TheSpanish Road^[a] was a military road andtrade route linkingSpanish territories inFlanders with those inItaly. It was in use from approximately 1567 to 1648.

The Road was created to support the Spanish war effort in theEighty Years' War against theDutch Republic. Although sending reinforcements by sea directly fromSpain was much quicker, Spanish vessels sailing up theEnglish Channel were subject to attacks by the increasingly dominant Dutch navy. It was therefore safer to assemble troops and supplies inNorthern Italy, then march them overland along the 1,000 km (620 mi) length of the Road.

Between 1567 and 1620, over 123,000 men were transferred using this overland route, compared to only 17,600 by sea.^[1] The Road was eventually severed whenFrance joined theThirty Years' War in 1635 on the Dutch side.

By 1550, conflict within theHoly Roman Empire andItaly had stretched Spain's finances thin, requiring new taxes on the wealthy provinces of theSpanish Netherlands. The resentment this caused was compounded by a poor harvest in 1565, leading to famine in 1566, sometimes known as the 'Year of Hunger', or 'Year of Wonders'. Social, political and religious unrest climaxed with theCompromise of Nobles and theBeeldenstorm, threatening the government ofMargaret of Parma, Philip's Regent inBrussels. Spanish troops under theDuke of Alba were dispatched to restore order and punish the perceived insurrectionists, triggering theDutch Revolt and broaderEighty Years' War.^[2] As the Dutch rebels controlled the sea lanes, the government inMadrid was forced to find an alternative way to move troops fromLombardy to the Spanish Netherlands.^[3] Initially surveyed in 1566, the Spanish Road was first used by Alba in July 1567.^[4]

The initial route of the Spanish Road ran northwest from Milan through theDuchy of Savoy, a Spanish ally, to the SpanishFranche-Comté, and from there due north through theDuchy of Lorraine, another Spanish ally, toLuxembourg in theSpanish Netherlands. This was the path along which Alba's forces marched in 1567, and Spanish forces continued to use it without significant interruption for the next thirty years.

However, following defeat in theFranco-Savoyard War (1600–1601), theTreaty of Lyon (1601) forced Savoy to cede its two northernmost provinces,Bugey andBresse, toFrance. This meant significant parts of the Road were now controlled by a hostile party, blocking Spanish troop movements using this route. Seeking an alternative path, they backed an attempt by Savoy in December 1602 to conquerGeneva, which bordered Savoy and Franche-Comté. This would have enabled Spanish troops to bypass French territories, but the attack failed, a victory still celebrated in the annuall'Escalade festival.

The Spanish now sought an alternative route, the most straightforward running due north from Milan through theGotthard Pass, then down throughCentral Switzerland to theHigh Rhine. Crossing the Rhine would bring the Spanish armies intoFurther Austria, held by theAustrian Habsburgs, cousins and close allies of Spain. From here, troops could march through friendly territory inUpper Alsace andLorraine, then on to the Spanish Netherlands. In principle, theSwiss Confederacy was willing to allow the Spanish free passage, but the fact they were being sent to fight against Dutch Protestants caused considerable disquiet in the Protestantcantons and threatened to trigger anothercivil war. The Confederacy therefore imposed various conditions, for example obliging Spanish soldiers to march in unarmed groups of no more than two hundred men at a time. These made it difficult to move forces efficiently, and only six major expeditions used this route before it was abandoned.^[5]

The alternative was to march northeast from Milan through theValtellina, the southernmost territory of theThree Leagues. The Valtellina allowed Spanish troops to enter the Austrian-heldCounty of Tyrol via theStelvio Pass, before proceeding through Alsace and Lorraine as above. As early as 1592, theCount of Fuentes,Spanish Governor of Milan, negotiated a deal to use this route. However, like the Swiss, the Three Leagues contained Catholic and Protestant districts, the latter objecting to the Spanish presence for the same reasons. In addition, factions backed by France andVenice persuaded the Leagues to grant them exclusive access to the Valtellina in 1603, thereby nullifying the 1592 agreement with Fuentes. In a bid to intimidate the Leagues, the Spanish constructedFort Fuentes on the Milanese-Valtellinese border, but to little effect.

By 1610, all three variants of the Road had become largely impassable to Spanish troops. However, in 1609 theTwelve Years' Truce came into effect, suspending the Eighty Years' War, and temporarily removing the need for a steady stream of reinforcements to theArmy of Flanders.

TheTwelve Years' Truce broke down in 1619 (two years ahead of its projected expiry date), and Spain therefore found itself obliged to start sending large armies to the Low Countries again. It therefore became imperative to find a way of reopening the Spanish Road as soon as possible.

