Dunkirkers

After the dynastic union of Spain and Portugal, Archduke Albert of Austria, the fifth son of Holy Roman Empero Maximilian II and the Infanta Maria of Spain, daughter of the late Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, had become the first viceroy of the kingdom and its overseas empire in 1583.

He had likewise been appointed Papal Legate and Grand Inquisitor for Portugal.

As viceroy of Portugal, he had taken part in the organization of the Great Armada of 1588 and beaten off an English counter-attack on Lisbon in 1589.

Philip II had recalled him in 1593 to Madrid, where he had assumed a leading role in the government of the Spanish Monarchy.

After the death of Archduke Ernst in 1595, Albert had been sent to Brussels to succeed his elder brother as Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands, making his entry in Brussels on February 11, 1596.

His first priority is restoring Spain's military position in the Low Countries.

She is facing the combined forces of the Dutch Republic, England and France .and has known nothing but defeats since 1590.

Albert had surprised his enemies during his first campaign season by capturing Calais and nearby Ardres from the French and Hulst from the Dutch.

These successes were, however, offset by the third bankruptcy of the Spanish crown later that year.

As a consequence, 1597 has been marked by a series of military disasters.

Stadholder Maurice of Orange had captured the last Spanish strongholds that remained north of the great rivers, as well as the strategic town of Rheinberg in the Electorate of Cologne.

Still, the Spanish Army of Flanders had managed to surprise Amiens, thereby stalling the counter offensive that Henry IV had been about to launch.

With no more money to pay the troops, Albert is also facing a series of mutinies.

Philip II had announced his decision, only a few days after the Treaty of Vervins, on May 6, 1598, to marry his eldest daughter, the Infanta Isabella, to Albert and to cede them the sovereignty over the Habsburg Netherlands.

The Act of Cession does however stipulate that if the couple have no children, the Netherlands are to return to Spain.

It also contains a number of secret clauses that assure a permanent presence of the Spanish Army of Flanders.

After obtaining the pope's permission, Albert had formally resigned from the College of Cardinals on July 13, 1598 and left for Spain on September 14, unaware that Philip II had died the night before.

Pope Clement VIII had celebrated the union by procuration in Ferrara on 15 November, while the actual marriage takes place in Valencia on April 18, 1599.

Maurice had organized the rebellion against Spain into a coherent, successful revolt.

He had reorganized the Dutch States Army together with Willem Lodewijk, studied military history, strategy and tactics, mathematics and astronomy, and has proved himself to be among the best strategists of his age.

Paying special attention to the siege theories of Simon Stevin, he has taken valuable key fortresses and towns: Breda in 1590, Steenwijk in 1592, and Geertruidenberg in 1593.

These victories have rounded out the borders to the Dutch Republic, solidifying the revolt and allowing a national state to develop behind secure borders.

They also have established Maurice as the foremost general of his time.

Many of the great generals of the succeeding generation, including his brother Fredick Henry and many of the commanders of the English Civil War, learned their trade under his command.

The training of his army is especially important to early modern warfare.

Previous generals had made use of drill and exercise in order to instill discipline or to keep the men physically fit, but for Maurice, they "were the fundamental postulates of tactics."

This change affects the entire conduct of warfare, since it requires the officers to train men in addition to leading them, decreasing the size of the basic infantry unit for functional purposes since more specific orders have to be given in battle, and the decrease in herd behavior requires more initiative and intelligence from the average soldier.

Against Maurice's complaints, the States General under Johan van Oldenbarneveldt has ordered Maurice to take the army, march south along the coast and take the pirate nest of Dunkirk.

The divergence of opinion on this matter between Maurice and van Oldenbarneveldt are the first signs that the two de facto leaders of the Dutch Republic are beginning to drift apart.

This rivalry will eventually lead to the arrest and execution of Van Oldenbarneveldt in 1619.

It is thought that the vicious and long-continued mutiny of a great part of the Spanish troops would make it impossible for Archduke Albrecht of Austria to collect an army for the relief of Nieuwpoort.

By June 21 Maurice has collected an army for the operation of twelve infantry regiments and twenty-ive cavalry cornets: some twelve thousand foot and two thousand horse.

He crosses the Scheldt Estuary on the 22nd in a multitude of small vessels and moves to Ostend; his base of operations.

He leaves there half a regiment and four cornets to reinforce the garrison and on the 30th starts for Nieuwpoort.

Maurice arrives in front of the place on July 1, and sends two thirds of his force across the Yser River to blockade it from the West.

That night, while he is making preparations for a regular siege, he receives news that the Archduke is close at hand with a field army.

