Chapter 70: The Ruins of Habsburg Hegemony
With the Peace of Antwerp, the Dutch left the war and now the Army of Flanders could focus all its might upon the French with the aid of their Austrian brethren. Nevertheless, the Spanish Crown was still pressed on all sides. After the victory of the pro-French Savoyard regent, Christine of France, in the Piedmontese Civil War in 1642, the duchy rejoined the war effort and once again presented a threat to King Philip IV’s Milanese holdings. In Catalonia, the Franco-Catalan forces held the upper hand, winning a string of victories early on in the Catalan Revolt at Montjuic, Montmelo, and Perpignan. Finally, the Portuguese and Franche-Comte fronts remained at a standstill with both sides engaging in small engagements of little consequence. From the Spanish perspective, however, the death of Chief Minister Richelieu in 1642 and King Louis XIII the following year would cause disarray at the top in France enough for them to reverse their losses for good. At first glance, the ascendance of the 5 year old Dauphin as King Louis XIV gave credence to this conclusion. However, Richelieu had been followed by his protege, the Italian cardinal Mazarin, who would prove to be as capable as his wily and thunderous predecessor and would guide France for the next 18 years on behalf of the new king.
While the Spanish-Dutch negotiations were going on, France began renewed offensives into the Spanish Netherlands. The Army of Champagne, commanded by the Comte de Guiche Antoine III de Gramont, was tasked by Louis XIII to take and secure Spanish Flanders and the count would begin besieging the ports of Gravelines and Dunkirk. The French sieges would be interrupted by Andrea Cantelmo’s surprise offensive into French-occupied Artois with the absence of the Army of Champagne and the diversion of most other French forces in Catalonia. The Army of Flanders, if successful, would also isolate the French in Flanders and with Dutch withdrawal from the war looking likely in 1642-1643, Franco-Dutch naval dominance in the English Channel could be broken by the Spanish. So, Guiche abandoned the sieges and intercepted Cantelmo and the Army of Flanders on November 13th, 1642 at St. Omer. The Habsburgs, bolstered by key Austrian reinforcements, scored another victory against the French, with Guiche’s surviving men barely making it back into Artois. The Army of Flanders proceeded to enter Artois and began besieging Arras, only for the siege to be cut short by the arrival of fresh French reinforcements, led by Tomoaki’s good friend Louis of Conde, now a rising commander. After Cantelmo’s retreat, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm would take over command of the Army of Flanders. Over the next 2 years, the Spanish and French engaged in a series of skirmishes and sieges in Artois, Hainaut, and Flanders and eventually the French were able to capture Dunkirk and Gravelines. Soon, however, the ultimate conclusion of the struggle would be decided in a decisive battle.
A small force led by Josias von Rantzau had begun to besiege the town of Furnes in Flanders in spring 1645 but was quickly alerted to the impending approach of the Army of Flanders led by the Archduke-Governor himself. Before his men could be crushed, he ended the siege and retreated south while sending a letter to Gaston, the Duke of Orleans and the commander of the Army of Champagne, requesting assistance. The supreme general would act quickly and after combining on April 6th, the French would meet Leopold Wilhelm’s army at Houthulst. Both sides were of similar size of around 20,000, although the Spanish had significantly more gunnery than the French. The Duke of Orleans commanded the infantry-heavy center with Rantzau manning the reserves and artillery. The French wings, consisting mostly of cavalry, were led by Louis of Conde on the right and the Comte de Guiche on the left. On the Spanish side, which nearly mirrored the French army, the Archduke himself commanded the center while Cantelmo led the right wing and Count Ernest von Isenberg-Grenzau the left.
Blue=French, Yellow=Spanish
When the battle started at dawn, the superior Spanish artillery pierced through the morning fog and dealt heavy losses upon the French infantry. Cantelmo followed up this bombardment with a charge on the Spanish right and pushed back Guiche’s men while the Spanish tercios in the center advanced. However, the French line infantry proved to be more effective in its musket fire and was able to keep the Archduke’s men at bay. The surprise of the battle was Conde’s daring offensive upon the Spanish left, easily crushing von Isenberg-Grenzau and proceeding to scatter that side. The French right then wheeled around and captured much of the Spanish artillery. While Conde’s infantry secured the position behind the Army of Flanders, his cavalry attacked the Spanish tercios from behind with himself at the helm. Seeing his comrades in the center get enveloped, Cantelmo took a contingent to assist the Archduke. At this moment, however, the French-captured artillery opened fire, killing the commander instantly. This caused his remaining men to retreat from the battlefield, leaving the Spanish tercios to their fate as they were showered with bullets and cannonballs and cut down by cuirassiers. A wounded Leopold Wilhelm managed to escape along with a few companions but the survivors were forced to surrender. This battle proved devastating for the Spanish and it would be a loss they would unfortunately not recover from, for events from beyond would guarantee no help would come from the Austrians any longer.