TheDuke of Feria, Fuentes's successor as Governor of Milan, therefore instigated a Catholic insurrection in theThree Leagues, sparking a religious civil war, theBündner Wirren (Graubünden Disturbances), within the federation. While the Leagues fought among themselves he then invaded theValtellina in a bid to annex the territory outright and thereby reopen the Spanish Road viaTyrol. This alarmed France, which sent an expeditionary force to the Valtellina under the command of the famed mountain warfare specialistLesdiguières. The resultingValtellina War ended in stalemate, and under the 1626Treaty of Monzón, Spain was forced to return the Valtellina. However, the route through the Stelvio Pass was reopened, enabling troop movements along the Spanish Road to resume.^[6]

Multiple Spanish armies travelled along the reopened Road during the late 1620s and early 1630s, some to the traditional battlefield in the Low Countries but others toGermany, where theThirty Years' War was now raging, in order to support the beleagueredAustrian Habsburgs. They included that ofCardinal-Infante Ferdinand, which won a series of important victories in Germany including theFirst Battle of Nördlingen.

The Habsburg victories in Germany alarmed the French chief ministerCardinal Richelieu, who in 1635 brought France into the Thirty Years' War against Austria and alsodeclared war on Spain. In the late 1630sHenri de Rohan mounted a second French expedition into the Valtellina, hampering Spanish troop movements through the valley, while other French forces invaded Alsace, which was annexed after theSiege of Breisach. The Road was thereby cut at two points, in the south between Milan and Tyrol, and in the north between Further Austria and Lorraine.^[7]

With the Spanish Road closed off, the Spanish were forced to start transporting their armies to the Low Countries by sea instead. In 1639 one of these convoys was attacked off the English coast by the Dutch admiralMaarten Tromp, leading to theBattle of the Downs in which Tromp annihilated the Spanish fleet that had been escorting the troop ships. This catastrophic defeat crippled Spanish naval power^{[citation needed]}, making it all but impossible for Spain to get reinforcements and supplies to theArmy of Flanders^{[citation needed]}, and this strategic catastrophe was instrumental in finally bringing about an end to theEighty Years' War with thePeace of Münster.^{[citation needed]}

There was no organised system of accommodation for the troops marching along the Spanish Road. Officers would sometimes be able to stay in towns along the route, but their men had to sleep under bushes or construct makeshift huts for themselves at the end of a day's march. Local people were generally fearful of the soldiers that passed through because of the reputation that all armies of this period had for plunder and thievery even when in friendly territory. In 1580, the officers of a Spanishtercio occupied a house inFranche-Comté only to find there was no furniture inside, as the occupants of the house had removed it all to preclude the possibility of its being vandalised, burned or stolen.^[6]

Armies only marched along the Spanish Road once or twice a year at most, and because of this no conventional military magazines were established along the route.^[6]There was however a system ofétapes for provisioning troops at particular points, using commissioners sent by the Governors of theSpanish Netherlands orMilan to work out pricing details. The first type ofétape was found only inSavoy, and took the form of a permanent waystation where soldiers and merchant travellers along the Road had access to food and shelter when they passed through. The second type, found inFranche-Comté,Lorraine and theSpanish Netherlands, was organised on anad hoc basis through private contractors, who would calculate the payments and quantities of food required based on the expected size and schedule of each individual expedition.^[6]

Although the Spanish Road initially had a purely military function, it also became an important trade route linking the Mediterranean toNorthern Europe, similar to the mediaevalVia Imperii. The Road also prompted the Spanish to strengthen their diplomatic contacts in the Alpine region, leading to the establishment of permanent embassies in Savoy and the Swiss Confederacy that were supervised from Milan.^[8]

One unintended consequence of the Spanish Road was the circulation of theplague by soldiers and merchants travelling along it, notably inValtellina in the wake of theValtellina War.^[7]

• Blue Banana
• Burgundian Circle
• Eighty Years' War
• History of Burgundy
• Kingdom of Burgundy
• Middle Francia
• Oñate treaty
• Thirty Years' War
• Treaty of Lyon (1601)
• Treaty of Monzón
• Valtellina War

• Cecil John Cadoux (1969).Philip of Spain and the Netherlands. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books. pp. 64–67.
• Ciro Paoletti (2007).A military history of Italy. Westport Conn.: Greenwood Praeger.
• Gaunt, William (1969).Flemish Cities: Their History and Art. Elek Books.ISBN 978-1122408936.
• Parker, Geoffrey (2004).The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567–1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries' Wars (2008 ed.). Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0521543927.
• Wee, Herman van der (1994).The Low Countries in the Early Modern World. Translated by Fackelman, Elizabeth. Variorum.ISBN 978-0860783848.
• Wilson, Peter H. (2009).The Thirty Years' War: Europe's Tragedy. Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-674-03634-5.

• Cadoux, Cecil John (1969).Philip of Spain and the Netherlands. Shoestring Publishers.ISBN 978-0208007353.
• Paoletti, Ciro (2007).A military history of Italy. Bloomsbury Academic.ISBN 978-0275985059.

• Spanish Account of the Pass at Mont Cenis

• Eighty Years' War (1566–1609)
• Thirty Years' War
• Military roads
• Trade routes
• Spanish Empire in Europe

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• Articles with unsourced statements from July 2021