He knows he is cut off from his base; so he orders his cousin Ernst Casimir (Ernst Casimir I of Nassau-Dietz) with a force to delay the advancing Spanish while he is bringing the best part of the army to cross again the Yser and rejoin the rest of the army to face the Archduke.

He has no option left but to present battle or risk a potentially disastrous retreat by sea.

Ernst Casimir commands the Edmonds regiment (Scottish) and the Van der Noot regiment (Dutch) together with four cornets of cavalry and two guns.

He is ordered to seize the Leffinghen bridge, but when he arrives he finds that the enemy is already in possession of it.

Ernst deploys his force behind a ditch, hoping to fight a delaying action, but the Spaniards are already in great strength across the bridge and charge, piercing his center.

The infantry is routed at once and the cavalry flees in panic: the Scots are killed almost to a man and the Dutch fare only slightly better, taking refuge in Ostend.

For all purposes, Ernst's command has ceased to exist.

The Archduke, after this cheap victory, holds a conference with his captains.

Most urge to entrench the army across the road to Ostend, forcing Maurice to attack along a narrow front where the Dutch cavalry, mostly heavy, would not be effective against the lighter Spanish cavalry.

However, the mutineers, who have been rallied by the Archduke on the promise of free plunder, are eager for a fight and out-argue the rest.

The army therefore advances in battle order along the coast.

It is mid-day and the tide is coming in; so that in the end they are forced to abandon the shrinking beach and climb slowly up the slippery sand dunes.

Maurice has just time to assemble his whole army to face the Archduke.

The Battle of Nieuwpoort is to be a test by fire of the Dutch army and the new tactics developed by the stadtholders against the still-formidable Spanish infantry, Maurice is uncertain of its outcome.

However, the new tactics of volley-fire and artillery-supported infantry fighting get the better of the Spanish pikemen and Maurice personally routs the Spaniards in a cavalry charge.

In one of the most desperately contested battles of the age, Vere and Maurice completely defeat the veteran Spanish troops of the Archduke.

Spanish losses are high; about twenty-five hundred casualties, including many officers.

The artillery train is also lost.

Most of the casualties are suffered by the elite units of the second line, veteran soldiers who are very hard to replace.

Dutch losses are also high.

With the casualties at Leffinghen included, they amount to around two thousand.

Again, it is the best regiments, Scottish and English veterans, who suffer most.

On the tactical side, the battle is paradoxical.

Maurice's infantry reforms are apparently vindicated.

However, his infantry in the battle had been dislodged from a strong defensive position and it is his cavalry that had saved the day.

The strategic lesson is that it is more advantageous to besiege and capture towns than to win battles.

This fact will continue to characterize operations in the Eighty Years' War.

Maurice has driven a Spanish army from the field, a rare feat in the late sixteenth century, but the battle has achieved nothing.

The Dutch lines of communication have already been stretched to the limit and Maurice is soon forced to withdraw as well, to Zeeland.

The Flemish, which Maurice had hoped to rally to his revolt, remain loyal to the Spanish monarchy.

Moreover, the great port of Dunkirk, which had been the principal objective of Maurice's campaign, lies out of reach and in Spanish hands.

Dunkirk privateers, "The Dunkirkers", will continue to prey on Dutch trade.

To add insult to injury, a privateer fleet manages to break the blockade of Dunkirk and wreaks havoc on the Dutch herring fleet, destroying ten percent of the fleet of Dutch herring busses in August.

Phillip III, following the failure of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the dispersal by storms of two more during the last years of Philip II, has decided to provide direct support (material support has been sent for years) to the Irish rebels fighting England.

Spanish aid is offered to the Irish rebels in the expectation that tying the English down in this country might draw even more of their resources away from their allies in the Netherlands, the Dutch Estates—which are engaged in a long rebellion against Spanish rule—and provide another base for privateers, such as the Dunkirkers, to disrupt English and Dutch shipping.

Phillip sends Don Juan del Águila and Don Diego Brochero to Ireland with six thousand men, and a significant amount of arms and ammunition.

Spinola's Spanish troops occupy Wachtendonk on October 27, 1605.

The archduke Albert and the infanta Clara Eugenia, who had had set their hearts on taking Ostend, had been delighted at Spinola’s success, which has won him a high reputation among the soldiers of the time.

On the close of the campaign he had gone to Spain to arrange with the court, which is at this time at Valladolid, for the continuance of the war.

At Valladolid he had insisted on being appointed commander-in-chief in Flanders.

He was back at Brussels by April and entered on his first campaign.

The wars of the Low Countries consist at this time almost wholly of sieges, and Spinola makes himself famous by the number of places he takes in spite of the efforts of Maurice of Nassau to save them.