In September 1644, several Maltese galleys attacked an Ottoman convoy carrying pilgrims bound for Mecca. In the ensuing battle, over 200 men were killed and the rest were to be sold into slavery. On their way back, these ships docked in Crete, which was under the dominion of Venice, and unloaded some of the captives. This incident would spiral into conflict between the Venetians and the Ottomans, the Sublime Porte accusing Venice of colluding with the Knights of Malta in assaulting the convoy. Venice immediately sent letters to the various rulers across Europe and pleaded for funds and military support against the Turks. Although realms like Austria and Saxony would immediately agree to send monetary aid to the Venetians, direct military intervention from anyone seemed unlikely until King Wladyslaw IV of Poland-Lithuania decided to take charge. Having itched for war with the Ottoman Empire for years, the king persuaded the Sejm to support a war against the Ottomans to relieve the Venetians, citing the need to stop the border raids of the Crimean Tatars and diffuse tension between the dissatisfied Cossacks and Warsaw [1]. He was quickly joined by the dukes of Lower and Upper Silesia, George III and George Rudolf, and soon Ferdinand III would declare war on the Turks, not wanting to be beaten to the chase by the Vasa monarch and hoping to restore prestige lost in the Imperial Liberties’ War. These events would herald the beginning of what would be known as the War of the Cretan Coalition.
1640 portrait of King Wladyslaw IV by Frans Lucyx
This new war, however, ended Austrian assistance of their Habsburg cousins for the Emperor would need every man at his disposal on the Hungarian border, particularly areas adjacent to pro-Ottoman Transylvania ruled by its Calvinist prince, George Rakoczi. The war also officially nullified the Treaty of Naples, already effectively abandoned by Wladyslaw without its timely implementation. These developments left the Army of Flanders in its shattered state, a shell of Cardinal Infante Ferdinand’s once-personal powerhouse. As a result, the French had free reign in the Low Countries as they toppled Spanish stronghold after stronghold in Flanders and Hainaut. Only in 1647 were the Spanish able to limit French gains but even then Leopold Wilhelm would be unable to reverse the French gains. In the same year, the Spanish Road was cut after so long in Lorraine when at the Battle of Tuttlingen, the French led by Henri the Vicomte de Turenne defeated the Spanish-Lorrainian army, even killing its general the duke of Lorraine himself. Seeing the writing on the wall and lacking substantive support from anyone including the Austrian Habsburgs, Spain sued for peace in 1648. In the following Treaty of the Pyrenees, Spain ceded Spanish Flanders, Artois, and Hainaut in the Low Countries. On the Catalonian front, in return for renouncing the title of count of Barcelona Louis XIV would add Roussillon and northern Cerdanya to his kingdom. France would also annex Lorrainian lands west of the Meuse River while the Duchy of Modena-Reggio was awarded Correggio in northern Italy as they had switched sides towards the end of the war. As part of the peace settlement, Maria Theresa of Spain would be married to the boy king of France. After the signing of the treaty, Madrid would solely focus on suppressing the Catalan rebels and retaking Portugal.
The Low Countries after the Treaty of the Pyreenees, orange=Spain, cobalt=France, brown=Netherlands, purple= Prince-bishopric of Liege, blue=Prince-bishopric of Cambresis, pink=Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy
The end of the Franco-Spanish War ended 15 years of Habsburg humiliation on its Spanish side from internal rebellions in the Iberian Peninsula to global losses by rival realms like Japan and France. The nearly uninterrupted stream of wars strained the finances of the global Spanish Empire and left the crown bankrupt and bloodied. 1648 also signified the final end of Habsburg hegemony in western and central Europe, particularly as Habsburg unity frayed with Philip IV of Spain resentful of Austria’s failure to adequately support his armies in the Low Countries and Lorraine. What was left was a deeply weakened Spain and a Imperial-Danubian realm mired in a stalemate against the Ottoman Empire and still reeling from its losses in the Imperial Liberties’ War. Filling the vacated power vacuum would be powers like France, the Netherlands, and Sweden, all opportunistic victors over the Habsburgs who would flourish over the next few decades.
[1]: Without the Thirty Years’ War and the spillover of destruction into Polish lands, the Sejm is more open to the prospect of war.