Document created: 3 May 00
Air & Space Power Journal

Philip III and the Pax Hispanica 1598–1621: The Failure of Grand Strategy by Paul Allen. Yale University Press (http://www.yale.edu/yup), P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-9040, 2000, 336 pages, $35.00.

After the death of his father, Philip II of Spain, Philip III in September 1598 faced a series of strategic dilemmas most states do not survive. Economic ruin, coupled with bankruptcy; a three-front war against England, France, and the Protestant insurrection of the Netherlands; and imperial territorial difficulties ranging from Transylvania to the Caribbean. Spain, at this time the global superpower, had tried and failed to solve these problems by conflict and armed belligerence. Philip III re-formed the councils of advisors in Madrid and used them to wrestle with these difficulties. In spite of France’s becoming a Catholic power under King Henry IV, that country did not cease being a major rival in Europe. The speed with which a Catholic France could ally itself with a Protestant England shocked the Spanish political establishment, which also had to contend with French meddling in Mediterranean affairs.

Like his father, Philip III believed that Spain, as the leading Catholic power in Europe, could not settle for anything less than a return by the Dutch to the Catholic Church. Too many other policies and goals would have been politically and morally undermined if the Protestant revolt were left unopposed. England, a major tear in Spanish hegemony of northwestern Europe, continued to wage a maritime struggle against the Spanish monopoly on West Indies trade, while encouraging the Dutch republic and France to neutralize the Spanish Netherlands, from which England still feared a Spanish invasion. Spain, never content to see England Protestant, had tried on three occasions to launch invasions from Flanders after the Armada of 1588. The new English King, James I, was also extremely suspicious of the Catholic Church, which he believed was receiving aid from Spain to undermine his throne. The famous "Gunpowder Plot" was traced to English Catholic exiles operating from the Spanish Netherlands. Cracking the Dutch republic, now firmly entrenched behind rivers and fortresses, also proved too difficult for the Spanish armies. And attempts at sidestepping the Dutch defenses had not changed the strategic stalemate confronting Philip III.

The dual containment of the Protestant Dutch and English, whose economic interests also challenged Spanish colonial ambitions, together with the dogmatic approach to religion, gave Madrid and Philip III little maneuver room. When the Spanish army in Flanders—actually a wide combination of European mercenaries—mutinied, Philip III had had enough. Coupled with a well-timed strike by France against Spain’s holdings and allies in Italy, diplomatic solutions had to be found to allow development of a new grand strategy.

The king instructed the Spanish archdukes in the Spanish Netherlands, who had to negotiate with the Dutch, to protect Catholicism and defend Spain’s Indies trade monopoly. However, Spain had committed the error of strategic overstretch. After complex talks, the Dutch and the Spanish archdukes signed a 12-year truce. Philip III and his council of state in Madrid had predicted that the Dutch republic would split into feuding provinces once a relative peace arrived. His prediction came true, and by 1621 the Spanish and Dutch were at war again. But this offensive, together with Habsburg entanglements in Germany and imperial decline in overseas colonies, extinguished the spark of Spanish hegemony in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia. Dutch independence effectively began in 1609 with the truce.

Although diplomacy marked the turning point in Spanish imperial politics, it would ultimately not provide a return to Spanish imperial greatness of the sixteenth century. The Dutch were gone for good, the Spanish Netherlands would become Austrian in a complex swap arrangement, England would gain its mercantile colonial empire and overshadow Spain’s, and France would emerge as the continental power dominating the seventeenth century. The policy, however, was consistent with the aims that Philip III and his advisors had arrived at to achieve their political and religious aims; thus, the book argues that one should not view the resumption of war as a failure of Spanish policy.

Well researched and exceptionally well written, this text is a must for readers interested in grand strategy. As a political account, it offers enough detail for readers to grasp the military and economic challenges confronting the Spanish monarchy and the complex councils necessary to arrive at a coherent strategy.

Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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