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ANDALUSIA
The ‘Arab’ invasion army which defeated the Visigoths at the Transductine Promontories in 711 numbered 12,000 men including only 300 Arab cavalry, the remainder being Berber infantry. However these...
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250th Division: Azul
Instead of a declaration of war in June 1941, Franco, at Serrano’s suggestion, offered to send a volunteer division of Spaniards to serve in the German army, a proposal accepted immediately by Nazi...
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Spain in the Thirty Years’ War
The Surrender of Breda by Velázquez, painted by order of King Philip IV of Spain, 1635, five years after the loyal Ambrosio Spínola died as Governor of Milan. Spinola magnanimously raises the...
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Battle of Vigo Bay, (12 October 1702)
Naval battle of the 1701-1714 War of the Spanish Succession. En route back to England after an unsuccessful attempt to seize Cadiz, the Anglo-Dutch fleet under Admiral Sir George Rooke, carrying...
View ArticleAnglo-French [non]-Intervention in the Spanish Civil War II
It would be false to convey the impression that only Stalin, Negrín, and the Spanish Communists placed their hopes of victory in the Civil War in the eventual outbreak of a European conflict, for...
View ArticleAnglo-French [non]-Intervention in the Spanish Civil War I
If Britain and France refrained from challenging Italy and Germany in Spain, this was not because they were blind to the threat to their strategic interests; it was because they feared that a general...
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Spain 1808
Madrid surrenders to Napoleon. In May 1808 Napoleon Bonaparte was truly at the pinnacle of his power. From September 1805 until June 1807 his forces had fanned out across the Continent driving all...
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War Against the Turks
Sembrose por la corte como negocio venido de la mano de Dios, y á todos nos parescia un sueño, por sir cosa que no se ha jamas visto oido esta batalla y victoria naval. There is no man at the court...
View ArticleWar of the Mantuan Succession
The French were active in Italy. In combination with Savoy, they tried to seize Spain’s ally Genoa in 1625, only to be driven back by the Spaniards. Two years later, the end of the direct male line of...
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THE CALIPHATE IN THE WEST
In the tenth century, Islamic Spain—al-Andalus—developed into the greatest economic and cultural power in the West. In the early 900s under the amir ‘Abd al-Rahman III, a long period of upheaval,...
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The Rif War
Francisco Franco with fellow soldiers in Ras Medua, 1921. “Moroccan Bomber: American Fighters in the Rif War, 1925” (by Colonel Paul Ayres Rockwell, ed. Dale L. Walker; Aviation Quarterly, Volume 5,...
View ArticleThe Battle of Aljubarrota 1385 AD
The choice of the cortes notwithstanding, in the spring of 1385 João I’s throne was far from secure. The legitimists remained strong in the north, and Juan was preparing a new invasion; João knew he...
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The Battle of Garigliano
Second Italian War In the aftermath of the First Italian War, Cordoba overhauled the Spanish army. He reorganised his infantry by replacing the bulk of his swordand-buckler foot soldiers with pikemen...
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The siege of Ostend and the Spinola offensives 1601-8
Ostend’s military machines by Pompeo Giustiniani 1 & 3, the construction of wicker filled with stones and earth were buried in the trenches by the besiegers; they were used in the western part of...
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Hernán Cortés
Conquistador and conqueror of the Aztec Empire. Born in Estramadura, Cortés studied at a fairly high level at Salamanca but, at age 19, he left for the Caribbean to try his hand as a plantation farmer...
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The Manila Galleons
The replica of the Galeon Andalucia visits the Philippines in celebration of the Dia del Galeon Festival, a commemoration of the 16th century galleon trade. Video by Yahoo! Southeast Asia sports...
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Imperial Spain II
Battle of Lepanto, on October 7, 1571, by Paolo Veronese In 1555 the Turks seized two of Spain’s North African strongholds, Tripoli and Bona. In 1559, Philip permitted his viceroy of Sicily and the...
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Imperial Spain I
An elderly Karl V (also known as Don Carlos I of Spain), ruler of the Holy Roman Empire Carlos I of Spain is better known as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Of the Habsburg dynasty, he was born in 1500...
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Elizabeth I – Opening New Fronts Against Spain Part II
Philip III of Spain, 1599-1601 The Somerset House Conference between English and Spanish diplomats that brought an end to the Anglo–Spanish War (1585–1604). At the very last moment, Philip III’s ships...
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Elizabeth I – Opening New Fronts Against Spain Part I
Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud was the Moorish ambassador to Elizabeth in 1600. A life-size portrait of Sultan Murad III (1574-1595), attributed to a Spanish artist, 17th century. Europe 1600 Elizabeth...
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