn’t good for the Holy Empire.
The Duke of Mantua, however, stayed confident of his forces ultimate triumph – at least in public. Some courtiers and captains were whispering behind the scenes that he had to. After the failed Cadiz coup, the Duke was at the same time the Commander of the Spanish land forces and the next best thing to a Prime Minister that Spain had. Since Isabella III was a young girl which had never been authorised to make her own political decisions, Mantua was more or less the Master of Spain in the last months of 1905.
And Mantua believed the war could be won. European Spain in 1904 had around 19.5 million subjects, and even with an Atlantic blockade from the Royal navy, it could count on Southern Andalusia (which had swallowed recently Tunis and the former Italian countryside) and its eight million colonials. Portugal had 4.6 million at best, and while England had 29.2 million, it had massive garrisons in former Scotland and its new German continual acquisition. Spain had far more resources to bring to the battlefield, and once Portugal was gone, Mantua knew he would have his hands free to remodel the peninsula as he wished.
It was the height of his power...and the long climb was now holding on a very shaky ground called Lisbon. If Mantua took the capital of Portugal, the English would abandon the idea of pursuing this conflict and go back to their wet island and his position would be unassailable.
But General Lloyd of the English army counter-attacked on December 22. The counter-attack was preceded by a terrifying barrage of artillery, both from the land guns and the English battleships which had profited from the darkness to approach undisturbed the shores. Even the Spanish veterans from the Great War had not faced such concentrations of firepower.
The English veterans of the Great War were here and they had been taught at a school far harsher and lethal than the one the Spanish had been sent to in 1898. The tactical superiority of the English model was evident from the start, and the English were not alone. Volunteers from Ireland to Poland, demobilised veterans hunting for some income or young men believing in ideals the Great War had turned to ashes, they fought to the Portuguese side.
In these conditions, the Spanish army took a heavy beating and left over fifteen thousand men, dead, wounded or prisoners on the battlefield of Lisbon. Lisbon had not fallen. The Spanish army, like its ancestors involved in the defeat of the Grand Armada, had been beaten by a smaller and more determined English force. The Heirs of Drake had prevailed. Portugal and England had just begun to fight on.
That was for the speeches the recruiters gave to the enthusiastic crowds in Munich, Hamburg, Amsterdam or Liverpool. In reality, the English army had also suffered its fair share of losses and deploying four battleships plus escorts in a war zone for an undetermined period of time was taxing the public finances. For the moment, the offensive spirit was with the English-Portuguese alliance, which by February had secured the Portuguese western and southern coast. Approximately seventy percent of pre-war Portugal was liberated and the Spanish army had lost over fifty thousand men – though many suspected that with their failing logistics and the inefficient bureaucracy, the real casualties were far higher than logistics suggested.
The Duke of Mantua had lost his gamble, and on March 10 1906, he officially lost the commandment of the Army of Lisbon and was ordered to return to Madrid to justify his actions. The fact the message was signed with the Imperial Seal of Isabella III was a crushing blow to the prestige of the Duke. Several Generals, recognising the way the wind was blowing, sent incriminating records that had until then mysteriously been unavailable. Mantua tried to speak to his troops but the tens of thousands infantrymen were exhausted and knew the man had fought against Cadiz and for the Regency, not because he had Spain’s best interests at heart.
The disgraced noble thus arrived as a prisoner accused of high treason in the capital he had believed to be the keystone of his powerbase. History do not tell what feelings the Duke harboured in his heart when he saw the French ambassador leave the throne room – the young Isabella III and the Counts she was now advised by had asked for a conference of peace hosted by her cousin Queen Charlotte II, a request France had accepted.
A cease-fire was proclaimed between Spain and England on March 22 1906. Three days later, the Duke of Mantua was executed by firing squad.
